Seeing and responding to red flags, cutting through gaslighting. Wisdom from Rachel Bernstein on the "Indoctrination" podcast.
And, more about my work and the path that brought me to this point
Yesterday, I wrote about what it means to mentally process and act on the emerging reality that our democracy is in grave danger. Today I want to tell you how and why I have turned the spotlight of my expertise onto preserving democracy, and then share a fantastic resource with you created by Rachel Bernstein, LMFT, on her Indoctrination podcast.
My work exists at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, personal safety & empowerment, abuse prevention, and education. For several years, between 2012 and 2018, I developed and co-wrote the book Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels. Our book was designed to be the “missing manual” of child safety and abuse prevention—basically, everything I had to figure out as a high school teacher that I wish had been actually taught to me as professional development. As I was working on the book with my wonderful co-author, our societal discussions about abuse and violence broke wide open as incident after incident came to light or happened before our eyes: the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church and other religious institutions, Jerry Sandusky at Penn State, and Michigan State/Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar; Harvey Weinstein and the burgeoning #MeToo movement; the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Pulse Nightclub, Las Vegas, and Parkland High School; and the individual killings of young people including Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice; the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and so much more. The world was changing around us as we wrote—and that is even before you consider electoral politics!
Within the book, our model was organized around “protecting safety at all levels.” This means starting with our family, friends and caregivers; then widening out to K-12 schools, sports teams, other youth-serving organizations, faith communities, colleges and more. We even wrote about “Creating safer societies by overcoming harmful prejudice” and “Giving our kids a better world to live in.” Those were our efforts to address gun violence and other issues that feel both urgent and politically intractable. It was very challenging, but it felt important to find our voices on these topics.
Donald Trump was America’s Abusive Father
In addition to my work in abuse-prevention, I have been very involved in politics since 2004. So as we entered the Trump era, beginning the day he descended his golden escalator on June 16, 2015 to announce his presidential run, the country entered a relationship with an abuser, and all my research suddenly felt relevant in a new way. As I continued to learn about abusive relationships, sexual violence, high-control groups and cults, human trafficking and more—wow, the material was eerily relevant to Trump, his friends and associates like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his fellow Republicans such as Congressman Matt Gaetz, QAnon, and more.
I still do a lot of research and reading/podcast listening on these topics. This morning I was listening to the excellent Indoctrination podcast hosted by Rachel Bernstein, a licensed therapist. In each episode she talks to someone who has survived a cult or cult-like experience. Today’s episode was about a woman who had left an abusive church and was being retaliated against, as she spoke up to advocate for other survivors. I didn’t expect that subject to connect back to politics, but then at the end of the episode, Rachel talked for about 14 minutes about recognizing red flags and how to not talk yourself out of what you see, and how to not let others talk you out of it either. It is hard! Nobody wants to be in an abusive situation. But if you are, it is so important to see the red flags, recognize them for what they are, and deal with it the situation with clear-eyed honesty and courage. Please find quality allies who will support and help you—you don’t have to walk this path alone.
I can’t do justice to this powerful teaching by describing it. Please listen to Rachel Bernstein’s wise teaching, starting at the 34-minute mark of the January 19 episode, Indoctrination: Abuse with a Smile, with Emily.
Let me know in the comments what resonates most strongly with you.