Dr. Caroline Fleck
speaker
364 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Caroline Fleck’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And I think that's what a lot of people struggle with. They're afraid of being alone and yet don't realize that they're actually in a lot of ways lonelier in this relationship because there's no potential. It feels like there's no potential to be seen. So you're like, you know,
That doesn't make any sense. Correcting people's emotions. I think this is often the form that gaslighting takes, right? You're not frustrated, you're jealous. You're jealous of my success. You're not frustrated with your... And so this kind of emotion correcting where people are like, wait, am I jealous? Am I? So this is what we see in folks who come from pervasively invalidating environments.
They don't trust their own sense of... what's going on in the situation. They defer to others in the environment to figure out what they should be thinking and feeling because they've learned, they've been told repeatedly that their emotions are wrong. They shouldn't be feeling that way, right? Don't be a baby. Act your age. These messages. Now, those are we have all careful.
We've all said things like this to our kids before. Right. But it's like when that's done on a large scale, when every every other reaction the kid has is responded to in this way, you end up with adults who cannot trust themselves, much less be vulnerable with others.
Yeah, in some sense, but it can be overcome.
Yeah, that's my job.
Yes. And that has been many of the clients I work with. In working with folks who have BPD, the sad truth about that condition is that it is disproportionately higher in women and women with a history of sexual trauma. Because what could be more validating than BPD? sexual trauma, especially as a child. The people who are supposed to protect you are hurting you. Okay? It's hard to understand.
This doesn't feel right, but this is someone I should trust. This person knows what's right, and they're doing this. But this doesn't feel right. And then there's the confusing thing a lot of times, which people don't talk about often, which is that sometimes there's some component of pleasure involved for the child. Not always, but sometimes.
And that's confusing as hell because then it really feeds this narrative of I brought this on. I deserve this, which is also kind of reinforced oftentimes by the perpetrator. And you can just see this invalidating storm of like what's up and what's down. All I can conclude is that I'm bad. I'm wrong.
Again, that is my job. Yes. It is my job to first come in. And because then what folks may be doing as adults, not always, but folks who have developed problems, is that they're acting out in ways as adults that are really offensive, right? And make me say some version, like they're coming in and saying, oh, you went to this school, not that school. And I'm like, that's so gross, right?
So they're doing things that attract a lot of negative attention. And so what I have to do is pull back and look at what's valid in their experiences. And when you do that, for someone who's been chronically invalidated, the reaction is like, first it's disarming, then it is...
There's like an immediate transformation that doesn't change everything, not by any means, but there's this sense of like, holy shit, wait a minute, what I've been feeling is okay, is right? Like I should have been feeling that? I mean, they kind of knew it all the time, but to have somebody else come in and say, no, that makes perfect sense.
Like I totally understand why you want to do X, Y, or Z in this situation. I totally understand why you're upset or not upset in this situation. It's just not a message they're used to getting. And so it starts to, the wheels start turning and you can almost see it in real time of like what else have I been discrediting in my own experience? Like how far back does this go?
And that's when the work starts.
Oh my gosh, yes. So this is... We make this big divide between self and other. And in my experience, folks who treat others poorly don't treat themselves well either. Like the really critical folks, they're not like lavishing themselves with like, good job, buddy. Oh, you did a great job at your speech this morning. No, they're like highly self-critical.
So we treat others in some way, shape, or form the way we treat ourselves and vice versa.
Yeah. Yeah. You're not. You're not a happy person. In my experience, I don't know many people who are active assholes who are deeply happy. Yeah. The two things just don't go together.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is what we were describing with like that that cycle of invalidation, everything else. Right. That's why I'm saying you got to intervene on the victim or the perpetrator. Everyone's hurting here. OK. So, yeah. Sorry. What was the initial question? I totally lost my train.
Oh, yeah. Self-compassion. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
something that's just isolated to this person and this waiter. That is that person's perspective. Now, the issue with self-validation is that, unfortunately, we are a culture of change. We like to problem solve, especially as parents.
Showing 261–280 of 364 · page 14 of 19
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