Dr. Hilary Goldsher
Appearances
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
We have adrenaline running through our body, which is adrenaline. And what does that do? That amongst other things, disallows us to access resources our full frontal lobe and make good decisions and use our full judgment. So that is absolutely part of the reason that people are unable to curate resources to go. The other we talked about briefly at the top was logistical.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Some people literally have nowhere to go. Where am I going?
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes, that's right. That's right. Break you down with your confidence and your sense of agency and mastery and feel unable to do anything by telling victims that they're stupid or incapable and beating them down day after day after day so that even if the fact pattern isn't true, the woman is absolutely capable. She internalizes that she's not. So you're right. Logistics often go together.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I have nowhere to go. I have no ability to make money and intersects with that first tenant, which is shame. If I, because people listening might say, well, like, go to your best friend, go to your mom, go to your pastor, go to your therapist, that shame piece. I'm so ashamed for how badly I feel about myself for allowing myself to be in this position.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
My fight or flight system has been triggered. I'm paralyzed. I can't do anything.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Oh, Aubrey, I'm so, so sorry to hear this. I'm having a visceral reaction to that experience.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I do too. And if you don't mind, I'll use your experience to elucidate what we're talking about, which is so in that moment, the intersection of factors, right? You feel choiceless, resourceless. Your body's in fight or flight. You're completely paralyzed.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
You may even have what I alluded to before, which is a severe response collapse, which is actually a phenomenon where you basically go into a primitive state, a completely regressed state where you cannot- On the floor.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I'm devastated for you. I'm devastated and I really appreciate your vulnerability for saying this out loud because it's a horrifying truth and yet maybe helps viewers and listeners understand that someone is resilient and strong and sort of together as you are in a peer can have an intersection of factors occur where they wind up in this position.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
The other unique thing that happens in abusive situations that I think is confusing people as they listen to the trial is and you've briefly alluded to in your own experience, is this pull to reunite with the abuser, right? So even in that moment, I would imagine all you wanted was for him to come and get you and tell you you were in good standing again. And so what is this?
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Because if you haven't been through it, or you don't know someone who's been through it, it's a fair enough question or a fair enough set of complex factors that get one who is curious and trying to understand this complex situation to ask why they don't get it. Why would someone stay when things are bad and scary? Yes. that can lead to blaming the victim or minimizing their trauma.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
What is this that we want the abuser to say? No, actually, I pick you. I choose you. You can come back inside metaphorically and literally. Come back in the fold. And I believe this was discussed on the stand by Dr. Hughes. This is the well-known but overused notion of trauma bonding.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
And let me say a little more about it because I think people use it so casually these days that it doesn't capture what it's meant to from a clinical standpoint. But trauma bonding is around the notion that abuse often follows a cycle, right, where there's tension building there. The victim is trying to please and please and please.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
The explosion happens and the intense abuse occurs, whether it's physical or emotional, mental or both. And then there's the pull for the victim to reunite. It's essentially getting their fill of nutrients, their lifeline. When am I going to get brought back to life? They feel like they're choiceless, optionless.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
There's no other resources or connection or people available because of all the things I just said.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
That's right. And so that pull to get reconnected and get back in the honeymoon period, which is almost always part of what happens after an enormous explosion, the abuser. feel some degree of shame and guilt and will shower the victim with all the things that make them feel loved, whether it's tangible goods or... Oh man, I came home to a brand new phone.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes, and so for someone going back to our original discussion around abandonment and early childhood trauma, getting that honeymoon and that sort of deluge of the showing of love and affection is so compelling and seductive. That's part, it's not the only reason, but that's part of why the cycle stays intact.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
And that intermittent reinforcement of love and cruelty creates a powerful emotional dependency.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
And it's a really negative vicious cycle for victims and for the paradigm of domestic abuse. So I'm happy we're talking about it. So I have a lot to say about why. So feel free to interrupt.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes. Well, you're highlighting a really significant aspect of this, which is the addictive nature. And I'm not using that term in quotes. I'm talking about science, chemistry, what happens in the brain.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
And we alluded to this earlier, but just like when you use drugs or drink or gamble, et cetera, and there's, I'm sort of oversimplifying it, but there's a version of a dopamine and a serotonin hit that which is the feel-good chemical inside of us.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
The exact same thing happens during the reunification process with an abuser for all of the reasons that I was just describing and more that we can go into if we find the time, but it is the same process. And so you're talking about literal detox. I don't mean detox in quotes.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
You're talking about in part to truly get away from an abusive relationship, you have to detox, which means you have to be away from the person. And whatever that takes, whether it's moving to another country or some curation of resources amongst your community, can change from scenario to scenario, of course, but that's what you're talking about. And in the absence of true detox, i.e.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
not being with the person, you're not going to be able to truly go away. Why? Because your brain will seek the, the hit of the serotonin and dopamine time and time again in a very similar way that an addict does.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
And so conceptualizing that way first helps people understand as they're observing and thinking about it from the outside, but also helps people in it perhaps think about resources in a different way. Yes, who specializes in this arena is going to be very useful, but the curation of resources to help with removal. It has to be incredibly robust, which I don't want to end our time together.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I know we're not almost done, but without saying this, which is the final but critical piece that I'm thinking about around why people stay is the fear of retaliation.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes, empirically, empirically, data, statistics, the most dangerous period for abuse victims is when they're thinking about leaving, when they leave and in the aftermath.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
So you're talking about two pieces. One is the internal risk of the victim once they leave, recklessly searching for that high. Yes.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yeah, I mean, I don't think we can out of hand dismiss the truth that she didn't directly interview the victim or the alleged perpetrator.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
It's common practice. It happens all the time. I mean, if you look at many cases that are not high profile, there is often, not always, but often an expert brought in who has not had access to anyone on the defense or anyone on the prosecution side. So it's an argument that is utilized- often. And so it makes sense the defense would raise it. And in my opinion, you would stipulate to that.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Absolutely. I'm not trying to suggest I have victims or the alleged perpetrator. I clearly have not. And just like myself, if you have expertise clinically, anecdotally over many, many decades,
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Again, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand as a truth, but most, not all, but most clinicians that specialize in domestic violence, and clinicians might comment that this isn't true for them, but most, if not many, either treat victims or perpetrators and don't necessarily treat both. They become-
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I mean, there's sort of a professional reason, which is less interesting, that when you have areas of expertise, you become hyper focused on that particular area. So if you're an expert in working with domestic violence victims, you just do a deep dive into that particular area.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
population and how you would treat them and conceptualize those cases would be wildly different than how you would treat and conceptualize a case of an abuser so some of it is just sort of professional trajectory and really focusing on a particular area of expertise which many clinicians do including myself on various topics like
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
A clinician might say, I'm an expert in trauma, and that's sort of all I do. I don't really do specifically depression, anxiety, even though those are aspects of trauma, for example. So it's not unheard of in my world to focus on one or two arenas and have it be your area of focus. You, as a clinician treating victims, have...
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
besides someone who only treats or also treats perpetrators or alleged perpetrators, you have as much insight as possible relative to the normal practitioner into the world of and the patterns of abusers. So while you might not work directly with them, you have a lot of anecdotal and clinical data from your work with victims, collaborative efforts with all of the people involved.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I would say it's somewhere in the middle. I don't think it happens a lot in my clinical and anecdotal experience. That's quite a thing to put yourself through to come out as a victim and have it not be true. Um, and there are other psychological factors going on. If that's the case, it's not unheard of.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
It, it, it hasn't never played out double negative, but so that it, it occurs less than occasionally, uh, It's a pretty small amount. A very small amount. And in this case, in the Diddy case, there is a myriad of, it appears, of collaborating evidence that's been submitted in court in terms of eyewitnesses and texts and videos, et cetera, that suggest this isn't the case.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
But yes, it has occurred before.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I'm really glad you pointed that out because obviously there is shame encircling men who are victims of domestic violence, given the full of male-female roles that society establishes.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes, and I'm going to deliberately oversimplify my answer because anyone in this position is completely overwhelmed and has their nervous system triggered and their inability to think or consider options is limited. if almost non-existent. So my piece of advice, my first edict is tell a safe other, tell a safe other.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
If you can just do that, if you can just do that, it opens up the door for your experience to be mirrored back to you as the reality of what it is and for resources to begin to be curated.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
So if you hear this information, err on the side of believing and say that out loud.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
If you are the safe other, err on the side of believing and say it. I believe you. And that is not okay. Those are the two things that you should say. I believe you. It is your right to notice, your right to say it's not okay. And then I will help you. And a safe other should not know how they should go about helping someone because that's not their area of expertise.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
But find someone who does, you know, talk to your primary care physician, Google therapist in your neck of the woods that specializes in domestic violence.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
there are free or incredibly low fee clinics in most cities. If you're in a very rural part of the country, that might not be true, but perhaps the safe other can take you to the nearest one. So Googling free and or a low fee clinic for mental health will get you in front of a provider or a clinician that can start to help you curate resources. There are
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Safe houses also for domestic abuse survivors in various cities. Again, not in the smaller ones, but that's another thing that your safe other can help you find. Is there a resource locally or somewhere that you can commute to as a first step?
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Thanks for having me and thanks for your bravery and sharing your story.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Before I get into kind of the macro buckets of why people stay, I'll start where you ended, because shame is such a thematic reason why both men and women stay. When one quote comes out via...
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
public or criminal accusation or just even telling their community that they've been involved in a domestic abusive situation, there is deep rooted shame internalized because of their own inability to leave their admission that they stayed and endured abuse and the potential reaction of the community around them.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Oh, you're so well-versed and I'm going to cover.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes, that's a great foundation to lay forth as I begin this discussion, which is for those who are listening that haven't had this experience or don't know anyone in their sphere that have just have an open mind. It is a complex notion, but take a listen to the set of factors that can intersect, that can result in really strong, amazing women becoming victims over a very long period of time. So
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Let's kind of start on the macro. There are a number of reasons, and they usually pool together, that result in women or men staying in an abusive relationship. And they fall under the following categories. There may be more. I might miss one or two. But these, from my anecdotal and empirical research and experience, are the top ones, which are psychological and emotional.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
We'll get into all of these. Logistical, financial, physical safety.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Amy and TJ presents Aubrey O'Day covering the Diddy Trial.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yes, we're going to start there, right? Psychological and emotional factors. So often, not always, but often a victim of abuse comes from a family and the details and the narrative and the stories vary, the demographics, the socioeconomic status, but at the core is some version of abandonment.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
some version of an internalized sense of low self-worth or low value, and either an implicit or explicit edict to find a scenario, a relationship, a partner that sort of confirms and affirms that they're OK, that they're of value, that they're worthy.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
And if they end up with someone that can provide that at times, but there is emotional and physical rent to pay through verbal abuse, through physical abuse. Sometimes the person can't garner the internal resources to value their emotional and physical safety over money.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
the sort of deposit of self-worth that comes when the person chooses them, when the person is kind to them, when the person is bonded to them. And this is a complex psychological sort of notion, but it boils down to pathologically low self-worth.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
I got you. I got you. Thank you so much for having me.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
What you're talking about is the power imbalance was normalized and sanctioned and popular, right?
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yeah, it's a big ask for people to disconnect from their affiliation around those narratives. It's seductive, very seductive.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Well, I mean, it intersects with a number of factors, right? Probably anxiety, restlessness, boredom, low self-worth, right? Imbibing those headlines and becoming attached to those narratives offers us a version of a dopamine hit, right? It's an escape from our own reality and gives us sometimes an opportunity to be righteous and judge, which can give us an avenue to escape from our own pain.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
That's right.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
get out of a toxic situation or out of a situation where they're being abused i have a lot of people writing me right now that are inside of abusive relationships and i see the spiral i don't have quick advice let me do a quick summary of why people are there and then we'll go into how do you begin to even think about extracting so we talked about that emotional psychological factor briefly and i could do hours about this because it's highly complex
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Not everyone who's had abandonment in their childhood end up in abusive relationships. Of course, that's true. But people who end up in abusive relationships often have this as a background. Yes. And so that's one of the aspects that we more often than not see. The other we address briefly, which is guilt and shame.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
The internalized guilt for being someone that would subject themselves to these dynamics and allow themselves to be a victim of are overwhelming, can cause emotional paralysis, what we call a severe collapse response, where you're literally internally and physically in a fetal position, unable to think, unable to act.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Yeah, this is a question that's sort of floating around the culture right now. And while I'm disturbed and devastated about the alleged crimes against the myriad of women involved, I'm sort of the sort of silver lining is that we get to talk about this. The question you just asked is complex. And a lot of people, unfortunately, are having an opportunity to think through this very nuanced paradigm.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
The entire nervous system shuts down, goes into a fight or flight solely because of the shame, let alone the emotional and physical abuse you may be enduring. So it's not just death. should I stay or should I go? The body goes into an absolute trauma mode in a fight or flight state. And we have cortisol, the stress hormone running through our body.