How to Stay Calm During Custody Exchanges with Dr. Andrea DePetris

If seeing your ex, even from across a parking lot, sends your body into overdrive, you're not overreacting. You're experiencing a trauma response. And it has a name.

In this episode, Lisa sits down with Dr. Andrea DePetris, a clinical psychologist at Yale School of Medicine and private practice therapist, for a conversation that will genuinely change how you understand yourself in these moments.

We start with something that gets thrown around a lot - the word "trigger" - and Dr. DePetris explains precisely what it means in a trauma context: a stimulus that activates your trauma memory network and makes your brain and body feel like the danger is happening right now. Not overreaction. Biology.

From there, we dig into the window of tolerance, a concept developed by psychiatrist Dan Siegel that describes the range in which we can think clearly, connect with our kids, and respond (rather than react) to what's in front of us. Trauma narrows that window. Chronic high-conflict divorce narrows it even further. And when something pushes us outside that window, our nervous system responds in one of two ways: it speeds everything up (hyperarousal: fast talking, heat in the body, urgency, needing to win), or it slows everything down (hypoarousal: going quiet, shrinking, emotional flatness, checking out).

Both responses make complete sense. Both were designed to protect you. And both can absolutely get in the way of the parent you want to be in that moment.he good news (and Dr. DePetris is practical and clear about this) is that these patterns are learnable and changeable. In this conversation, she walks you through exactly what to do in the moment and how to build the self-regulation muscle when you're not activated, so it's available to you when you are.

What you'll take away from this episode:

→ The clinical definition of a trigger — and why trigger warnings may not work the way we think
→ How to recognize whether you tend toward hyperarousal or hypoarousal when you encounter your ex
→ The single best thing to do in any activation moment (spoiler: it's a pause — but Dr. DePetris shows you exactly what that looks like for each response type)
→ A breathing technique you can practice with your children right now: breathe in like you're smelling flowers, exhale long like you're blowing out birthday candles
→ The '5 neutral things' grounding exercise and why naming them moves you from feeling to observation
→ Why stepping away isn't avoiding — it's modeling self-regulation for your kids
→ How to repair with your children after a hard moment, and why kids don't need perfect parents — they need present ones

Dr. Andrea DePetris is a clinical psychologist at Yale School of Medicine and works with adults in private practice. She specializes in helping people understand the internal patterns — shaped by early life and relationship history — that drive how they feel and respond, and supports them in updating those patterns to feel more integrated and at peace.

#CoParenting #HighConflictDivorce #WindowOfTolerance #Triggers #EmotionalRegulation #NarcissisticEx #CustodyExchange #TraumaResponse #HighConflictCoParenting #ParentalAlienation #DivorceRecovery #ToxicEx #GroundingTechniques #MentalHealth #BeenThereGotOut