What I Did When I Couldn't Trust My Own Mind

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 and the action. 

I also talk about what to do with the evidence, why archiving is different from deleting, and how to write yourself a letter that protects you when your rational mind goes offline.

Transcript

 Welcome to the You Are Not Crazy Podcast hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes. And healing from narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others, and heal the relationship with yourself so you can learn to love in a healthy way. You can connect with Jessica and find additional resources, content, and coaching@emotionalabusecoach.com. Before we begin. I just wanna make a quick note at the end of this episode. I spend the last four minutes walking through the way people work with me and where to find resources, my links and my courses. If you are a returning listener or are already a client, you can absolutely skip that part. If you're new or trying to figure out what kind of support you need, it's there for you. It's the last four minutes. Thank you so much for being here. I'm gonna start with a story about how I used to hide my phone under my mattress. And this wasn't because somebody told me to. It was because I did it. 'cause I was desperate. And when you're desperate, you invent things that help you around. This time I was also trying to break my, and deleted my ex's number, wrote it on a piece of paper, folded in two. You know, the random pages of a journal and then hid the journal somewhere, and I knew I'd have to work to find it. I knew where it was, but I made myself reach for it, and I made the craving feel like I needed to be frustrated enough to go search for it. At the time, I thought I was being ridiculous and childish and overdramatic, but when I think about it now, when I reflect back, at that time I was surviving this trauma bond. I didn't know what it was. I didn't have a name for it yet, but I was trying to build like a fortress in my own head against my own reactions. I was afraid of my own reactions. And when we talk about toxic relationships, we talk about the moment of leaving and we focus on that final decision. We celebrate it like it's a finish line, but we talk far less about what happens after. It feels like relief. And so what do you do when you can't trust your own mind? Do things like what I did and start to build these external systems. You put your phone under the mattress. What I was doing in hindsight without knowing it was practicing something that psychologists call urge surfing. Urge surfing is when you create space between impulse and actions so that the impulse can pass without becoming a behavior. The goal is not to eliminate the craving. It's to make the craving work harder to get what it wants. Hiding the phone created this physical barrier between spike and the longing of action. So when the spike would come, I would have to go and get the phone deleting the number, but keeping the copy was prolonging it even longer. And it was the behavior that I was doing as someone at the time who could not go cold Turkey. I could not go cold Turkey overnight, and I needed to find a plan. Because all I was being told was no contact with her. And that friction because it became the space of wanting to reach out and actually doing it. Because in that space, something actually started to shift because the craving didn't go away, but it did pass. And the passing made me start to feel more powerful because cravings can pass if you wait them out. My memory, nobody was clapping, no validation, no framework. And somehow over time it worked. And I think it's because one of the most painful misconceptions about leaving a trauma bond is that healing requires a total erasure of the other person sometimes, or often goes something like delete it, block them, burn it down, pretend it never happened. But for many of us, those text messages are evidence. They're the truth. You are proof that you are not crazy. What happened was real and that your reactions made sense, and you don't have to throw that away. What I eventually learned to do was to archive stuff, not delete it, because I felt like maybe one day I might want it. I would screenshot what I needed, save it to a folder, and then I would password protect it. I'd blocked the contact because part of the craving I realized, at least for myself, was that it was thriving on proximity. I open my phone and seeing this person ever said that they could have cared about me. It's the way that their name could appear in my notifications, and then I'd be completely activated. And so I knew at the time, probably subconsciously, that I needed to get this craving to lose its grip. And if it is helpful, I wanna share what to do if the craving gets loud, because there will be moments when you are tired or lonely or something small triggers a memory. These are moments when the rational mind might be on and offline. Write yourself a letter, not an angry letter, not a Greek letter, just a strategic letter. And tell your future self why you left and what is the basis for that. And remind yourself what it cost you to stay. Describe what you risk by going back. Be specific, and be honest with yourself. Don't punish yourself. Write this as protection. And then put it in a place that when you really need it, you can come back to it, because I promise you, there's a part of your brain that does see everything clearly, even when it's hard. If you have ever survived exiting a trauma or if you're in the middle of it right now, or if you've left the relationship and you've gone back to it, that's something that people. All the time. I want you to remind yourself that you carry proof of capacity. You already know how to break a trauma bond. You might have forgotten because trauma got loud. Again, you might have forgotten because of the cravings, but there could have been just enough sweetness to loop you back in, to trick you into thinking it was different. But your nervous system remembers what you did before and it remembers the mattress. It remembers folding the paper. It's not going, if the messages come in. You don't have to be somebody else to survive this. You don't even have to be ready. You just have to be willing to feel a little ridiculous to take care of yourself and to do the things that you think would work for you. I've even had clients tell me that they're gonna leave their phone in the car overnight. Like just because they're like, I, it might feel like peace. And so. Shorter episode, but I hope it is helpful for you to just think about untangling all these messy parts. And if you are looking for more resources on healing from the cycle of abuse, I invite you to go to my website, emotional abuse coach.com, and check on unhooked. If this episode resonated and you're realizing that what you're dealing with. Isn't just stress or miscommunication, there are ways to get support that don't minimize what you're experiencing. I'm going to spend the next couple of minutes telling you about my offerings because at the core of my business is one-on-one coaching. The podcast is something that I do because I do like being able to help a audience, but the is that the core of my work is really. Coaching and providing other offerings so that people can begin to heal. At the center of everything I do is one-on-one coaching. That's where I slow things down, listen closely, and help you make sense of what's happening in your specific situation. It's not a template. It's not just based on theories, but it's really focused on your real life. Some people start with a one-time validation call. That is a single focus session where we look at one specific situation or pattern. You're struggl and the goal isn't to fix your life or push you into decisions. It's to help you name what's happening, put it into context of reality, help you notice where you are in it, and offer some feedback and tools to how to navigate it. I also offer an intro call. The intro call used to be called the Clarity Call, and it's a short call where you can share what's going on for you. I can explain how I work and whether I'm the right fit for your situation. There's no obligation to continue after that. It's simply a way for us to get on the same page before moving forward. For people who need ongoing support, I offer weekly or biweekly coaching. This is especially helpful if you're navigating emotional abuse, trauma bond, high conflict divorce, or custody and co-parenting with a difficult or controlling person. Ongoing work allows us to track patterns over time, stay anchored when things escalate, and make decisions in a way that protects your nervous system and your long-term stability. All of my coaching options can be found on my websites emotional abuse coach.com and high conflict divorce coaching com. Both links are available in the show notes of this episode. In addition to one-on-one coaching, I offer several self-paced courses and programs. They're called Divorcing A Narcissist one-on-One, how to Document for Family Court, the Emotional Abuse Breakthrough Course Setting Boundaries With a Narcissist and Unhooked, which is my program and private podcast that walks you through the full cycle of abuse, helps you map it out in your relationship, and shows you how to begin to break free from the trauma bond. I also write on Substack. I explore topics like trauma bonding, emotional abuse, course of control, high conflict divorce, and the cluster B dynamics. There's a free option and a paid membership that offers deeper dives, q and As and additional resources. Everything that I do and everything that I build is around one core truth and message that you're not crazy, you shouldn't feel crazy, and that even though I can see patterns in what they're experiencing, it doesn't mean that it's normal. It's not healthy. My work is really about helping you understand what's happening and begin to trust yourself again. All of the links that I shared are in my show notes, and I really appreciate you being here.