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Dr. Robin Stern: Welcome to The Gaslight Effect podcast. I'm Robin Stern, co-founder and associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and author of the bestselling book, The Gaslight Effect. I'm an educator and a psychoanalyst, but first and foremost, I'm a wife, a mother, a sister, aunt, and healer. And just like many of you, I was a victim of gaslighting. Please join me for each episode as I interview fascinating guests and explore the concept of gaslighting. You'll learn what it truly means to be gaslighted, how it feels, how to recognize it, and how to understand it, and ultimately how to get out of it.
Dr. Robin Stern: Before we begin, I want you to know that talking about gaslighting can bring up challenging and painful emotions. Give yourself permission to feel them. Some of you may wanna go more deeply with your emotions. While some of you may hold them more lightly, no matter what you're feeling, know that your emotions are a guide to your inner life. Your emotions are sacred and uniquely you respect and embrace them for they have information to give you. If you want to listen to other episodes of The Gaslight Effect Podcast, you can find them at robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for being here with me. Welcome everyone to this episode of the Gaslight Effect podcast. Really delighted today to have with me Robyn Koslowitz, Dr. Robyn Koslowitz, who is a child psychologist for like 10 years.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah, I'm I, my PhD in clinical, my, my licensed clinical psychology degree, I think is since 2012, but I was a master's level clinician since 2002. So long time,
Dr. Robin Stern: Long time, long time working in this space. And you have a new book coming out, Robin, and that book is Post-Traumatic Parenting, break the Cycle and Become the Parent You always wanted to be. It's a fascinating concept to think about Post-traumatic parenting. How did you begin to, to think at the intersection of, uh, parenting and PTSD?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So I am a post-traumatic parent myself. And when I was, so I, I am a mom with PTSD, and when I was in graduate school at the very beginning of my graduate career, I was also pregnant with my oldest child. And being that research geek, I kind of, I was at NYU and I went to Bob's Library and I had this major question of how will my PTSD affect my baby? And at first it was very simply like, what will it do to the developing fetus? Like I had this logic of it's so hard for me to be inside my body during a panic attack. What is it like for my baby? Like, that can't be good. Right? But then it became, wait a minute, how am I going to parent this child given, given my childhood history of trauma? Like, I sort of know what not to do, but I don't know what to Yes, actually do.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And I remember actually when I gave birth to my daughter and the, and the nurses were, um, saying, asked me what I did, you know, like in the recovery room. I said, oh, I'm a, I'm a graduate student. I research, um, I, I researched like child temperament and best practice parenting practices. And they're like, oh, this baby is so lucky. Like, she has a mom. This is gonna be a child psychologist. And I'm thinking, this poor baby, like she has me for a mom. Like the, the disconnect between how they were perceiving it and how I was perceiving it was so big. But there was nothing, there was no research anywhere on the impact of PTSD on parenting. In fact, um, like the body keeps, the score hadn't been written yet. Trauma was not, this was before nine 11. Trauma was not in the cultural lexicon in the way that it is now. It was like a footnote. Like there's also this thing called PTSD. Yeah, whatever.
Dr. Robin Stern: So this is so interesting. I completely agree because I've never, um, about the research, I've, uh, never heard of people exploring this space. And so what a gift to the world you've given, um, on and keep giving to explore this space out loud and to give people help with it. So when you say that you were a post that you have PTSD, was that because of parenting?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So yes and no. It's, it's an interesting question, right? Because of course your expertise is so much on like narcissistic abuse and gaslighting and all of those things. So with post-traumatic parenting, I think initially my PTSD comes from an, from a very severe, um, traumatic experience in my life that is very easy. 'cause if you think about trauma, you know, people make this distinction between Big T trauma and little T trauma as though there's a difference, or as though big T trauma is worse. When I think of my childhood experience, the big T trauma story and trigger warning, it's hard to hear. My father was very, very ill my whole life. He had a chronic heart condition, he had multiple heart attacks. My whole, our whole life was sort of built around his medical needs. Um, and when I was 16, he died of a, of a sudden heart attack.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: In the middle of the night I performed CPR on him, and I failed, which for many years, I thought of as a failure on my part. Like I did it wrong, when in fact there was no way that a 16-year-old girl would've had the upper body muscle strength to successfully perform CPR on a much larger man who was on a mattress. And I would've had no way of moving him to the floor. Also, no one ever told me that you can't do CPR on a mattress. Like, I didn't even know that they, they don't teach that in CPR courses. They certainly didn't. I mean, maybe they do now, but they certainly didn't back in the nineties. So, so I had a lot of, like, I, I was a failure. I, I, you know, I had a lot of that like sort of imposter syndrome, but I actually also had a lot of those little t traumas that go along with it.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Um, there were well-meaning people who, and maybe some not so well-meaning people who step in sometimes when like there's no dad in a family, um, some of whom were not well-intentioned. And there was a lot of that kind of trauma. There's also the trauma of, um, as a child, my mother was an incredible mother. She was a guidance counselor, warm kind person, but very, very anxious and very, very hyper-focused on keeping my father alive, which as it should be, right? Like, that makes perfect sense. But for me, I really learned how to be the good little girl and like, not wanna burden her with more because how could I, and then there were people,
Dr. Robin Stern: Your feelings don't have your feelings keep, right? Yeah,
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah. You know, keep getting straight A's because that makes them happy, right? And there were some people in my life who, um, sort of fed into that, um, because it benefited them as opposed to, because, um, but it sounded quasi parental towards me. So, um, there was just a, there was that element. And that happens when there's a power vacuum in a family that happens when there's a lot of shifting like dynamics, like things like that, you know, tend to happen. Um, do you
Dr. Robin Stern: Have siblings?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: I do have siblings. Much older brothers.
Dr. Robin Stern: Ah, so they weren't in the house at the time.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: They weren't. And in fact, one of my brothers said to me like, I don't understand how you're writing a book called Post-Traumatic Parenting. We had a great childhood. And I said, you three indeed did have a wonderful childhood. But I was born when my youngest brother was 13. They had a very different childhood than the one I had. And that's hard, right? Because in a family, I'm sure you hear this all the time, um, one parent can be absolutely spot on, incredible with one kid, and the other kid is triggering something in them and they're not. And then it's very hard. 'cause the human nature is like, so is that an abusive person? Is that a toxic person? And it's a complicated person. Just 'cause it landed on you this way doesn't mean it lands on me that way.
Dr. Robin Stern: And maybe goodness of fit, you know, a complicated person and not such, not such a good fit. Yeah. So was your father, just for our listeners, and also because I'm just getting to hear your story now, and I appreciate your being vulnerable and, and sharing it. Um, and I'm sorry that you've had to go through that moment, obviously, it's just horrible. Um, I can't imagine.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah, it actually got worse in the sense that I had P-T-S-D-I did not know. So I would have flashbacks, right? Unfortunately, right after, after my father died, this is just the confluence of events. A classmate of mine actually, well, underclassmen, you know, I was a, I was, I feel like she was maybe a 10th grader. I was an 11th grader, I don't remember, but she was one year younger than me, um, died of an aneurysm in school. Um, and I was actually the only person who realized it was an emergency and like the terrifying loneliness. Like I had witnessed death, and she was, she was like, there was nobody at home behind her eyes. And everybody was standing around, you know, the teachers with, it's like, oh, did she? I was in an all girl school. So it was like, oh, did, did she ever period, did she eat lunch yet? Like maybe like she's dieting. Like there was like, everyone said, I'm like, call the paramedics. She need like, call 9 1 1. Like, I feel a pulse, but she's, I don't think she's breathing. Like,
Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah,
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: That sense. And so then I did develop very, very extensive PTSD symptomatology, straightforward flashbacks. I heard a siren. I would have a flashback being back in my father's room performing CPR real tactile flashbacks. So I thought I was crazy, right? Because I was 16 and the only model for mental illness I really had was schizophrenia. Right? I'm seeing things that aren't there, right? How was I supposed to know that? There's this thing called PTSD and there's this thing called a flashback. There was no Google back then. Like, like it's so recently ago, right? I, I'm 47, so it's not that long ago. But we didn't have Google.
Dr. Robin Stern: We didn't have Google, right? So, yeah. So how, who was the person, if there was anyone you spoke to about this and who helped you to, to identify, to name it?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So, sadly, and the biggest reason why I went for my PhD was I went to, like, we had a, a guidance counselor in my school who was a lovely kind woman. She was, I guess nowadays you'd call her a life coach. She had no training. She was a great teacher. She spoke flu teenager, you know, she was really good with like, the kind of social dynamic issues that happened amongst teenage girls. Like, you know, she's not talking to her and now they're not friends and like that mean girl kind of stuff. She was good at that. Um, but she was very into like positive thinking and your mindset. And like, she would, she basically advised me to do a lot of thought stopping and to sort of pray it away. So she would say things like, you know, oh, so, so don't have those thoughts.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Like, so the, just don't think about those things, which we now know, of course, thought stopping is highly contraindicated in any like OCD anxiety. Like, we don't do thought stopping. It doesn't usually work. We, we can do thought replacement, we can do thought editing. Thank you. Thought you're here, you're here to tell me that this is indeed scary. But that's not thought stopping, right? So I tried because I was a very good little girl, so I tried very hard. I like kept a gratitude journal and like I did all the things she told me to do, um, didn't help. So I felt worse even when I went to the college counseling center. And actually the college counselor gave me a very early form of EMDR when it was just EMD. Like, they didn't do the reprocessing yet. We're gonna remember, we're in the, we're in the nineties now.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Um, but I, but I asked her, you know, do I have PTSD? She's like, no, you're so functional. You're, you're so, like, you're, you're, you're, you're applying to grad school and you work full-time and you're married. Like, like was I married then? Maybe not. I was da I was engaged. So it's like you're engaged, you're in a successful romantic relationship. You like all the markers of health are there, you're employed, you're in, you're applying to grad school. I think maybe I was even accepted at that point, like, you're going off to grad school next year. Like you people with PTSD are just aren't functional like that. And I remember looking now, of course, I look back at that and I think like HYPERFUNCTIONAL and PTSD is literally like, like it's sort of the poster child. There's a lot of hyperfunctional, like for sure in post-traumatic parenting, a lot of hyper functional, post-traumatic parents. It's the major trauma adaptation.
Dr. Robin Stern: Uh, I'm just imagining the numbers of people that are gonna be like just making your book fly off the shelf. I mean, this is so important because so many people live with undiagnosed, unidentified PTSD. Yeah. And, um, many people have children. Yeah, obviously.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah. Also, you don't have to have full-blown PTSD to have had a experience that was too big for your brain to metabolize that made you develop some trauma coping adaptations that work well for everything. But parenting. Like I am an amazing hyper-focused dissociation. I can like work for hours and someone has to tell me like, like the sun came up, you know, like when I was working on my dissertation, that's what I would do. I would like just work through the night. And I remember my husband like walking and being like, have you been here all night? Like, like, yes. Oh, I guess it's the morning. Right? Like, I can do that. That works great until you have children with a schedule or you need to be present.
Dr. Robin Stern: I'm really glad you said that because, um, I do a lot of work in trauma and resilience and have since nine 11 and, and recently work with, uh, George Bonano quite a bit on trying to, um, popularize the, his research that many pe people are more resilient than you think they are. And that most people are in fact resilient and that not at resilient and not everything is a trauma with a big T. Yeah. And that yet there are these very intense experiences that people live very intense experiences that are, that are too big to handle. Yeah. And they're not always called trauma, and yet they live inside of us and they have a long tail.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Right? And then it becomes like you have a template for something that you don't even realize you have. And very often it's your children who aren't who sort of like, people say to me, like, how could my children trigger me? And I always say, they don't trigger you, they just reveal your triggers. Right? Which, right. So let's say you, you had, I don't know, a very angry stepdad and big emotions were risky. So what you learned how to do is to people please to keep the peace and keep everything like calm and, and whatever. And, and some of that was a superpower, right? Like, you are really good in conflict situations 'cause you can keep the peace and you are like the whisper of the difficult person in the office. Everyone sends you in to talk to him, right? You're good at that. But then you have a kid with big emotions and there's a part of your brain that goes big emotions shut them down, big emotions shut them down. But that's not parenting. You can't, people please your 5-year-old, you people please, your 5-year-old, then it's gonna be screen time and you know, fruit loops all day long.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yes. Yes. Can you say that again? Using another example? Because I, I just wanna shine a light on how important what you just said is that your kids don't trigger you, they reveal your triggers. Yeah. And then, um, what would be another example of something like that that could happen to parents where all of a sudden they're confronted with something that is a reminder?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Well, think about something that, there's a lot of examples. This happens when we're parenting at adolescents. Think about somebody who is raised with a narcissistic parent, right? Because we, we do this a lot in post-traumatic parenting or had narcissistic abuse in their extended family, right? So what ha the definition and the nature of truth becomes very important, right? So, and it's, and and it's almost impossible. 'cause it's like, it's like, you told me to buy this. No, I didn't. Yes you did. No I didn't. Yes you did. You're so lazy. You're so like, and so then you learn sometimes to defend yourself a lot. Then what happens? You get into some sort of like a little tiff with your middle school or your high, your high school kid. And the kid says, why are you yelling at me? And then you go, I wasn't yelling.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And the kid's like, yes, you were. And then we have this whole fight about whether or not you were yelling when the issue really is. Your, your middle schooler said, I feel a disconnect with you. Whether your voice decibel level rose to the level that is technically defined as yelling is really not the issue here. I get why you did that. 'cause when your stepmom used to say you did that on purpose and you know you made a mistake and you had to defend yourself, I so get why you're doing that. Narcissists have a way of making themselves into arbiters of reality. So when reality gets questioned to you, you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm never gonna do that again. No one gets to tell me I was yelling when I wasn't yelling. But she's your kid. She's not your narcissistic stepmom. Your kid is just saying to you, I felt attacked by the thing you said. We don't have to worry about whether that's yelling. What we have to say is, sounds like you feel like I'm mad at you right now. Sounds like, sounds like things are getting a little tense. You and me versus the problem.
Dr. Robin Stern: How do you get to do that? What are the steps that parents need to take in order to hear the message in the message?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So that's why I wrote this book, right? Because I remember, again, grad student geek, like researcher, personality. So like, I would read all the parenting books, right? I read how to talk so kids would listen and I read parenting from the inside out and I read, I read 'em all right? Like whatever was out there, I read. Um, and every single one of those books was like giving this great advice. But the advice was up here and I was down there, right? Um, when you think of like, uh, you know, co-regulate, right? Like you're gonna self-regulate in order to co-regulate. I'm like, great co-regulation sounds great. Like, I'm gonna be the container for my kids' emotions. And together we're gonna regulate them down. I don't know how to do that. Like, I, I don't know how to regulate my emotions. I know how to dissociate from them, but I don't how to regulate them.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So somebody needed to write me. I, I remember looking and making this analogy of like, you are giving me great directions. If I'm in a mole and I'm on the second floor and I need to get to the roof, and there's an elevator and you're just like, okay, make two lefts and then go straight and you'll find the elevator and then you take it to the roof. I'm in the subbasement. I have no map. I have no, there's no lighting down here, and I have no sense of direction. Get me from the subbasement to the second floor. I will follow all of your instructions. All of those parenting books that I was reading were starting on the second floor. So I needed to write, how do I get from Subbasement to second floor? And then sure. Then read every parenting. There was a lot of great parenting books out there with great advice.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: The only way you're ever gonna be able to do that is to heal The trauma is, I call it the trauma app. In your brain. You're gonna have to figure out how to deselect its permissions. You're gonna have to heal it. And even if you, because you probably didn't heal it until this point, you probably adapted to it. And it probably worked really well until kids were in the picture. And if you wouldn't have had kids, it would've been fine. Like, I could have been a dissociated, fabulous researcher for the rest of my life thinking I have my trauma healed because I know how to shut down stress. I never have a stress response. I know how to dissociate for hours. But you can't be a present parent if you're dissociated, right? Those two things can't happen at the same time.
Dr. Robin Stern: So how do you heal that trauma?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So it's a lot of, um, a lot of real inner child work that is, and I'm, and I'm not a loosey goosey person. I like evidence, but there, but I see the inner child just as a metaphor for what's happening in our brain. A lot of going into that trauma app and being like, people are angry. Must people, please, that's an algorithm in my brain. Maybe people are angry. Don't have to, people please. Maybe people are angry and they will be angry and nothing will happen. My kid will be mad at me if I shut off bluey. My kid will be mad at me if I say, you know, take off the PJ's. But on the school clothes, we're going to kindergarten. My kid may be mad at me, and that's okay, right? And then I'm gonna have all these alarms in my head. But, but, but maybe my kid's gonna feel as overwhelmed by emotion as I did when I was that age. Maybe I'm harming my child. Maybe I'm doing what my, if if it's somebody who is abused by parents, like what my abusive parents did to me. Wait. Or maybe my kid isn't me. My kid has me. Maybe it's okay. Maybe my kid will have big emotions and learn to cope with them and nothing bad will happen, and maybe if I mess up, I can repair. So it's that work.
Dr. Robin Stern: Uh, so I love this, um, roadmap from the basement to the second floor metaphor. And I, I love everything you're saying because it is actually what you, what you have to do. What is it gonna look like? How do you teach those things to yourself? How do you know how to make those sentences and make those observations in the moment that your, your brain is co-opted by, um, big emotions.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So the more you train yourself to notice the trauma app in your brain, right? I have this, I have this analogy that I use of, um, and it's really, uh, it's really a reformulation of the, of the acceptance and commitment therapy idea of diffusion. Where like, when we have a thought, we're very fused with it. Like, oh, I'm such a loser. Mm-hmm
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Like someone, someone says something, someone, someone criticizes me. I must make them happy, right? I must fix it. I'm dancing. Then there's a point where you notice you're in a dance, but you can't quite break free. Like you're trapped in middle of the dance floor and you can't quite get outta the dance. So let's say with narcissistic abuse, right? That person says that critical thing and then you shut down. Or then you, you, you, you say, I I'm not gonna answer. I'm not gonna answer. I'm not gonna be beat. And then you blurt out the bait and right? And of course, family knows how to push our buttons because they installed them. So it's gonna happen. 10-year-old you is coming out at a Thanksgiving dinner with your, with your critical stepmom. Like that is gonna happen like nothing to talk about. She's gonna wake up in that moment.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: 'cause that's the button that that's step mom installed. And that's sort of like, I'm noticing I'm in the dance, I can tell that I'm in the dance, but I can't quite break free of the dance. Then there's step three, which is noticing the music and just being like, oh, cool. Music's playing when you're at that moment. So I'm in a situation where I'm really stressed out. And when I just wanna do a space out and I say, oh, I'm noticing this giant desire to space out right now, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm really feeling overwhelmingly urged to pick up my phone and like, play a game because I, I need a dissociate right now. Oh, cool. I'm noticing that music, I'm free of the music. I, I can choose to dance. I can choose to not dance. I can choose to observe the dance. I have so many options now because I'm just noticing the music.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And that is the essence of healing. The essence of healing is not, I'm never gonna get triggered again. The essence of healing is I notice my trigger and I have that pause like Viktor Frankl said, right? Like between stimulus and response, there's a pause. Um, that idea like, oh, and sometimes the pause is not fast enough for me to take advantage of it. And sometimes that pause is going to narcissistic abuse. One of the things that happened to me in my childhood was because my family was unusual and because like my, because my father was so sick and because like, so like, we were sort of like the weirdos on the block and like, you know, the ambulance kept coming to our house. My father looked different than other people as people with chronic illnesses do. He was very prematurely aged. Um, what happened was I became a target for bullying, which will happen.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And I had a real mean girl bully who like, it was like bullying, but it was also like somebody once like pushed me off the bus like I was and going on the bus and I was probably totally spaced down and dissociated and geeky and small and fragile. And she literally shoved me and I fell off the bus and cracked my skull. Like we're talking bullying, um, and all the mean girl stuff. I was like, oh, we totally would've invited you, but like, oh, we didn't realize you would wanna come. Like, 'cause why would I wanna come on a trip that everybody in my friend group is going on? Like, why would I wanna come? Right? Like, like that kind of mean girl bullying. I became someone who does this in schools a lot. I, I teach, I teach curricula. I teach girls how to resolve conflict.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Um, I do a lot of that kind of stuff. And one point I went to a big principal's conference and I presented my approach and a, um, and one of the principals came over to me and this was one of my bullies. And she came over to me and she did that classic mean girl bully thing where she said, oh my gosh, you're like this big teaching kids social skills, which is not really what I do. I specifically do anti-bullying, but whatever. Fine. Um, you know, and like when I think about what an awkward quiet like kid you were and what you've become, it's like so cool. Or some line like that. I so had the power in that moment. 'cause remember, I'm on stage. I'm the one holding the mic. Like I'm Dr. Kasowitz now. I'm not, I'm not a sixth grader anymore. Like, I'm difficult to bully now.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: I so had the power in that moment to be like, you know, whenever, yeah. We were classmates, you know, whenever I needed to give, when I would in my demonstration when I had the mean girl like archetype in that situation, every time I was trying to think, what would she say? I just pictured you in sixth grade. And I, I so could have said that, right? I could have annihilated her. I had the power to, and I made the, and I very much noticed that impulse and made the conscious choice not to, but there was healing in that moment, right? The revenge of not getting revenge, right? What
Dr. Robin Stern: Did you say?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So I said, yeah, I think we, I, I said, I said, I think we all be, I said, I think we all become psychologists on the order of physician heal thyself. This is something I struggled with. And so I've learned how to help other people. And I think when you become the grownup you would've needed when you were a kid, that's true healing said something very like diplomatic like that. But I could have said something aggressive. And remember, I'm the one on stage being called doctor holding the mic.
Dr. Robin Stern: So that was the moment of healing for you, realizing that you had choice.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yes. But you don't think you do. And it's so interesting. 'cause if you would know this more than me, and this is like a perfect question for me to ask you, says something about narcissism, that it didn't occur to this woman that what she was doing was a tactically unwise move.
Dr. Robin Stern: Of course not. Because she was just so busy in her own space.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Like it didn't occur to her that maybe in the interim years I've learned to bully back. Right? Like it just didn't even occur to her.
Dr. Robin Stern: It's not about you, it's about her. Yeah. Yeah. Why would she have thought about your growth and focus over the last years? Yeah,
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Right. In in in general, right? Is it like, I feel like with narcissism there's a lot of, you're not a human, you're an object. And then if you think about it, when you become a parent, it's the one time where objectification is actually healthy to your baby. You're an object for the right. It's literally object relations is the field of research that we talk about when we talk about mother baby bonding, mostly mother. 'cause of course, you know, we like to blame mothers a lot and we like to put a lot on mothers, right? But, um, but for me, I find that people who experience narcissistic abuse find the objectification from their infant, which is good and healthy, very scary. 'cause it's like, oh no, no, no, no, I don't wanna be an object. Again, I was an object. I didn't like it. This is dangerous territory for me right now. So we have to work through that.
Dr. Robin Stern: I, you know, I, I appreciate, um, your very concrete examples, uh, so that our listening audience can, can see it in their own lives and can think of their own examples that match your examples. I think it's super helpful. And I, and I wonder whether, um, you could go a little further with the, the flipping of survival strategies into parenting superpowers.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So the thing is though, you have to know that they're survival strategies, right? You have to know, oh, I people please, I do that for a very good reason. It was a survival skill. I absolutely needed it when I was 12, not 12 anymore. You have to know that it's a trauma adaptation. So what I like to do is, like, I, I recently wrote a Psychology Today blog post that literally said, maybe you don't have mom rage. Maybe it's a trauma response. Because I think that whenever you feel blocked from parenting in accordance with your values, when you intended to do A and B slipped out of you sideways, there's probably a trauma that blocked you. There's a, you learned that somewhere. So then the big question always becomes, where did I learn that? Like, where did I learn that it's the worst thing in the world if my kid is upset?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Or where did I learn that it's the worst thing in my, in the world if my kid doesn't do well in school and I therefore must force them to, you know, excel in school at all costs. Like what taught me that in life? That was probably a traumatic based learning in that moment. You know, where did I learn that? Um, you know, where did I learn that I should stuff down my emotions stuff down my emotions stuff down my emotions stuff. And then inevitably they're gonna come shooting out sideways at the least defense at the most defenseless target, which is probably my kids. Where did I learn that? Had to have learned it somewhere. So the minute you ask yourself that question, this happened, and it's very counters shaming, right? 'cause shame tells us, no, no, don't examine that. Then you're gonna feel where shame is gonna like flood you.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And that's a horrible feeling. But if you could do that and just be like, yeah, I did this. I yelled at my kids and I really don't believe in yelling at kids. What happened? How did I get from I don't believe in yelling at my kids to yelling at my kids? What were the interim steps? If I could just get you curious about that. I promise you for any parent listening to this, there is that moment of trauma-based learning someone or something taught you that. And what can be learned can be unlearned and what can be learned can be relearned.
Dr. Robin Stern: I, I really appreciate your saying that. And um, I too have looked at my own life in, uh, and different things that have happened to me that in family conversations with other family members, um, people would say that uncle of mine, this is a real example from my own life. Um, I had an uncle who was an alcoholic and, uh, he was very difficult, um, when he would drink, um, which wasn't all the time, right? But when he would drink, he would drink. And when he would drink, he would sometimes visit us. We didn't live in the same part of New York, but he would come to my house and he would drink. And um, one time he came to the house and he decided that he was going to, uh, lock us in the bedroom and just not to do anything but to tell us stories, but was clear that we had to listen to the stories and just not move
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern:
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah.
Dr. Robin Stern: And so I wonder, even though it was at the time potentially traumatic, I, I wonder, um, how people take those different things that were traumatic and teach them selves to learn from them or notice where the learning came from.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah. There's something to be said for, I think sometimes people are afraid of conflict, right? Like if I say I'm only gonna come to the Thanksgiving dinner for an hour, then my stepmom will get mad and then there will be drama. Sometimes it's actually good to like bring on the drama. Not like by fanning the flames, but like, yeah, you're gonna set the boundary. They will get mad, but then you will have clarity after the mad. I also had that with, uh, with also like you, I was in a situation where there's somebody who was a significant figure in my childhood, you know, not a parent who definitely had narcissistic elements to their personality. And at one point we got into a conflict. I people please all the time for this person. One point we got into a conflict 'cause we had to, because this person was asking me to do something that is prohibited ethically as a psychologist.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And this person just wasn't understanding the ethics, which is totally a misunderstanding on their part. And, um, wanted me to take on a case that was, um, a conflict of interest and there was just no way I could take it on. Like there this absolute clear cut cannot take on this case. And I said that to this person like that, that's not simply not happening. I hate to tell you no. And like I tried to do all the people pleasing. It didn't work. That person said to me, well what use are you to me if you won't take on a case when I refer them to you? And I just had that, it was so devastating to hear, but I had the moment of clarity, wait, I don't actually exist to be of use to you. Like, that's not why I was put on planet Earth that Yeah. It was devastating to hear because it was like, oh yeah, you don't value me as a person. You value me as an object, but now I know this.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yes.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Right. Thank you for yelling that at me. 'cause now I know.
Dr. Robin Stern: Right, exactly. And I too go back and say, thank you for teaching me how to be still Yes, chaos.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Like not sending you roses, but thank you for the clarity
Dr. Robin Stern: Right. So how do we, how do we teach people to find those moments in their path? Do you help people to look back in their, in your book? Yeah. And, and see where things came from and how they can use them to become superpowers.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So what we do is a lot of journaling. And of course there's a lot of ways to journal. You can like talk into your phone. You can talk into your camera, right? There's, you don't only have to like sit there with a pen and paper and a quill ink, you know, or whatever. But the, and I have specific journal prompts because I really want you to trace the origin of like, where did you learn that? What is your inner child saying? 'cause I always say, your inner child can't raise a child, right? But in raising your child, you can actually help your inner child heal. So we want, and again, inner child to me is just a metaphor. But we want that metaphor. Like, where did you learn that? And like, are you still 10 years old? Do you still have a 10-year-old understanding of the world or have you evolved?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: And it's so, it's such a subtle shift, but you'd be surprised how fast when someone does that. They go from, I, I slap my kid and I always swore to myself I would never slap. And then in that moment when she was acting that way, I just, it just came out of me. And I'm the worst mother in the world and I've traumatized her and I've abused her. I don't believe in slapping kids. At the same token, if we can get curious about where did that slap come from, then we can, and you can really journal around it and we can think it through. You're gonna find an answer. Like, your brain is smarter than you think. And your brain will tell you if, if you in a counter shaming way, ask it, your brain will tell you. And then you can examine it and learn from it. And then it's just data.
Dr. Robin Stern: And is that the same with gaslighting, that if you can notice where you're gaslighting yourself or where questioning yourself is coming from previous gaslighting, can you then I call it what it is?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah. I think also, you know, narcissists have a great way of making themselves into the arbiters of reality. And there's a lot of people that like are constantly going back to like, but if I could just get this person to acknowledge what they did to me, and they're not gonna do that. Right? Like, like shortcut statistics, like I'm gonna predict the future. It's not gonna happen. They have a vested interest in not doing that. That being said, you do get to be your own arbiter of reality. Not to say that like you get to decide what the facts are, but you can remember your facts without justifying it to other people. Like no one, you don't, no one gets to doubt your experience of your experience, not even you. Right? So yeah, we do tend to self gaslight and we do tend to, you know, we do tend to, you know, sort of, well, I'll have people in post-traumatic parenting classes be like, I don't know that I belong here.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Like, this person in the class had these massive, massive traumas. Mine is not big enough. And it's like, let's not play, first of all, let's not play trauma poker, right? Where like, I see your trauma, I raise you my trauma. Like no one wins that game. Also, a lot of people, by the way, will tell you their trauma. Like I am saying a portion of my trauma, there's actually traumas that in some way were more traumatic to me. Like the bullying than losing my father, even though losing my father would be a big T trauma. And the bullying would be theoretically a little t trauma. The bullying actually created more things that I had to heal in my personality than losing my father. Losing my father was very scary. The flash. And even losing my father grief is sad, but it's a normative human experience.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Um, the flashbacks were terrifying more 'cause I thought I was losing my mind than right had I known, oh, this is called a flashback. Your brain will do that. If you've been traumatized, I would've been so much better off, right? To categorize what's traumatic and what's not. If it was too big for your brain to metabolize and it left you with a certain operating principle of like, this must not be so therefore this you're traumatized, don't gaslight yourself now figure out what to do about it. It, it's not worthwhile. Like, well my stepmother yelled at me, but beat my little sister. So she's the one who's traumatized. I'm not. The yelling might have left more scars, subtle comments, just 'cause you grew up in a family with a functional alcoholic who just made these subtle digs all the time, but your friend was raised with a step dad who molested her. So what it's, it's, they're both damaging experiences. It's different damage to different people. Yeah. 'cause we gaslight ourselves and that's silly.
Dr. Robin Stern: And then how do you move forward? Which actually I was gonna ask a question about that. Um, what role do you think self-compassion plays in helping people move forward and becoming the parent you want to be?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: The the question is, what do you mean by self-compassion? Because I think a lot of people say self-compassion when they mean toxic positivity, right? They, they, they don't know the difference between the two. Self-compassion is the honest, raw, authentic understanding that I am a human who will sometimes mess up. And that's okay. That's what self-compassion is.
Dr. Robin Stern: That's what I mean.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah. And because a lot of people when they're like, yeah, like, you know, um, I have self-compassion. Like no, no, no. That wasn't self-compassion. That was like, I would like to move past it and stuff it down and, and not think about it. That's not self-compassion. I think that at the core saying I'm a human and I'm gonna mess up and I'm gonna make mistakes and I'm, and and sort of undoing the counterfactual thinking of if only I had turned left instead of right. Kind of thinking that we do when we're traumatized. You know what, but I didn't turn left. I did turn right and that was a mistake. I did get into my drunk boss's car, or I did, or I did get baited into a fight with my, with my stepmom. Even though I knew where it would end up. Like yeah, the music started playing and I started dancing. That happens. That's okay because every time I do it and I notice it, I get a little further from it. Eventually there will be a moment where the music will start to play and I won't dance.
Dr. Robin Stern: So acceptance for your own humanity. Yeah. And and for the fact that we are not perfect.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah. Well, so with parenting, right? There are so many people who are saying that they wanna be these conscious, gentle, responsive parents, but they mean perfect. Perfect is not only not possible, it's a really bad idea. Do not be a perfect parent.
Dr. Robin Stern: So as we close today, and I've really enjoyed hearing all your amazing, uh, tips for people and strategies and your thinking and wisdom that went into this book, right? That you've written and it's coming out very soon. That is called post-Traumatic Parenting. Break the Cycle and become the Parent you always want it to be. If you were to give one piece of advice to parents struggling with the effects of their own trauma, what would it be?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: It can get so much better, right? Like, it, it, it can be even good and okay now, but parenting should be and can be this joyful, connected, attuned experience. And no matter what stage of parenting you're in, 'cause I think there'll be a lot of people who will be listening to this with like an 11-year-old thinking, like, if only I had read this book when my kid was a newborn. Like it's, it's over now. Or even a 30 5-year-old. The possibility for repair is always there at any stage. We can always fix it. We can always not start over but begin afresh, right? Like meaning, like, I acknowledge the stuff I did and I wanna move forward with our relationship, acknowledging the stuff I did that wasn't so great. How do I fix it? What can I do? How do we repair it? Um, honestly speaking, there's strong power in a parent coming and saying something like, if I had a time machine and I could go back, I would do it differently.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: I don't, what can we do now? There's there's, there's, there's always barring extreme, extreme extreme abuse, which always, you know, like, let's leave that out. There's a possibility for repair at any moment. But not only repair with your kid, repair within yourself. I think parenting is the one time, and there's actually new research coming out now that says parents are more neuroplastic than at any other time of their life. So if we wanna, I always say neuroplasticity is bad news when it comes to PTSD recovery because if neurons that fire together wire together, you've been rehearsing this response for 30 years, that's not good news because that's 30 years of rehearsal that we have to undo. But if you're very neuroplastic when you're a parent, then we have this golden opportunity to rewire that.
Dr. Robin Stern: That's such a wonderful, hopeful message. And it's, I I believe it myself. Yes. And witnessed it. So where can people find you, Robin?
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: So the book is coming out July of 25, July 1st, 2025. Um, you can find me on Instagram at, at dr Kaslow psychology. That's where the post-traumatic parenting community hangs out. I also have a podcast and a YouTube channel. They're both called Post-Traumatic Parenting. Um, and I'm pretty good about responding to comments, dms, things like that. I do try to make the YouTube like when people ask a question, I try to like, it might take a few weeks because there's a time delay, but like I do try to like shoot those videos in response to those questions. I just never want another post-traumatic parent to feel as alone as I did when I was pregnant and thought my poor kid, what is this kid gonna do having me for a mom? So, and I think that's such an experience that a lot of us go through. Um, and there's also a website, dr robin kasowitz.com with, you know, links to all my resources.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you so much. This has been really important and meaningful and, and I'm sure our, my listeners have gotten so much, our listeners this hour have gotten so much from, from being with you. Thanks for coming on this podcast and I'd love to continue the conversation. Sure.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Thank you so much for having me. I think the fact that one of the hardest things to get over when you're a post-traumatic parent is narcissistic abuse and gaslighting within the family because you rely on your family to be the arbiters of reality for you. When you're a little kid, you don't know anything about the world. So when somebody's gaslighting you and you're a child, that really does do a lot to your developing psyche. And I find that in post-traumatic parenting classes, those are for some people the hardest things to recover from. So the fact that you're shedding light and you're like, no, that's called gaslighting. This is how it works, is so helpful for people because then they can understand that there is another way of interpreting reality, not just what was handed to them.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you so much and, um, I hope everyone's been listening up until the very last minute because your last message about only you know what you've experienced and know your reality is really important, and no one else take that from you.
Dr. Robyn Koslowitz: Yeah.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you again, Robin, and thank you everyone for listening. I'll see you next time.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thanks for joining me for today's episode. I hope you found it helpful and meaningful. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them at robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. And please leave a rating and a review. I also invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This podcast is produced by Mel Yellen, Mike Lens, and me. All of my work is supported by Suzen Pettit Marcus Estevez and Omaginarium, also by Sally McCarton and Jackie Daniels. I'm so grateful to have many people supporting me and especially grateful for all of you, my listeners.
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