19. How Does Guilt Protect Me? Part 2 of 2

A listener who is pregnant with her first baby writes in about her mother. At her wedding, her mum chose the colour scheme, the caterers, the venue and even the dress, and the listener went along with it to keep the peace. Now her mum is pushing for the baby's name, the nursery colour and a place in the delivery room. When the listener said she wanted her husband as her birth partner, her mum called it her right as a mother, then stopped speaking to her for three weeks and told people she was being excluded. Her sister calls her cruel, her dad wants an apology, and her husband is furious. She wants to know who is right, and how to tell her mum to back off without upsetting her.

A listener overhears her husband telling a room full of men he wishes she would lose weight, because he “didn’t sign up for a fat wife”. She says nothing until they get home. He turns on her for eavesdropping, then collapses into how much he hates himself, and she ends the night comforting him. Four weeks later he does it again while she is cooking dinner, and adds that she is going to make the children fat too. She has written in asking whether she is being oversensitive, because she has put on weight, and because he says he is only worried about her. In this episode Helen works through what is actually happening in that pattern: why being overheard is not eavesdropping, why “I didn’t sign up for a fat wife” is a punchline rather than concern, and why a sorry that arrives after the anger has failed is doing the same job the anger was doing. Covered in this episode: Deflection, or what is colloquially called DARVO, and how it moves the argument onto you

You’ve spent the last 12 weeks learning how your patterns formed, how they show up, and how they affect your relationships. And if you’re anything like the brains I work with, there’s a part of you that’s been keeping score. Noticing every time you apologised for existing.Every time saying no felt difficult.Every time you slipped back into something you thought you’d already worked through. And quietly deciding that you’re still the problem. If you were taught that your worth was conditional, it makes sense that you’d measure yourself against perfection. But that standard was never designed to be fair, it was designed to keep you safe. In this final episode, Helen brings the whole season together, exploring why progress isn’t about never repeating a pattern, but noticing it sooner, responding differently, and learning to do that without turning it into evidence against yourself. Because healthy doesn’t mean perfect. It means faster awareness, and more kindness when you get it wrong.

Someone says, “Can we talk about something?” Before they’ve even finished the sentence, your stomach drops. You’re already apologising, defending yourself, or preparing for the relationship to end. If conflict was used to shame, silence, or control you growing up, your nervous system may never have learned the difference between disagreement and danger. In this episode, Helen explores why healthy conflict can feel so threatening, why many people either avoid difficult conversations or assume every disagreement is catastrophic, and how ADHD, autism, and childhood conditioning can make conflict even harder to navigate. Resources mentioned: Research on emotional regulation in ADHDResearch on operant conditioning and learning Go deeper: This week’s companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores why recovery after conflict can take so much longer for some people, what your nervous system is doing after the conversation has ended, and practical ways to shorten that recovery. Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub Aperio Profiles: Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works. aperioprofiles.co.uk

You meet someone who’s kind, consistent, and genuinely interested in you. They reply when they say they will. They don’t play games. They don’t leave you guessing. And somehow... it doesn’t feel right. If you grew up in a toxic environment, your brain may have learned to treat unpredictability as love and kindness as something to be suspicious of. This episode explores why healthy relationships can feel strangely flat, why emotional intensity is so often mistaken for chemistry, and how early experiences can distort the way you recognise safety, connection, and love. Resources mentioned: Research on intermittent reinforcement and conditioningResearch on intimate partner violence and neurodivergenceResearch on identity and healthy relationship development Go deeper: The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores why a strong sense of identity is one of the biggest protective factors against abusive relationships, including how identity develops, what disrupts it, and why rebuilding it changes the way you recognise healthy relationships. Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub Aperio Profiles: Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works. aperioprofiles.co.uk