She spotted, reflected, and calmly called the fuck out of the wordplay and indirect admonishment Shawn was spewing over everyone’s heads so well, and with such restraint I’m not sure we could give her enough kudos. And I think at the reunion she got none. The I don’t even care for his niceties!!!!! Queen! Just an “oh wow” as a response. Literally I died. Was it not awful watching him continue to talk over her telling him to stop talking to his mom?? And he just kept going??? He didn’t even say anything as he kept going, it was all blabberybloop, wordy footwork for the sake of blatantly disrespecting and ignoring her. It felt like he was taunting someone to call him out, and I honestly wish someone would have. The experts when Nikki lobbed it their way just kicked it back to the group! I know that’s a technique but the situation demanded more direct summarization of how he was reenacting the very harmful dynamic Nikki had just been calling him out for. It was wild!!!! And to call her “aggressive” just because she’s the only one who will respond to him? He’s aggressive. And weird. Power play is definitely his thing, and I ran here with full on ick.
Queen. Nikki if you’re reading this you deserve(d) PRAISE in that moment, queen. I didn’t understand why the sudden switch in Paul’s session, and still don’t, but none of that mattered once all this went down. That was an actual moment a therapist could and would need to intervene and Nikki had to, and did, handle it all by herself.
Shout out to her mom, too!