15. Surviving Narcissistic Abuse with Dana S. Diaz, Part 1
Aug 22, 2024
ON THIS EPISODE
I'm excited to share this episode of the High Vibe Heather podcast with you, in which I connect with author Dana S. Diaz, who through her books shares her story of living with a narcissistic abuser and how that relationship nearly killed her. Such an inspiring story. How she had to move through her healing journey, starting with choosing herself.
That sense of reverence for her own life when she came face to face with the reality that if she were to stay any longer, either he would take her life or her own physical body would give out on her because of all of the copious amounts of acute stress that she dealt with throughout her life.
This is a harrowing tale of this woman's journey from a people pleaser to self-empowerment.How she transformed her whole life and healed herself and now is on this mission to help others recognize what narcissistic abuse looks like, the toll that people pleasing takes on your life physically, mentally, emotionally, how it sets you up to be taken advantage of and manipulated.
We had such a deep conversation on this topic that I actually have to break it up into two separate episodes. So I hope you will follow along through her whole journey as we explore all the different facets of how something so seemingly innocuous as people pleasing can really be such a dangerous behavior and what it takes to extract yourself from a relationship with a narcissistic abuser.
Without further ado, I am excited to bring this interview to you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Hello and welcome to another episode of the High Vibe Heather Podcast. I have a special guest with me today, Dana S. Diaz, author of a couple of books with I believe her third one, On the Way. And Dana, would you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm just a normal person like everybody else. Unfortunately, I've been through some stuff, although everybody has, but my unfortunate area of lifelong expertise is narcissistic abuse.
But there's the bad side of it, which is enduring it. I was suffering it in childhood and then again, in a 25-year-long relationship and marriage, which you would have thought I would have seen the signs, which I did, but I ignored them, thought it was different and it wasn't. But the good news is there's a happy ending, and that's where the third book comes in.
So that'll be coming next year, but I'm very happy to be here and just to share with anybody who's been through something like this, any kind of toxic relationship, and this doesn't necessarily mean a romantic one. It could be with a parent, a sibling, a coworker, a friend. I mean, it could be anybody. Narcissists are everywhere.
Yeah. Wow. So this is like a trilogy, this book series talking about your journey of moving through healing and what that relationship was like, how you left, and now the happy ending.
Is that kind of how the series will go?
Exactly. Yeah. Gasping for Air was my first book, and it was the only book ever intended. It was actually developed from a journal that I kept towards the end of my first marriage because I decided, like many victims of abuse, we make repeated attempts.
They say that an average victim of an abusive spouse or partner attempts to leave seven times before finally leaving. And it was in February of 2020. I consulted with an attorney for the sixth time in my marriage about divorce, but I said this time, I'm doing it. I'm filing, but we didn't have a normal situation.
You know, I wish that we had just had a house in the suburbs and I could take my son and leave. And it was, I mean, as easy as it could be, but we lived on a farm. So there were farm stock, livestock that was considered assets that were registered to him and some things we needed to figure out before I could file for divorce, even though I said, just please, like, I just want my kid and now I don't care. I don't want anything.
I don't like he could have whatever he wants. I just want out. But a week after I talked to the attorney, we went into the shelter in place for COVID. Now, this was very, yeah, it was a nightmare. Honestly, I thought like the universe was playing like a cruel joke on me because I'm like, I finally am trying to get out of this. I'm trying to save my life.
And I will save the details for people who want to read the book Gasping for Air. But during this time, there were very serious threats made against my life. He was even at this point telling other people he was planning to kill me.
And now I'm stuck in a house with him and everything is shut down. So I started keeping a journal in an old notebook that I took from my son's closet. I was one of those, I don't like to use the word cheap, but I was one of those cheap moms that at the end of the school year ripped out the used pages of every notebook.
Oh my god, I totally did that. Right? We all do.
Well, not everybody does this, but I did. So I thought I needed something that was unsuspecting. So here's my 17-year-old son. I'm in his closet grabbing an old notebook from fourth grade with random Sharpie scribbles on it. I don't even know what he was trying to draw as strange alien men. But it was unsuspecting because if my ex ever found something that I was writing things down about him in, I was in a situation.
So I used that and just every time something was said, texted, emailed anything, I was writing it down. I still have that journal to this day, but from that journal, I'm obviously still here, everything's good, but during that time, I needed to make sure that if something happened to me, that somebody hopefully would find this journal and know what would happen. Because I don't think people realize the extent the games they will play.
I often had said that he would... I was worried he was going to kill me without getting his hands dirty, so to speak. So like one time, I went, I was, I moved, I literally moved to my basement and I was residing, because I didn't trust sleeping next to this man. Like I didn't want to interact with him. I was honestly scared for my life. But like one of the times I went to walk down the basement, I didn't know this till after, I slipped and fell, which sometimes we slip and fall on stairs.
Well, he had used pledge, you know, the wood polish, he had pledged the wooden stairway. So like these are the things that I was dealing with. And somebody would, if something had happened and I had fallen down the stairs and broken my neck and died, oh, I was, you know, the stairs, he would have probably said, I wash the stairs with pledge and then accidentally slipped on them and he would have gotten away with it.
So I think people need to understand the very extreme and very disturbing things that they will do to enact their goals. And again, this is just one little aspect that really led me to keep this journal just in case because I thought if somebody, if something happens to me, somebody at some point, even if it's 20 years later, and somebody finds this, they need to know the truth because I kept this notebook hidden under the couch cushion in my basement.
Oh, wow.
Because I was so scared, I needed to make sure it was hidden away. So when COVID finally, the courts reopened and everything, I was desperate. I'm on my attorneys, but I got to get out of this.I need to get out of this. And she was overwhelmed, and the courts were backed up, attorneys were, and I was like, okay.
Turns out a lot of people were filing for divorce during the time.
Yes. That's the funny thing, but for me, it was literally a life or death, and it was something that had been coming 15 years. I had gone to the first attorney in 2005, and then, you know, when the courts reopened, since everything was backed up, I finally just said to the sixth attorney, I can't wait. I need to be done. So I found another attorney who thankfully had me divorced three weeks later.
Oh my God, that's a miracle.
It was a miracle, but here's what I want people to understand, and I say this all the time. Divorce is just a division of your financial assets. As I told my son, who was very upset with me because I did not tell my teenage son that I filed, I did not tell him the day of the divorce.
It's basically just ending a legal contract.
That's what I said to my son. I said, believe me, if this ended my relationship with your father, what a wonderful day it would be. But I said, all it does is end is divide the assets and ends our legal relationship. But it certainly doesn't end it. And usually when you have somebody as severely narcissistic as this, it only starts.
That's when the fun begins because the two biggest incidents of domestic violence came after the divorce. Because the most offensive thing you could do to a narcissist is insult their ego by leaving them. And, you know, my whole story is all very ironic in shape.
Yeah, and it's terrible. But, you know, let's go back because I know that we've talked about this before. Let's start from square one so people understand what we're talking about because narcissism gets used all the time. And I'm not criticizing people for using the word, but let's look at what it really is.
Yeah, could you define that for us?
100%. I think it's important for people to understand what we're talking about. So really what a narcissist started out as being was somebody with what we would perceive right now as a very healthy self-esteem.
The Greek god narcissist used to like to admire his reflection in the water because apparently he thought he was hot. And that's fine. I wish I had that kind of self-esteem. I think we all could use a little bit of it.
So these are people we see on social media with the lashes, the bodies, the bikinis, the guys with the six-pack abs and the muscles, and they usually look as good as they think they do. We cannot hate on them. They might annoy us, but you know, what are you going to do? We all wish we could look like that. So that's really what a narcissist is.
What it has come to mean, however, through a little bit of morphing through time, and what we are talking about, is a person who... It's very complex. I'm trying to simplify it. So it's somebody that has such deep insecurities that they need to fulfill their ego with external validation. So there's a little bit of a spectrum. Well, there's a big bit of a spectrum here.
On the low end, these are the people that might bait you into complementing them, bait you into giving them admiration and praise, things like that.
For compliments, yeah.
Exactly, exactly. Because they don't have much of a self-esteem. They need other people to help build them up.
And the thing is like covert narcissists, if anybody knows this term, it's a hidden narcissist. They kind of come off as that type, and that's how my ex-husband had come off. Kind of humble.
I always said he was like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, like, poor me, nothing good happens to me. You know, and these are the people, like you want to build them up, and you think you're doing a good thing, encouraging them and supporting them and cheering them on. So that's the low end of the malignant narcissist.
We go all the way to the other end. We're talking about who my ex-husband really showed me he was. These are people who commit crimes, are violent, domestic violence situations, abusive people.
Over 20 some percent of our US male prison population are supposedly identified narcissists. These are very dangerous people because it's not just about fulfilling their ego at this point and getting that validation and that praise and that admiration that they can't give themselves for whatever reason. These are people that they will not stop until they overpower, conquer, control, dominate.
It's a very scary thing, and they don't think that the laws apply to them. They think they are that above everything and everybody that nothing can touch them. So that's a very scary thing.
A behavioral disorder that can be diagnosed by like a professional?
There's a lot of skepticism out there because there is no true narcissist that will ever even submit themselves to one. Here's the thing, the test for narcissism is not that hard. I always tell people that people say, am I the narcissist? Is it me? Is it them? If you were even asking yourself that question, you're not the narcissist because the narcissist is going to say, I'm not a narcissist, you're a narcissist.
Automatically. They take everything and it's you. I didn't cheat on you. You're the one cheating on me, aren't you?
I'm not a thief. I didn't take the money. You took the money.
So you're the liar. I'm not the liar.
A real mindfuck.
It is a complete mindfuck. Yeah, absolutely. But these are very dangerous people when you consider that somebody that will go to any length, even murder.
And I am talking about not watch any true crime show 2020 48 hours. Look at these people that are murdering their spouses and their young children, stabbing them, shooting them in the head in the middle of the night. And there's blood splattered everywhere.
What kind of monster does that to a child, never mind their own children? These are the type of people we're dealing with. And the main aspects of these very severe narcissists, these malignant narcissists, is that they have zero empathy, zero, not even for little babies.
These are, absolutely. And they have no remorse whatsoever. They actually feel justified doing what they're doing.
So yes, I call it psychotic, antisocial, completely sociopathic behavior. Now again, that is not all narcissists. These are more severe malignant narcissists.
Okay.
And the other way I describe it is like tumors. You can have a benign tumor in your body, a malignant tumor. Benign tumor is there, doesn't bother you.
Those are your really, really good looking people on social media. Might annoy you, but they're not bothering you. The malignant tumor might cause you problems, might even kill you. You got to cut it out. That's what we're dealing with, and that's what we're talking about today.
So what you've been through sounds like a real life thriller, honestly.
Yes.
That you, thank God, survived, escaped, and you're here now to share your story in hopes of helping other people to recognize us in their lives, and then understand the steps that they can take to help remove themselves from that situation, is that correct?
That is 100% correct, because, you know, when I was in my situation, I had a degree in journalism, I had a background in psychology, I had been raised by two narcissists, and then 25 years with this one, and I still didn't realize I was being abused. It took me sitting there filling out the form for the order of protection, that I'm checking every box, has the person done this? Has the person done that?
Yes, yes. And then there, you know, it was like, oh, this is a case of domestic abuse. And I'm like, no, not me. I haven't been abused. I wouldn't be abused after my childhood abuse and dealing with that. I went back and did the questions again.
And I'm like, oh my God, I've been in an abusive relationship for 25 years. You would think after an abusive childhood and having child services involved and everything I went through, you know, in that part of my life that I would know what it was like. But here's the reason why a lot of people don't realize they're being abused by their spouse or partner.
Yeah.
It's because it's insidious and what we mean by this, if anyone's not really familiar with this word, is that it creeps on little by little. You know how you gain weight? Ten years ago, I weighed this and now, how did that happen.
Just the little eighth of an ounce here and there adds up, right? It's those little bits. Point A, the first thing my ex did to me, the first angry outburst that startled me and the thing went across the room at my face.
Okay, maybe he had a bad day, maybe he's in a bad mood, whatever. 25 years later, we've got guns and knives and he wants me dead. So how did it go from point A to point B?
These little, little bits so that as the victim in this situation, it's like gaining that little bit of weight. You notice it, you're not, you know, but it's not enough to really warrant your attention. You know, you're not going to like gain an eighth of an ounce.
You know, you might have had a big dinner last night, but you're not going to go like, you know, do a marathon to work off the calories tomorrow. You're just like, oh, whatever, you know, and then time goes on and you gain weight. It's the same way with the abuse because you get somewhere in the middle of there.
It's just another Tuesday. It's just how life is.
You're so used to it that you're not even noticing and putting it together because you're like, nope, it's just like you said, how life is.
Exactly.
You referred to your childhood talking about being raised by narcissistic parents, and then you found yourself in a relationship with a narcissist. Is that a really common thing that happens and can you speak to that?
Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, that was the big question when my book, Gasping for Air, came out is how did you know, because people would meet me, even my publisher is like, you're intelligent, you seem strong and independent, like how did you end up like this? But the irony is, I've met judges, I've met attorneys, very wealthy women, women in power positions that have been in these abusive relationships with narcissistic men. I think to one aspect, I think it gives them more of a sense of conquer, if they conquer the unconquerable, so to speak.
If they can climb Mount Everest, then they're the champion and if they can take down a woman that's strong and that intelligence and pull one over on her, boy, does that they get off on that. But yes, a lot of victims do come from traumatic backgrounds. It's this cycles that we end up in, whether it's generational cycles in our family that continue with each generation, or it's just the cycle.
We all know somebody and apparently I'm one of these people that has been through one relationship after another. That's just, oh, you know, she's got this string of bad luck with men, or she just keeps going for the same kind of guy. This is because they don't recognize the cycle that they're in, and they keep putting themselves in situations.
And kind of like they're, you know, these narcissists are smart. They're preying on you. They sense some vulnerable aspect of you.
But I want to be very careful because there are plenty of people that grew up with beaver-cleaver parents and had what looks like a sunshine and rainbows, you know, Donna Reed showed childhood, and they are also in abusive situations. But again, I go back to how these narcissists prey on that. They might prey on somebody like, and I'm thinking of somebody specifically that I know, they might prey on that, you know, sweet, innocent, and pure person who grow up, you know, not understanding that there are awful people out there.”
Why? Because these people are easily manipulated into thinking, this is a good guy too. Oh, he's wonderful, and he's sweet, and he's all this stuff.
I mean, let's look at Ted Bundy, the serial killer. We keep hearing he was charming and handsome, wasn't he? I mean, how many women did he rape and murder?
I mean, but he was charming and handsome. And every one of those women fell for it. Nobody would enter into any situation with a man or a man with a woman, because it goes both ways.
If they didn't think they weren't safe, or if they thought there was something off, so these people know how to trick you. Now, with somebody like me, instead, they sense that vulnerability. I came out of an abusive childhood, absolutely thinking there was no way anyone was going to mistreat me again.
But my mother was always very distant and neglectful with me emotionally. My stepfather was physically and verbally abusive to me. I was told I would never be loved. I was told I was nothing. I mean, I heard every diminishing insult and degrading. It was awful. And then I had the physical abuse to back it up. So I did not have any confidence. I had no self-esteem, no self-worth, no self-respect, no nothing.
And something in me, I mean, we talk about energies that we give out. I was giving out this energy to where this man thought, oh, I know what to do with this one. What did he do? He told me he loved me forever. Like, on the second time I hung out with him, he was going to love me forever. And it was the two of us against the world.
And I'm 19 years old. And that's all I've ever wanted is for somebody to love me. And the two of us against the world, I have my person, I have this person that's not going to abandon me like everybody else has. That sounds so... And we go to movies and we watch these romances play out. And we have this, you know, vision in our heads of what romance is supposed to look like and love.
And I mean, it's exhausting to look back, but it saddens me that I was... I mean, there's no other word other than desperate, but I was so desperate for somebody to love me. It almost didn't even matter who, but he was there and he vowed that to me. And so I believed him.
And even though three weeks later, he was way overreacting over a compact disc. For those of you who are young, this was a circular thing that played music. But it was a compact disc. And he, I mean, the anger and things knocking over and flying around the room and holes punched in walls and over a CD. And I was like, oh my, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Not this guy, not the guy who said it was the two of us against the world. But here we go again, he must have had a bad day. Maybe I provoked him, maybe this is my fault, you know. And then 25 years later, I woke up.
Blaming themselves when they find themselves in some sort of dispute like that with an abuser, where they're like, absolutely, did I provoke this? Did I do something to cause this person to be so upset?
Right. And speaking from the aspect of coming from a bad childhood, most of us that come out of a bad childhood have internalized the shame that was put on us. You know, and I'll go into it, that's a whole other, that's what the second book is about.
My second book, it's called Choking on Shame. I was the scapegoat child. Everything was my fault. My brother was treated, he was the golden child, he was treated perfectly. So it made my parents look like model parents even to this day. But I had to be difficult and defiant and all these things that they told people I was, in order for them to feel justified in abusing me, but only me.
And this is unfortunately all too common as well, where only one child in a family is chosen as the one who's abused. And the others see it, and the others know about it, and sometimes the other parent knows about it and turns their head, which is what my mother often did. And sometimes both parents participate in it, which is what happened by the time I was a teenager. So, you know, you do internalize that.
Isolating to be-
Oh, it was very isolating. And then I was bullied at school.
Wow. Everywhere you went.
Everywhere I turned. And so it's hard not to think, like I went through most of my life, 40 some years thinking I was the problem, because I was the common denominator in every situation that I was in. From the time I was in kindergarten was the first time I was bullied. Then again in first grade, then third grade. It just went on and on. I never fit in.
I never belonged. My stepfather even went so far as to tell me that I was not part of his family with my mother and my brother. I was just there and they had to pay for me to have shelter and clothing and food, but that he shouldn't have to pay for another man's child and that I was never going to belong with them.
And I didn't belong in any groups at school, even in high school. I just wanted to find my place. I wanted to fit in. And I struggled with that until I met my ex-husband, because even though things were volatile, what did he have? He had two parents. He had Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver for mom and dad.”
And they took me from day one. They were welcoming and they loved me and they invited me in. And they were the parents I never had. And I don't know how he came from that household. But they were the loveliest people ever. And his grandma and grandpa were even lovelier. And they gave me what I needed. And I wouldn't let him go. Even through all those years, I didn't want to let go of him because letting go of him would mean letting go of them.
And that sense of belonging that you finally had.
That I finally had. And you know what the kicker is? Is towards the end of our marriage. It was a few years before the divorce. He was drunk more of the time than not at this point. But he admitted to me in a drunken stupor. Because I sensed, I said something to him. I said, why is, I feel like your family has pulled away. They won't even take my calls anymore. I don't get invited. Did I do something? Did I say it?
Because this was my family for 20 some years. He said, oh, well, I told them some lies about you. He says, they were such horrific lies that he says, I needed to make sure they would hate you. And I'm like, why would you do that? And he said, because they liked you more than they liked me, and I couldn't have that. So he took his family away.
So I hate to say, but at that point, even though I had talked to how many attorneys up to them and didn't want to be with him, and our relationship was obviously over well before that, that was kind of the point where I'm like, well, what am I here for then? That's when I kind of had to face myself and say, I've stayed all this time thinking I was doing the right thing, honoring my vows, keeping my son's family unit together, and I have this family that I don't have otherwise, but I've lost them, and he did that, so why am I here? That's when I was just like, I can't do this anymore, I'm done.
I think that's such a sad and common scenario that people stay in those situations. For all those reasons you just mentioned, for far too long, they think they're doing the right thing. They're keeping their vows, they're keeping their family together for the sake of their children.
It's a lot of things. I was Catholic too, and born and raised Catholic, and people can criticize religion and church, but in my mind, it had been ingrained in me. I was in my 40s. I'm still in my 40s, but I'm like, I can't get divorced, that's not an option. God will frown upon this. I'm standing here saying that I went to my priests, I went to different priests over and over.
And, you know, I didn't even know this until I started really talking to them and opening up about my situation, that, you know, that's generally the idea. They just want you to take marriage seriously, but they said, no, no, Dana, if you are in an abusive situation, God doesn't want you to hurt and suffer like that. You can get your marriage annulled.
They're like, a divorce is not what we want you to do. We want you to try to repair things. We want to see things.
You know, we don't want people to just, you know, get divorced and then move on to the next one, you know, as if it were, you know, not taking the, the, you know, the sacredness of its heart. But when I realized that, I'm like, oh, okay. So this, you know, the ground's not going to open up and pull me down into the depths of hell. And they're like, no. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well, now, now we're talking.
And you know what? I got divorced. And the day after I went to the church with the papers, and my priest signed off on things, and $40 later, I had annulment papers.
And I wish I could pretend that 25 years didn't happen like the church wants to believe. But it's not this, you know, I've heard of people talk about the trials and the extent, you know, if you are a religious person that's worried about this, I can tell you, there was no trial, there was no questioning, there was no, it was just some, a few little papers, and the priest signed, and all was well. It was done, it was over the end.
And I am remarried now. We were remarried in the church, like, it's okay. You know, you have, nobody wants to see you hurt, nobody wants your child in that situation. That's not good for anybody, not even the Catholic Church, so.
I think you touched on something that's also like really deeply programmed into a lot of us around religion and our whole pattern and structure of beliefs and what that means about us. If we take certain actions and the shame that, and the judgment that we'll feel from these people that we look up to or that we have this belonging with. And feel like that's also such a common reason why people stay in these situations. And it sounds like it was a really big part of your story. Is that something that looking back, if you hadn't perhaps been raised in that religion, that maybe you would have seen things differently?
I absolutely would have. I would have probably been out of that marriage. Probably when my son was two years old instead of 17.
Yeah.
Because it was something that held me. It was something I took very seriously. And I didn't want to disappoint my grandma. And I didn't want to disappoint my priest. But I was also the people pleaser. You know what I mean?
And this is an aspect that I think a lot of people don't pay enough attention to. And I was just talking to this, about this with somebody the other day, is that because of who I was, because I was, I didn't know what a people pleaser was or a codependent. But because I was so desperate to find somebody to love me for, I was seeking external validation for my self worth.
While he was seeking external validation that he was this, you know, tough stuff that he didn't really think he was. It was kind of ironic how it all played together and we served each other's purpose in such a dysfunctional and awful way. But, you know, having that background is what set me up for that.
It was like handing me over on a silver platter to a narcissist. Whereas, you know, my biological father had two children with his wife that because my parents were never married together. And, like, my sister, I look at her. She was raised with two parents who wanted her and loved her and had, I mean, I hate to use the word normal, but she was encouraged and, you know, developed very well. She is very confident and she is assertive and she is intelligent. I admire so much about her.
She would have never even entertained my ex-husband like I did because she had boundaries. One interaction with him, she would have been like, no, have a nice life. See you later. Whereas me, I'm just like, oh, he's a lou-fin-air. I must have done something to displease him.
Please like me. Please like me. I'll do anything you want me to do. I'll jump through every hoop. Like, you know, just please give me attention. Please like me. Two different people.
You know, so it's kind of interesting. And you might even have this in families where, you know, the children were raised by the same parents because there's this idea that if you're raised by the two same parents in the same house, you must all be alike. You might have a lot of similarities, but, you know, I love Dr. Gabor Matei.
I don't know if anyone listens to him, follows him, read his books, but he's brilliant. And he was a victim of child abuse himself. But he says you don't have the same parents because when your parents had you, they were in a certain place in their own lives and their own emotional and mindful development.
If there was any or their phase of self-awareness, whereas when they had the next one, they were in a different place. There might be social issues that were present at the time, stresses, work situations, financial situations at the time of each birth. Whereas one child got a little more of this or a little less of that or whatever it was.
So we don't really have the same parents. So it's very interesting when you look at your childhood really does, I mean, they say by about when you're seven years old, you're basically wired for how you think about yourself, how you perceive roles and dynamics between people. And it's hard to unchange that stuff, but it is possible, but it's difficult.
It's just the way the brain develops. You had talked about your struggle with being a people pleaser. And that's something that I work with, you know, with clients, a topic that's like really prevalent for me.
So can you speak to that? How did you, first of all, how do you feel like you became that people pleaser? And then how did you begin to recognize that those were behaviors that you were struggling with and then start to change that?
Because it's so apart, it's so ingrained in us.
Oh, you're not kidding. You're not kidding.
It's so difficult to shift. So can you speak to that?
It is very hard. Yes, I mean, I think absolutely again, people pleasing goes back to your childhood. You know, it's no doubt that having a mother and a stepfather who denied me even the sense of belonging and that sense of safety and security, like I just felt like I was stripped of all of that basic stuff, that all I wanted was to strive to do more.
What can I do to get their attention? What can I do to make them proud of me, to make them pleased with me? I was the ultimate overachiever, the high honor roll.
They wanted to move me up two grades in grade school because I was way too smart because I had to be first chair in the orchestra, and then I joined another orchestra and was first chair in that one. And I taught myself to play piano and I had to be the best in this sport and that sport. And everything that I did, I wanted them to be pleased with me. I wanted them to say, that's my daughter. We're so proud of her. Good job. Pat on the back, Dana. And I never got it, but I never stopped trying, ever, ever. But nothing to this day and I'm 48 years old.
Not one thing. They just, I think that we get so caught up in this cycle of trying to get their approval. But what I realized looking back and what I wish people would understand is whoever that was that denied you their approval, just to go with that word, or their love or attention, whatever it was you sought to get, they didn't want to. They chose not to. They chose not to. And you will never get it.
If somebody doesn't want to give you something, even if it's your mother, even if it's your father, your brother, your husband, your whoever, they have that right. It sucks and it hurts. But, and I will say this, it's hard not to take that personally when it's just you.
Yeah.
But it's not, it's not personal. It's not personal. I can get into how it's usually unhealed trauma in their hearts and something about you that they don't like because they don't have that quality or whatever it is. So they don't want to give you, they don't want to make you think that you're better than them. They don't want you to think that you could be more than them or be successful or that you have anything. They want to keep you down so that you feel just like they do.
But that's a whole other topic. But when you look at going into adulthood and people pleasing, this absolutely 100 presents not just in romantic relationships, but at work. You know, you don't want anyone upset with you.
So yeah, I'll take on that project even though my plate is full. And your kid, oh, you want to do this, you want to do that, and they need cupcakes. Okay, sign me up for cupcakes, and I'll bring the hot dogs too, and I'll do the little party decorations, and I'll be the class mom, and I'll be, you know, you're trying to do everything for everybody, and make everyone happy with you, so that every, you know, because if everyone's happy with you, then you're okay.
Because if somebody gets upset with you, I will say me, I can't, I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle it. When did I wake up from that? It was about at the end of my marriage. My first marriage. It actually took me getting very ill.
During that time we were locked down in COVID. Right before then, I had also been diagnosed. I had been very, very ill. That's a whole story in itself. Read more about that in Gasping for Air. But I had so many unrelated symptoms.
I had so much wrong with me. Mayo Clinic ended up figuring out that it was cortisol, the stress hormone that had been running through my body for decades at such astronomically high rates that it actually caused my white blood cells that fight viruses and illnesses to eradicate themselves because they thought there was something foreign in my body. They had to get rid of it to protect me. I ended up becoming autoimmune. I was having all these random autoimmune reactions.
Then you hear the scratchiness in my voice. This is a lung disease that I developed because of the high cortisol. It's called upper airway resistance syndrome. It's very rare. It's actually for some stupid reason. It's considered a sleep disorder, but it's a lung disease. But guess what? It's not uncommon in victims of abuse. The doctor says, yeah, a neurologist would have to diagnose this, but he said it's like having fibromyalgia and COPD all at the same time. If you can imagine having the symptoms of both, that's what I was going through.
When I was going through this, I dropped to a skeletal 93 pounds, which did look great in a bikini, but it's not cute when you're 44 years old. Skeletal. I was sickly. I could barely move my muscular system, neurological, digestive, cardio, everything was literally shutting down. From stress. All from stress. Living under acute stress your whole life.
The end of 2019, my doctor sat me down and literally said that. He said, your body is shutting down, Dana. He said, if you can imagine having a generator when all the lights go out in your house and the generator comes on, but you can only maybe use your microwave and your refrigerator.
He says, that's what your body is doing. He says, it's doing everything it can to keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing. But he's like, that's why you're having vision problems. I was having TMI, but I couldn't have a bowel movement for five weeks at a time. I was going a month longer than a month without a bowel movement. I could barely move my legs.
I want people to understand something about me. I was always very active as far as exercising. Because, I mean, here we go again, childhood. I wasn't skinny enough as a childhood, even though I was actually very, very skinny. I was always being told, oh, if you eat that toast or that pancake or whatever, you're going to be fat like a middle-aged woman. You want to get fat, nobody's going to love you. So even at six years old eating a peanut butter and jelly thinking it's going to make me fat, I was like neurotic, obviously had an eating disorder.
So I went into adult life, I ran five miles every day, I coached cross-country for nine years, I ate hard-boiled eggs and apples for lunch. I was one of these health nuts, right? It did not make sense that I was having this total physical breakdown. But the reality is doctors do not ask you what your mental health is. Nobody asked me if there was something stressing me out. Nobody asked me what life was like at home, or if I had a stressful job, or what it was.
They were just concerned about throwing pills at my physical symptoms. It took finding a doctor that finally realized and sat me down and said, you know, there's obviously something going on in your life that is toxic to your physical body because of the mental angst you're enduring. Whatever it is, she goes, you don't even need to tell me.
But whatever it is, it's got, you got to stop. It's got to end because otherwise you will die. And then I have the neurologist telling me my body is shutting down. That's when I woke up from this people pleasing stuff. Because you know what? I knew that if I even thought about filing for divorce, it wasn't even just my ex or my then husband.
I didn't want, even though he'd already told his family all these atrocious things and they were disconnecting from me, I didn't want to lose my mother-in-law and his sister. My sister-in-law was my best friend. I called her for everything. We were there for each other for every major thing in life. I didn't want to disappoint her. I didn't want to disappoint grandma or my priest or whoever.
I didn't want to do this to my son. But you know what? I had to say no for once. That was my first no was saying no to the marriage. No, I cannot be with you anymore because I had to say yes to myself.
So you had to get to that place in order to finally choose yourself.
And that's what it comes down to with People Pleasing is choosing you.
Thank you so much for joining us for part one of the interview with Dana S. Diaz. And I hope you'll join us next week for part two, where we continue the conversation around what happened next in her story.
So until then, have a wonderful week. Thank you.”
From High Vibe Heather: 15. Surviving Narcissistic Abuse with Dana S. Diaz, Part 1, Aug 22, 2024
RESOURCES MENTIONED
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Dana's book, Gasping for Air: The Stranglehold of Narcissistic Abuse, can be found on Amazon.
CONNECT WITH [NAME]
- Follow her on Instagram @danas.diaz
- Find her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DanaSDiazAuthor
- Visit her website: https://danasdiaz.com/
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can DM me on Instagram @high.vibe.heather.
