I want to walk you through what that toolbox looks like, because I think a lot of pain comes from people using the wrong tool for the relationship in front of them.

Sally Wolfe joins me to discuss growing up as the daughter of two Holocaust survivors and choosing to break a cycle of emotional silence.

One of the questions I hear most often is some version of this: "Why can't I get over him? Why do I keep going back? I still miss them even when I know they were abusive, I still want to hear from them, what’s wrong with me?"

Dr. Christine Cocchiola joins me to talk about coercive control, children, attachment and what protective parents can do when abuse hides in plain sight.

Sheila Lowe joins me to discuss religious trauma, domestic abuse, the murder of her daughter, and finding meaning after unimaginable loss.

In nearly four decades of clinical work, I've sat across from hundreds of people trying to make sense of a relationship that left them confused, depleted, and doubting their own reality. And almost every time, the confusion comes from the same place: they were looking for the loud narcissist. What they were actually dealing with was quiet. Or moody. Or endlessly, exhaustingly fragile. Or all three, depending on the day.

New episode out NOW! Your Traitor Within: You Can’t Think Your Way Out of a Trauma Bond with Kendall Brown

I have four decades of clinical training. I've taught couples to communicate, helped people see how childhood shaped them, helped people find the words to say what they meant. I see other people's lives with clarity.

And still, I was gaslit. I believed the lies, because he told them with a poker face I couldn't crack. I believed it was my fault, because I had no evidence yet to contradict him. I believed his silence was just silence — when it was actually the cruelest thing he did to me. I just didn't have a name for it yet.

In this episode of Your Traitor Within, Jessica Anne Pressler sits down with Liz Spicer, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a certified functional medicine practitioner, and a trauma-informed coach who helps women rebuild their lives after emotionally abusive relationships.

After nearly four decades in this work, I can tell you that anxiety is one of the great shape-shifters of the emotional world. It borrows the costume of whatever room it's standing in. In love, it looks like jealousy. At work, it looks like perfectionism. In friendship, it looks like keeping score. And when it partners up with a narcissist, it looks like walking on eggshells in your own life.

In this episode of Your Traitor Within, Jessica Anne Pressler sits down with Kiki Mullican, a certified neuroscience coach with an undergraduate degree in psychology and more than 20 years of experience in mental health, human services, suicide prevention, case management, and community support.

If you are reading this, I want you to know something before anything else: I've been there. Not once. Again and again. I say that not to alarm you, and not as a confession offered from a safe distance, looking back at someone I used to be.

New Episode OUT NOW!