Episode 92: From Stockholm Syndrome, IBS and BPD to Growth

Emily Katz

Hi! I’m Emily. I’m a proud mama, disillusioned organizational consultant, aspiring change maker, yoga lover and total geek. I’m currently working as a personal consultant, offering a hybrid service of expert advice, mentoring and coaching, in order to help facilitate conscious change in women’s lives.

Social media and contact information:
www.theselfhealingconsultant.com 

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Podcast Transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were overwhelmed, irritable, borderline people come to learn, maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. My ongoing investigation of the damage self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.

Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. Theories and deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole.

Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of by trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.

Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Emily Katz. She has many roles in her life, mother, daughter, sister, and more. We'll talk about how she was drugged. And acquired Stockholm syndrome found a way to leave and how she was able to heal. Let's talk

Emily Katz, welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. I'm so glad you are here today and you have brought your four month old to join us and he has got so much to say today. I'm so glad to have both of you at this moment.

Emily Katz: [00:02:12] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And I've stepped outside and so now he's quiet. fresh air quietly come down for some reason. But Yes. we might hear him again in a minute.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:24] Yes. He may have something to say it's so hard being, we were just talking briefly about the changes and the struggles that happen when you're a mom and the things we've learned. And one of the things I thought was really interesting that you said, and kind of, we were a little bit talking about it was how much growth you've done since becoming a mom.

Emily Katz: [00:02:46] Yes. I started myself healing journey about five years ago and I became a mom two and a half years ago. So I was pretty in the thick of it as I was entering motherhood. And then that's really really into the deep end of this self-healing process, which I now know is a lifelong process, a lifelong journey, but.

Yeah, motherhood. Wow. I learned a lot about myself and I still am

Damaged Parents: [00:03:13] And it sounds like almost before you did all this healing and then there was an idea just from how you said what you said, that the healing journey you did it and it was over and now you got to be a mom and it sounds like. Then you realized, oh my gosh, this is a lifelong journey. So when you realized, oh goodness, this is a lifelong journey.

What did that feel like? And what were your thoughts?

Emily Katz: [00:03:37] Well, I mean, I did really think that healing was, there was an end destination that I would be healed at some point. that's my toddler you hear in the background.

Damaged Parents: [00:03:49] Yay. We got another one guys.

Emily Katz: [00:03:52] There's another one. Basically I did, think that I could, meet a point where I'd be healed. But then I realized that it's not the destination. It is about the journey. And  we're never ever fully healed. I mean, we're constantly changing. We're constantly experiencing, well, you know, as long as we're alive, we're experiencing things every moment.

And so there's always stuff to learn and there's always such to, you know, we never know everything and. And there's a lot to be done as well.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:21] Yeah. Thought that actually hasn't crossed my mind before it just came up for me. And I'm thinking maybe the word healing, isn't the best word, because in my mind, when I think of healing, I also think of done. But maybe we, I don't want to say, but I want to say, and maybe yet still healing is a good word.

It's just, we get to do it over and over again. What are your thoughts on that?

Emily Katz: [00:04:45] Yeah, I mean, okay, well, I can go off on a whole tangent when it comes to like language. Because I do think that language essentially creates our reality, if we use the word healing, then that's, it paints a certain picture for us. And that?

becomes a reality. And if we had a different word for it, then potentially it could be a different reality.

Not sure where I'm going with that, but,

Damaged Parents: [00:05:07] So I think what I hear you saying is depending on how I define healing. So if I think healing is. That healing ends and then I'm better than that would paint one reality. Whereas if I look at healing as a process and something that in part of the journey, then maybe that's another perception of the reality I would create in my mind.

Emily Katz: [00:05:30] Yeah. I mean, like you said, you used the word growing, right? So if we, understand that we will continuously be growing, but then growing as well is, a word that essentially, you know, like when a plant grows it, then eventually has an endpoint where it stops growing. And there's also another word that would be, I'm trying to think of a different word that we could do, but. I'll come up with it

Damaged Parents: [00:05:54] We're going to be on a journey to find a new word, I think.

Emily Katz: [00:05:57] for her. I feel I really do want to invent, like new words to certain things because I think that. There's such strong connotations with certain words like manipulation, for example, manipulation has such a negative connotation to it, but essentially everything we do, every interaction we have is sort of manipulation.

If you can have like a non negative perspective of the word. So I think that, there are a few things that we need new words for,

Damaged Parents: [00:06:22] Right. Maybe for manipulation, it could just be negotiation because negotiation has maybe a more positive connotation to it, although it could still also be scary for people who aren't comfortable. With that, the word. And I think you're right in manipulation, there's a victim predator mentality.

Whereas in negotiation there might be two equal. Hm.

Emily Katz: [00:06:48] Yep.

Damaged Parents: [00:06:49] interesting.

Emily Katz: [00:06:50] But essentially human behavior is, when you come interacting with someone and how can you even subconsciously manipulate them into, having the conversation or doing something that is that you want to do or get your needs met in whatever way. But it doesn't have to be malicious.

It doesn't have to be, a bad thing or a negative manipulation, but essentially it that's what it is.

Damaged Parents: [00:07:13] Right because everyone is trying to meet their own needs. And just in the conversation between each of us, we're trying to meet to have our needs, met and meet the needs of someone else. I mean, maybe even if we go back to right before the podcast started and you've got a four month old and he's being feisty and we're trying to figure out, okay, do we want to move forward or not?

And we come to the conclusion, you know what? We're just gonna have extra, extra participants in our podcast today. And at the same time, from my perspective, I'm like, well, it's, really up to you. And, and it worked and it worked out that we're doing okay. I mean, we, we seem to be doing well.

I mean, maybe he likes our conversation. I'm not sure.

Emily Katz: [00:08:00] Well, he can't

Damaged Parents: [00:08:01] hear.

Emily Katz: [00:08:02] He's feeding the vibe.

Damaged Parents: [00:08:03] He's feeling.  There you go. Well , you came on this podcast because you've struggled with PTSD, BPD, and IBS and alcoholism for over a decade. And. PTSD is post traumatic stress disorder. BPD. I believe you're talking about borderline personality. Hello friend. We have a new friend here.

 So could you explain how. Each of those impacted you or how?

Gosh, it just seems like a lot for me. So, um, Or how they interacted with each other to create the dynamic you were in.

Emily Katz: [00:08:45] Wow.

Okay. That's an interesting question that I never thought of before. IBS developed when I was 21 in in a relationship I was actually engaged. And for 10 months I suffered with debilitating stomach cramps and, irritable bowel. And no one could tell me what was going on. And eventually we said, okay, IBS.

I went through so many different tests and then when the day I called off the wedding, it disappeared, it just went away. So I realized then how strong the mind you know body gut connection is, it was insane. I suffered so badly. For 10 months. I couldn't work I couldn't go to school. I was still a student at the time.

I was horrible. I would just like drop to the floor in the middle of the street. It was so bad. And it turned out to be, that I was subconsciously, I guess, trying to tell myself that to something that I wasn't listening to, which was this relationship isn't right for you. Yeah, the IBS and that's when it started. And since then, whenever I get very, very stressed or anxious, probably have a flare up. And when I was, pregnant as well, hormones, I think was play a part. But um, after having babies as well I, I had postpartum anxiety as well. So that also my stomach started playing up, And before I continue, I will have to pause to pass over the baby, to my mother.

Who's just arrived and then I

can continue hopefully quietly.

 Next part of the answer to your question. So that was the IBS and then the BPD. Okay. So I was then, shortly, after the IBS thing, I actually I found myself in a very, very bad situation? I will try not to go too much into detail cause I may go off on a tangent and I don't want to obviously take up the time, but I essentially got groomed by a so-called model agent who then drugged me and kept me in his apartment for a few months.

Damaged Parents: [00:10:52] Oh, wow.

Emily Katz: [00:10:53] Yeah. Well, he drugged me and then. And then I was, basically dependent on him cause I practically overdosed and I came out of it kind of vegetated, not really with it. And I ended up having to be kind of dependent on him. And then when I started becoming more and more lucid and aware of the situation, then with all of his stories and lies, one of the, he was feeding me.

I subconsciously kind of like the Stockholm syndrome. Subconsciously I chose to believe him So that I could cope and survive the reality because it was so horrible. And then and I ended up just wanting to do more drugs to, to stay out of it and kind of escape the whole reality of it all. and So yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:36] but Stockholm syndrome, that's where you basically kind of fall in love with your captor or something like that.

Emily Katz: [00:11:43] I believe that I loved him. I believe that we were in a relationship. And I mean, one time when I tried to leave, you said he would kill me. So I stayed, but beyond that, I didn't try and escape or run away because I guess subconsciously chose to believe that I was out of choice. Although I wasn't really, so it's a little bit of a mindfuck, the post-trauma.

But at the same time when I left I finally did leave. And I was a mess, absolute mess. I was on antidepressants and antianxiety tranquilizers, sleeping pills. Like I was really in powerful PTSD rage outbursts panic attacks, night terrors I'd wake up every day, have to change the sheets. Like just, it was like sweating like.

It was just horrible, horrible. My body, like I'll get ticks. And it was just like just every, just everything went wrong. The whole system just went nuts. I was also coming off what I didn't realize at the time, what he'd given me, which was crack. He just kept playing me with crack. I was coming off that as well, just, know, cold turkey

So  I then had I guess. Like a psychotic nervous breakdown, kind of hyperventilating and such. It ended up taking to, a hospital and sorry for the screaming

Damaged Parents: [00:13:04] That's okay. Part of being a mom.

Emily Katz: [00:13:07] and ended up being diagnosed with BPD and PTSD. So the BPD was something that would have. Stemmed from childhood growing up, which also would have led to me finding myself in a situation where I wasn't able to, for example, assess, see red flags, hold on a second.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:26] Yeah.

Poor thing.

Emily Katz: [00:13:27] No he's being dramatic today, but not normally screaming. So Yeah. so basically , the borderline would have, that's like a developmental disorder that you only then diagnosed from 18 and up, but it was from emotional neglect and various other traumas over time growing up.

And then that would have also led me to finding myself in a situation where I am groomed by this guy because I trust him because I don't love myself. I say that I hated myself. So I thought I deserved it as well on some level on many levels. And, you know, so all these different things, they all kind of, factor in.

So

Damaged Parents: [00:14:10] Yeah. And that would be really hard. I mean, if you already aren't loving yourself or don't even like yourself, then it would seem to me that. There's almost this need to look for others to tell you or to validate and give you love and make you okay. Am I on the right track with that?  and so with you in that mindset, how did you have the courage to leave?

Because that would be terrifying to me. And it sounds like it was even afterwards, very scary.

Emily Katz: [00:14:43] So he was, the guy was really, really, really sick. And he had, he was sleeping, like passed out. And so I actually went to school to university, to my class he didn't really let me. Go to classes. So I missed half of that first semester, back of my third year. But he was really sick, so I managed to get away.

And then when I was in class, my mom's friend had, was here visiting and I had missed, I hadn't met up with her because I was stuck with him. And so I left the class to go and call her before she went to the airport. And she asked me the questions and I ended up kind of talking a little bit and letting a little bit of the truth, kind of slip out to her about how controlling he is and things like that.

And she is a very special woman and she can kind of smell. B.S. Like a mile away. And he said to me, Emily leave, take your stuff. Now, drive that, tell a friend that you're driving there so that they know where you are and just take a big bag, pack it full of anything that you can find that's yours and leave and never go back.

And that's what I did. I just left class in the middle and called a friend and told her I'm driving to his placement, taking my shit and I'm leaving. And that's what I did.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:02] Yeah, that took a lot of courage. And it sounds like you're really lucky that you had your mom's friend and I'm betting on some level you knew she would call you on it. Am I?

Emily Katz: [00:16:12] yeah,

probably

Damaged Parents: [00:16:13] you think so? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's really deep or that things happen for interesting reasons.

Emily Katz: [00:16:20] I believe that hundred percent. I am literally half the time. Like, I can connect the dots. I'm like, oh, that's why that happened oh that why that happened oh, that's like all the time.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:29] Yeah. Which is which I think gives, I mean, at least for me, I'm not sure for you. It gives me more trust in. That there's something greater in this universe.

Emily Katz: [00:16:40] A hundred percent ever since I launched my consulting services I have been seeing recurring numbers like on the clock, like every time, not every time, 50% of the time. Which is freakish amount of time. Like it's not coincidence plan. I like every single day I look at the time and it's 10:10, or 11:11 or 3:33 and 33 seconds.

Like it's ridiculous. At the beginning, I was really freaked out, like what is going on? Cause I'm the least. woo woo spiritual kind of person and it just kept happening. And the more and more and more like now I'm used to it. And I kind of read a little bit about it. Like, I don't know about angel numbers and things like that.

Like, I really, don't not that I'm like, I, you know, if you've been even angel numbers, that's cool. Right. But I read I'm quite a skeptic, but I see numbers like recurring numbers all the time. And I have somebody with another 16.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:32] you have something with the number 16? Is that what you said?

Emily Katz: [00:17:34] Yeah, something with the number 16. I see it all the time. I live at at the number 16 and I was born on the 16th. I started dating my partner on the eighth of the eighth, 2016. My son, both my sons were born their birth dates. Or if you add up all the numbers, they both add up to 16. And my second son was born.

He weighed four kilos to 255 crumbs, which adds up to 16 and his ID number as long

Damaged Parents: [00:18:03] Oh,

Emily Katz: [00:18:04] like.

Ever since I started noticing it, I'm like looking for it. So I'm like, okay. I knew he was going to be born on the 20th of January because when he went past the 20th, I was like, okay, it's going to be 28 because that adds up to 16, anytime on the 28 now.

Okay. Not enough to say like you think it, so then it happens. Right. But it's still freaky, like his weight and the ID number. Like

that's ridiculous.

Hmm.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:27] That's, that's crazy. Like who would have thought? So you healed through this process of, post-traumatic stress from a very scary situation on top of it, you have BPD and I'm thinking. With BPD. My understanding is you're super sensitive to emotions or is it that emotions, the emotions you have are always super intense.

What do you know?

Emily Katz: [00:18:53] I mean both.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:54] Okay.

Emily Katz: [00:18:57] I mean, I, I feel that these like labels, right. That it is just a category of certain symptoms that you see, in people and says like, okay, you also, you also, you also have it. Okay.

cool. So let's just call that X you know, so post trauma, oh, it makes you angry. It makes you have nightmares.

It makes it okay, cool. Let's call it. post trauma. Right? So with BPD, it's a series  of, you know, different symptoms. It says, I mean, Wikipedia or something said like, like they had to , get addicted to things, highly addictive kind of personality. Which that's a whole other thing by the way, addiction as well.

I think it's just a coping mechanism to self soothe right? So when you don't have anything better so that you can get addicted to literally anything and many, most of us are addicted to something, but um, I think it's like spectrum as well. Everyone's a little bit of everything on a spectrum. Right. But um, that's why I do feel that the more work that I'm doing and that I've been doing on myself, The more I'm healing these symptoms or learning to manage them or cope in different ways.

And so I'm no longer struggling with them that, you know, like it's no longer a struggle. Like I don't have my nerves anymore. I don't have rage attacks anymore. I don't have ticks anymore. I don't have, addictions, I'm going through one by one getting rid of it one by one because I'm working on it, so Yeah,

Damaged Parents: [00:20:18] So it sounds like, you're not looking at this and going, I have to do all of this right now. It's just one thing at a time and a very slow process. And I think it's interesting that you call it. Self-healing. And I would like to you to explain the idea behind self-healing versus like mental health or going to a therapist or going, you know, because it sounds like you're providing tools.

Emily Katz: [00:20:44] Yes. Firstly, just What you said before about the one thing at a time. That is literally my that's my approach. That's the way I do it. Every time I'm faced with a challenge, I consider it an opportunity. What can I learn here? How can I grow here? What is it that I'm being tendons with? and then, and it teaches me like challenges really are opportunities

and that's the way I do it. That's how I approach it. I just go one thing at a time, whenever it is. If I'm faced with that, then that's what I'm going to work on next. Okay. Now this I can see what's popping up. Okay. I'm going to face that and self healing. So self healing is a time that I came across when I found the holistic psychologist, Nicole LePera.

So she's the one that coined the term self healers and talks about self healing. And I saw that it was something that I was actually doing myself because I've been through years and years of therapy and meds and treatments and outpatient treatments and everything. And I didn't really ever have.

Too many breakthroughs. I didn't make too much progress. And all those methods and modalities. Um, And of course I'm not looking at therapy has its merits. Coaching has its merits. Meds, they have them, you know, like if you need that, then that's all good. But um, and I do think that therapy.

Especially, you do need to kind of go through the process of being the victim and being heard and being seen and being validated and kind of working through those things and talking and talking. But after about 10 years or so of talk therapy, I was like, I don't want to talk any more about it. I don't want to think about it.

I want like tools I want what's how do I, how do I fix it? Like, I need answers. I want advice. And, you, know, The therapist, can't give you advice and they're not going to give you answers, going to say, how do you feel about it? And I mean, want to punch them? So I was getting really frustrated, like really frustrated and I, am not going to go off.

So self healing. Okay. So Dr. Nicole LePera, she coined this term self healing. Basically that we are our best healers because we know ourselves better than anyone else. And at the end of the day, the answer is all within us, you know. So you can have someone to guide you to those answers. You can have someone to ask the right questions or the guiding questions, but essentially no one can answer things for you to an extent.

I mean, when it comes to like the personal, like wounding and stuff. So I immersed myself in self-help and was reading autobiographies and I was listening to Ted Talks and was listening to Tony Robbin lectures and, anything I could get my hands on really and then yoga, yoga was the big one for me. Yoga was like the catalyst,

Damaged Parents: [00:23:12] What makes you say that yoga was the biggest one for you? What was it about yoga?

Emily Katz: [00:23:19] It got me to reconnect with myself. I a month off, so I quit drinking, off the 15 years of not being able to quit, Just cold Turkey just woke up one day and I said, that's it, I'm done. And then a year later I quit smoking again, woke up one day and said I'm done. And I do attribute it to the yoga.

Yoga really, really got me too. To calm down to slow down, to listen to myself, to be okay with silence and quiet and just being present to learn how to do that. I spent my whole life just trying to avoid that and try not to be alone and with myself and with my thoughts and So yoga really got me to respect myself And my body want to respect myself and my body and my mind.

And then I go into like guided meditations and stuff like that as well in mindfulness. And, but I really do think that it was yoga was like the, turning point.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:09] And you had been trying to stop drinking and smoking before those, before yoga.

Emily Katz: [00:24:14] Yes.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:15] And

Emily Katz: [00:24:15] had like some good thins, like I had, some, a couple of months or maybe yeah, a couple of months of not drinking so much. And from the PTSD diagnosis from around that time, so 20, 21, 22, until I was 28, I drank pretty much daily.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:36] And it was more a form of self soothing from the PTSD. Do you think, or

Emily Katz: [00:24:41] escaping

habit, escaping, self soothing. Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:45] Would you say it was. In that silence in that yoga, it sounds like you got to know yourself a little bit. Well, a lot, and that feelings came up and maybe it was, I'm just wondering if it's possible that it was learning to be quiet when those feelings came up or continuing with that silence so that then maybe they weren't as scary.

Emily Katz: [00:25:08] That came with the journaling a little bit later, the yoga itself, it was more about like what I think. Again, it's a lot of subconscious things that won't have, but what I think was the biggest contributing factor was, it was a mixture of wanting to respect my body, wanting to feel, I think I just wanted it to feel better.

But to be honest, in those last couple of days, leading up to me, quitting drinking, I had a few scares, meaning like passing out of my kitchen, not being able to move really relieved when I wake up in the morning that I woke up, I had like quite a few bad moments. So I was getting really scared and really sick of it.

And I think that I got to the point where I was,  it is scary for me not to try sobriety than it is. To stay drinking. Sobriety for me had been like oh you're going to be boring. Oh you're going to be this other, like you don't know, it's the unknown fear of the unknown, huge fear of the unknown. And I think, yoga just gave me that push of like, you wanted a cost to yourself and you want to be healthy and you want to, stick around.

Damaged Parents: [00:26:15] Yeah. And those moments sound extremely scary too. And the idea is I heard you say I would be boring or without drinking things, it sounded like they, life would not be fun and it doesn't sound like that's what happened. It doesn't sound like. Boring is what happened.

Emily Katz: [00:26:35] To be honest, I was on Prozac at the time. And so when I quit drinking, the Prozac really kicks in and I think I was like in bliss mode for a good couple of months. Like I was just like euphoric, I was like, I dunno what was going on, but I've never been as happy. Now I know that's not usually the case when people quit drinking.

And I do attribute that probably to the Prozac kicking in, cause you're not supposed to drink with anti-depressants, but then I came off the Prozac and I was still very happy. It's the best thing I ever did really hundred percent. The best thing I ever did, I saved my own life.

Damaged Parents: [00:27:09] Yeah. I mean, and it goes back to like this self-healing. I mean, did you know at the time that you were self healing, that you were stepping into these, you had no idea.

Emily Katz: [00:27:20] No, I just remember it was one moment. And by the way, I may have to go soon. There's my four month old is really crying and he needs to sleep. I had a good friend and I said to her, Before I quit drinking. I said to hat that I decided I want to go back and get a master's. I want to help people maybe do social work or something.

I just, I really want to help people. I realized that this is something that's kind of, I feel like there are different moments in my careers and my life that I felt like that was the direction that I want to go in. And she said to me, how can you help other people when you can't help yourself? And that for me was like, It was the slap in the face that I, I guess I needed.

I was like, wow, how can I help other people if I can't help myself? So I then went into like overdrive of, I want to help myself, like I need to do this. I need to prove to myself that I can help myself so that I can then help other people. And so that's basically was like, she planted the seed and, and I.

Not really realizing that that's what that was doing. It just pushed me to help myself so that I can help other people. And then that's it. You do what I do whenever I have faced with a challenge or like I'm crying, it's a really crap day. And then I'm like, okay, how do I get through this?

And then how do I put it into like a post that I can help other people, like every time I'm faced with the challenge, I'm thinking, how do I then like verbalize it or what can steps be? What are the steps to get through this now? Like it really pushes me to get through things.

Damaged Parents: [00:28:45] Yeah, it almost sounds helpful, that the idea is to help other people. So then you have to investigate what is this and how can I articulate what this is? How can I put into words what this is so that other people can recognize it? That's fantastic. I know you said you might have to go soon. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and do the three things usually asked for three things, three tips or tools or things that just come to mind.

We may or may not already have talked to them that you want the podcasters. Are they listeners and the listeners to walk away with .

Emily Katz: [00:29:16] Okay. Wow. Cool. First one is curiosity, get curious, ask questions, question everything. And I mean, everything. You know, if someone is being really mean to you. Someone that you like, so you question it, why they being mean to me? Is it actually something to do with me or is it an interpretation that they have of something based on their life experiences?

That, they're projecting like, just question everything. Curiosity. So that's like my one big, big, that's like my main thing. I just questioned everything, ask lots of questions. Second is I believe that if you. don't know how something works. It's that much harder to fix it. And I don't mean like we need fixing, but I think that once we understand how the mind works, how our mind and body works together, how the whole like how the whole system works, we optimize complex system in the universe, and yet, we're not given a manual and then we're like, go live life and figure it out.

And so I really do like my. Big thing is just trying to understand yourself and why you do what you do and why people do what they do. And that for me was, is like key, I'm, what I kind of was trying to figure out my whole life. Why did I do what I did back then? Why did that person do to me what they did, all these whys.

So for me, it's all about understanding behavior. So trying to understand why people do what they do that I think is like a huge help. And then my third one would be, oh, I've got so many. I need to pick a third one. Okay.

Damaged Parents: [00:30:47] they now they'll have reason to you at theselfhealingconsultant.com.

Emily Katz: [00:30:51] yeah, I would say, I'd say compassion. Compassionate would be my third tip. Have compassion for yourself. Because you are doing the best you can do with whatever. You have available to you and with the knowledge that you have and what, you know and everyone is just doing the best that they can do with what they know and what they have is that compassion for others as well.

But compassion is a big one and I do feel that when you understand why people do things, you're far more compassionate, why understand why you do things? You're far more compassionate. It's that kind of old phase in as well. But yeah, curiosity, compassion and understanding.

Damaged Parents: [00:31:28] Fantastic. Well, I'm super grateful that we got to have you and the kids and the dog all on the show today, because one of the, I think the important thing, one of the other things is life happens. And we get to do the best we can with what we've got. And sometimes that's really beautiful and I think it was really beautiful that you're willing to share your story and be vulnerable with the kids there, and that you were able to find some, to know that this is just what this moment is.

It doesn't have to be different and that's okay.

 Emily Katz: [00:32:05] So compassionate and understanding thank you.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:08] I'm just glad I got to have you. And then we got to talk and it's been fantastic.

Emily Katz: [00:32:13] Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:15] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Emily about how she was able to leave her captor and recover from Stockholm syndrome. We especially liked when she explained that the healing happens inside of us. And no one else can do that work for us. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Instagram.

Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then