Have you ever wondered why some people don’t just irritate you — they completely dysregulate you?

In this episode, we explore why highly sensitive people are more deeply affected by emotionally unpredictable or manipulative personalities, and why this has nothing to do with being weak or “too much.” If you’ve been healing from narcissistic or emotional abuse and still find yourself over-explaining, self-blaming, or staying longer than you should, this episode connects the dots with compassion and clarity.

This conversation is about understanding patterns — not judging yourself — so you can finally stop managing other people’s emotions and start protecting your nervous system.

Your Next Step in Healing

If this episode hit close to home and you’re realizing this pattern has repeated — and you’re tired of trying to figure it out alone — you don’t have to.

I work 1:1 with women healing from narcissistic and emotional abuse who are ready to feel calmer, clearer, and more grounded in their relationships and decisions.

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📩 Questions or support: 00:00):

Queens, if you are highly sensitive, there is a reason certain people don’t just annoy you. They completely dysregulate you. And it’s not because you’re weak or dramatic or overreacting. It’s because your nervous system notices things others were trained to ignore. It’s actually a gift. Love it. I’ve got the gift. Do you? Stay tuned. Welcome to your Thursday Thrive In Five, your five minute pause from the chaos, the gaslighting, and that text you knew better than to reply to. Take a breath queen. This one’s for you. All right. So tonight’s episode is a continuation of Tuesdays, and there will be one more on next week’s Tuesday episode, and then we’ll get back to a Thrive in Five on Thursday. But I also just wanted to say hello. I was thinking in this new year, I might share a little more about just myself, even my journey, and just even some of my day-to-day stuff, because I want to feel a little more connected to my audience.

(01:14)
And I’d love you to hop over into my Facebook group. If you didn’t know, I have a private Facebook group, and it is for all women, and it’s private. And I ask questions to make sure no shady people coming in there, except myself. Just kidding. And yeah, but I just want to share more and be a little more engaged on a personal level. So a couple things I have going on to share with you. Number one, I finished my manuscript. I am going to be writing a narcissistic abuse recovery book. I am so excited. Well, I wrote it. Currently, I am going through one more pass and then my editor will be starting to do the developmental editing on it starting in March. And then from there, I’m still working on if I want to self-publish or traditional publish, my gut is saying traditional publishing, and I’ve got a couple calls lined up to talk with people about that.

(02:17)
It’s really exciting stuff. This is one of my dreams. I always wrote. This is like we’re having a biography. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the good stuff too, but this is good stuff, right? You know a little more about me? Maybe I can learn a little more about you. So when I was young, I loved, loved to write. I wrote poetry because what? Highly sensitive. Poetry stories. I have written a few novels.

(02:46)
I’ve published poetry book out there. So I’ve always been in the writing realm. And this is now my baby book because it’s like my purpose work mixed with just this dream I had to complete a book that I felt safe sharing with the world and that would help people. So I am so excited. I can’t talk about the title or anything yet, obviously, until I’m promoting it. But I am so grateful for you guys to be supporting me through listening to this podcast. It has kept me going, kept me motivated. All of your emails and just even seeing how many listens and though my podcast has grown to top 1.5% in the world makes me feel like it’s all worth … This is heavy stuff to talk about, right? And it’s not easy having your own business and starting from zero and building. It’s a process, but I’ve always been called to help women.

(03:57)
And then more recently with this abuse stuff, right? And trying to make it not fun, because abuse is never fun, but making it so you know that it doesn’t have to define the rest of your life and that you can create a new version and grow and you’re not damaged forever and make it as light as we possibly can. Yeah, we went through the hard stuff. So guess what? We’re going to make up for some lost time and we go and get sparkly. So anyway, that’s a little rant about my book. I also change, so I will be … Unless there’s some little exception somewhere, if you really need it, you can message me. But I am doing either three months, six month, or 12 month containers. I am so excited to do a year longer container. Sorry, it’s like coach talk, but that just means … I was like, oh my gosh, I’m not recording.

(05:03)
That would’ve been awful. It just means the amount of time, right? Like the program. So I have three programs. There’s three month, six month, and 12 month. So I’m so excited about that. That will always be in my show notes too. And if you really just want to get a feel for things, but you really do want to commit, we can do a one hour session and then it’ll be time to pick if you want three, six or 12 month program. So anyway, I am in love with my one-on-one sessions. We do coaching and we do somatic healing that is, if you don’t know, healing from the body through the body, it is mind blowing work. You can click and read more about it in my show notes. So those are two big things. I won’t go on and on, which I already did because that’s me, right?

(05:56)
Now you know who I am. I’m a blubber. I’m a blabberist queen, but I’m so excited for this new year. I just have … It was a hard year for me. This past year, my father passed away. Oh, this is supposed to be uplifting and I feel the lump in my throat. And that’s tough, as many of you know, when you lose a parent. So it’s been a tough year for me. I’m always silver lining and keep going and I’ll always be that way, but this is one of the hardest years of my life.

(06:32)
So we’re ready for 2026. Let’s get into this episode for these highly sensitive people who are about to cry on her pink furry microphone. All right. So part one of this, we’re kind of to talk about the sensitivity, unpredictability, and how that equals dysregulation. A lot of highly sensitive people, we get dysregulated more easily than other people. So we’re built for depth, connection, and consistency. Okay? So when you’re around people like narcissists who are very hot and cold, or maybe bipolar, manic depress, people who are up and down so much, emotionally inconsistent or intentionally manipulative, the body goes on alert and it’s not because you’re fragile, it’s because this unpredictability feels very unsafe in your system, right? I mean, I think as it should. I love predictability. Can anyone say, “What? Do we get a what? ” We love predictability. You like a good plan.

(07:37)
So going to part two, why you took it so personally, right? This is where a lot of the highly sensitive people get stuck. We talk about a lot of stuckness with narcissistic abuse. And many of us who have gone through abuse are highly sensitive. There is a correlation and that we’ll get to that reason, but you didn’t just notice the inconsistency. You tried to fix it because we’re usually empaths and fixers and maybe people pleasers. You overexplained, you self-reflected, right? You might turn it on yourself. I did that a lot like, “Well, maybe I caused this, ” which by the way, just so you know, and I’m so used to this, it sounds crazy that I have to say this, but I remember being on the side of not realizing how crazy this is, but you can’t force someone to abuse you. It’s the choice they make and you don’t cause it.

(08:39)
No one makes someone abusive. They are abusive and you’re a victim of it, okay? So just remember that. Play that back if you have to. But wondering, what did we do wrong? What did I do wrong? Because you were taught that harmony was your responsibility. And it could be from your childhood where you kind of play that role of the one, the peacekeeper or trying not to, maybe there was one person, two people, all the people, if you’re lucky, in your family that were toxic, very intense in the not good way. You ended up somehow being that person who would try to walk on the eggshells and just try to create as much peace or calm or predictability as you could, which is a lot to carry around on your shoulders. So this is especially common for people who have experienced narcissistic or emotional abuse.

(09:45)
Like I said, could be childhood. It could be you had a great childhood and somehow you ended up with a master manipulator, a narcissist who conditioned you to act differently than you typically did.That’s common. That’s the thing that happens too. Many people though who end up in abusive situations, I’m not saying everybody, no blanket statements here, but did grow up either in an abusive situation or being dismissed or being manipulated or a very toxic family dynamic where you were comfortable with that. That’s why you ended up in that relationship. That is not always, but that’s a very common thing. From my own experience, from my client’s experience, most of my clients did have some sort of toxic relationship dynamic, whether it was a parent, a sibling, even a grandma who lived with them, right? So it could look all different and fun ways. So part three, here is the gentle truth, and this is the confronting part.

(10:56)
Okay? Highly sensitive people don’t attract unhealthy dynamics because you’re sensitive. We are sensitive, right?

(11:09)
We stay or we stay longer because we’re empathetic, self-aware and hopeful. I just met up with one of my guy friends recently and he was trying to understand the whole abuse thing. And in his mind, he couldn’t understand to start with how anyone would tolerate being mistreated like that, right? Because some people, there’s just no tolerance for it. So a lot of us, it’s not just like only empathetic people, but we’re empathetic, we’re hopeful. It’s like a mix of characteristics that make us stay and make us stay longer, like I said, right? And certain personalities or disorders, they feed off that. It’s like, yes, they’re staying. Now I know who my warm audience is. Do you know the cold and warm? Warm is like, oh, they’re already warmed up and they’re easier quote, pray. But it doesn’t make you naive or weak. This makes you human, does make you maybe empathetic, highly sensitive if you are relating to any of this, but this is not a bad thing.

(12:34)
And I don’t want you to view this as a bad characteristic. It’s a beautiful part of us and I would not have it any other way. I would not want to be not as sensitive as I am, not as empathetic as I am. It has served me so well in my life too. Yes, it’s gotten me hurt 20 times over by multiple people, I’ll be honest, but it has really served me in so many beautiful ways and so many beautiful connections. And even in this, right? I’m able to do this work and help people because of that part of me and this job is amazing, right?

(13:22)
So let’s toot our own horns, okay? Go highly sensitive people. So what actually changes the pattern? The shift isn’t becoming colder, right? You don’t want to say, “Okay, well now I’m going to throw a wall up.” And this might happen naturally when you have left a narcissist. I’ll be honest, after my narcissist situation, disconnection, I’ll be honest, I went a little extreme to the other side and that can absolutely be part of the process. And I do find that with many, not all, but many of my clients, some do not build a wall and they might even get burned again and they get help and the help helps and they learn how to protect themselves without being cold and hardened and jaded, which for a little bit I was a little cold. I’ll say that. I got a little chilly, a little chilly in here.

(14:18)
So it’s becoming clearer and more embedded in your truth.That’s a really important thing because if you don’t know your truth, you can’t create boundaries for yourself. And boundaries, remember, are not really for other people, they’re for yourself. And that’s something important. I have a boundaries course. It is amazing. And yes, I am tooting my own horn all over the place tonight, which is not something I normally do, but I am very, very adamant about people setting boundaries. And if you don’t know how this is a reasonably priced course that you get 10 videos, they’re dripped once a week for 10 weeks. Everything from evaluating your truth, I call it the hell yeses and hell nos, of your life to evaluate what you need to set boundaries with. And then we go into all the hows of boundary setting, the conversations, what to do if you set a boundary and someone comes back, all the boundary stuff for yourself and how to also navigate it by if you do have to have conversations and set them in that way, right?

(15:34)
Because some are for yourself that you’re doing, you don’t even have to tell anybody, right? So that boundaries course is always linked in my show notes. So when you stop managing other people’s emotions, you start protecting your nervous system. I love it. And that’s when everything changes. So if you’re realizing this pattern has repeated and you’re tired of all the analyzing and doing it alone, this is where my one-on-one coaching comes in. I do three, six months now because narcissistic abuse, though you can definitely heal, it’s not like an overnight take a pill, right? But that being said, three months goes by quick and we do amazing work in three months. And I have had clients stay with me a year. I never had a year program, but they just kept signing on for three months and three months and three months. And their transitions, their transformations, I mean, are just out of this world, just like themselves.

(16:46)
But with all the glitter, all the confidence, so many changes, like changing careers, starting their own businesses, entering amazing relationships with healthy people, feeling like they’re actually an amazing role model for their kids when they used to feel shame and guilt that they had stayed in something. It’s just endless the benefits of doing coaching mixed with the somatic healing.

(17:14)
It’s the best. I just love it. When I get off of every call, I literally sometimes get a lump in my throat. I’m like, “This work is so amazing.” Especially when we do the somatic stuff, it’s so powerful, so powerful. Okay, so you know where my links are. Show notes. Everyone say it with me, show notes. And so in the next episode, that will be Tuesday, we’re going to talk about how highly sensitive people actually heal, how boundaries become regulating instead of terrifying. Because look, for highly sensitive people, oh, it’s terrifying, right? It’s terrifying. That is the only word we can use for it sometimes because the unpredictability of what’s going to come back and if you’re with someone obviously, which we’d love you to get out of that relationship, but if you’re still with someone who is not treating you well, or if you’re outside of it, but you still have these traits, it’s going to continue in your relationships or with friends or whatever, we can’t be terrified of boundaries anymore.

(18:28)
To live a full life that’s authentically you, that’s the thing. You have to find that truth. Like I said, evaluating your truth, the hells and knows of your life. So you can say, “What boundaries do I even need and how am I going to set these boundaries?” You might feel lost, overwhelmed, almost like guilt if you do set a boundary. That’s why the program I have really talks about that and how you can do it in a way where you are not saying, “You need to not do this anymore exactly.” It’s more like what I’m going to do. And that’s a much better feeling for us, highly sensitive people, isn’t it? I’m going to do this. It’s not telling someone how to live their life. It’s more like, I mean, let me think of a simple example.

(19:21)
Someone yelling at me all the time, okay? Let’s say that. Let’s say that happened. What do I say that you’re yelling and you can jush it up. As I’ve gotten older, I don’t have time for the softy sandwich as my BFF calls it. I don’t have time for that anymore. So that’s where I’m like, I’m a little more direct. So you can always take my words and soften them up and I can help you soften them if you need to in our one-on-one. But I just, in my life, I don’t really do that anymore, but I’ll just … So you could say, I would say directly probably, “Look, I’m not going to be talked to like that. So just so you know, if you do choose to be yelling at me like that, I am going to walk out. I am going to leave. I’m going to whatever.” You’re saying what you are going to do.

(20:13)
You’re not controlling them.

(20:16)
And then you could soften that up and you could do the sandwiches, right? You got the soft bread on each side. So you got like, “I’ve really, really enjoyed spending time with you. We have so much fun together, but there’s times when you’re raising your voice and it makes me feel on edge and I don’t love that feeling.” So the next time that happens for my own body and whatever, mental, whatever you want to call it without sounding dramatic or something. For my own vibe, I’m going to have to take a break and leave or whatever, hang up the phone, I’m going to have to do X, Y, Z. And then you can put that soft bun on the other side, soft buns. What kind of podcast is this? And you can say, “But really, I would love for that not to happen because I really would like to continue this friendship with you, ” or whatever it is.

(21:17)
Me, I’m like, “You mistreat me .” Okay. All right. So where were we? We were talking about … Oh yeah, I was saying how terrifying it is and sensitivity can actually become your strength again, right? So we’ll talk about that in the next episode and yeah, I guess that’s it. Let me see. How long was this mamma jamma? Oh, it doesn’t say. So I’m so excited. I just got back y’all from karaoke. So if you don’t know, we have a little bit of a musical family and my husband actually sings, and I want to hear about all of your hobbies in my Facebook group, but my husband sings and plays a bunch of different instruments. I sing. I say that lightly because, I mean, I don’t know. I wish I had a better voice, but people say I’m a singer. My husband says I’m a singer.

(22:22)
He said, “That did really good tonight.” I did karaoke. I did Shania Twain. Anyone know that song?

(22:29)
Better walk the line. Squeeze. Anyway, and my daughter, she was elite singer in a band. She’s 11 now, but when she was like nine and 10, and now she’s doing musical theater. And my friend texted me, I was like, “Oh my God, they have karaoke at this place that we go to. ” She’s like, “Come over.” So we were eating dinner. I was like, “You want to go karaoke?” And I said, oh, she said, “Have Kora sing.” And I was like, “Do you want to sing? I mean, she got to go to bed.” But I was like, “What a cool mom would I be if I just spontaneously was like, all right, dinner’s over. Let’s go sing.” So I was like, “This’ll be a fun memory.” So we finished up the dishes and she got dressed and we went, we took over the karaoke. There’s only one other person who sang before we got there and then it was us because it was like the first night they were doing it.

(23:31)
So Kora sang four songs. I sang one. My husband, who actually has been in bands, pretended he was shy. He is shy in real life. He’s very shy, but he said he don’t like karaoke. He likes being in his band with his familiar and like having practiced a song. So he was too uncomfortable to do one. I was uncomfortable too, but I did it. I even shimmy shaked around a little bit, a little hip action, little head wobble.

(24:02)
So that was fun. And can we say US citizens of the world, not to get political, but it’s really crazy out there no matter what side you’re on. Again, I don’t want to get political on this podcast, but our country I feel like is just so crazy right now. There’s just a lot. So it was nice to escape to karaoke, but I feel like I feel bad for people who can’t escape in that way, right? There’s just a lot going on. It’s kind of horrifying. And I know other countries are looking in and maybe horrified as well. So I know that’s like a little off topic and I really don’t like to go there, but I just have to be real. You guys know me. I’m very real. And it’s a hard time for a lot of people. No matter what side of the political coin you’re on, what race you are, what gender you are, and some have it way worse than others, but it’s just a hard time.

(25:14)
So I would like to throw out some prayers. I am a God woman, so I want to throw out some prayers just for our country. And if you guys are God people, whoever’s out there as God person or a woo-woo universe person, please say some prayers just for our country and our world as a whole, right? Why not throw the whole world in there?

(25:40)
And try to focus too on what we do have. There’s a lot of hardship, but there’s a lot of love and a lot of peacemakers and helpers. They always say what when there’s a crisis? Is it crisis? I don’t know that, but there’s that quote, I’m going to misquote it. If there’s a crisis, look for the helpers, like trying to always see the light in the dark. So I’m big on that, but sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s hard. So, and I know with our heavy stuff we talk about, sometimes it’s hard too. So if you’re in a dark situation, which I know a lot of you are, you’re not alone, come join us in the Facebook group and yeah, hear more about your highly sensitive ass in our next episode. Okay? All right. I love you guys. We’re in this together. Put your deuces up, smooches, deuces.

(26:39)
See you the next time.