How do you go from being the person who could handle everything to barely getting through the day?

And why do we judge people for what they drop without ever asking what they were carrying?

In this episode, I'm talking about capacity. Not capability. Capacity. The difference between what you're able to do and how much you can actually carry right now.

This isn't about being lazy or unmotivated.

It's what happens when your max becomes everyone's expectation of your normal.

When the load keeps growing and nothing comes off.

When you know exactly what you should be doing and still can't make yourself start.

When the thing that gave you relief slowly becomes another problem.

Doomscrolling. Avoiding things. Overworking. Pulling away from people.

We talk about why behavior tells you what happened but not why, how something can start as a way to cope and turn into something you have to cope with, and why understanding the reason behind a behavior still doesn't let you off the hook for changing it.

Sometimes the person you used to be wasn't stronger. They just had more room.

That's the fine print.

🤍 Subscribe for more unfiltered truth.

How does someone end up hating a person they’ve never even met?

Or someone they once knew, trusted, cared about, and had their own relationship with?

In this episode, I’m talking about inherited hatred. The way people absorb someone else’s anger, judgments, resentment, and version of events until they start carrying it like it belongs to them.

This isn’t just about saying “I hate that person.”

It’s repeating narratives you don’t actually know are true.

Passing along gossip.

Making judgments about situations you were never part of.

Treating someone differently because of what somebody else told you.

Sending screenshots. Fishing for information. Playing both sides. Reporting things back.

Sometimes even knowing the story is twisted and choosing to participate anyway.

We talk about the difference between supporting someone and inheriting their enemies, why not knowing what’s true should make you more careful, not less, and how this kind of participation can affect someone’s reputation, relationships, livelihood, sense of safety, and ability to trust.

At the end of the day, you are responsible for what you choose to carry.

Another person’s hatred does not have to become yours.

🤍 Subscribe for more unfiltered truth.
📖 Stripped Down: Piece by F*cking Piece

🌐 www.lindsay-michele.com 
🔗 linktr.ee
🖤 You are not alone.

EPISODE 9: I’m No Longer Shrinking to Be Digestible

(Everything I Know About My Light Was Taught by My Darkness)

This episode isn’t about healing in a pretty way.

It’s about what abuse actually teaches you to do in order to survive.

I talk about how trauma conditioned me to become digestible.

How I learned to disappear without realizing I was doing it.

How being adaptable, agreeable, and “easy” slowly erased my sense of self.

This episode traces where that pattern started, how it followed me through friendships, work, relationships, and everyday life, and what it cost me to keep surviving that way.

We talk about:

• How abuse trains you to explain yourself to stay safe

• Why being “understanding” can actually be self-erasure

• The difference between being understood and being aligned

• What happens when you stop shrinking and people lose access to you

• Why growth doesn’t always feel lighter, just clearer

There’s no packaged takeaway here.

No clean ending.

No version of this story made easier to swallow.

Just truth, presence, and the moment you stop negotiating your own existence.

If you’ve ever felt like you disappeared to keep the peace, this episode will land.

Trigger Warning: This episode contains a discussion of sexual assault and trauma responses. Please listen with care.

Resources for Support

Abuse doesn’t discriminate—and neither do the resources that can help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out.

National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.):

800-799-7233 | thehotline.org

(Free, confidential support for anyone in an abusive relationship—women, men, LGBTQIA+, teens, and more)

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network):

800-656-HOPE | rainn.org

(24/7 support for sexual assault survivors of all genders)

Crisis Text Line:

Text HOME to 741741 (U.S.) for immediate, free support from trained crisis counselors

1in6 (for male survivors of sexual trauma):

1in6.org

(Support, therapy, and group resources specifically for men)

Male Survivor:

malesurvivor.org

(Education, peer support, and healing spaces for men who have experienced sexual abuse)

BetterHelp or Open Path Collective:

Online, low-cost therapy options for all genders

International Directory:

therapyroute.com or womensupportproject.co.uk

(Global support lists for emotional abuse, trauma, and domestic violence)

This deep dive pulls back every layer and finally tells the real reason I created Down the Rabbit Hole and wrote Stripped Down: Piece by F*cking Piece. This is the truth underneath everything I’ve put out into the world. The moment my life cracked open. The years of abuse, manipulation, and silence that pushed me to the edge. The collapse that forced me to stop pretending I was fine.

It walks through the point where survival mode stopped working and the only way forward was speaking the story I spent years hiding. The emotional weight. The psychological damage. The nervous system breakdown. The spiritual unraveling. The exact moment I realized this wasn’t content for me. This was survival. Staying quiet was destroying me.

This is my why. My core message. The heartbeat behind every chapter and every episode. A woman finally telling the truth she carried alone for too long so no one else has to feel that alone in theirs.

EPISODE 7 | The Silent Poison and the Fight to Breathe:

In this episode, I’m telling the truth most people never hear. The kind that lives behind closed doors and quiet smiles. The kind of abuse that destroys you from the inside out long before anyone realizes something is wrong.

This isn’t a story about “just leaving.”
It’s about what happens when you survive something that should have killed you, and then spend years trying to make sense of the pieces left behind.

I talk about the night I almost didn’t make it out, the decade of fallout that rewired my entire nervous system, and the relationship that felt like a soul-level connection but ended up breaking me deeper than anything before it.

This episode goes into the real aftermath — the panic, the numbness, the drinking, the self-doubt, the gaslighting you do to yourself because the world refuses to believe your story. It’s the truth about trauma bonding, emotional abuse, and what chronic trauma actually does to your body and your mind.

If you’ve ever felt unseen, disbelieved, or blamed for the pain you didn’t cause, you’re not alone.
If you’ve ever questioned your own memories because someone trained you to, you’re not crazy.
If you’ve ever left abuse and wondered why everything still hurt afterward, this episode will make you feel understood.

This is what survival really looks like.
And this is what healing actually feels like.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussions of abuse, trauma, and mental health struggles that may be distressing or activating for some listeners. Please listen with care.
Resources for Support
Abuse doesn’t discriminate—and neither do the resources that can help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out.
National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.): 800-799-7233 | thehotline.org
(Free, confidential support for anyone in an abusive relationship—women, men, LGBTQIA+, teens, and more)
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): 800-656-HOPE | rainn.org
(24/7 support for sexual assault survivors of all genders)
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 (U.S.) for immediate, free support from trained crisis counselors
1in6 (for male survivors of sexual trauma): 1in6.org
(Support, therapy, and group resources specifically for men)
Male Survivor: malesurvivor.org
(Education, peer support, and healing spaces for men who have experienced sexual abuse)
BetterHelp or Open Path Collective:
Online, low-cost therapy options for all genders
International Directory:
therapyroute.com or womensupportproject.co.uk
(Global support lists for emotional abuse, trauma, and domestic violence)
Visit my website: lindsay-michele.com
Follow on Instagram: @downtherabbithole.lm
All my Links: https://linktr.ee/downtherabbithole.lm
❤️ You are not alone.
#healing #traumarecovery #selflove #mentalhealth #resilience #lifecoach #inspiration #empowerment #narcissisticabuse #mindfulness #emotionalhealing

Episode 6: I’m the “Crazy Ex.” Certified by Gaslighters Anonymous

You tell the truth, and suddenly you’re the problem.

The liar. The dramatic one. The “crazy ex.”

This episode exposes what really happens after you walk away from abuse—how the story gets rewritten, how friends disappear, and how the world believes the version that feels easier to hear.

It’s about the smear campaigns, the silence of people who stayed “neutral,” and the moment you realize defending yourself only keeps you trapped in their game.

Because when you stop fighting to clear your name, you start standing in it.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussions of abuse, trauma, and mental health struggles that may be distressing or activating for some listeners. Please listen with care.

Resources for Support

Abuse doesn’t discriminate—and neither do the resources that can help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out.

National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.):

800-799-7233 | thehotline.org

(Free, confidential support for anyone in an abusive relationship—women, men, LGBTQIA+, teens, and more)

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network):

800-656-HOPE | rainn.org

(24/7 support for sexual assault survivors of all genders)

Crisis Text Line:

Text HOME to 741741 (U.S.) for immediate, free support from trained crisis counselors

1in6 (for male survivors of sexual trauma):

1in6.org

(Support, therapy, and group resources specifically for men)

Male Survivor:

malesurvivor.org

(Education, peer support, and healing spaces for men who have experienced sexual abuse)

BetterHelp or Open Path Collective:

Online, low-cost therapy options for all genders

International Directory:

therapyroute.com or womensupportproject.co.uk

(Global support lists for emotional abuse, trauma, and domestic violence)

Episode 5: The Breakthrough That Breaks You

What happens when the healing hits harder than the hurt?

When the moment of clarity isn’t light—it’s heavy.

When you finally see how deep it went and how much of you it shaped.

In this episode, I talk about the side of healing no one warns you about—the part where awareness knocks the wind out of you, where the truth doesn’t feel freeing at first, it feels like breaking down everything you once believed about yourself.

This isn’t about becoming new.

It’s about facing what’s been there all along.

The breakthrough that breaks you—before it rebuilds you.

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussions of abuse, trauma, and mental health struggles that may be distressing or activating for some listeners. Please listen with care.

Resources for Support

Abuse doesn’t discriminate—and neither do the resources that can help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out.

National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.):

800-799-7233 | thehotline.org

(Free, confidential support for anyone in an abusive relationship—women, men, LGBTQIA+, teens, and more)

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network):

800-656-HOPE | rainn.org

(24/7 support for sexual assault survivors of all genders)

Crisis Text Line:

Text HOME to 741741 (U.S.) for immediate, free support from trained crisis counselors

1in6 (for male survivors of sexual trauma):

1in6.org

(Support, therapy, and group resources specifically for men)

Male Survivor: malesurvivor.org

(Education, peer support, and healing spaces for men who have experienced sexual abuse)

BetterHelp or Open Path Collective:

Online, low-cost therapy options for all genders

International Directory:

therapyroute.com or womensupportproject.co.uk

(Global support lists for emotional abuse, trauma, and domestic violence)