Ilaria Petrucci
Ilaria Petrucci is a qualified mountain leader and trained Trauma coach who loves helping women reconnect with themselves through nature and hiking. She founded Healing Through Hiking CIC, a safe and welcoming space where women can connect with themselves, with nature, and with other women who truly understand. She runs a free monthly walk in the Peak District, and is now expanding her offerings to retreats and guided hikes, creating more opportunities for women to recharge, reconnect, and feel empowered in the outdoors. Ilaria also runs Her Wild Adventures and leads general hiking trips for women of all levels, creating adventures that are fun, empowering, and full of connection. Drawing on her own journey of healing, she shares honest, relatable insights to inspire others to rediscover their strength, joy, and sense of freedom, one step at a time.
Tamsin Caine
Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.
You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://bit.ly/SmDiv15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK
Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Smart Divorce Ltd
P.S. I am the co-author of “My Divorce Handbook – It’s What You Do Next That Counts”, written by divorce specialists and lawyers writing about their area of expertise to help walk you through the divorce process. You can buy it by scanning the QR code…
Transcript
(The transcript has been created by an AI, apologies for any mistakes)
Tamsin Caine:
Hello and welcome to today's very special episode of the Smart Divorce Podcast. We have had a lot of interest in our previous episodes where we've discussed divorce and narcissism, and we are very delighted to be joined today by Ilaria Pedrucci. My accent is nowhere near as beautiful as Ilaria. So I'm sure she'll say that properly for you in a few minutes. But Ilaria is a trauma coach and mountain guide who helps women heal from the lasting effects of narcissistic relationships. Drawing from her own personal journey of breaking free and rebuilding her life, she now guides others to reconnect with themselves through nature, hiking, and somatic healing. Ilaria is here to share her story and her journey on what it truly means to heal after narcissistic love. I found uh Ilaria through randomly, a um friend of mine who organized guided outdoor adventures and was absolutely um drawn to the work that she does with um with people who are healing from um narcissistic abuse. So I reached out to Ilaria and and uh asked and grovelled her to come on the podcast and share her experiences and how she helps women so that um you can benefit from this as well. And she'll also tell you how you can get hold of her. Welcome, Ilaria. Thank you so much for agreeing to come along onto the podcast.
Ilaria Petrucci:
Thank you so much for having me. It's really exciting to be here and to have the opportunity to connect with you and whoever is listening.
Tamsin Caine:
Absolutely. Um, so tell us why you are so passionate, because I I feel your passion every time I speak to you, but why you're so passionate about helping people to heal from um from narcissistic abuse in relationships?
Ilaria Petrucci:
Well, my own story comes into play straight away because obviously I come from experience. I have been in a narcissistic, uh, emotionally abusive relationship for about four years, which ended now in two in 2023, so almost three years ago. And just from my experience navigating that journey, that pain, and then ultimately facing my own dynamics, which is the path that led me to actually come out of it and start my healing journey towards rebuilding myself and my own strength and my own um inner um finding again my inner joy and what I want to do with my life, um, having lost myself in the relationship for so long. Um I know how number one, how isolating the experience can be. And even though you might have friends around that try to understand, it doesn't always kind of work that way. And it certainly didn't really work for me with the people I had around at the time, um, which can be even more isolating with people not understanding what you're going through, dismissing your experience, and just thinking that you can just leave, which is a very uh common thing to hear, rather than to just leave if anything, which money, don't get me wrong, it makes perfect sense logically, but it doesn't quite work that way. So I remember as I, you know, on quite into my healing journey, I started sharing my story on Instagram, and the response that I had from both men and women, to be fair, it was completely overwhelming in the best possible way. And I thought, okay, maybe I can contribute to this, and there is something that I can do and use my experience and all that I've been through in a positive way to kind of give back and help kind of like be the person that I wish I had when I was going. It sounds a bit cliche, but that's exactly kind of like what it is. Um, and so I started with have with continuing sharing my story, and then one day I thought, oh, I can maybe create, you know, being um I was training to become a mountain guide at the time. I thought I can create something, maybe a monthly walk that um women can come to um to connect with each other and create like a safe place where women can feel understood, regardless of what stage they're at in this, you know, in this journey. And so I think it was um 27th of April uh well, it was it was a year, the April just gone, so 2024. I started my healing through hiking, which is a monthly walk that we do is completely free, and we do it in Makassil Forest, which is uh in the Peak District. Um, and it's like a four hour walk. We just um very simply meet, connect, walk. Uh, we spend some time in the forest just in the silence, and then we stop for coffee and cake at the end. And it has been incredible, like so many women have connected with each other, they've connected with me, and it's just like really beautiful to see people finding so much benefit for from something so simple, which is just being understood and being around people that get it.
Tamsin Caine:
yeah, absolutely. Crikey, so many questions um already on on the things that you've said. Um, I think the the first thing for me, I'm gonna kind of start with the end bit and then and then work my way backwards to the beginning, which might make not make any sense. But in terms of of walking and talking when there's um when you're in the middle of a very emotional situation, and it's like sitting in the car. You don't have to have eye contact with somebody if you're side by side, and it makes it much easier to talk. And so to me, that makes a huge amount of sense. Have you have you found people are more able to open up because of that side by side rather than sitting opposite somebody?
Ilaria Petrucci:
I think I have heard that, and interestingly, recently somebody has said that it would be nice to do something where they can sit in front of each other so that they can connect more, which made me think about how like the opposite is also true that maybe when you don't know somebody very well, it is easier to share because there isn't that eye contact. But also, I think the fact of being outdoors, having that space around you, being in an environment that is neutral and not judgmental, it just um it just validates um your experience, I think, and it allows you to just be yourself without feeling judged. And also obviously being surrounded by women that understand what what you're going through. Um, and another beautiful thing about the walks is that there is no pressure to share. There is no, uh I remember one of the women coming to my walks said, Oh, I thought we were going to sit in a circle and share our experience, which don't give me wrong, it might be a great idea, but it doesn't work like that. We just literally walk and people connect with each other if they choose to, they can share whatever, wherever they want. So yeah, but the file I think that definitely plays plays a part in that, yeah.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. You talked quite a number of times, you mentioned the word a word isolation in in your um when you were talking, and isolation is a massive part of narcissistic abuse, isn't it? So the the narcissist purposefully isolates you from friends and family. That's part of the kind of process and the playbook that a narcissist will go through. So that to anybody listening won't be a surprise that you were feeling isolation and you've seen other women feeling isolation. What I'm interested in is at what point you started to realize because narcissistic abuse is subtle and it creeps up on you very, very slowly. At what point or was there a particular um thing that happened that made you realize that actually this this isn't right? I don't feel like this is this is where I should be.
Ilaria Petrucci:
Yeah, I mean, very earlier on in the relationship, I yes, I I knew I felt the red flags probably after the first date, if I'm completely honest with myself. Um but obviously I ignored it, I played it down, I justified it. Um and then I didn't really name it um until 18 months into the relationship, I started therapy because I was already completely a shell of myself. Um, I didn't know how to continue staying in this relationship, and at the same time, I just couldn't leave. Um, and the reason that brought me to therapy wasn't really to um um to leave, it was to how do I change so that I can make this work? That that's what brought me to therapy in the first place. And I remember it was one of the first sessions um with my therapist, which I have been with from that day for the following four years.
Tamsin Caine:
Wow.
Ilaria Petrucci:
Um still to this day, if I go to someone, it'll be her. And I remember her saying to me, um, she actually she said the exact word, and she said, last session when we were talking, I wrote down in my note domestic abuse. And I was like, no, what do you mean, domestic abuse? It doesn't hit me, you know, it doesn't, it never, you know, it never pushes me, or maybe it happened once that you push me, but it doesn't hit me. Um, and then from there, it's the first time that I kind of started considering the concept of emotional abuse, and then I've learned more and more about narcissism and and it kind of like my awareness grew from there. Um, but still from that moment, there was as I said, it was about 18 months, uh say 20 months into the relationship. I stayed for another for another two years uh plus some. So it the journey is different from everyone. Um, but it's important to know that there is not a right or wrong. People go back and leave so many times. Um, and you will get to wherever you need to get in your own time.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. I believe that the um average number of times to try and leave an abusive relationship is seven. So if that's your average, you could be a lot less, you know, you could be a lot less, but you could be a lot more, and seven's a lot, you know, a lot of times. When and and please do stop me if I'm asking you things that you don't want to answer, but when you decided that you needed to leave this this relationship, did you formulate a plan? Did you did you go about it? I know um I've talked to people who who get things out of the house in a sort of slow way when their partner's away. And then when they're leaving, they've they kind of it can be less of a big deal, they don't need to take a truckload with them. You know, their papers have gone, their passport's gone, they're stored somewhere safe and so on. And they have a a structured plan that quite often they have come to using their local domestic abuse services. Was it like that for you or and did you and did you try and leave a number of times?
Ilaria Petrucci:
Uh I did try and leave a number of times, three times in total. I think it's definitely a good idea to have a plan. And as you know, as we said, every situation is different. In my case, the first time around, I was living with him in his house. So I moved out, and I moved out uh only about 10 minutes away from him, where the idea was that we would continue trying to be together. And then after that, we ironically moved in together to try and make it work, but we were renting at the time, and that didn't last very long. So he then moved back out into where he was living before, and then the third time he again moved back in. But at that point, I was, you know, I was always like, although I didn't own the house, I was the the owner, you know, the owner, the main payer, how do you want to say it? Um, so it was just a matter of he left and went back to his his his house, his mom's house, where he lived. So yeah, so I would say it didn't really take me a lot of planning in that sense, like it would maybe somebody else in a different situation.
Tamsin Caine:
Of course. And did he leave relatively willingly the third time?
Ilaria Petrucci:
Every single time was a little bit different, but how I always um kind of perceive it in my mind, and when I tell people, I do always feel like he was always very still in their relationship. And I was, I just imagine it like it's in like me around the running around him, trying to do everything I possibly could to make it work. Like we lived together the first time was his place where his mom lived. And I was, I then I moved out, and then we moved in together. But the whole time I was always the one in charge of all the responsibilities, including finances, locations, everything. And he didn't really do a lot in in that time besides just the easy stuff, and I don't want to make it sound like I I did everything, but it kind of is that way. Um, so yes, he did he did leave willingly, yeah.
Tamsin Caine:
That's good. And in your recovery, can you tell me a little bit about how you began the process of recovery? What you were obviously having having therapy and your therapist sounds amazing. I probably need to get her details for other kinds of but um how did you how did you once he'd he'd moved out for the last time and you in in it was you kind of drawing a line in sand, you observed over, how did you begin the process of recovery? What sort of things did you do?
Ilaria Petrucci:
So the thing that kind of threw me into my recovery and my healing was taking responsibility for my part and actually looking at I'm not a victim here, I am at some level, somehow for some reasons, choosing to stay in this situation. I am that somehow there is a part of me that causes love, there is a part of me that tolerates this and accepts to be treated this way. So when I was able to look at myself, so go from asking myself, why does he treat me this way? To what part of me causes love, what part of me accept this, what makes me stay, um, that's when I started to really change. Um, and the whole time I was, I realized that I in the relationship I was open for him to change, I was waiting for him to change and for him to finally choose me and do the things that I wanted him to do and be so that I could have the relationship that I wanted. When actually the whole time I was the one that needed to change. I was the one that needed to look at myself and my own dynamics and my own choices that I was making, my own childhood, my own definition of love and safety, all of that stuff. Um, and when I did that, that's what allowed me to move forward and and change.
Tamsin Caine:
Okay. So you're just so as I can be 100% clear and make and understand what you're saying, you're not you're not blaming yourself for his behavior, but you're taking responsibility for staying and allowing that real that relationship.
Ilaria Petrucci:
Yeah. Uh it's about seeing reality for what it is rather than sticking around somewhere hoping that people will change. People show you exactly who they are by the way they behave. But I didn't see that. I listened, I believed his words because it was more convenient, is what I like to hear better than seeing how he actually was showing up in terms of behavior. Um, but when I stripped down this fantasy, when I realized that this is not what it is, how I'm how I'm feeling about him is so different to how I'm feeling in the relationship, then you see things for what they are. And you also learn to, like you said, not blame yourself for their behavior, but take responsibility for my own.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. And that that's a massively important distinction, isn't it? Because we're not saying it, we're not saying it's your fault for what's happening to you, because that's definitely not the situation. But but you're taking responsibility for allowing that treatment of yourself. And we're also not saying it's easy to leave either, because we know that ending that, like changing that that dynamic in your head and ending a relationship which is prepped up on you because we know they're subtle and devious. That's the whole playbook in a in a narcissistic relationship, is that they're devious and it and they they work by creeping up, and there's a very distinctive playbook that that is gone through. And they do select a particular character type who is kind, who's empathetic, who's open and and you know, willing to make changes. You know, you said yourself from the beginning, you were going to therapy from really early on to change yourself in the relationship to make presumably to make him happy.
Ilaria Petrucci:
But that's what makes us the perfect match, isn't it, with the some yeah, exactly, like perfect match, obviously, you're not like this. Um, but it is the it takes somebody who has codependency and people pleasing dynamics that needs to give in order to be okay with themselves, and then we have a narcissist who needs to take in order to be okay with themselves. So much, much made in heaven. Made in heaven.
Tamsin Caine:
Absolutely, just not just not for the people who are on the receiving end of it. Yeah.
Ilaria Petrucci:
But that's why, like you said, it's important, very important distinction. So I'm glad you brought it up. It's not about blaming yourself for their behavior because we can't control how people treat us. We can't control us, but we can control whether we accept it or not. So it's more about taking responsibility. Somebody can treat you badly once, but if that continues, in my case, over four years, um, then you kind of have to face, okay, I am playing a part in this, I'm allowing it. But in taking responsibility, you find empowerment and you you you reconnect with your power. So the same way I'm allowing something I don't want, then I can then change it and allow something different than I actually do want. And obviously, I don't mean to make it sound really easy because, like you said, we're in that in that in between and the different choice that you make, there is facing your attachment style, your childhood, your definition of love and safety. So there is all of these things. But I truly believe, and this is like one of the biggest reasons why I want to do this work, is for people to realize that this journey is a journey of rediscovering yourself, finding your strength. It's not just about healing from a heartbreak and getting over somebody, because that someone was a huge mirror to allow us and give us the opportunity to heal dynamics and things that have been within us since way before then. So I believe in finding the gift in this pain, in all of this. There is always a gift if we're willing to find it and see it. And then from that gift, we can truly find our joy and rebuild our life better than like we we could ever imagine. My life today is nothing like I could have even dreamed of before. Not just in the things that I am up to nowadays, but also just like how I feel about myself, which doesn't mean I don't have bad days. We all have bad mental health days. Like I'm human, you know, everyone is. But the way you deal with them, the way you relate to people and relate to yourself is just completely different.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it it is really important to say that some of those, some of the things that attracts narcissists to people are really beautiful things. You know, kindness and empathy, we shouldn't lose that, but there is work to be done on aspects of those type those characteristics that characterize people who tend to be like that, like people pleasing. Those are things that need to be worked on and and to not drop everything who about who you are, not start being a villain when you've been a really beautiful person, but but to make make them work better for you and please yourself rather than rather going outside.
Ilaria Petrucci:
Because I think another great distinction is that people pleasing and being kind is different. And this is another thing, another big moment for me that I had to face when I thought I was just being kind by saying yes when I meant no. Actually, I wasn't. I and that's when you start looking at your dynamics. The reason why I am saying yes when I mean no, and therefore losing myself in that process, because this is how we lose ourselves. You know, a lot of people talk about I'm losing, I've lost myself in the relationship. So, how do we do that? We did that by betraying ourselves, so our authenticity and choosing attachment over authenticity. This is how we lose ourselves, and then that's where the people pleasing come in. I don't say yes when I want to say no because I'm kind, I'm saying yes when I want to say no, because if I was to say no, then what? Like what do I have to be with? And whatever discomfort is there in saying no, this is what I'm avoiding within myself in the process of saying yes. So that's people pleasing, and that's a huge pattern that needs to be looked at. Being kind would mean kindly saying, no, I am not available. Can we look at another date? Or uh this doesn't work for me. That's being kind because you are being honest with yourself and with the person you're dealing with. So that was another huge thing that I had to look with in myself.
Tamsin Caine:
It's really interesting talking about this. And I will I will go on to ask you the question I was going to ask you, but but I think the whole people pleasing discussion is really interesting. And it's something that um I had this conversation with one of my colleagues some time ago because I am I am a A-grade people pleaser, it's not a good thing. Um, and and I spend a huge amount of my life trying to make other people, like trying to make other people happy, trying to please other people at the detriment of myself quite often. And what my colleague said to me was, why don't you try and think about instead of short-term people pleasing, think about long-term people pleasing. Because actually, if you say yes to things that you don't really want to do, what you're doing is is creating a relationship on dishonesty. Whereas actually in the longer term, if you say no when you mean no, you're creating a longer relationship of based on honesty instead, which actually is just about being honest with yourself and being honest with other people rather than saying yes at that very minute, which might be short-term gain, actually, in the long term, you're you're not forging a relationship based on trust and honesty. So for me, my people-pleasing brain just reframes it. I am still able to please that person and do the right thing for that. And it could be it's friendships with me as well as relationships, and doing the right thing for the long term of that of that friendship rather than doing the right thing and people pleasing the immediate friendship, which uh kind of works for me if I sort of reframe it a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Moving on. So you in terms of your healing journey, I'm interested in that. So you were already seeing a counselor therapist from when you were within the relationship. Was there anything else that you did to begin your healing process after the relationship ended?
Ilaria Petrucci:
Uh I started hiking. That was the main thing as well. That really helped me. Um, well, I started walking um uh when did I start during COVID, I think, mostly like during t. Yeah, yeah. Um, and it was just um it was just such a special time to just be out and be able to breathe and be surrounded by so much space without feeling just without feeling afraid to do something wrong. That was um that was so simple again and so healing. And I just started walking locally, um, you know, living very lucky to live in the Peak District. So I could literally just come out of my cottage where I lived at the time and be in the hills. Um, and actually the healing through I can walk that I do every month, it is part of the walk that I used to do um, well, definitely every week, more than once a week, usually, um, where I would just need to go to to to this place to the forest to just um feeling connecting with myself and just feel like I could breathe again and feel safe. And um, and then from there I started doing mountain walking, and then in August 2022, I believe, I joined my first group hike in North Wales. I made some lovely friends that I'm still in contact with today. Um, and then from there I just decided to um train and become a mountain guide and um and to become a qualified mountain guide, which is pretty cool.
Tamsin Caine:
That's incredible. That is so gosh. I think there's something immensely special about being out in nature and particularly on a hill. And again, another of my colleagues said to me a while, it was quite a while ago, and they she lives on a mountain in Spain, I should I should add. But um, she'd always felt um constrained and um claustrophobic in the in the town that we live in. And it it sort of struck me because if I look out of my back window, I'm incredibly lucky, I've got a beautiful, decent sized garden, but all I can see past my garden is houses. I can't see kind of space, and and if you climb to Top of a hill, even part way up, if you look back, what you can see is space and sky and fields and and perhaps water, and and it's that feeling of being in the open air, and that feeling of space is hugely healing in all sorts of ways, isn't it?
Ilaria Petrucci:
Yeah, it's incredible just even but even just the journey getting up to the summit. Um, I think hiking is a lot about your like facing yourself in a different way. Um, there is so much, obviously, that there's a physical side of it because it's quite tough going if you're going uphill for a number of hours. Um, but also the mental side, which is, you know, having guided people over the past few years, um, that's the mental side that usually people find this so hard with. Um, which is again, it's a it's a great journey within, you know, inside yourself and uh to really see what you're made of and what you're capable of, because we are capable of so much more than we think.
Tamsin Caine:
Absolutely. Oh, you can definitely talk yourself out of things, you know. You can think, oh, there's no way I can possibly do that, but but you challenge yourself and get and succeed.
Ilaria Petrucci:
Yeah, and we bring all of that um reward and like sense of achievement with us in our normal life. That's the gift of the mountains. The mountains, again, they're a mirror, isn't it? They show you who you are, they show you what you can do, and perhaps what you can't do, because it shows us our limitations as well. It teaches you to trust yourself with your decision with your decision. This is, I always say, this is my superpower in the mountains. I trust myself with my decisions to whether I need to turn around, whether I don't go to the mountains at all, if the weather is, you know, not looking safe. Um and you bring all of that lessons, all of that learning into your own life. And then you find yourself, you know, if if I didn't think I could do it, but I can do it, maybe I could do this too. Or a lot of times when I guide, I guide mostly women. My hikes are usually mostly women's only, and they look ahead at the path if we um, you know, if we have a view and they're like, oh, it looks so tough, but the things always look harder, most of the times, anyway, they look harder than things seems. And when you are there, you just approach it one step at a time, just one step at a time, one breath at a time, one good thought at a time. And and then they get to the summit, and the best thing at the beginning, I used to feel like they look at you like, I did it, you know. I I left the swear words out, but like I did it, you know. And it is so rewarding to just see them so proud of themselves. I absolutely love it.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, it's a good lesson for life taking one step and one breath at a time. That's all we can do, really. Get through those, uh get through those stages. It's been incredible to talk to you, Ilaria. I'm sure that lots of the people listening would want to get in touch with you and put potentially if they're local enough to join your monthly hikes. How do they get hold of you? How do they join your hikes?
Ilaria Petrucci:
Yeah, I love women join my hike. I've had people driving after the Peak District from Essex, Cambridge, like people travel from everywhere. So they show everything flipping. Yes, it's great. Um, so my website is um https://her-wild-adventures.mailchimpsites.com/, I believe. Well, put it in the show notes. Um and my Instagram is mylife as ila https://www.instagram.com/mylifeasila , which is I L A at the end. Um and Healing Through Hiking has actually just yesterday been approved to be a CAC company, which means a non-profit. So hopefully I'll be able to do so much more than just a once a month um free walk. So I'm planning to do workshops, I'm planning to do uh retreats and day hikes, all aimed around supporting each other and healing from narcissistic abuse. So I'm very excited for what's coming.
Tamsin Caine:
Oh, that's absolutely fantastic, and congratulations on that news. That is really incredible. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm sure that would be incredibly useful for many of our listeners and viewers. And thank you for joining me today. It's been lovely to have your company. If you've enjoyed our conversation, please do give us a five-star review because it does help us to get the message out to more people. Many thanks and we'll see you soon. Hi, and I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Smart Divorce Podcast. If you would like to get in touch, please have a look in the show notes for our details or go onto the website www.smartdivorce.co.uk. Also, if you are listening on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five-star review, that would be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this incredibly helpful in their journey through separation, divorce, and dissolving a civil partnership. Also, if you would like some further support, we do have a Facebook group now. It's called Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK. Please do go on to Facebook, search up the group, and we'd be delighted to have you join us. Um, the one thing I would say is do please answer their membership questions. Okay, have a great day and take care.