Show notes
Alexandra and Brianne explore the hidden epidemic of verbal abuse. Hear Alexandra’s story of marriage, trauma, and recovery. Gain insight into how to identify and escape verbal abuse. Learn ways to process the experience and regain joy. From understanding the danger of verbal abuse to setting healthy boundaries, this podcast offers a necessary and empowering journey of healing._____If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.______To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com_____SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness._____ABOUT OUR GUEST:Alexandra Eva-May is a divorcee, podcast host, wellness warrior, mental health advocate, new mother, survivor of infertility, writer, blogger, motivational speaker and recently, a best-selling author of the book, Her Awakening. You can grab your copy on Amazon!For more info: https://www.thesplendidpath.com/_____Create and Host Your Podcast with the same host we use - RedCircle_____Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon______HOW CAN I SUPPORT THE SHOW?Tell Your Friends & Share Online!Follow, Rate & Review: Apple Podcasts | SpotifyFollow & Listen iHeart | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Amazon | PandoraSpread the word via social mediaInstagramTwitterFacebook#SecretLifePodcastDonate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)Official WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterConnect with Mark Gantt (@markgantt)Main WebsiteDirecting WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterTranscript[0:00:00] Alexandra: So for me, like, for a long time after, like, any kind of conflict with a man is just like hugely triggering. Because my experience was this will lead to someone saying these awful things to you.[0:00:18] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to see your life podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing.[0:01:19] Brianne Davis: Really, the how, what, when, where and why would it all. Today. My guest is Alexandra. Now, Alexandra, I have a question for you. Duhn, Duhn Duhn. What is your secret?[0:01:33] Alexandra: So my secret is that when I was married, I was suffering verbal abuse silently within my marriage and I didn't tell anyone that it was my secret.[0:01:45] Brianne Davis: How long did that go on for?[0:01:47] Alexandra: It was over the extent of the marriage and the marriage wasn't very long. I was married for about a year, I guess, that we were together, living together. The marriage continued. Like, we didn't get a divorce right away, but we were together for about a year and it went on throughout kind of the whole time.[0:02:03] Brianne Davis: How long were you guys together, though, before you got married together?[0:02:09] Alexandra: We were together probably before the marriage, I think it was six or seven years.[0:02:14] Brianne Davis: Oh, wow. So you waited.[0:02:19] Alexandra: We started dating when we were, I think we were like 23, 22, 23. So young. Yeah, and then we just kind of dated. We even lived together for three years before we got married. And then we got married and then it started happening. So it was crazy.[0:02:39] Brianne Davis: You know, that's so fascinating because I thought, honestly, you were going to say after you said that you guys were together for like six months and then you got together and got married and I was like, oh, did you not know the person? Because I feel like a lot of people rush into things not knowing. But you knew the person.[0:02:56] Alexandra: Yeah. And the thing with what I experienced, he could be that way with, say, friends or even family members, but he never did it to me. So in my young, immature, naive brain, I thought, well, he's not doing it to me, so it's okay. Well, he's never okay. And that would be like one thing I would say to any man or woman because it can happen to anyone.[0:03:21] Brianne Davis: Yes.[0:03:22] Alexandra: What they do to other people or what they say to other people. And in my context of man. So, like, what a man does to other people or women he will do to you in your marriage even if he's not doing it before when you're dating, it will eventually you will become the target.[0:03:38] Brianne Davis: Can you give me some examples? Because I know people are listening out there and even if they're experienced it, there's something about we downplay it to ourselves because we don't want to believe that it's happening for sure.[0:03:51] Alexandra: So when it was happening throughout my life, nobody had spoken to me like that or treated me like that ever. So when it started to happen that way, it just felt so foreign. I didn't know how to make sense of it. So again, yeah, I just kind of downplayed it in my mind. But it was subtle things. Like subtle, like sarcastic, jabs, passive aggressive comments. But it can also be really overt things. Like with him, like being called a bitch or being told, like, there's something inherently wrong with you. And so it's like these we sometimes say these things very loosely, I guess. But when it's targeted at you from the person that's supposed to love you the most, it's so unsettling and it just unsettles your idea about yourself.[0:04:34] Brianne Davis: Yeah.[0:04:39] Alexandra: It would come when there was a conflict in the relationship and he was in a place of stress and that's how he dealt with it. I understand. So for me, for a long time after, any kind of conflict with a man is just, like, hugely triggering. Because my experience was this will lead to someone saying these awful things to you.[0:04:58] Brianne Davis: Yeah. Because you guys were together for six years and you saw him call, like, other people bitches or talk bad about other people in his life or coworkers or whatever. Right?[0:05:11] Alexandra: Yeah, it could be, say, I have seen it. He would talk about not my female friends, necessarily, but, like, female sometimes that were strong will and he would say, called him a bitch. And at the time, like I said, it's not okay. It's never okay to use that language towards anybody, especially women. But like I said, I was young, I was naive, I was in love. And I kind of was like, oh, well, he doesn't mean it. He doesn't actually believe it. But now, looking back, he probably did. And eventually I became the target.[0:05:50] Brianne Davis: So why do you think that happened? Because you were finally, completely committed to him and, like, the marriage. Do you even remember the first time it happened?[0:06:01] Alexandra: Sort of like I kind of do. Yes, actually, I do. It was about, I think, three months in and I can't remember the specific incident. It's crazy. I can remember because it led to trauma. I can very much remember how I felt. And I can relive moments of the moment, but I can't remember all the details, which is kind of interesting.[0:06:24] Brianne Davis: Not really, because we black it out when there's trauma or ptsd, when there's, like, a bad breakup or bad toxic relationship that creates trauma in our body, and we cut off some of our memory to make it easier for our psyche to handle.[0:06:40] Alexandra: Yeah. Three months in. Like I said, it just is so foreign. And it's just like, all of a sudden, it's like being hit without being hit, and then you have this invisible wound, but no burgess to show for it. That's how I kind of look at it. So it kept happening. And then eventually, when we did split up, I had so much trauma. And I just thought it was from the end of my marriage, because it was quite sudden, which was very it was traumatic itself. But there was so much trauma for years that was just about the verbal abuse. And I didn't realize that actually till like, a year ago when I was having I would have sometimes conflict with my partner, which we do. Like in a relationship, we have conflict. And I would have these massive overreactions.[0:07:28] Brianne Davis: Over hysterical historical hysterical historical.[0:07:37] Alexandra: Classic trauma reactions. Like, I would need to go to an enclosed space. I would close the bathroom door. I would flee, get a fight fight or flight fight.[0:07:53] Brianne Davis: I always ran to the bathroom and shut the door whenever I was in conflict.[0:07:58] Alexandra: Yeah. And then it would get to the point. Also, sometimes I would fight. I would just react extreme. And then I just sat in that and we sarah and he was like, Why am I reacting? And I realized I still had a lot of trauma to work through. And my trigger, like I said, was a conflict with any man, because with ix, I would either be called back or I would just avoid conflict altogether to avoid kind of that aggression coming at you. Yeah. And for him, he dealt with stress, like I said, anxiety and anger by lashing out. I'm not saying it's okay, but it helped me understand the whole experience, I guess.[0:08:41] Brianne Davis: Do you know if his parents fight like that or he was raised well.[0:08:47] Alexandra: His story his dad wasn't around, and I'm not sure, growing up how his family relationship was, but I would imagine he thought somewhere that it became okay.[0:09:02] Brianne Davis: Or when it became normalized.[0:09:05] Alexandra: Yeah. And in his life, too, because, like I said, I would sometimes see it with friends or whoever, and people kind of they didn't expect it from us, but they just are like, oh, that's just like him. It's okay. It's just him. And I think sometimes with people that have damaging behaviors or toxic behaviors or abusive behaviors, there's not enough people that say it's not okay.[0:09:29] Brianne Davis: Usually it's hard. It's hard. I think, when you just said earlier, and I want to go back to it, that it was like getting punched, but you don't see the bruise. And that's what I always say, like, those toxic behaviors, those toxic relationships when they're not physical, not that either is worse than the other, but it's like a million little cuts that you don't see that you're killing yourself with. Like someone's doing these little cuts all over you and you're bleeding out and you have no idea, and you can't see it 100%.[0:10:04] Alexandra: And I'm a big reader. I try to reading things. And after our relationship ended, I read this book. I think it's called The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans. I believe that's the title. And she listed off all these different ways someone could be verbally abusive. And some of it's like that outright swearing at you, that kind of thing. But it's like little stuff, like yeah, like sarcastic comments about any kind of aspirations you have, or passive aggression or stonewalling gas lighting. Gas lighting. It's all kind of part of that. And I realized he didn't check off all the boxes, but it was a lot more than I even realized myself. And when I actually sat down and I remember one day after I wrote in my journal everything, I could remember all the different things he had said. And I couldn't believe the list that I compiled because I think in the moment when it was happening, I just tried to not black it out, but forget it real fast. The secret, I guess I didn't tell anybody till after because I was really ashamed. So I think and I think this is for, like, a lot of abuse survivors, whether it's physical or emotional, financial or verbal, we feel shame because we actively, I guess, chose this relationship.[0:11:25] Alexandra: We've got along with it, and even though someone's treating us badly, we continue to stay.[0:11:31] Brianne Davis: Yeah.[0:11:32] Alexandra: And so there's a shame that you're continuing to stay because abuse isn't black and white. Like this person that's doing these awful things. When you're being abused, you don't look at them as, like, a monster. You look at, like, their behavior. Like, this is like when you make.[0:11:45] Brianne Davis: Excuses and you, oh, he had a bad day at work. He lost his job. We couldn't pay that bill. You always make excuses and then you try to turn towards the moments. Oh, but he was so loving the day before. Or, he bought me that sweater or something. Yeah.[0:12:02] Alexandra: And if you have money I realized in this episode, I even made excuse. I was like, when he was stressed, he would do this. Which is kind of an excuse because.[0:12:08] Brianne Davis: It'S never yeah, you said it three times. She said it three times. You're still trying to justify the abuse. And you're like, I know, I understand. He's probably going through a lot. And it's like, no, he didn't.[0:12:26] Alexandra: Even pass that. I realized what he did and that it was wrong. And sitting here making excuses. So I think you feel shame, or at least I did, because well, first of all, if you tell people, if you start telling people they're going to tell you to leave, they're going to right away say leave. And maybe you're not in a position to leave, whether it's like kids or whatever.[0:12:46] Brianne Davis: And financial.[0:12:49] Alexandra: You'Re just, like, not ready to throw in a towel or something.[0:12:51] Brianne Davis: Or a love addict. There's a lot of people that stay in those relationships because they're addicted to that person.[0:12:58] Alexandra: Yeah. And for me, well, I was raised in a Catholic family, so I had that. We were married, and I wasn't super young, but I was, like, 29, which is young, is in the marriage sector. I wasn't 50 or anything. So I also felt like I couldn't leave because I just sort of gotten married, and I felt like I was young to be going through a divorce. And there was a lot of shame with a divorce itself. And I felt so shamed that someone was treating me like this. And I let it be okay, sort of because I didn't leave.[0:13:35] Brianne Davis: Yeah, but here's the thing, and I also is it because you were just married, too? Because it happened pretty quick. Usually it doesn't happen so fast.[0:13:45] Alexandra: Yeah, that was kind of crazy because.[0:13:48] Brianne Davis: I remember someone that was in a bad relationship and they just got married, and she's like, we just spent all this money on the wedding. And I was like, who cares? But it's hard to tell someone when they're wanting something to work so badly.[0:14:02]…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
