Bravely admitting that she had started therapy last month during an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kim Kardashian gave fans a glimpse into how she had been coping following the breakdown of her marriage to Kanye West four years ago. 

After previously admitting that she had wanted to ‘lose it once’ and ‘have a bad day’ but feeling like she couldn’t because of the responsibility she felt for other people, Kim, 44, opened up to her sister Kourtney about how she had been living in ‘fight or flight mode’. 

She said, ‘I would always say how calm I am and that’s my superpower. But my therapist felt like it’s a trauma response of me remaining calm in living a life that I always have to be in this fight or flight mode.’ 

And while the mum-of-four – who shares North, 11, Saint, nine, Chicago, seven, and Psalm, six, with Kanye – has been putting on a brave face as she navigates co-raising her children with her ex amidst his mental health struggles, a source now tells us that Kim is still ‘traumatised’ by the experiences she went through in their six-year marriage. 

An insider says, ‘She is still very haunted, and if people knew what she truly endured with him they would understand why. She still gets nightmares about it, she’s still very traumatised and it’s all been triggered again by this documentary.

‘He completely tormented her, he broke down her self-esteem and made her feel like she only had value because of him so although she wasn’t trapped with him in any sort of literal way, for many years she was emotionally trapped.’ 

Fans had speculated over Kanye’s level of control over Kim during their marriage when she revealed in 2018 that he had cleared out her entire wardrobe in order to dress her himself. 

And while fans had little insight into the breakdown of their marriage at the time back in 2020, Kim continued to shield Kanye, 48, from public criticism, praising his creative genius and defending him publicly. 

While their marriage was falling apart privately during Kanye’s very public, ill-fated presidential campaign, Kim described him as a ‘brilliant but complicated man’, attempting to defend his vile hate speeches by educating fans about mental health. 

She added… ‘Living with bipolar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.’ 

 Now the source says, ‘There were years of dealing with his shifting moods and his deteriorating mental health and Kim tried to manage that and keep it all hidden.’

And behind-closed-doors, the source says Kanye’s self-confessed obsession with porn and sex led to Kim engaging in consensual acts ‘in the bedroom’ which have left her feeling ‘sick’.

A year after his split from Kim in 2022, Kanye admitted that his addiction to pornography had ‘destroyed’ his family. But in April this year, he applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office for the use of the brand name ‘Villadroam’, through which he hopes to produce ‘Sexual activity apparatus, devices and articles.’

Now the source says, ‘The things she went along with in the bedroom just to try and keep him happy make her sick to her stomach.

‘It gives Kim the shivers every time she sees him and triggers so many bad memories, plus she’s holding onto a lot of resentment and frustration because a lot of guys don’t want to be dating someone who was married to such an unhinged monster – they’ve told her so themselves.’

Kim has also shared her own views of being forced to navigate a relationship with Kanye for their children, breaking down and saying in 2023, ‘I don’t want to be a part of this narrative. And it’s like, ‘When is this ever going to end? Like, it never will.’

Now the source says Kim still feels trapped in their co-parenting relationship, which sees them split the custody of their children.

They tell us, ‘Kim would love to just cut Kanye off entirely and never speak to him again, but of course that’s not possible as they’re still co-raising four kids together, so she’s stuck in this situation where he’s still a big part of her life whether she likes it or not.

‘She tries to deal directly with him as little as possible and communicates about drop-off times and money matters via their assistants and even Bianca [Censori] but they’ll run into each other at school and sports events, plus there’s no escaping his drama because it’s always blowing up on social media.’

And the drama blew up once again last week following the release of the trailer for Kanye’s new, explosive documentary, In Whose Name?, which is set to premiere next month.

While Kanye’s marriage to Bianca has been hitting headlines for the past three years as the rapper continues to use her as his inanimate plaything by curating a carousel of barely-there outfits to cause a stir, it was the rapper’s marriage to Kim that unexpectedly took centre stage in this latest, intimate portrayal of his life.

The documentary was filmed during the breakdown of Kanye’s marriage to Kim, and shows  several intimate clips of the difficult times the pair experienced as Kim navigated Kanye’s mental health alongside their family life.

In the first scene of the trailer, Kanye is heard saying, ‘I’m off my meds for five months now’, before the screen cuts to a scene of him closing a backstage door marked ‘Kim Kardashian’. Kim is heard in the background sobbing, ‘Your personality was not like this a few years ago’.

In another take, the former couple are seen rowing while Kanye lounges on the sofa. The KUWTK star is heard telling him, ‘We can talk about that later, but…’ before he snaps, ‘There ‘ain’t no but’.

Now the source says that alongside Kim’s therapy sessions, she has now also turned to hypnosis to work her way through the ‘trauma’ she experienced.

The insider reveals, ‘Eventually, she hopes to nullify all those negative emotions and learn to shield herself from being affected by Kanye’s toxicity, past and present, but it’s an on-going challenge.

‘Kim’s used hypnosis in the past as part of her therapy, to clear old trauma and she does find it helps. Unfortunately the scars from Kanye are very deep, so this isn’t a one and done sort of healing journey.’

They continue, ‘Kim feels like he put some type of hex on her and unless she finds the right tools to cope it’ll be the bane of her life that’ll keep dragging her down.’