New Life LIVE

Generic Voiceover: Welcome to the New Life Live Podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God’s word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let’s go to today’s episode.

Brian Perez: It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Welcome to New Life Live. I’m your host, Brian Perez. No, I’m not going to change my shoes or anything like Mr. Rogers used to do, but hey, thanks for joining us this hour. I’m here with the bros, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists Mark Cameron and JJ West, LMFT squared for you algebra students. JJ, what’s on your mind to begin today?

JJ West: It’s so good to be on. You know what’s on my mind is those hidden problems that we don’t know are a problem until it feels like it’s too late or until it becomes a bigger problem. For instance, recently we had a plumbing leak that we didn’t know was happening.

There were some signs but not very strong signs. Then the big sign happened where there was a leak on the floor. Now it’s unavoidable. Now you can see it, you know that there’s a problem, and now that problem has to be addressed immediately.

It kind of goes to something that happens for us internally, emotionally, and psychologically. We often have things that are going on inside of us that we are unaware of. We’re not paying attention to. Later on, there’s something, some activating event or person that brings it into the forefront where it’s unavoidable. Now I have to deal with it because I can’t hide it anymore. I’m not even aware that I was hiding it. It’s not hidden anymore.

The reason why I bring this up is that it’s really important for us to be doing the good work of self-examination. Paying attention to what’s going on inside of us. Not just going throughout my day, doing my activities, and getting my work done, but paying attention to what’s happening inside of my heart. Where are the leaks? Where are the points of pain?

Where are the places that they’re festering in the dark? Like when you have that leak in the wall or under the cabinet and it’s been happening for a while. If you tended to it early on, it would have been a fairly easy repair. But if you let it go and you’re not attending to these things, it becomes a much bigger problem later on.

So this is my call, my charge to each one of us, myself included. Am I examining my heart on a regular basis and recognizing those leaks, those points of pain, those anxieties, those depressions that are going on inside of me? Am I recognizing them and then bringing them into the light? Bringing them into community? Talking with others in a healthy way that says, "Look, I need to expose these broken places in me and not leave them hidden in the cabinet or behind the wall." I need to bring them out so that I can do the repair work with others within community so that it doesn’t become a bigger problem later on.

Brian Perez: Sometimes it’s not easy to do that because with hectic work schedules and balancing, especially if the kids are younger and having to do all that and just trying to navigate life in general, but it’s important.

Mark Cameron: Yeah, sometimes not everything is hidden either. Sometimes we just neglect the signals. We dismiss them or we don’t want to deal with them and we move on. I was just watching a documentary last night with my wife about a church leader who had multiple opportunities. People gave him feedback to correct a problem, and it went on for years, decades, and he didn't do it. Then it came out in such a big public way that ended up being very painful for him because he did neglect the signals that were coming in from people.

We all need trusted people in our lives who can give us feedback accurately so that we can learn to adjust.

Brian Perez: Great opening comments from JJ West and Mark Cameron today on New Life Live. We’re going to take a quick break and then we’ll get to the calls. We’ve got Kay, Lynn, Julian, Melody, and David. We’ll get to all of you in that order. I don’t know, but we will talk to you guys. Stay on hold. Don’t hang up. This is New Life Live.

Generic Voiceover: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today’s program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: To the phones we go. Here is Kay in Colorado Springs. This is her first time calling New Life Live. How’d you find out about us?

Kay: Hello, can you hear me? You have YouTube mostly, but it’s been many years that I’ve been checking online here and there.

Brian Perez: And you decided to call today. So what prompted your call?

Kay: Well, we were talking about finding your adult voice. I am a retired professional and in that role, I had to communicate in writing with coworkers and other businesses. It was professional, rational, and controlled. That was a comfortable environment.

I kind of use that in my personal relationships. I can’t confront someone in person, but I can really put it down in writing. First of all, I have the time to clarify my thoughts and feelings and try to be concise. But the other thing is it insulates me from what they’re going to say. If I talk to them in person, they’re going to challenge me, they’re going to react angrily, and I’m going to cave in.

It comes from my mom and my dad. My mom was a rageaholic and my dad was basically a doormat. In hindsight, it was a very brave and strong position for him, but it didn't teach me how to be assertive in any way or have any kind of boundaries. In my later adult life, I’ve kind of tried some of this, but it just really hasn't been successful at it. When you’re dealing with a person who’s not really rational either and isn't open to negotiating or compromising, confronting that kind of brick wall, I just have no idea how to approach it.

Mark Cameron: Is there somebody in particular, Kay, that you’re thinking of as that brick wall that’s hard to talk with?

Kay: Well, my mom was of course impossible. Any challenge to her was met with rage. My sister is similarly just doesn’t want to talk about anything. We’ve been estranged for 20-some years. Roommates over the years, here and there, and friends. I have not had a successful friendship or relationship of any kind in my adult life.

Mark Cameron: Kay, you talked about your mom being a rageaholic and your dad being a doormat, but then you said in some ways that was strong. Can you explain that, how you believe that that was strong?

Kay: Well, in hindsight, I learned to respect my dad’s self-restraint and self-control. It wasn't really a healthy response in many ways, but it was more godly than responding in kind with rage of his own. But he grew up with a very domineering mom, so that was the behavior that he had learned.

Mark Cameron: Right, so he learned. I don’t know if it’s really healthier. I know you used the word godly there. Sure, it’s less destructive, you being destructive to a person, but it’s not protective of other people who we should be protecting.

I see this experience with people often in therapy when they have one parent, and oftentimes a mom, who rages and the dad kind of is the doormat and gives in and rolls over. The child then connects with the dad’s experience. Like, we’re both helpless here, so we both have a shared experience.

But really, he was the other parent in that relationship. He should have stood up to your mom. There’s many ways that you can stand up to somebody who’s raging in a healthy way. Typically, if somebody is out of control, the first thing to do before you engage them in any type of conversation that you hope to be rational is to create a boundary and to move away and say, "Hey, it seems like this is important to you and I’d like to talk about it, but I’m not willing to be yelled at or raged at, so I’m going to walk away and I’m going to come back and I’m going to check in again."

If your dad had showed you how to do that, if he had modeled for you how to do that, I think you get it too. You probably would have those skills. What happens is every time you get that pushback or you think about getting pushback, you go back to that small childlike space of, "Uh-oh, I’ll be facing my mom again and there’s no way to face someone because it’s just an impossible situation."

In truth, there are ways to learn. You didn’t learn, just like your dad didn’t learn from his dad, it sounds like, because his mom was like that too. The way to recondition is we need to have a new experience. I was talking about this on another show, that oftentimes with clients in therapy, when they have a hard time pushing back against someone, I find out who the difficult person is in their life, I have them describe them to me, and then I roleplay with them.

I have them be the difficult person first and I model for them ways to push back or ways to hold a healthy boundary and communicate in a secure way. Then we flip and we change roles. We just keep on practicing that because that part of your brain, the amygdala, only learns through experience. You need to have a new experience to learn how to do that. I like that you’re taking time to write your thoughts down, but you also need to be able to have that experience in the present space to be able to speak that out because right now it sounds like you’re going to this freeze state. It’s appropriate and it’s actually adaptive to be able to have a stand-your-ground response. Not necessarily a fight response in the way that your mom did, but to have a stand-your-ground response as a healthy one.

JJ West: I really like that, Mark. Thank you for sharing that. Kay, I would add to that part of your learning to stand your ground and learning this new way of responding in person that’s so different than in writing. When you can write a letter or send an email, you can think through what you want your response to be, what you anticipate their reactions to be, and you can craft it in such a way.

But when it’s face-to-face in person, that’s where it feels really risky because what if I say the wrong thing? What if they back me into a corner or they argue away all of my ideas? It feels like it’s really intense. Or maybe just their sheer presence. If they’re yelling or they’re intimidating in some way, that can feel very scary and intimidating.

But what I love about what Mark is saying is this idea of stand-your-ground response is that I don’t have to give you an answer in the moment. I don’t have to come up with my response right now. I can say either, "One, I’ll come back when you’re able to speak with me in a more kind and rational way," or, "I’m going to take what you’re saying into consideration, I’m going to think about my response, and I’ll come back and talk with you later." I don’t have to give the answer right then.

Sometimes that can help you to be able to not shrink back, not to hide from those conversations or give in, but be able to take the time to craft your response. By the way, you’re kind of in good company. Paul was accused of this. In his writing, people would say, "Oh, he’s very forceful in his letters, but when he’s in person, he’s not." Part of that actually is a good thing that you’re able to be compassionate, you’re able to be relational in person, but that doesn’t mean that I have to concede whatever the other person wants simply to stay in relationship with them. I can take the time to think through my response and come back and continue the conversation later.

Mark Cameron: Finding your adult voice is something you write about in your book, *Understanding Your Attachment Style*. We all need to learn how to grow up and be an adult and be an adult around other people. Oftentimes when we get, especially around family, we fall back into the family dynamic and old family roles. You might be the boss at work and be a decision-maker, but then you can feel like a little child again if you’re the youngest born.

Learning to go back to the original wound or the original place and learning to stand up, I often tell this to people. When you can do something at the highest level, you can do it then at all the levels below that. Sometimes that’s not the best place to start, but knowing that ultimately when you can get to the person in your life that is a parent, now that you’re an adult, if you can learn to stand up to them where the original wound came from, you’re much more likely to be able to do it then with everyone else around you.

Brian Perez: Kay, thanks for calling us today on New Life Live. Mark’s book is available in the New Life.com store. Let’s talk to Lynn, who listens in Los Angeles on KKLA. Hi Lynn, welcome to the program. How can we help you?

Lynn: Hi. I’m in my mid-70s and I have been struggling a great shocking reoccurrence of dreaming very heavily. It’s been more constant in the last 30 years, which is shocking to me because it is about my husband that had abandoned our marriage 30 years ago. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this. I had to go back to college to get proactive about the surprise abandonment issue. My heart broke and shattered, but the fact is, why am I still, why is this still happening? Even this morning, I woke up at 3:00 this morning with that very thick feeling that I was still married to him.

JJ West: So in other words, you’re having to relive the abandonment over and over in these dreams for the last 30 years?

Lynn: It’s been coming consistently. I went back to school in my 50s. I knew that I was broken, but I did know that I needed help. I have been with two strong Christian mentors that have been working with me for the last 27 years. At the same time, I did a lot of, I finished my college education in psychology and then I went into nutrition and then I went into neuroscience. I knew that I couldn't just plain pick myself off the ground. I needed to be proactive in ways that I geared in for a lot of things that I knew that I had broke something inside me felt terribly guilty.

JJ West: Something inside of you felt terribly guilty about the abandonment?

Lynn: Oh, yeah. That was a frustration for my husband probably for years and years because the fact that I had a broken childhood.

Mark Cameron: Did you have abandonment in your childhood too, Lynn?

Lynn: I was kidnapped for seven years and taken 3,000 miles across the country. The FBI found me after I had learned in another school. I kept being pushed to different schools so nobody would know what was happening. A police officer came into that classroom one day and he showed an instrument in front of the classroom. I’d never seen one before. I was in sixth grade and he said, "This is called a telephone, and if you ever need help, this is what you do," and he showed me how to use the telephone. So that’s when I found a way to get help.

Mark Cameron: Wow, so you were taken at four years old then. You were very young. Were you kidnapped by a family member, Lynn?

Lynn: Yes. It was my father.

Brian Perez: All right, Lynn, we’re coming up to a break, so don’t hang up. We want to continue our conversation with you and we’ve got some other callers on the board: David, Julian, Melody. We want to talk to all of you before this hour is finished.

Hey, thank you so much for joining us today on New Life Live. If you happen to have stumbled upon our radio show or podcast, we are here Monday through Friday. We have a new episode every day, and we open up the phone lines so that you can call in and talk about what it is that you’re struggling with. These could be issues in your past, they could be issues in your present. A lot of times the issues in your present have to do with your past, as in Lynn’s case. So we’ll continue talking to Lynn and to all of you when we come back here on New Life Live.

Generic Voiceover: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today’s program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: And back to Lynn in Los Angeles. You still with us, Lynn?

Lynn: Yes.

Mark Cameron: Yeah, Lynn. So I wonder if some of that guilt that you’re feeling is guilt from turning your father in. What do you think about that?

Lynn: Yes, very much so. I should mention I worked with Henry Cloud, John Townsend, and Stephen Arterburn when this all began when my husband and I were very committed to working with them. Yet, at the same time, my payments can only go so far for things like that. After 15 years, I knew I needed to head back to college just do things, but that guilt of turning my father in. I remember standing as if it was two seconds ago standing in a courtroom because by the time the FBI found me, I was mute. I couldn’t speak. But I had to stand in the courtroom and shake my head and point to the person that had violated me several times every weekend for seven years. That was not hard for me to do. I knew because of his threats that he would say that my sister siblings would be six feet under if I ever said anything. The threats were very typical, but the problem with it was he was doing wrong and that to me felt I had to stand up against it.

Mark Cameron: Yeah, wow. So you’ve been through some deep trauma here, Lynn. During our sleep cycle, our brain processes information, but it happens in the subconscious. We don’t remember every single dream, but sometimes we do remember our dreams and sometimes they can be really weird and wacky and we’re like, "Well, why did my brain go there?"

What happens during sleep, especially when we go into our deepest levels of sleep and you’ve probably heard about this, our REM cycle and our eyes move back and forth very rapidly. That’s our brain moving information around. It’s just processing the information from the day. Now, what’s happening for you is you’re not maybe necessarily thinking about this consciously about your experience with your husband or your dad throughout the day, but something is connected in those pathways that are being triggered in the subconscious and so then your brain is trying to make sense of it.

There’s a therapy called EMDR. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. What that therapy does is it helps you consolidate these memories because all of our brain’s pathways are connected to multiple other pathways. All it takes is just the association of one of those things whether that’s a thought or a smell or a environment, whatever it is. It just takes one of those to trigger the rest of the neural pathway and not all the time does that happen in conscious awareness. So EMDR is a way to be able to consolidate all of those thoughts and memories and it moves it from one part of the brain into long-term storage. So if you haven’t heard of that or if you haven't done EMDR, I think that would be a great tool to explore using to see if that can help you consolidate those memories and help your sleep.

JJ West: Agreed wholeheartedly, Lynn. I’m so sorry that you’ve faced so many traumas, but that’s exactly right. I think you’re still trying to process the trauma and it keeps being retriggered. EMDR would be a great place to start or ART, which is Accelerated Resolution Therapy. Both of those are designed specifically to help you process trauma so that you’re not constantly being retriggered and having to experience the trauma, being retraumatized over and over, which is what it sounds like you’re experiencing at night when you have all these dreams.

Lynn: Yes. And if I can ask you what I found out and keep finding out is when my husband did abandon, he was already speaking to several of our good friends about that I had mental illness. He kept spreading that around. Then he disappeared for a year and then 12 years later I received divorce papers where he was. The whole thing just became it was not truthful. There was so many things and I kept finding myself, "I’ve got to do my own work. I can’t look at all these wrongful hardships that both family members and my husband were part of." But the fact is that it was so strange when I went into the neuroscience and I started I developed my own program to help people because I knew that, I’m searching to the choir here, it turns out that when we’re so eager to help other people, we’re really trying to help ourselves.

JJ West: Oh, yeah. So many of us end up in the field for that very reason. We’re chasing our own demons, but that’s part of the trauma that you’re needing to heal from is the repeated untruth, the lies that have been told to you either by a father or by a husband or to other people. That’s part of the trauma that needs to be healed. So again, we’d recommend EMDR.

Mark Cameron: And there’s other connections there with the disappearing for 12 years, I’m sure when your dad went to prison, that was a type of disappearing. Then when he took you from your mom, there was a type of she disappeared in a way. So I see the connections to these pathways.

Brian Perez: Thank you for calling us today, Lynn. And if everyone listening and watching can keep Lynn in prayer because of all the stuff that she’s gone through over the years. Man, that is a lot. God bless you, Lynn. Thanks for calling in today. We’ve got Julian and Melody coming up, and it’s time for us to go to break, so we’ll talk to you when we come back here on New Life Live. Bookmark our website, lots going on there at New Life.com.

Becky Brown: Hello, it’s Becky Brown. I am so excited to launch our 99-for-the-1 partner initiative. Every day, we hear from people all over the world who are looking for hope. They’ve been lost in a relationship struggle, addiction, anxiety, depression, all kinds of ways. And it reminds us of the story in Luke 15 where the shepherd leaves the 99 to go rescue the one. And you know, we’ve seen God work in the lives of so many people over the years here at New Life, and we want to invite you to be part of what God is doing. 99-for-the-1 is our partner program that you can give to the ministry on a monthly basis to make sure that we continue to reach out to the lost. Call 1-800-NEW-LIFE, 1-800-639-5433, or New Life.com/99-for-1.

Generic Voiceover: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today’s program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Julian in Kearney, Nebraska. You with us?

Julian: Yes.

Brian Perez: Hi, Julian. Thanks for watching us on YouTube and thank you for calling into New Life Live. You’re on with Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists Mark Cameron and JJ West and Melody. Don’t hang up, we’re going to talk to you as well. But Julian, hi, welcome.

Julian: Hi. I’m going to read my question because I kind of had it prepared so that it’s more collected. Is that okay? Okay. Little background. My 70-year-old mother, she’s had issues her whole life: anxiety, depression. She’s never gotten counseling. Very rigid, always feels people have to be like her, although she’s not a selfless person. So anyway, doesn’t attend church although she says she’s Christian. There have been questionable and mean behaviors over the years that have changed my relationship. I’ve created distance, but me being a Christian, I try to give a benefit of the doubt.

I see her several times a year. We meet up for lunch or whatever. I thought she was doing better the last couple of years. But she does kind of talk still negatively like in front of my kids about other people, which I’m uncomfortable with. So anyway, I invited my parents over to my house the weekend before Christmas because my husband and I and my high schooler were going to go out of state to visit my son for Christmas. My parents don’t travel or do anything so they don’t go anywhere to visit, so that’s why they’re not included in any of that by their choice.

She seemed fine when she was here at our house, pleasant, we had a good time. I always treat them well when they come: nice food, gifts, nothing extravagant, but thoughtful things. So then when we went on our trip, I included them by sending photos and she would respond. One of the days I called her to tell her all the things we did. Then we were on our way home, driving home on the last day, and she had called and I didn’t pick up because I was doing something in the car. But then my voicemail popped off and I was appalled when I was listening to the voicemail.

She didn’t know that the phone had just that was still connected and she was telling my dad, like making fun of the photo I had sent earlier of this dinner we were at, and called me and my child lazy things, said those lazy things, still running around California. Then at the end, she had this evil laugh and said, "They’re still running around, that crazy B," and called me the B-word.

Mark Cameron: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Does your mom know that this happened?

Julian: Well, I think she does because my dad changed the subject when she called me a name and I could hear them talking about other things and then she came closer to the phone and then like it got quiet and then hung up. I haven’t heard a word from her, which she would have wanted to be nosy and be like, "When did you get home?" She would have been calling us and she hasn't. So I think she knows.

It was just a week or so ago, last week. I talked to my pastor female friend, I’ve spent time in scripture. I don’t want a relationship with her. It’s not like this is one thing, but like that kind of jealous hatred of me and my child. I’ve been nothing but kind. I’ve given her grace. She wasn't always the best person growing up either. But like I feel like since she knows I heard it, originally I was going to call her, but now I kind of feel like I just want to move on. She knows what she did. Is that okay to do?

Mark Cameron: Did your child hear the voicemail as well?

Julian: No. I hid it from them. But I did tell my adult son about it. I called him a couple days later because I wanted him to be aware in case she contacted him and he was telling me like there’s different times she’ll kind of call him and complain about something my aunt’s doing. She’s always jealous of everyone else and she’s obviously been fake to me. She was at my house acting like we had fun. I was shocked. Even though I know she’s a mean person, I was really shocked to hear her call me such a name.

Mark Cameron: How painful for your parent to use those words about you, make fun of you. It sounds like she typically calls you or gets in contact with you regularly or at least she and your dad might. I think it’s okay to create distance or to allow distance to occur. Because it sounds like they’re going to contact you sooner versus later and maybe she might even have your dad contact you just to check in first.

But I think it’s okay to gather your thoughts and think about how you’re going to respond to your mom. And see if she calls you. Then when she calls you, if she just tries to shoot the breeze as if nothing has happened, I would let her know, "Hey mom, when you called me the other day, the phone stayed on and I heard a good two minutes of your conversation with Dad after that and there was some very hurtful things that were said and I want you to know that I heard that."

And then allow space. Give her the opportunity to see if she’s going to address that. Is she going to repair that with you? Is she going to apologize? And prepare to answer if she does, then I think both ways you can still talk about how hurtful that is. Of course, she apologizes and repairs and attempts to repair with you then she gives you the space, she gives you the opportunity to hear you out. And if she doesn’t, if she gets defensive, then it’s okay to say, "I’m really hurt right now and I’m not really sure what to say and I think I need an apology and a repair to move forward here. So I’m going to take some time and I’m going to think about how we’ll move on in our relationship." Allow that tension. I think allowing that tension is okay because eventually, she will know that potentially other family members know and hopefully she’ll have guilt will kick in that she did wrong and that she needs to come toward you.

Julian: I do want to say I overheard her like a month ago and she kind of said something about me again to my dad, but she was in the middle of a stressful situation looking for some lost dog. So I did tell her that I heard what she said and she did deny it to me and tell me that I heard wrong.

Mark Cameron: This was a different time, not this time.

Julian: Yeah, it was a different situation, but you have this recorded. She’s got receipts. So there’s no deniability about it.

JJ West: To Mark’s point, it’s not just an apology that you need. There needs to be a repair. The relationship, this isn't just a one-time event, this is a series of mistreatments, of unloving. You’re not required to stay in relationship with someone who’s abusive, so you don’t owe that to her. I think it’s also important as Mark said that you prepare because this conversation is going to happen at some point. There’s going to be a point where she or your dad call. So prepare now. Be thinking about how you want to communicate to her that you’re not willing to continue with the relationship the way that it is, the way that it has been.

That there needs to be some changes because she said some hurtful things, some very hurtful things, and you heard them. There’s no denying that, so we’re not going to play the game of, "Oh, you misheard me, you misunderstood, oh I didn’t mean it that way." No, we’re not playing any of those games. What you said hurt, it matters, and in order for us to have a healthy relationship, there needs to be a repair. Which includes certainly an apology for the offense, but it also includes how I’m going to change moving forward to live in a healthy relationship with you. That I’m going to be careful with my words, that I’m going to be truthful in the way that I interact with you rather than saying one thing to your face and then saying something totally different behind your back to other family members or to other people. That needs to happen in order for us to have a healthy relationship. So you want to think through how you want to say that to her and what boundaries you want to put in place until she’s willing to do that.

Mark Cameron: The repair sets the stage to address the relational dynamic and hopefully she’ll be more open to it if she’s in a posture of feeling guilt and knowing that she did wrong and knowing that she needs to come to you and apologize.

Brian Perez: I wonder if there’s also part of Julian’s mother who’s thinking, "Wow, Julian must have told the whole family what I did," if she heard the whole message when she came to realize that, "Oh, this might have been caught on the voicemail."

Mark Cameron: Sometimes we’ve got to sit in that tension of the unknown to really drive us to repair and address the things in our lives that are issues that we need to work through.

Brian Perez: Julian, thanks for calling us today here on New Life Live. We’ve got to take a break and then Melody, if you could just hold on tight for a couple more minutes, we will talk to you about the question that you’re calling in about. Can’t wait to talk to you here on New Life Live. I’m Brian Perez, here with Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists Mark Cameron and JJ West. You can find out more about us at New Life.com and don’t forget to follow us on social media too, including our YouTube channel. God bless you guys. We’ll be right back.

Generic Voiceover: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today’s program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Melody is with us on the phone. She listens to New Life Live in Pasadena on 99.5 KKLA. Hey Melody, welcome to New Life Live.

Melody: Hello. Yes, I’m calling because I have a question. How do I deal with a 24-year-old daughter? She moved away three years ago. Her twin sister is getting messages about how these boys are abusive and has left her somewhere. Maybe two years ago, she got assaulted and raped, but she continues to stay in the situation. They’re using some type of drugs, and I know for sure alcohol. Part of me wants to like, the first year, we went out there trying to see if we can bring her back home. She refused to. So now it’s been three years like I said, and what do we do? And she refuses to get any rehab. No rehab, she don't want help.

JJ West: It’s so difficult, Melody, to help someone who’s refusing help. It goes back to the old adage that I say all the time on the program which is we can’t fix, change, or control others. We wish we could, so many times we wish we could step in and make someone do what we know is best for them or behave in a way that we think is best for them. We can’t fix, change, or control others. All we can work on is ourselves.

So I do think it’s important that you continue to communicate to your daughter in any way that you can, either directly or through your other daughter who’s her twin, you’re always welcome to come home. You’re always, like, we’re a safe place for you to land if you ever get tired of this life. We don’t think it’s a healthy life for you, we wish that you would choose something different, but we also love you and we want to be a safe place for you to land if you decide to change. But we can’t make that choice for you. You can’t make her choose health, you can’t make her choose recovery, rehab, any of that. What you can do is work on how you’re going to relate to her.

So part of that’s going to be that you’re continuing to pray. Continuing to pray for her, for her safety, for her recovery. That you’re continuing to be loving toward her. That doesn't mean accepting of her behavior, but it does mean accepting her, loving her. So how do I work on that? How do I communicate that to her that no matter what decisions she makes, it doesn’t change her identity and my love for her doesn’t change based on her behavior? So that’s what I would encourage you to work on because you can’t convince her to want recovery the way that you want it for her, but you can work on how you choose to relate to her moving forward.

Melody: I’ve been actually on those lines because I do listen to your program and actually as a matter of fact I did share with her twin that we’ve got to stay on it on prayer. And then I was saying to myself what you just said, can’t control, change, or what is it? Fix, change, or control others. Yeah, can’t do that. Right. So I have awareness of that, it’s just it so hurts to hear.

Mark Cameron: It’s really difficult, Melody, to watch a loved one go through something like this, to be abused, and it’s confusing. Victims often stay in the cycle of abuse because of something called trauma bonding. It’s where our stress hormones and our reward hormones they fire together at the same time and so we’re not able to discern that we’re in danger because there’s some kind of benefit that we’re getting from the relationship even if it’s unhealthy.

So it’s really confusing to others and oftentimes victims are offered a way out of the situation yet they choose to stay or we pull them out when things get really bad and then they end up going back. People can often give up on victims because they stay. But as JJ is saying, remain as that safe person in her life, continue to share your concerns not in an overwhelming way where she doesn’t want to come to you, but just stay as the safe person that you care about her, that you love her, that there’s always a path home for her to you. The hope is is that when something does go wrong and she gets some type of realization is that you’ll be the first person she’ll reach out to and you can bring her home.

JJ West: Part of the way we do that is by making sure that you have a relationship with her outside of her choices. In other words, not every conversation you have with her is centered around what she’s doing with drugs or what she’s doing in this relationship. Talk to her about her life, what’s happening, have a relationship as much as she allows because you can’t control that. But if she allows you to hear about what she’s doing at work or who her friend group is or what her hopes and dreams are, any of that, you have a relationship outside of just the trauma that she’s going through. That helps to cement that bond with you so that as Mark said when she finally gets to the end and says, "Okay, I don’t want to do this anymore," now she knows that you’re a safe person in her life.

Brian Perez: So here’s a quick question. If we can’t fix, change, or control others, how is it that like Melody’s daughter is being controlled by someone right now if she’s in this state of victimhood?

JJ West: Well, we can coerce people, but that doesn’t mean that we’re fixing or helping them. That simply means that I’m coercing you into doing what I want you to do, but that’s not a healthy relationship. Ultimately, I’m still not changing you fundamentally; I’m simply creating a scenario where you have less and less choice.

Mark Cameron: Yeah, we get stuck in the cycle of trauma bonding where we get chemically connected to someone and it feels like we have withdrawals. It’s like drugs. Cocaine, heroin, these drugs they’re not good for us, but they provide a type of reward in the brain, dopamine. Your brain doesn't determine, differentiate between whether something is healthy for us or not healthy for us. The reward chemical can go off with both.

So there’s usually when people get into controlling cycles, there’s abuse but then it’s there’s intermittent periods of rewarding, of love bombing. Especially if right after abuse might happen, sometimes the roles can switch where the person who’s the abuser controller can become so sorry and then give flowers and make all of these promises and that can temporarily switch where the person who’s in the victim role can feel like they’re on top for a moment. But they’re not, they’re really just being drawn back into the relationship. In my book, I have a whole chapter on controllers and victim attachment styles and trauma bonding and how people end up in these cycles and stay in these cycles. Part of the reward is the familiarity. If I experienced trauma in childhood, had a chaotic home that I grew up in, then the way that this chaotic person loves me, this controller loves me, feels very familiar and so my there’s neurologically my brain goes, "Oh, this seems normal, this is familiar, I’m comfortable here," and then I end up in this really unhealthy relationship.

Brian Perez: Mark’s book is called *Understanding Your Attachment Style* and it’s available for purchase there in the New Life.com store. Melody, thank you so much for calling us today here on New Life Live. And it was so great speaking with you and Kay, Lynn, Julian. Thank you all for making this program possible. We do so much here at New Life Ministries, not just the radio show, but the radio show as a podcast plus we’ve got other podcasts, we’ve got a website that we maintain, we’ve got workshops, webinars, so much more going on. You’ve got to follow us on social media to keep up with what we do, bookmark our website New Life.com. Sign up for our newsletter too, and that’s a great way to know what we’re up to. But thank you all for your support, for your prayers, not just for us but for those who call in too. For Mark Cameron and JJ West, I’m Brian Perez. God bless you guys. We’ll talk to you next time on New Life Live.

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