“The person who is supposed to love me most is saying I’m stupid. When you are told you're a bad person for a long time, it takes awhile to learn to love yourself again.” ~ Carol Beth Nelson, MD

Carol Beth Nelson, MD is a neurologist, a mother to four adult children and five adult step children, a life-long avid swimmer, and a lover of the small South Dakota town she grew up in. Since 2018, she’s done so many triathlons that she's lost count. Add to this her impressive list of completing 2 Ironmans and 4 marathons, and sum it up with Carol’s own words, “I have to use all my energy, I just don’t sit very well.”

And while Carol has had many enormous successes and victories, like all of us, she’s experienced life's immense challenges and complexities as well.

Carol was a freshman in med school when she married her first husband, Shon. They shared the kind of love one only dreams about, the kind of love that lasts forever, but life at times can be so cruel. Nine and a half months into their blissful marriage, Shon was tragically killed in a car accident just a mile from their home.

Navigating such profound loss at such a young age can leave even the strongest person vulnerable. Carol missed what she had. She wanted to move forward. She says, “Shon showed me how to love and be loved and I wanted that back.” Carol remarried four years later and though the marriage would ultimately last for 24 years, it was not the stuff of storybooks.

For many years, it was challenging for Carol to even wrap her head around what was going on. For eleven years of her marriage, she was the only one working and bringing in an income, yet she was always in charge of doing most everything from raising their kids to doing the housework. The only things her husband reliably managed were the lawn and the finances. Unfortunately, his managing of the finances led to significant financial abuse. Slowly, Carol was able to identify that her husband was repeatedly manipulating her, gaslighting her and exhibiting other behaviors associated with narcissistic personality disorder. Carol eventually found the strength to leave that marriage and get a divorce.

Her experiences informed the foundation of the book she would go on to write, entitled “We Are Alike: How a Doctor Leveraged her Neuroscience Expertise to Survive and Heal from Narcissistic Abuse”. The book covers the details and lessons of her profoundly challenging and isolating experience in the hopes that she can help people in long-term relationships with narcissistic partners identify what is going on and to explore their options. Carol also hopes the book might help people at the beginning of a relationship to identify patterns and red flags and understand their options.

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