122 — Dr. Heidi Brocke-Escaping Toxic Relationships.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

Ruthless Compassion is a podcast about how you can turn your emotional shit into fertilizer for success and see your darkest moments as opportunities to transform into a powerful kindness warrior. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review wherever you listen.

Welcome Dr. Heidi Brockey to the ruthless Compassion podcast.

Thanks for having me. I'm super excited.

Me too. I think your topic is very interesting, and I'm sure it will be very helpful for our listeners. So I always like to start by having our guests introduce themselves, sort of say a little bit about what they do and then how they came to do it, because that's always an interesting story.

It is an interesting story. And halfway through, it all get, like, go down a rabbit hole of something else. So who knows what you'll hear? But so my name is Dr. Heidi. I am not a mental health professional. That's the first thing I always tell people. I'm not a licensed mental health professional. I'm a chiropractor acupuncturist by trade, which also makes people go, well, then why are you doing what you're doing now? Yes, I spent 25 years in healthcare, in private practice, and I spent almost 15 years in what I now know was a very emotionally abusive, narcissistic type relationship. And I grew up in a little tiny Christian community in Bozeman, Montana. I grew up on a dairy farm. We all went to the same school. My dad was a prison chaplain, my grandpa was a preacher, and I grew up in a very sheltered environment. When I left that community, I really thought everybody in the world was like, the people in that community. Now, I have to add, looking back, my perception of that community was completely different than the reality of what it actually is.

Right.

But I saw the same people every day in school and church for 18 years.

Wow.

So then when I left, I just thought everybody was like that, because who out there would not have other people's best interest in mind? And, you know, just like I, you chose a health care career, which means we're the kind, compassionate, loving, giving supporters fixers. Right. And we're the big benefit of the doubt, people. We just want to help. We'll just take care of you. I went into health care, and it was while I was in grad school that I met my former husband. Long story short, none of these types of stories are short, but I can tell you that right off the bat, there was something that made me uncomfortable about him, but because I didn't want to be the bad guy and I didn't want him mad and I didn't want him to think this or that, I agreed to go on a date. And I really didn't want to go on another date, but you know that he was going to ask somebody else out. So I went on another date and blinked twice. And I'm pregnant. And I'm married and I'm pregnant again. And I have a practice, and I have a ranch.

And 15 years later, I ended up running away, and I ended up signing my half of the practice over leaving my kids, which that's a whole other story. And now that I know what I know, I don't let any of my clients leave their kids. And I reestablished. I'm just 4 hours away, reestablished my life, re-established a business. And as we all do, we start getting bored with our profession. You know, no offense to chiropractors, because I love them, I am one. But I was getting to where I could adjust people in the dark with my eyes shut.

You needed a challenge.

And when you start burning out, it's not good for you. It's not good for your patients. It's not good for your home life. And so I kind of decided to start coaching because you coach in healthcare anyway. And I started coaching and making yourself a priority. I didn't talk about my former relationship when I was in it, and I didn't talk about it when I was out of it, because how do you explain that you're a mom that left your kids and stayed away and moved without them to reestablish a life? So I never really talked about it after that. But when I started coaching and making yourself a priority, I started noticing that I was using examples from my former life, things that I had never talked about before. And inevitably, the people that were coming to me for making themselves a priority were all coming out of these type of relationships.

Wow.

And so I started thinking, okay, maybe quick hired a business coach. Because chiropractors don't need business coaches. You just wait for somebody to hurt their neck and then tada, there they are. Right? And she said, well, you need a niche. You can't just throw yourself out there and coach. So what do you have? And I said, well, really the only thing I have is that I feel like I survived something that I could help other people with. And she says, Good. That's what you're doing. And I said, no, I'm not. And here I am, seven years later. I'm completely retired from health care. I actually do this full time. I do a lot of education for people who are not sure if their relationship is toxic. I help people write exit plans. Obviously, I have to know their situation very well. I help people heal from it. I help people recover from it. But mostly when I was in it, I didn't understand it. You know, you're just in survival mode, and it happens every day. And besides, I was a doctor. I'm way too smart to be in an abusive relationship, right? And so I do a ton of education for people to understand what's really going on.

And so now that's what I do for work. And I always joke. I was raised very religious, and I always joke. I think God just said, okay, you're going to be a chiropractor for 25 years while I trained you for your real job. And if I knew I was in training, I would have paid way better attention. But that's why I do what I do. My kids are grown now. We have very, very good relationships. Obviously, everybody struggles from the post- traumatic triggers and stuff, but we're doing very, very well.

I was going to ask you the first question I want to ask you is how are your kids now?

There's a couple of things. When people hear I love my kids, it's like, there was a few things. My kids were little toughies. They'd been at it as long as I had. And one day I looked at myself and thought, this is the only example of a relationship that they have. And if this is the only example of a mother they have, I'm not doing the any justice.

Right.

And I knew they could take care of themselves, but I also knew that I couldn't protect them when I was there. So the only way I could protect them was to get out, get healed, so that I was there for them later. And I knew they had to be able to see his true colors to make the decision that they need to make for their relationship with him. And I left them at eleven and 13, and they ran away just like I did at 17 and 19.

Wow.

And they are 27 and 25 now.

Okay.

And they obviously saw his true colors.

Yes.

And actually, one of them hasn't spoken to him in five years. The other one, she runs into him occasionally, but she has learned how to function with that relationship, so it doesn't affect her, and she does very well.

Wow.

You're talking about toxic relationships. Right. So how do you define a toxic relationship? Because I'm sure people have different ideas of what that means.

And this is my favorite question, because people have a misconception of what toxic is. Yeah, I chose toxic eight years ago, before it was all over everything. And the reason I chose it is it's a blanket phrase. It's not a diagnosis. It's a blanket phrase that basically describes a relationship in the status that it's in. That's not healthy for you. And that can be an intimate relationship. That could be a marriage, that could be a friendship, that could be a coworker situation, that could be family, that could be siblings, that could be any type of relationship you have could be toxic. The thing and the misconception that people have is we talk about toxic people and toxic relationships, and in reality, we get to decide what relationships are unhealthy or toxic for us. Some of you might be toxic for you because the personality differences might not be toxic for me, but I would call it a toxic relationship because it's an unhealthy place for me to be.

That makes a lot of sense because it's your experience. So unhealthy in terms of like making you feel bad about yourself, making you feel bad, making you engage in bad habits. Like, give me some examples of how it would be toxic and unhealthy.

So the toxic personality can be on any level. It can be anything from the bully on the playground all the way up to the person that I ran away from and the stories are seeing on Netflix.

Yeah,

Okay. The thing that we have to understand, and this is the thing that we all miss when we're in it is we are constantly paying attention to what they're saying and what they're doing. Right? They say this and they do this. We all know that. I could talk till Tuesday if you said, so what were the things that your former husband did? Well, get a drink because we got a long time. So when you're in those relationships, you focus on what they're saying and what they're doing. And what we have to start doing is start understanding what motivates their behavior. Now, what happens in a toxic relationship is the good, kind, caring, loving, fixer, supporter, conflict, avoid, or peacekeeper is going to try to accommodate, to fix things, to support, to make things better, to keep the peace, right? Because that's what we do. That's how we're wired. That's how we're made. The toxic personality has a different goal in relationships than not. We don't realize that in the beginning because they agree that their goals are the same. Well, this is what I want. We the kind, caring I keep saying I'm kind. I am kind.

But you know, the personality I'm talking, the people who are emotionally driven, right? We step into relationships for companionship and partnership and intimacy and emotional support and building a life together because we wouldn't step into a relationship for anything but that, right?

Right.

And a toxic personality in the beginning will say, that's exactly what I want. So we go yay and we head down this relationship road thinking our goals are the same. And in reality, there's a certain individual personality that steps into relationships for a different reason. So they pretend the goals are the same. And in reality, their goals are actually different. They would probably never admit their goals are different. But while we're trying to fix it because we think we're working towards the same goals, in reality you're off working on goals that they never intended on having in their relationships.

What are their goals? What are their motivations?

Okay, so this is the basis of what I teach. And again, you have a mental health degree. I don't speak in diagnoses. I don't speak in, you know, in mental health conditions, all the better.

You're talking to lay people.

And because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what their diagnosis is the question at hand is, is the relationship healthy for you? But what you and I do is go, they have a diagnosis. Now I feel sorry for them. So now I have to fix and support more, right?

Yeah.

We have to remember what the question at hand is because the toxic personality, for some reason and again, this is my opinion and this is what I have learned through my experience and through the education of many. The toxic person, for some reason, has a level of insecurity in themselves.

Yes.

Okay, so they step into relationships to find security in themselves. Okay?

Now, you and I know what makes us feel secure in ourselves is the things we put into our own life. Because if you think about when you felt like your life was going your way, it's when your job was doing well and your kids were doing well and your relationships were good and you lost 5 pounds and looked fantastic in the red dress and you were eating well. It's the things you are putting into your own life that made you feel good about yourself. Right?

Right. Absolutely. Okay.

The toxic personality does not have the ability to do that. It doesn't matter how much they put into their own life. It doesn't matter what shape they're in or how many friends they have or how much money they have or what position they hold in the company. It's never really enough to fulfill that feeling of insecurity. Okay, now we have to go back to the way you and I are programmed. They are insecure for a reason. It might be a traumatic upbringing, it might be an addiction, it might be a diagnosis. And we feel sorry for them when we think, oh, but they had a bad upbringing. Okay? If their adults are responsible for their insecurity issues. But the toxic personality, because they can't put enough into their own life, they have to strategically place people in their life that supply them with the things that make them feel secure. So this is basically what I teach, because you and I, we only know how to see the world through our emotional eyes. Right. Because for the listeners who have been in toxic relationships, think about how many times you've looked at them and thought, how come you can't just act normal?

Or why can't you just be nice? Right? Because through our eyes, we would never call people names. We would never think of manipulating people like that. We would never step into a relationship to use somebody for something. So we just go, how come you can't act normal?

One of the things I always have had to tell my patients in psychotherapy is that not everybody is like you. And you cannot assume that people have the same thoughts, feelings or motivations as you. And if you do, do it at your own peril.

Yes. And you probably experienced this in your work that's one of the hardest things for people to wrap their head around. Because what we think is if we just explain how they hurt us and we just make them know what we need and we just really tell them how we feel, that they're just going to wake up some morning and act like us, right?

You can't make somebody care. Right? You can't make somebody have a conscience.

Keep trying that over and over. And because they tell you they have a conscience and they tell you that they love you and they tell you that they care. We think they do. Well, they also told you that their relationship goals were the same. And TADA, they're not. Right? So when we talk about what they're after, if you are in the life of somebody who has a toxic personality for you, you are in their life because you're supplying them with the things they need to feel secure. Because if you weren't supplying them, you wouldn't be in their life at any significant level because they would really have no use for you. They would remove you and they would replace you with somebody who would supply them with those things.

So basically what you're saying is that the kind person is in a relationship for connection and the toxic person is in a relationship to use the other person.

Yes. Now you can't tell them that they would never right. So when I teach this, I always have to go back because I work with people on any level. People that are just doing research, just finding out, wanting out, healing from it, all of that. I always have to take myself and put myself right back where they were. So I can remember what I was feeling and what I was thinking. Because I as a person who tries to accept other people the way they are, I wanted to believe the words. I wanted to believe him when he said he would try to change and he would do things different and he would be better. Now I realize that the only reason he was putting forth the effort to try is because he felt like he was losing control of me. So let me ask you this, and this is one of the rabbit holes that I talk about that I go down. When you think of what your morning looks like when you get on bed,

Yeah

Your feet are already on fire. You got twelve clients who were supposed to email back and crap. You didn't put the dog out. Dr. Heidi emailed you about the interview and you forgot. You literally get up and you make sure everybody in your world is okay today. And the toxic person basically gets up and goes, how am I going to feel secure today? So they look around at the people in their life and they start trying to get the feelings that they need to feel secure. I always tell people there's four things that they need to feel throughout the day. This is where your listeners start rolling their eyes, because they go, oh, my gosh. You've got to be kidding me. I think Dr. Heidi is watching my life. They need to feel control. They need to feel power. They need attention, and they want admiration.

Oh, I love it.

So during their life, you're supplying them with those things. And I can put almost every behavior of a toxic person into that, and you can visually see which one of those things that they're seeking, because even I mean, the smallest things, they come in and slam the door. What are they seeking?

Attention.

They immediately have everybody's attention, which makes them feel secure, and, you know, they're scary. Toxic people are scary. It's scary to leave. That's why I ran away, because you never know what to expect. So when you start tracking back, that all their behavior is based on, because they're insecure, it makes them whole lot less scary. And I left my former six times. It took me seven times to get out of there. Now, again, there was kids involved. There was a business involved. There was a lot of this kind of stuff, but I didn't know it then. But toxic people are also emotionally abusive. Okay, what does emotional abuse mean? I would have never known, because I think I had it mixed up with verbal abuse. And I remember thinking, well, yeah, he yells and cusses and calls names a lot, but he does that every day, so that's just him. Right? Okay.

I would just say, that's just him. It never occurred to me to go, that's not normal. No, that's just him. Right. But what emotional abuse really is is when they use your emotions to get what they need. So if they can say something to get an emotional reaction out of you, they can say something to make you happy. They know all they have to do is say this she's happy. I'm in control of how she feels. Say something to make you upset, to make you mad, to make you frustrated, to make you feel guilty. Guilt is an emotion. And all they have to do when you're trying to divorce one of these is go, I can't believe you're breaking up the family. And we go, you're right. We forget to look that this is the most dysfunctional home environment that there ever was. We let them tell us we're breaking up the family, and we feel guilty and go back. I think I probably went back three times because he convinced me that I was messing up everybody's life, and I felt so guilty, I went back.

So they're really good manipulators, and they're really good at making you feel like you're the bad guy. Right. Flipping it, projecting, and making you the bad guy, when really they're the one who's breaking up the family because you're having to leave their bad behavior.

Yes, and two, we want to be approved of. We want to be good enough. We want to be accepted. So as soon as they start criticizing or telling us what we should do better, what do we do? We jump on the treadmill. Okay, we'll do it. We'll prove to them, I can do this, I can do better. Where is our attention the entire time we're on the treadmill trying to fix this stuff? It's on them, right? In reality, our attention over time, we get so used to always having our attention on them, we never put our attention on us. So pretty soon, what's happening is they're controlling our emotions and we're living their life, not ours.

Well, that's the thing about I feel like love is sometimes love is obviously a wonderful thing. We all need it. But it's also sometimes it's kind of like an opiate where we just. We'll do anything to keep the love. Right? We'll do anything for the person that we love because it's like so important to maintain love. It's like I have noticed in my therapy practice that the hardest thing to do is to get somebody to walk away from somebody they love, whether it's an abusive parent or abusive partner or abusive friend. It's so hard because when they love the other person, they want to keep the love. It's like a drug. They don't want to go cold turkey. They want that love. And so they'll do just about anything to maintain love, right?

Yeah. And you know, when you look at it, it's not even the kind of love that they want, but if they don't feel it, they feel rejected. And we would rather have crappy love than feel rejected. So we'll just take the crappy love.

Yeah.

And I think one of the other things is people think about getting out of this, but it's scary. You don't know what their reaction is going to be. You don't know how severe their anger is going to get. You don't know if you can make it. You don't know if you lose the kids. And it's way easier to stay in what's familiar than to step into something you don't know. So we go, well, I've learned how to function in this and I know how to survive. So rather than me step down into something that I don't have any answers to, I'll just stay here. And that's what keeps us trapped. Now, one of the examples which I'm sure you can relate to this, it's hard to identify if you are becoming emotionally dependent on somebody. And most of my clients, myself included, toxic people, isolate you from your support system, okay? The reason they do that is because they want you emotionally dependent on them.

They don't want you to hear any dissenting views. Right?

Well, that's part of it. But they also don't want somebody else giving you emotions. So if visiting your family makes you happy, that's going to be a problem for them because when you visit your family, you're giving them emotion and your attention is on them. Same thing with friends. Or if you have a hobby that you love and you're taking too much attention off them, they're going to make it difficult for you to do those kinds of things. Then pretty soon we've cut everything out because it's easier for us to have conflict with our support system and our friends than to have conflict with them every day. So we just start cutting people out. So then the only person we have to engage emotionally with is them and they're in control of them. So I use this example when people are like, oh, I don't know if they're controlling my emotions or not. I go, okay, let's say this. On Tuesday morning, they get up there in a great mood, right? They skip out of the bedroom, you're in the kitchen, they patch you on the butt. They give you a kiss on the cheek and they tell you to have a great day.

What kind of day do you have that day? A pretty good day, right? Okay, wednesday morning they get up, they step on a Lego, they trip over the dog. They're mad that the floor isn't vacuum. They don't say a thing on the way to the kitchen, and they leave without saying anything before they go to work. What kind of day do you have that day? A high anxiety day. So what we end up doing is we end up basing our feelings and how we're going to feel for the day on how they treat us and how they're feeling. That's when you know that you're emotionally dependent on somebody. And I was 100% and you know, I'm a little extrovert. So if you would have told me when I headed off to graduate school that I would be this person that looked at the ground and didn't laugh and didn't make eye contact twelve years later, I probably wouldn't have believed you. But it's such a slow drip that you don't realize it's happening until all of a sudden it's normal to you. It's just like when you walk into a room that stinks. If you stay in the room, the smell goes away. Okay?

That doesn't mean the room doesn't stink. It just means you've become used to the smell. And being in an abusive situation, it becomes normalized to us so it doesn't seem like it's so bad.

And especially if the room only has like a faint odor when you start and then they pipe it in a little more and a little more until you just get habituated and habituated so that you don't notice it because it's been so gradual to build up. Right?

Yeah. Or just like you said, if the room doesn't stink that bad, then we start comparing our room to somebody else's room. Right? Well, I should be thankful because Sally has it way worse than me. Her room stinks way worse than mine, so I should just be thankful that my not stinky. And I read with that all the time. Well, I don't think it's that bad because they're not beating me.

Yeah.

That's just a progression of abuse. They're looking for those emotional reactions and if they don't get them, that's how abuse escalates. So any just emotional relationship can end up being a physically abusive relationship. And I mean, you know that.

Yeah, I remember just a little while ago in Toronto where are you located, by the way?

I'm right by St. Louis. So about smack dab in the middle of the United States.

Okay. So I'm in Toronto, and there is a very famous case just a few years ago of a family doctor who was murdered by her husband, who was a very, very prominent, successful I think he was an anesthesiologist. And she had left him and he had come over to talk to her and she let him in and he murdered her, cut her up, put her in a suitcase, and while the kids were upstairs sleeping. Obviously the very famous story. But she is a doctor, right?

Yes. And the thing that you have to remember is it's not about the relationship. Okay? And I don't talk too much about my story when I'm on the podcast because my story has it's very confusing. But the day that I ran away from him, I had already been divorced for two years. And what I realized, looking back, is it's not about the relationship, it's about the control they have over you. And when they start losing that control, they get insecure. So the story you're talking about is she was trying to take her power back. Now, what you just said is I had a very, very close friend. She was a self defense instructor. She was a concealed to carry weapons instructor. She spoke at all my conferences. She's been on my podcast. We did workshops together, my husband and I wrote my now husband and I rode Harley's with her and her boyfriend last summer. And she called me in September and she said, I just need to tell you that we broke up because it's starting to get very controlling. And she said, you're probably going to see him out on the bike, so just act like nothing's wrong.

And so we did. And through the fall, he started stalking her and following her and running her off the road. And I made a plan and she did not follow it. And he caught up with her on a date and shot her in the head. And if you go to which that's the first time I've talked about without getting tears. But she had done a podcast with me two years prior, and it took me a little while to go back and listen to the podcast because I wasn't sure I could listen to her voice. Okay, now. I'm starting to get tears. The podcast she did was how abuses escalates and she literally talked about exactly what happened to her. They're looking for a reaction. And if you think the first time they called you a name, you got upset, they got a reaction. But if they call you that name every day for 15 days, you're not going to react. So the names have to get meaner. Well, you get used to the mean names. So they start breaking things. I was so used to my stuff getting broken. I mean, it didn't even faze me.

If I'm not giving them a reaction when things are getting broke, they start blocking doorways, they start breaking phones, they start pushing and shoving. They start locking you in rooms because you're not giving them the reaction. And so if you remember, I hear it all the time, well, he's not physically violent because he's never hit me.

Okay? That was the same story she told me up until that. When people say, well, it's not physical. Well, it's not physical yet because you are still in a spot where you're giving them the reaction that they need to remind them that they're in control. This podcast got very serious. I didn't expect it to go there. And that's what people need to know because they feel like, I can handle it, it's good enough. And the danger is once you said habitualize, is that the word you use? Habituate? Habituate. I love that I'm going to have to use that because we do get used to it. All of a sudden it's really, really bad and we're still just trying to muddle through. I remember there were very many episodes where mine could have been bad. He was a big thrower, he was a big smash things. But it was not until I started standing up for myself when I started standing up for myself and maybe use my power made him feel very insecure. And that's when things started getting scary. And when I left, I did feel like my life was in danger. I would have never been shot or anything like that.

It would have been an accidental thing in a fit of rage is what would have happened in mine. Looking back, people always say, oh, if you could go back and do one thing different, what would you do? Well, people are expecting me to go, not gone on the first date, right. But I didn't realize how extreme mine was. But I haven't had any clients in seven years that I haven't been able to go, yeah, that happened. And it's really good for people who have lost their support systems or only have people in their lives that they really want to support them, but because they've never been in an emotionally abusive relationship, they don't understand the dynamics. So when we have people go, well, why don't you just leave? Or, you know, why don't you just get divorced? It sounds so easy. But with all of that bonding and that emotional control, we don't feel like it's that easy. And the lack of support right.

Because they've isolated you.

Yeah.

And, you know, I was always really upset. I'm the middle of three sisters now. I lived in the middle of the country, and my family lives way over in the west, so they weren't close. But I always felt so awful because I felt like I was going through it myself because they didn't understand it. Well, why don't you just leave? Okay.

Like, I haven't thought about that every day for the last 15 years. Right. But now, looking back, I'm so thankful my sisters don't understand it because that means they've never been through it. And I'm super grateful that I went through it, and I would not want to go through it again. But the people that I've been able to meet and the people that I've been able to at least just give them somebody that they feel like is standing beside them when they're going through it has been completely worth it to me.

It's interesting when you say there are people who've been through it who can understand, and there are people who've never been through it who don't understand. And then there's my group, which is the therapist who understand because we've been working with it for the coaches who've been working with.

The therapists that don't understand. No.

Well, there's probably those, too.

I work with a lot of therapists and counselors because you guys do the treaty. That's what you're licensed to do. I do a ton of the education, so I have a lot of crossover, and that actually works very well. Now, I will tell you also, because the therapy industry is the kind, caring, loving, the toxic people are going to target you. And I have a lot of therapists and clients that have gone through my programs, too.

Yes. And a lot of well, one of the things I've discovered being a therapist for so many years is that there's a lot of therapists because I've treated a lot of social workers and nurses and therapists. They go into the field because of their own psychological trauma. So they come in wounded, and so they're more susceptible. Not all of them, of course, but there's certainly a proportion of therapists who have their own trauma issues and are probably more likely to get involved in these kinds of relationships.

The other thing I always have to tell people, we always hear what bad pickers we are. You always pick the bad guy. Really? They're actually picking us because as soon as they know that we're emotionally wired, they're going to try and sink their claws in.

That we're vulnerable. Right. They find the vulnerable people.

So I always tell people, you're going to be so sick of Dr. Heidi by the time you're done, because it's my job now to make sure that you can see it. I don't want you calling me back in two years and let's go through this thing again. I pound the education into people up to the point where they're like, yes, I see it.

No, that's good because we also have this human tendency to want to look at life through rose-coloured glasses and to deny and to not see red flags. So if you pound it in, it makes it that much harder for them to ignore the red flags and to really see that there are people who aren't like us and not everyone is nice and caring, and not everyone goes into relationships for intimacy purposes.

Yeah, and I think you'll agree with me on this, too. It's one thing to be able to spot the red flag, right? Okay, I got it. I saw the red flag. But harder than that is for people like us to choose ourselves. We can see the red I mean, I saw the red flags right at the beginning, and then I thought, eh, I'm not going to worry about them. Or there's a meme that floats around and says, I saw the red flags, but I thought it was a carnival. You know? But it's one thing to see them, but you also have to know that you have to protect yourself. So you have to be able to put yourself first and say, thanks, but no thanks. Remove yourself and move on. We don't like the thought of feeling like we're going to be lonely. And so, like you said, we hang on to that feeling of what might be love. We hang on to that. And I try to teach people that you have to be so solid in who you are that no matter what happens, you're going to be okay. So if you're in a relationship, great. If you're not in a relationship, great, but you're never going to be in the right relationship if the wrong relationship has taken up the space.

I had a really interesting experience the other day. I was walking down the street and some random man yelled after me, you shouldn't be wearing such tight pants. I was in Joggers and I said back, you shouldn't be looking. And he said, well, how COVID I not look with your fat ass? And I thought to myself as I'm walking away, interesting how there's a certain kind of man who will always blame the woman for him becoming aroused. And also interesting that he won't take any responsibility for where his eyes are going. And I also thought, interesting that this did not affect me in the least. I didn't think, Is my ass fat? You know, I just thought to myself, wow, what a toxic individual. And I carried on with my walk and I thought, yep, I've definitely evolved as a human being where that does not have any effect on me whatsoever.

Don't you love that feeling? Lovely. It feels like it didn't even bug me. Are you kidding? It didn't even bug me.

No offense. I just went, what a real sick man. And then I just carried on.

When I started this, I knew that there was going to be haters out there, because the minute somebody finds out their husband's hired Dr Heidi, you know, whatever. But I was still kind of in the worry about what people think phase and blah blah. Then I would always kind of get a stomach ache if I would get hate mail or if I'd get a mean message or whatever. And I'm going to try to tell the story without swearing on your podcast unless you give me permission to swear.

Well, you can swear on my podcast. It's okay.

Or if I got a negative review, I would get all worried that maybe I shouldn't be doing this or whatever. I got up one morning and I opened my email and in the subject line, it said, Fuck you, Dr. Heidi.

Oh, you know, you're doing some good when you read it.

And it was this big rant about how I brainwashed and she's out and she's happy and whatever, and I thought, you know what? It's hilarious. I printed it out. I cut out the fuck you Dr, Heidi. And I taped it to my computer because I thought, if I don't have haters out there, I'm not doing my job.

Exactly.

It was kind of like that. I was like, I don't care what you think, and it's a big step to do that. So I love now, I can't say that if somebody would have said I had a fat ass, I probably would have thought about it more than you did.

But I worked so much in psychotherapy with the concept of projection, right? Like, this guy was fat. The guy who was yelling after me was fat, right? I mean, that's the joke. When I turn around to look at him, he's like a big guy, and I'm thinking, Boy, he's projecting his lust, right? He's like blaming me for his lust, and he's calling me fat. And I'm thinking like, wow, you know, psych 101, buddy.

And then I would have always thought a half hour later of all the funny things I could have said, right? You know what?

What I thought was, this is not a person you're going to respond back.

Because that's what they're looking for, right?

Don't give them energy. Don't give them energy.

Same thing with the toxic personality. They want your attention. They want a response. They want an emotional reaction.

Don't give them any energy because then you starve them.

Yes. And the only thing that I will tell people is they don't go away until you make them go away. And the only way you can make them go away is to stop supplying them with the control, the power, the attention and the emotional reaction. That was what I didn't understand after I was divorced. Nothing changed in the two years before I ran away, he still controlled everything, but why would he let me go if I was still supplying him, right? It's, yes, we have to quit supplying them. But I also stress this very much. They will notice immediately when you quit supplying. So if you're in a spot where it might be dangerous, you become a very good actress or after over the years, get your plan together, make them believe everything is fine and execute because it will escalate if they sense that you're not interacting emotionally or you start standing up for yourself.

And I think that's such important advice because I always tell my patients, take care of yourself, but always keep yourself safe. It's most important, your safety. So healthy confrontation is great, but you always have to think about who you're confronting. Taking away the supply from a toxic person is great, but always think about the situation that you put yourself in, like, stay safe. Number one, be safe. Right?

And what goes along with that is understanding the fact that it's their security that drives them. When somebody leaves, they're so surprised at how these people act. And I'm like, yeah, but are you really surprised? And they're like, no, because they're going to continue to be who they are. So, you know, eventually you'll be able to predict their behavior because they use the same playbook every single day. We're just trained to respond because, one, we're in survival mode, and two, we've learned to give them what they want to keep the conflict.

Well, you do amazing work, and like you said, you had your own experience, and it helped you become the person that you are today, helping so many other people with their experiences. And we need that so much because there's so much anxiety and insecurity and in a number of people, it comes out in this very toxic and distorted way. And so even if you look at people in the public eye, politicians and world leaders, there's people who are super toxic out there, and even these people are popular and revered and followed. So it seems like there's a cult of these kinds of personalities.

But if you think about it, also it's a personality type.

Yes.

And there are certain professions that that personality type fits very well in. Our military leaders. You're surgeons. It works very well. So the world wouldn't function well without them completely. I just don't want them in my life, you know what I mean? I guess that kind of goes with I have a support group online. I have a Facebook support group, and I have worked very hard at keeping them positive. We don't have to bash the toxic person. We already know what they do. Let's talk about forward motion and encouraging others because you get sucked down that hole if they do this and they do that, and where's your attention the whole time? Which is exactly what they want.

Absolutely. Well, how can people find you if they're looking to see the kinds of work that you're doing or work with you?

Well, so my business is called Coaching with Dr. Heidi, and I know that's not very unique, but I have to be careful because people are in danger sometimes. So I didn't want to be the toxic relationship lady or anything like that. So my website is coachingwithdrheidi.com. I have a podcast that's doing something that I never thought it would do. The only reason I started my podcast was because I had to learn how to start talking about it. And we're blowing through a million downloads here just shortly, which is ridiculous because it is becoming very apparent to me how many people are searching for this information. The podcast is called: it's not normal, it's toxic. I am not nearly as organized as you are. I literally sit in front of my iPad and talk. Sometimes they can hear me. Sometimes my daughter flushes the toilet while I'm recording. Like I don't worry about it. But then the support group online is called Strength Within. So it's a white flower growing out of a gray rock. It's a private group. So I check everybody that comes in there. If you're questioning whether your relationship might be toxic because you've been standing in the stinky room for so long, there is something on my website called the Toxicity Profile Analysis. And it is long. I'm warning you. It's 106 questions, but sometimes even the questions are going to make you realize that the stuff you thought or grown used to thinking is normal isn't normal. And then there's obviously I do private coaching. I do one on ones all the time. I do private coaching. I do divorce coaching. I do co-parent coaching. I do the healing stuff after that. So it depends on what you need and you're in control of it. That's what I always tell everybody. You don't get to control a lot, but you get to control this. That's pretty much what I do.

Well, listen, before we go, I'd love it if you could give the listener a call to action.

Okay.

I'm going to give a serious one.

Okay.

And then if I can think of a funny one, I will. But you're putting me on the spot. A call to action would be if you are in a relationship that you might feel is unhealthy, pay attention to what you're paying attention to, because chances are all you're thinking about is what they're saying or doing. Start switching it to what is motivating it and remind yourself that the motivation is insecurity, because when you realize that all of this mean stuff is insecurity, it takes their power away. So really think about the motivation as opposed to this is what they're saying and this is what they are doing.

That's a great call to action. Listen, Dr. Heidi Brocke, I want to thank you for coming on the Ruthless Compassion podcast. Great work that you're doing. So important and really a pleasure chatting with you today.

Yes, thank you for having me.

This is Dr. Marcia, Sirota. Thank you for listening. Please leave a review and your comments wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to sign up for my free newsletter at marciasirotamd.com, where you'll learn about upcoming online events as well. Also, we love getting referrals from our listeners about future podcast guests, so please email us at info@marciasirotamd.com.