I Consented But He Roofied Me Anyway - Part 3

Brandon is joined by Dr. Matthew Brinkley and Dr. Emily Nagoski as they unpack Brandon's experience from last year. 

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual assault. 

Brandon's Substack article: https://brandonkylegoodman.substack.com/p/now-that-you-know-what-happened-to

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You know what, This is a safe space to talk
about relationships, love and sex. Now let me tell you
something messy. Hi, welcome back if you're just hopping in.
This is the third episode of three parts. We are
discussing sexual assault, something that happened to me, and so
in part one, I share that story, which you are

(00:30):
more than welcome to go back to if you haven't
listened to that and if you have the capacity, band
with a heart space to do so. In part two,
we spoke to doctor Raquel Martin and doctor Vanessa Marin,
which we also dropped last week, and we talked to
them about you know, coping, shame, blame, and how one
reclaims their body after being violated. And today we're gonna

(00:55):
finish this trifecta episodes talking to doctor matthe You Brinkley
and doctor Emily Nagowski. As always, you know, I'm going
to tell you please take care of yourself as you listen,
Go slow, if you need to take pauses, if you
need to, whatever your heart needs, give it, give it first.

(01:17):
I'm going to talk to doctor Matthew Brinkley, uh, and
we're going to discuss this is going to be probably
the for me one of the most important parts of
this conversation and also the trickiest part. It feels like
navigating a bit of a minefield because we're going to
be talking about race and identity and gender and how

(01:39):
that played into the situation, and also de threading or
unpacking rage and what it means to express rage in
a black male body, what it means to express rage
after experiencing sexual violence or sexual assault. You know, as

(02:03):
I said last week, trigger warnings. If this is not
if you're not able to, if you don't have the
bandwidth or capacity to receive this right now, that's totally fine.
Please don't even stress about it. But I do hope
that it is useful and helpful for anybody who needs it.

(02:26):
So one of the nuances of this experience is that
the aggressor looked like me. And if you listen to
part one, I didn't say the race of this person.
And in part two, when we talked to doctor Raquel,
she brought up and highlighted how oftentimes, particularly in the
black community, we will protect each other. And I think
there was a natural wanting to protect this person, which

(02:52):
I understand. The irony of that and the complexities of
that as I as I reflect back on it. But
race is an important component in this conversation, race and
queerness and where they intersect. The space that we were

(03:13):
in was a space that was not only queer, so
calling law enforcement into a queer space is girl what.
But also it was a space that had a lot
of black and brown and POC queer folks, and so
calling law enforcement into that space is even more of

(03:34):
a minefield and a danger. I think that person, this person,
the aggressor, the he knew. He clearly knew that, and
and I believe use that to his advantage. Anyways, this
is probably again one of the of all these parts,

(03:58):
and all these conversations are incredibly important, but this one
is definitely specific to me, and I wanted to unpack it,
and so we're going to do that right now with
doctor Matthew Brinkley, who is a clinical psychologist and speaker
who focuses on healing from trauma and fostering emotional resilience,
particularly in marginalized communities. So here's my convo with doctor Matthew.

(04:21):
I just love you because you're a therapist and you
do not minimize who you are and how you express
yourself and it is so just healing to like see
you out in the world in whether it's in your
heels or your makeup or your lace time just always
give it an outfit. But also she's educated, she's in smart,

(04:46):
she's self aware, and I think that like growing up,
we were taught that those two things, you know, like
you either had to be like white coat and white
that's it. Yeah, but the fact that you are out
here just being beautiful, black and queer and a therapist
is just like so healing and everything. And so I
thought you'd be the perfect person to bring in to

(05:07):
have this conversation. Also partly because I feel very safe
with you and everyone I've spoken to, I want to
make sure that I feel safe with Thank you.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
I actually really appreciate you naming that first, because you know,
as we talk about topics today, they can be activating
for people. And so I definitely do think that even
having these conversations outside of this room, it is important
to have an empathic witness, a safe witness, because if not,
you can be re traumatized. Yeah, the person you're talking

(05:35):
to is not a safe space for you. And so
you know, being in a space establishing that safety, you know,
taking a breath, you know, just really really being able
to ground yourself even before the conversation. I think I
would encourage that as well. Yes, thank you for speaking
on safety first, because I think that you should always

(05:55):
lead with safety first.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Absolutely, I agree with you. And I just I was
talking to doctor Vanessa Marrin earlier and what kind of
came out of that conversation which I'm gonna hold space
for and I know you will hold it with me.
You know. When I was telling the story to the listeners,
which they hear at the top of this, I a
couple of times say that I'm fine. And what I
was just able to name with doctor Vanessa's that I'm

(06:18):
not fine. And so I'm feeling a little tender in
stepping into this conversation and just want to name that
I am not fine. Yeah, and that'll be okay and
we will still have this conversation. And I think that
that it's it's it's okay to not be fine, is
what I'm trying. It's like I'm saying that. But you know,

(06:39):
one of the reasons I love and this show is
important to me, and Messy Mondays and all that is
important to me is because I am a recovering perfectionist,
and it gives me permission to not be a perfectionist. Yeah,
and I can feel my perfectionist himself being like, well,
let's hold it together. We're we're gonna like take care
of Matthew. But the reason I picked you is because

(07:00):
then you would have the bandwidth to also take care
of me in this conversation.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Right, and even you being able to say the words
out loud that I'm not okay, I will say this,
you know, for me, when I hear that you're almost
take You're taking the shame out of being in a
space where healing is either happening or hasn't happened yet.
And I think for so many folks a reason why
trauma stays in the body so much is because there

(07:25):
is so much shame attached to it. So and like
you said, we're taught that we kind of have to
be strong, especially for you know, black male bodied folks.
We're socialized to believe that we are we have to
be the strongest, or we're just known for what we
can do, what our bodies can produce. We're not taught
to be known for the emotional capacity that we have. Yeah,
and so it takes a lot of strength and courage

(07:46):
and willingness to you know, work through that shame of
I don't need to be.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Okay, I just need to be. Yes, I just need
to be to.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Be and just being is enough And that is how
people can and start the journey towards healing, not needing
to be anything other than just being and you know,
not having to really sit in that shame and judge
yourself for whatever situation happened that was traumatic.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, all right, girl, we're about to step into what
I find to be kind of the trickiest, hardest, maybe
most devastating part of this for me from my experience,
which is that the person that roofied me was a

(08:34):
black man. And fuck, that part hurts a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
And I'm not saying that if it wasn't a black
person it would not hurt this. I think it would
hurt different. So let me not compare the hurt and
the whatever. Yeah, but that part hurts that it was
a black, gay man or queer man that did this
because because why, I mean, there are obvious reasons why,
But let me talk about why it's hard for me,

(09:06):
which means let me take this all the way back,
which is that I don't have a relationship with my father,
and so I don't have a lot of relationship with
my father. Yeah, probably wasn't around. I was also always
the fem one, always soft, and so growing up I wasn't.
I didn't feel safe around the men, and that is

(09:27):
another race, just like men in general. But I was
around a lot of black men and so like and
my cousins that were great and they're lovely, but like,
I felt safer around the women because there was what
I've tried to write and articulate is what I can
see now is that my femininity triggered the toxic masculinity.

(09:48):
And so when I would show up in the space
as a femme eight year old or seven year older,
thirteen year old men again regardless of the race, would
activate a very dangero or what felt dangerous and oftentimes
was dangerous way. And so that, coupled with the absence
of my father, created a narrative for me around black

(10:12):
men that is not true, but it just like this unsafety.
In college, I was really able to start addressing that.
And one of the people who was a guest on
the show that helped me. Was my one of my
best friends to be or Damie Rogers, he was this
fantastic black He's on the show in the episode, and

(10:33):
he was probably one of the beginning stages of healing
this thing. And so through all this in therapy whatever, like,
I have a beautiful relationship with black men and black
bodied and I am proud of my black male body
and I'm proud of all of it. And so and
even the event, the event that this all happened at,
I was with a gaggle of my black male friends

(10:56):
that I had organized and then all that and so
then when this thing happened and it was a black
gay man, it really fucked me up in a way
that goes beyond the actual act. So we've talked about
the act and why that would fuck me up, but
like the racial part of this and the racial queerness

(11:20):
part of this, not just you know, a black straight man,
but a black gay man who's like really of the community.
And so I don't know if I have a question
so much as like why does it hurt harder? Yeah?
Should it hurt harder? Should it not? I Mean, I
know the answer is it should be whatever it is,
But I guess let's maybe just like pull the threads
of it right.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, first, I really appreciate you taking the space to
share your experience once again, and I know that it
can be activating. Like you said, you clenched the table,
you take really deep breath, so it's like your body
is regulating as you're talking about this, and so I
just want to encourage you, you know, during this conversation. No,

(12:00):
I'm glad you grabbed your way taking care of yourself,
you know, feel your feet on the ground, feel your
you know, at feel the chair behind you, just do
what you need to do to ground yourself in this
conversation because I appreciate your taking care you know, holding
space for me, but I also want you to hold
space for you in this as well, because you know,
you are talking about experiences that were very harmful to you,

(12:22):
to your body, to to your psyche and all those
and that's very valid. And so you know, I just
want to name taking care of yourself as you share
this experience because I just want to make sure that
you're checking in on you. So at any time you
need to, you know, take a minute, take a breath,
if there's a safer that needs to be you know,
done heart, I see your there's a heart run from you. Yeah,

(12:49):
you know this can be activating, So you just want
to name that. The first thing you mentioned though, was
your father and have you know the lack of you
know or just not that your father being in a
picture and how that impacted you, right, Yeah, and I
think you know, for black male bodied folks, I will
just say that a common journey is us trying to

(13:10):
either connect with that father figure or just being able
to learn from someone that has an identity that resembles ours.
Because we're in this world and there's not really a
rule book on how do you grow up to be
a black male person? Right, there's not a rule book
on that, and so we are looking for people that
look like us to guide us in that way. And
when you think about the fact that it was a

(13:32):
like I said, a black male body person that harmed you,
one that can trigger so many wounds, right, that can
trigger wounds that can think about, you know, how other
black males have harmed you in the past. It can
also bring up the fact that in the queer community,
you know, just being honest, what's more so celebrated is
not blackness in it, but everything outside of that. Yeah,

(13:54):
And at times we are looking for each other, we
are looking for blackness within that as a safe hate even.
And so when that, when that safety is shattered a bit,
when that safety is you know, tampered with a bit,
it causes us to internalize that like, wow, okay, I
am supposed to feel safe in my blackness and my

(14:14):
corness with this black queer person and I don't even
feel safe there? Where can I feel safe? If who
I am? I'm not able to feel safe within this
identity that matches mine so much, I cannot feel safe
there right, And it causes a lot of just harm
and causes just to internalize this pain and and really confusion. Right,

(14:38):
Like you said, you were with your own group of
folks that were black, male and queer in that space
and you probably and that felt safe for you.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
So when a person that is a part of that
same identity harms you, it definitely feels even worse because
in your brain you almost you you almost gave him
beneathing doubt that, oh, I just know this person's not
going to harm me, yeah, right, But when that that
truth doesn't come to fruition, it definitely increases that pain

(15:08):
that you experience. So, I mean, it makes total sense
why it would. The pain of the fact that this
person had this identity was it was a blackmaile person
hurts even more because that's the same person that you
are literally going to for safety.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, you're saying that makes me go, oh, it's insiduous
because the way that this person latched onto our group
was through identity. Mmmm right, Like he like at first
he joined our group. So what I'm realizing going back
was that he was by himself. But as I said

(15:45):
in the story, like he was talking to two of
my friends separately, so I and they're assumed to be familiarity.
What I later learned the next day was like I
had just met him the night before. There wasn't an
actual but he latched onto our group and it was
a familiarity like we're all black and we're in this space,
and so let's be in the space together. And so
the thing that made me trust him was his black queerness.

(16:07):
And so for for me to have because that's all
I had to go on, you're charming and you're black
and you're queer, and like you're gorgeous and like and also,
you know, I wanted to fuck him like I wanted
to and I, uh, you know, it's no secret I
have a white husband, and so like the moments that
I get to be romantic or sexual with a black

(16:29):
partner is incredibly important to me. It's incredibly healing to me,
to you know, be it feels affirming because it's the
thing that I was told that we were told we
weren't allowed to be and to do, and to be
able to be sexual with another black person, a black

(16:50):
male person feels healing. Yeah, even if it's an like
whether it's you know, romantic in a bedroom or in
a dark room, like all of it feels like, oh god, yes,
And so I think all of that was at play.
And then when it the plot twist of it all, I'm, yeah,
it like fucked me up, and I'm understanding why I

(17:14):
think I think I I think I've been holding guilt
even like you know, like we'll see what happens. But
the original recording of the story, I left out his race. Okay, Okay,
there's still a protection that I That was the other

(17:34):
piece about this was realizing that like I didn't know who,
like what authority to call, because all I could think was,
I'm at this party at a warehouse, a queer party
at a warehouse. Call the police? What what is that? Like,

(17:56):
I'm bringing a police now into a queer space. I'm
about to call it on a black man. We're two
blackmaile queers. Yeah, Like, there's just so many things against
us for this situation to be handled with any kind
of care or respect or safety. And I think there's

(18:23):
like anger around that too, like did you know that?
Like you know? Like I'm like did he know that?
Like did like was he counting on that too? Like?
I don't know?

Speaker 4 (18:35):
Right?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
And I even my first thought comes to mind is
even when you're asking those questions of like did this
person know these things? I just feel like the unfortunate
part is there's gonna be so many whys in this
that never get answered, and you may never get specific
closure around the whys of it all happening, which can
also be very hard to grapple with and sit with.

(18:57):
You mentioned so real, right, the fact that a lot
of queer folks would feel so unsafe if at the
side of any police officer, right, how that can just
cost you know, we're supposed to be in a safe
space away from you know, the head of normative mess
from the world at times, right, and calling a police officer,

(19:18):
would that cause folks to feel unsafe? And for sure,
like you said, you know, black men in general have
such a hard time with just in historical even currently,
it's hard to trust the police. It's just just don't
just watch the news. And it makes so much sense
why we grapple with the fact, is this person actually

(19:39):
going to take care of me? Is this person going
to if I were to say this person, hey, this
person assaulted me as a queer black person, will that
be taken seriously?

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Right?

Speaker 2 (19:50):
And especially oftentimes men are socialized to be just sexual beings,
and people may not take the fact that someone was
assaulted seriously just because they associate a male, especially a
black male, as black men are fetishized from the ages
of time on our body parts. Well, they take that
seriously if I were to say, hey, actually, this person's
actually assaulted me, right, So there's this fear around not

(20:14):
even having a witness, this fear around not even being believed,
around the assault being shared or taken care of, which
it makes sense why I can understand you going through
those feelings of guilt and anger, right, all of these
things happening at once, which which is I'm very very true.
You can have so many feelings happening at once, right,
And so it makes all that to say, it makes

(20:36):
so much sense why you would have all these different
reactions because once again the space that was meant to
be safe ended up not being safe. Yeah, and that
is a shock to the system.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, you said something that made me think about, right,
the adultification of black kids. You know, girls, I think
it happens at like seven or eight. Boys it happens
at like ten or eleves. And there's something whatever where
like the black child is seen as an adult. So
if any sexual abuse happens, oftentimes they are considered well,

(21:10):
what did you do? I mean, which is just toxic anyway.
But thinking about I remember when I was I'm connecting
that too. I think I was eighteen or nineteen when
my house was broken into and I was in the house.
It was early morning. My mom My mom lived in
the basement of the house, which our basement was basically

(21:31):
an apartment, so it was like the bottom floor, but
that's where the person came through. She was like me,
she makes up ass early, so she was actually already
gone for yoga class. I was only in the house,
but by the time the guy made his way upstairs,
we fought a little bit. I got out. I ran
down the street to the bus stop, bleeding, face bleeding.

(21:53):
No body helped, Nobody like bus stop. It's like early
morning brush hour. No no one is asking if I'm okay.
No one's asking what's going on. All I can think
is there's an assumption that like I'm the problem. Yeah,
I think the one thing I think I had myself
on my while on me because I was I was

(22:14):
about to head out to work, so that was all
I had on me, and so I called the police,
and then the police were suspicious of me. And I
remember being in the car with the police and they
were like, where's your mother. I was like, I don't know.
She's in the house and I don't think she's get
in here. They're like, you left that. There's all this
like judgment, and I was like, oh my god. A
month a month, like I'm literally unsafe and I don't

(22:37):
know what to do. And so now I'm like, oh,
that was downloaded at a time, and so now here
I am in another situation. And of course that's the
last thing I want to do is navigate. I'm already
prepared for the world to assume that I am the
problem here.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, because a lot of people place that blame on
you just for simply how you look. Right, if it
was you, and depending on the person, if you were,
like I said, depending on the racial of someone, the
race of someone that if you were to report something
about would they believe that you that was the personal
and was to perpetrate it if they had a different

(23:17):
race than you. You know, And first of all, I
just want to say, Wow, I really feel for that
that person, that that that experience that you had, and
it speaks to how you know, once again, our bodies
store these traumas, store these energies, these traumas that happen
in our bodies, and they so often get reactivated in

(23:38):
similar situations, right, especially in situations that feel unsafe, that
cause our bodies to you know, have to navigate boundaries.
And you know, someone broke into your home, that's a
direct violation of a boundary. Someone you know, sexually assaulting
you is a direct violation of a boundary, and those
things can just get so amplified right when you do

(24:03):
experience these traumas, and these these traumas again and again,
and so you know all that to say, I really
feel for that experience you had, and once again makes
all the sense in the world why these compounding traumas
continue to feel and and why you said. The first
thing you said was I'm not okay. Yeah, yeah, I

(24:24):
don't think there's a rule book that says you need
to be okay, you know, I don't. I don't think
you need to be okay.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
I just think you need.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
To focus on taking care of yourself and being healed. Also,
I don't think being healed equates to being okay at all.
I truly don't. I think being healed more so it
is around removing the shame from the experience, you know,
allowing our being curious, being curious in your own body
as to why it reacts how it does. You know,

(24:52):
what is my body trying to protect me from? What
is it my body think it's still protecting me from?
And you know, reminding oursel what is now versus what
is then? Right, it's being able to expand our mindset
and really allow to comform a place of curiosity instead
of shame, because curiosity is what allows the shame to dissipate,

(25:14):
you know.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, one of the things I was hyper aware of
when it happened, and it's probably a version of me
now talking to a younger version of myself, which was
I didn't want this experience to make me think that

(25:36):
black men are bad? Do you know what I'm saying,
which is an old wound right going back to my
childhood where I just associated that this was an unsafe space.
That's not happening, like I've way too many beautiful you know,
I'm this black male body. I don't like, that's that psychopath,
that's not the community. But I do think that when

(26:00):
we when we experience a trauma, we can whether it's
whether it's the race or it's the gender or whatever
we're like, or it's the location the front where like, oh,
all people that look like this I have to be
wary of. And so I think for anyone listening who
has experienced any violation, and again this is not this

(26:24):
is for some point on your healing journey, not when
this actually happens, but like, how do you prevent yourself
from being afraid? And maybe there's an answer, maybe this
is the maybe this is a football question, but let
me ask, how do you prevent yourself from being afraid
of or now associating that trauma with an identity with

(26:46):
like all black people are all white people, all Asian people,
all men, all women, Like, how do you prevent yourself
from attaching that? Or are you supposed to for a
little bit? Or I don't you know? Do you know
what I'm trying to ask?

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, I was gonna say, well, that narrative just may
be that narrative, and that makes sense for that to
be the narrative right in the beginning, Yeah, this person,
this black person, harmed me. My body, my brain, my
body is now registering that. Oh, and that's what Trump is, right.
Our body is reacting. Our body's trying to protect us
from an experience that we had before, and our body

(27:20):
may register Oh, if I see a person with that
same identity walking down the street, or maybe I see
someone even looks like someone that you know harmed me,
my body will react in a way that makes me
feel like, oh, I need to stay away from that person.
So I don't think you can You really cannot control, right,
you can control in the beginning, if your body is

(27:41):
trying to simply protect you from an experience that seems familiar.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Right, it's the hypervigilance. We're talking to doctor Martin and
she's saying, how you become hypervigilant? Yes, and so maybe
that maybe, yeah, maybe that's what that is. It's not
that you're suddenly like hate all men or all whatever.
It's that you're there's a hypervigilance and protecting yourself, right

(28:06):
and your body depending on you know, what actually happened
in that trauma.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
You know, our bodies are you know, we're going through
the cycle of trying to protect us in the traumas.
And sometimes the why trauma gets sorted in the body
because we aren't able to complete that energy cycle, right,
and so and that's why in therapy or you know,
whether it's a trauma informed care, semantic awareness, you know,
internal family systems. Being in therapy, doing these healing healing

(28:34):
experiences allow folks to, at a very slow pace, come
from the trauma from a place of being able to
actually go through that entire cycle of what the body
attempted to do. The body attempted to protect you and
and maybe in that you know, fight flight, freeze, or fun.
Your body had to protect you in that way, right,

(28:57):
and you may not have been able to complete that
entire energy cycle, you know, And that's why that trauma
gets sorted in that body. And once once we learn
to release that energy in the body, that's how you
know from a somatic standpoint, that's how you know the
body heals trauma from releasing that energy that got stored
at that time.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
And so back to your original question, how do we
prevent ourselves from associating? Oh, no, I got harmed from
the specific identity. How to not place on other people? Well,
I think that takes a lot of slow integration. It
takes community healing because a black person might have harmed you.

(29:37):
But at the same time, I would imagine you may
have other black folks or other black folks in your
community that are so loving and so supportive. And so
I think it's it's one. It's about stepping into a
community with that identity that actually feels safe for you.
So leaning on your trusted individuals, even your family, if
you can, right, that will allow your one that will

(29:59):
allow you to start to understand, well, how does my
body even how does my body react when I'm in
this space now when I'm around other folks that have
this identity that's similar to someone that harmed me.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
What is my body?

Speaker 2 (30:11):
What is my body doing?

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Is my body reacting? Is it in the rage?

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Is it does it? Does it? Does it freeze up?

Speaker 2 (30:17):
And I think being able to take awareness first of
how our body reacts when we're around identities that have
harmed us. Just taking note of that first and foremost
is what is so important and allow And then that's
when the other work comes in of when you eventually
get there. It's around practicing setting boundaries a lot. Something

(30:39):
else that happens, you know, during a traumatic event is
you know, a boundary was not able to get set,
you know, right, and which also impacts our healing and
so being able to practice setting boundaries and think. One
example of that is, you know, once again you know,
grounding yourself first, but then actually you know, even closing

(30:59):
your eyes and really just imagining what does it even
feel like to say no? What does it feel like
to say no? What is it feeling your body to
say yes? What does it feel like in your body
to say this is my boundary? I will only let
you in if I allow you in and so it's
first relearning or even getting used to what it feels

(31:20):
like in your body to set boundaries first, so that
you can't reintegrate solely back into those spaces, especially spaces
of where you've experienced harm. Right, So practicing setting those boundaries,
with feeling what it's like in your body to set
those boundaries allows you to truly reclaim right setting that

(31:41):
boundary because we may not have had the capacity to
set that boundary in that moment.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Right right, this is incredibly important to me to be
setting opposite you and having this conversation, so thank you.
There's so much rage that I have have and I
like do not know how to well. So I went on.

(32:09):
I went to six Flags a couple of weeks ago,
and I wrote roller coasters. I never read roller coasters,
brought up my friend got me on roller coasters and
I got to scream my fucking face off lovely, but
I am, I am in this like black male body.
I realized that I'm very scared of my rage or
expressing my rage as I am scared of the or.

(32:33):
I've learned that there can be repercussions to me having rage,
and so I guess I'm curious about how I do that,
How do I allow myself to which I imagine once

(32:55):
I started doing that, it won't just be about this situation.
But like, as a as a black person, as somebody
who's black and in a male body, how do you safely
express an access your rage?

Speaker 4 (33:09):
Right?

Speaker 2 (33:09):
And you bring up a good point that it's unfortunate,
how almost to the point where we are so like
the angry black man right that narrative, And so it
keeps folks like you said, scared to access your anger,
even though your anger is such an important emotion to access. Right,
that is information that is allowing you to understand, okay,

(33:32):
something does not feel right, that your body's waved once again,
trying to set a boundary within you. And so it's
so important for us to be able to access our rage,
our anger and really own it without shame. Right, it's
almost you know, reclaiming it. It's important to understand that

(33:52):
even though society tells me I'm not supposed to be angry,
I need to know that I am supposed to be angry.
Not being angry, just thinking about how the world treats
black men, imagine not being angry at that that is
not fair to any of us, right, and so, and
I mean some ways of just I think what you

(34:14):
actually how you actually describe that is beautiful, right, being
able to just scream and yell, that somatic release on
a roller coaster, you know, some folks, you know a
lot of times even like pushing up against a wall
and pushing up against that wall and breathing into that wall,
and you know, letting that rage out so can be

(34:35):
so healing and so restorative for the body. And having
a witness about your anger. And do you mentioned having
a partner, I hope I can imagine that you probably
feel safe with this partner to let them know when
you are feeling rage, when you are feeling anger, and
a lot of times that release of maybe even crying

(34:57):
or bringing yourself to also curious, well, what else is
connected to this anger? Is their sadness? Is their you know, confusion?
Is there what part of that anger relates to how
much I feel hurt in this right? Accessing the hurt
underneath that anger is another way to allow your body

(35:19):
to access it.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
And so I.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Definitely think once again, just owning the fact that yeah,
you can be angry. I you know, let's be clear.
The trope of an angry black man, that is a
form of like white supremacy.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
It's so much there's so much.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Whiteness in that, and that is why it's so not
so unhelpful to ascribe to that that that trope, that
narrative that we cannot be angry because we need to
be angry. That's how folks organize, That's how change happens
at times. Being angry and anger is how we set
boundaries at times. Right, we need to let people know

(35:55):
that they that they fucking tried it. Yeah right, Yeah,
And so I will say just reminding yourself that you
are a full human of full emotions and anger is
a part of that, and you deserve to be angry.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah yeah. I was like, where did that come from?
Obviously it comes from the outside messaging, the you know,
the white supremacy of it all. But I also you know,
he was raised in a Caribbean household where Caribbeans listen,
can have a temper, yeah, but we weren't allowed to
do it outside the house. There was always and that
might also not just be about being Caribbean, but like

(36:36):
I had an actress mother, and I had a minister grandmother.
So I had public, public facing parents essentially, and so
like how I showed up was always a reflection of them.
That was always the thing, like you can't go out
the house looking like that because it's a reflection onless.
You can't go say that. So I think there, I
think that I have just been trained really well at composure,

(37:00):
and then this is a situation in which I'm like,
I'm trying to my training is trying to keep me composed,
but my body is going compose what? And I think
that that's been such a tension of logically knowing that
I need this release, and yet there is a there's

(37:23):
a wiring that has me go. And you know, it
happened with talking to doctor Marin where she was like
it's okay, I'll be okay, and I'm like breaking down crying.
It's like, oh, I haven't allowed my I've put things
in boxes and I haven't allowed myself to feel the
full weight and magnitude of of of this experience and

(37:44):
not just like the experience itself, but I guess like
what it activates in my history and like what and
what it brings up that's kind of never dealt with
or yeah, it's it's it's like there's the thing to
deal with and and it's like what that thing touches
on that I also just haven't dealt with.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
And one thing I believe you mentioned earlier was this
this role of protection that at times that we may
have for folks in our community that you know, we're
against the world forces, so we need to protect right,
folks that look like us on folks that identify with us.
And it is hard to say with the fact that
it is labor to protect people that have harmed us.

(38:29):
It's a lot of labor. And I hear the part
of you that truly wants to, like, like you said,
you know, protect this person like you didn't have you
didn't say the race you and say their identity. You
wanted to protect that person. But at the same time,
that does not allow you to sit with, well, allow

(38:49):
you to really own and understand and sit with, well, no,
this person harmed me right being able to sit with that.
And it is not your job to protect everyone around you,
which your job to protect you, And it's your job
to hope and trust that other folks will be able
to gather the resources to gain their own protection. But

(39:11):
you know, like they said, you got to put your
mask on first for someone else's So I hear the
party that wants to protect any part of this person's identity,
But I don't think that allows you to navigate through
your own healing. Thinking. You need to take this role
of protector, right, And like you said, you have been

(39:32):
taught to just protect, and black men are so you know,
once again, we're socialized to We're supposed to protect, be strong.
We cannot show any type of vulnerability, and there is
so much vulnerability in surrendering, right, surrendering this notion of
needing to protect. Right, The thing that needs to be

(39:52):
protected right now is your safety and your vulnerability.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Right. And when you say socialization, I'm also realizing that,
like the socialization of not showing emotions also means like
you're weak if you can't protect yourself, the like the
the the value in manhood for being able to protect yourself,
not wanting to admit when you weren't able to protect

(40:23):
yourself that you are now weak. And I'm not saying
that that's a conscious thing that's been happening, but as
we're talking, I'm like, oh, that has to exist. Oh,
I've not dealt.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
With that at all, one million person, I mean as
little as little ones man up. Yes, yes, like one
of the some of the first words we hear is
a man. So immediately we're learning, oh, I have to
be strong. If I'm not strong, then I'm going to
be seen as a punk. I'm going to get beat up.
All these things happen, right, We get judged for not
being strong, right, as opposed to being cared for for

(40:56):
being harmed. Right, And so that makes so much sense, Yeah,
it is. It's so it's scary to admit when we
are not at on our one hundred percent right, we
get seen as less than we believe. People sees us
as less than And that's why so many people assume that.
I often hear, even with my own clients, I'm hearing, oh,

(41:18):
I don't want to tell this to this person because
I'm going to feel like a burden. So many people
I hear that so often. I don't want to share
my pain, my suffering because I don't want to place
this on them. I don't be a burden, which really
is what's really getting at I ney, I'm supposed to
be able to take care of mine I'm supposed to be.
I'm supposed to be to take care of this myself,
and if I can't take care of this myself, then

(41:39):
it's just no one else will be able to have.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Capacity for it.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
And now I am the bad person because I cannot
take care of myself when in reality we should have
been being taught that will actually know, reach out for support,
reach out to your community, reach out for folks, because
thinking that this individual like individualistic mindset of taking care
of ourselves is not helping anyone at all. So yeah,

(42:03):
there's that notion of I am I am I weak.
I am so weak for not taking care of myself
and not handling it does so much harm to us
in general, especially black men, black male body folks. We
it's important. We I feel like the older we get,
the more we are working out. Okay, I actually don't
need to ascribe to that narrative.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yes, it's like, what are the things that I adopted
and that I can let go of, Like it's okay
to ask for help, it's okay two to quote unquote
be weak, because that's not weakness.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
And I would definitely say it's more vulnerable than its weak.
It's not weak at all. I wouldn't even I would
just even throw that we're like out of the whole
conversation and say it's okay to be vulnerable.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
And I'm saying it and I know it. And it's
like I am such a proponent for vulnerability and softness,
and yet I can also feel my like rearing in
this particular situation, like no, you were supposed to handle it.
It's that it's that, you know, it's like being a

(43:13):
kid growing up and if the kids are bullying you
instead of you know, the family being like, oh, I'm
so sorry, it's like, well, you better learn how to.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Fight exactly, especially especially in black families. Just given well
you better go about yeah, back outside, don't come back.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Don't don't come.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Back unless unless you handled it.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah right, yeah yeah, if you lose that fight, don't
come home like that energy. Yeah. And so I think
there's that coming up, the little me that's like, oh
I didn't I didn't quote unquote fight back.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Which you can, you know, And I mean you bring
up the little you that maybe did not hear the
most importive thing in that element, right, the little you
may not have needed to hear you better go out
there and fight back. Needed the little you might have
needed to hear, Hey, I understand, I understand why you're scared.

(44:05):
I understand why you are not okay, And hey, I
want to be here for you. I want to be
able to support you. I don't want you to think
that you have to take deal with this on your own.
You know, I'm here for you, and you are okay,
just how you are. You know, those are the things
that that younger self probably wanted to hear. I can

(44:27):
just imagine that as a young as a young person
going out this world not knowing so much, thinking that
you have to go out there and fight a battle,
as opposed to being seen and being taken care of
and being held right, it's the exact same things in
our adulthood that we need to create within ourselves. Right,

(44:49):
that younger person you're speaking to right now, that is
so full of like I'm going to really just say,
the shame around not taking care of ourselves, Well, that's
not your fault. That's just be because when you were younger,
you were not given the tools and understanding of well, no,
you're actually okay. It makes sense. You can you can
have this emotion you don't have to have it all together,

(45:11):
and I'll still be there for you, and I'll still
be there to support you.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
What clicked for me is, oh, this is why we're silent,
because I have said my instinct actually wasn't to tell anybody.
I had messaged I was going to do this episode
and a message doctor Vanessa Marin, and she gave the advice.
She was like, just tell people, talk to your community,
because that'll help you process. But my instinct was to

(45:38):
stay silent and keep it really in and maybe just
tell like one or two people, my husband, of course,
maybe somebody else like my therapist. But my instinct wasn't
to speak. And I think it's because of exactly what
you just said, Like when you're younger and you're dealing
with something, I think a lot of us are met

(45:58):
with tough up mm hmmm, as opposed to that should
not have happened, right, You didn't deserve that. Yeah, they
shouldn't be mean to you. They shouldn't do and I
got you, And so yeah, that connects back to the burden,
Like you feel like a burden, and so when something
bad happens, you go, I will handle it. And I

(46:18):
think it's the instinct is to swallow it and to
be silent and to be like, I should be able
to navigate this, when in reality you shouldn't, right, Like,
why should you know how to navigate harm? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Exactly, Yeah, it's it's putting so much pressure on ourselves.
So once again, I mean one thing so earlier was
like this perfectionist idea. Yes, right, the fact that being
perfect would mean, oh, I just need to know how
to take care of everything at every single time and
every time I get harmed, I just need to know
how to do it. No, that's not realistic. Yeah, and
that's that's not even fair to your own process, right,

(46:55):
it makes sense why you would feel, you know, the
safe thing for you to do might have then was
to be silent. But one thing that definitely helps navigate
shame is by once again having a witness, the more
you're able to speak on this experience, and once again,
of course from a safe space you know, not meant
to re traumatize yourself, but just from a place of

(47:17):
understanding and a safe person that can definitely sit with
you and be like, you know, that shouldn't have happened
to you. Yeah, and you know, really empathize with your experience.
It's so important to be able to share our stories
because what we're not sharing is getting stored in our bodies, right,
and we need to release it in some way, and

(47:38):
talking about it is a definitely part of that process
of starting that release process. So I'm really glad you are.
You know, it makes sense one that you felt the
need to you know, suppress it or keep it to
yourself or stay silent because you still you still had
to process what was going on right right. It makes
I don't expect you to just you know, our bodies
may not feel that that to just righte away go

(48:01):
and tell someone because you're still trying to understand what
just happened right right, And and that's okay for you to.
You know, you your body spoke about it when it
was ready. You know, it was on your timeline. This
was your experience, and so it makes sense that you
took the time that you needed, not someone else's timeline.
And I'm so glad, Like you mentioned that you were

(48:22):
able to start off in your you know, in your
safe your closest knit like your your partner and maybe
close friends, right, and then you're like, okay, I've had
the experience. I've I've been able to you know, even
even I even practice what it feels like in my
body to share this experience. Maybe now I am ready
to you know, tell more folks about it. And it
is a process, and so it makes sense why you

(48:45):
took the steps needed for you to take to feel
safe enough to you know, share your story.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Thank you, Thank you for this conversation. I don't have
like a a perfect way to end this conversation because
I feel good self, thank you. I feel myself like
processing and feeling the things, and.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
So I'll just leave it at thank you and thank
you for allowing me to be another witness to your experience.
I like I said, I do believe that healing happens
in collective and and having a witness to your experience
is a part of that healing journey. So I really
appreciate you trusting me, you know, taking that risk of
having me, you know, in the space to hold space

(49:30):
with you. That means a lot to me as well.
So I really really appreciate you extending that that offered
to me.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
You really showed up. And I'm just so, is there
anything that this like particular experience has shown me is
that there are good people around me because everyone has
shown up. But I think the scariest part about speaking
is that people won't show up, that you won't be believed,
that you will be rejected. Yeah, and so your presence

(49:58):
and your softness and your affirmation and your wisdom is
so important to my healing, and I know it will
be important to other people who are listening in their
own healing. So thank you.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Yeah, You're very, very, very very welcome.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
You know, one of the things that we don't talk
about a lot is the community around someone who has survived.
Whether you are the romantic partner, whether you are a friend,
a family member. How do we show up for those
in our community who've experienced this kind of violation. So

(50:43):
I had the chance to talk to doctor Emily Nakoski.
Doctor Emily Nagoski is a sex educator and the New
York Times bestselling author Have Come As You are known
for blending neuroscience with compassion to unpack sexual well being.
Here's my combo with doctor Emily. I know that my
women friends, my fem friends, are navigating their safety a

(51:05):
lot more than I am, ten times more than I
am and I remember the first time a friend of mine,
it was a friend of mine in college and told
me about a sexual assault experience that she had, And
it was the first time that anyone had said it,
like told me one like somebody I knew telling me
about an experience. And I remember not knowing how to

(51:27):
show up for her, that I had gotten all the
messaging and learnings about how. You know, I was raised
by three women, and so my mother's ever since I
was little, yes is yes, no is no. I understood consent,
I understood how how to show up as a good partner,
but I never understood how to show up as I
guess a partner of somebody who survived a situation. And

(51:51):
so I you know, I'm grateful that the situation I
was in was ultimately fine, but I know that we
talk about this stuff. Our partners have impact, our communities
have impact, and so I guess I wanted to talk
to you a little bit more about how do we
show up for our community members, our families, our colleagues

(52:14):
who have experienced any kind of sexual assault, to whatever
degree it is.

Speaker 4 (52:19):
Yeah, it's a deep and important question, and I think
I want to answer it first by talking about the
ways that sexual survivorship is special, and so the way
people respond is special, and then the ways it is
like any other injury, and especially people are feeling overwhelmed
by their partner survivorship. Here's a simple way to think

(52:39):
about it. So, sexual assault is essentially using sex as
a weapon against someone. So given that none of us
made it to adulthood unscathed around our sexuality, we have
already had the idea of the fact that we are
sexual people, the idea of our sexual identity, sexual orientation,

(53:03):
We've already had that use as a weapon against us.
So we are vulnerable when it happens, and it cuts
really deep. It is also a profound social wound because
it's a violation of trust, like enormously so, and so
when someone tells you that they've had an experience like this,

(53:27):
it is absolutely essential that you be fully present and
trustworthy with the story because the nature of their injury
is that it was a trust violation and deliberately shaming,
and your job is to be trustworthy and one hundred
percent shamefree. So the simple way to think about it,

(53:50):
there's four sentences. If someone discloses that they were sexually
assaulted or abused. One the easy one, I think I
believe you because they will have had this conversation probably
in the past and worried that they wouldn't be believed
or actually weren't believed. Two, thank you for trusting me

(54:13):
enough to tell me. Three, I am sorry that that
happened to you. You did not deserve that. And four
I support you whatever you choose to do. So some
people want to pursue criminal charges, some people want nothing
to do with that. Some people want to go to

(54:33):
the hospital. Some people want nothing to do with that.
And as a co survivor, your job is to be
there for their bodily autonomy. People get to choose what
happens next. The most important thing is being survivor centered.
What they want to happen next is what happens next. Period.
So that's the ways that sexual violence is special in

(54:56):
terms of the experience of survivorship and if you're a
partner of a survivor. A non overwhelming simple way to
think about it is like if a person has an injury,
like they got into an accident and they broke their leg,
if it's recent, then they're gonna need all kinds of
like support. You need a cast around that injury. The

(55:20):
job of a cast is to create an environment of
holding so that the leg can heal, and a survivor
in the immediate aftermath, which could mean years, needs an
environment of holding social holding so that the injury can heal.

(55:40):
And it is perfectly normal once the injury has healed
for there to be a fear about getting hurt again,
for there to be flashes of pain even if the
tissue has healed, like your brain has learned that like
pain can come from there, and so your brain will
give you warning flashes of pain. That is normal. That is,

(56:01):
a co survivor doesn't have to feel like there's something
wrong with their partner, with their relationship or with them
just because their partner experiences either emotional or physical pain.
That is a flash from the history of the assault,
and it means they're probably going to be a little
extra cautious. Whatever the accident was that caused the injury,

(56:21):
there's likely. I mean, especially if a person doesn't do
a really deliberate process of undoing their fear around that issue,
it makes sense that they're going to carry hesitancy in
the future. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (56:37):
It makes perfect sense yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
And you're allowed to ask, You're allowed to say is
this okay?

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Like?

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Is this bringing up bad stuff?

Speaker 1 (56:50):
That was my next question. I think sometimes and I
have this tendency. I know my husband has a tendency
sometimes when we know that there is something sensitive. And
one of my best friend's mother just passed away, and
so I talked to another friend of mine whose father
passed away years ago, and I was like, how, what's
the best way to show up?

Speaker 4 (57:10):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (57:10):
And my other friend said, asking about it? And I
guess what's interesting is my instinct would be to not
ask about something because I don't want to bring it
up or accidentally trigger. And so I think I'm thinking
about the same thing here with sexual assault. Is it
okay for the partner to bring it up? Or how
does one I think there would be Like I could
understand a fear of bringing something up being triggering, but

(57:35):
also understand that the victim or the survivor sor ry
the survivor may not want to always bring it up
and need somebody to ask. So how do you negotiate
that dance?

Speaker 4 (57:46):
Or especially if they're a pleaser or a giver, they
may really need to bring it up. And feel like
they don't want to impose yes yes, And so if
you are worried that by asking about it it could
be potentially triggering, which is a reasonable thing, especially early
on ask permission to ask. I'd like to ask how

(58:12):
you're feeling around this, and I like, if you don't
want to talk about it, that's like I one hundred
percent respect whatever feels right for you, but it's on
my mind and I wanted to check in right like
ask for the permission, and especially like if you have
like a long standing connection with this person, you've had
conversations about it prior you have those prior conversations have

(58:36):
built a vocabulary between the two of you where you
can gesture in the direction of that vocabulary and you
don't have to do like sit down and very gently
like open the door to the conversation and having it
be a natural part, especially like a long term partnership,

(58:58):
to have a shorthand for referring to this thing that
happened my I have had relationships with partners who have
had really bad situations and like I would never find
out the name of their perpetrator. They would just say
the murderer of someone who'd never like committed a murder

(59:19):
to my knowledge, but they would just say like I'm
having a murderer day, or like, yeah, that's something my
murderer did. Yeah, like grocery store, Like you never know
what's going to be triggering grocery store song, just like
shopping for groceries and there's a song, this is a
song my murderer played.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Yeah, you don't know.

Speaker 4 (59:39):
But having that shorthand means meant that like we didn't
have to have like a whole deep conversation.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Yes we understood what, Yes, we understand what's happening without
having to yeah, dive in if we're not in that
space to do.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
And one of the things about trauma, specifically around sexual
is that a lot of it is beyond language and
so showing up man, So maybe the most difficult thing
about showing up around any issue related to trauma, but
especially around sexuality, is that your body has to be

(01:00:16):
showing up, and your body needs to be deeply trustworthy
and unafraid, so that when my person says like their
body is reacting big in the grocery store, we're shopping
for groceries, and they're like, this is a song my
murderer played. I know that my job is to be real,

(01:00:39):
real calm and be like, you're gonna go to the car,
I'm gonna put all this stuff back. Oh no, we're
gonna abandon this cart. What we're gonna do right now
is abandon this cart because we gotta we're gonna go.
We're gonna go. Let's just go, and we just go.
My job is to be profoundly trustworthy and yeah, like

(01:01:01):
because I am the person that I am. I was like,
we're gonna put the stuff away first, and I noticed
that their body is like, Oh, we're gonna put this
stuff away. No we're not.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
We're not.

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
We're not putting the stuff back. We're abandoning this card
and I'm not gonna feel bad about it because this
is what matters more than anything else, and not showing
up and being trustworthy and one hundred percent just like
calm and regulating for them because you know, we're coregulation. Yeah, yeah,
that's where it's at. Yeah, when you're the co survivor,

(01:01:34):
Like co survivors deserve, especially in like long term really
mutual relationships, CO survivors deserve to have times when they're
disregulated and their partner shows up for them in a
coregulating way and like in those moments of the panic
attack or whatever is happening, like your job as the
co survivor or it just how's the partner is to

(01:01:54):
be like like I am the ground for you to
walk on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yeah, wow, that's I'm having this conversation with you, and
I'm realizing I've never had this conversation, which is as
common as sexual assault is. It's wild that I've never
had this conversation that we're never We aren't taught to

(01:02:19):
talk about this side of it. You know, the moment
that it happens. We also need to know how to
talk about that. But also after, how you support people after,
how you are supported after needs to be more common language,
because healing.

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
Does take time. The good news is that healing happens
every day. People are healing from the trauma that has
been inflicted on them that none of them deserved, and
that all of them deserve to heal from. And they
do heal because that's our bodies long to heal, and

(01:02:58):
they know how as long as we give them the
resources they need to heal. Part of what they need
is a loneeness. Is the what's the ideal word around
a loneeness solitude. Part of it is a need a
hunger for solitude, and part of it is a hunger
for the safe kind of connection.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
And solitude is not isolation, right, it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
Is chosen time for connecting with yourself in the absence
of any tug toward having to be or do anything
for someone else. And some people I am not a
person who is particularly sensitive to like, like meeting someone else.

(01:03:47):
This is probably more than you need. But so there's
two broad ways of knowing, separate knowing and connected knowing.
Separate knowing is where you extract an idea from its
context and you just isolate it and you poke it
and prod it and see how it works all by itself.
Connected knowing is where you go to where the idea is.
And the way you can connectedly know someone is to

(01:04:08):
like morph yourself into the shape that they are and
really like explore, like what is going on inside the
experience of this person. And I can tell by trying
to get myself into the shape that they live in.
And some people naturally are connected knowers, and when they

(01:04:28):
shape themselves into someone else's shape, they are really good
at meeting that person's need, and some people feel a
moral obligation to meet that person's need. And if you
are a person who like is very sensitive to the
presence of other people and to like being what other
people need, because you can feel so sensitively what other

(01:04:51):
people need you to be, solitude is necessary so that
you can be your own shape and be as sensitive
to your own needs.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Yeah, that makes so much, she says, not.

Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
At all, implying that you might be talking to someone
who is like extra super ultra sensitive to other people's
needs and may need to protect that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah that unheard.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
You describe yourself as a mother, So.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Yeah, that is that. Yeah, that is true.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
But that's what the mindfulness is for.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Yeah, it is. It is. It allows you to be aware,
It allows you to connect to self and allows I
think to I love that you said the like I
think you said that we're always pursuing, like the body's
pursuing healings. Naturally, it wants to it wants to do that,

(01:05:46):
and I think that solitude allows time for it to
figure out how it wants to do that. Yes, without
kind of the influence of the outside voices.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
But really everybody else is telling you what you need
to heal and how you should be healing, especially the
ones who are like forgive. Yeah, I'm here for the rage.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
I'm here rage.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
I'm here for the rage, I'm here for the despair.
I'm here for like the hilarious laughter. I'm here like
all the big feelings that some people are not going
to be comfortable with. They don't seem to match. But
we are mammals. We have monky like brains that have

(01:06:33):
lots of emotions. And the thing about drama is it
doesn't make sense. It literally is not sensible. So like,
shit's gonna happen with your body, like parts of your
body are gonna shake when you allow them to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
And I'm hearing you say, give yourself permission.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
To non judgmental awareness of whatever is happening in your
internal experience. The more you allow your body to be
and do what it needs, the more cleanly those wounds
can heal. Hm.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
That makes sense. Thank you so much, Emily.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
And expected to take time, just permission for it to
take however, lost much time?

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Yeah? Oh fuck, thank you so much, Emily, Thank you
so much for listening. You know we are hose here,
but hose with heart, so before we part ways, let

(01:07:38):
me speak to yours. Oh girl, I'm gonna let this
be messy and not and flow. Here we go. Doctor
Emily talks about you know, as a partner or friend
of a survivor, your job is to be trustworthy and
shame free. These four sentences that I'm going to repeat
if you need to write it down and write it down.

(01:07:58):
I obviously wrote it down as well. One I believe you.
Two thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.
Three I am sorry that happened to you. You did
not deserve that. And four I support you whatever you do.
Reminding us, Doctor Emily reminding us to being survivor centered.

(01:08:22):
What they want to happen next happens next. Right. I
was thinking about how like there was also a MOE
where I didn't even know what I wanted to happen next.
And sometimes you might just have to sit with the
person as they don't know, you know, but you know,
maybe even offering them what the options are because your
brain is just not functioning, but still being survivor centered

(01:08:45):
and making sure that you're doing what they need to
be done. I love when doctor Emily said the good
news is that people are healing every day from trauma.
None of them deserve. Our bodies long to heal, and
part of what the bio he needs is solitude, and
part is a safe kind of connection. Taking time to

(01:09:09):
yourself is important, as is remaining connected, but remembering that
as it may feel like this will never end or
you will always feel this way, that your body does
long to heal, that's crucial. Solitude is necessary for those

(01:09:32):
of us, ah all right, here we go. Solitude is
necessary for those of us who feel sensitively what other
people need you to be, so you can be your
own shape and be as sensitive to your own needs.
Read me, read me down. I feel that to the

(01:09:57):
core times. You know, Matthew and I have Matthew my
partner and I we will take solo retreats. He actually
recently just went backpacking, and you know, I stayed at
a friend of mine was out of town for a
week and I stayed there for a week. And We've
been doing this for a couple of years, like taking

(01:10:17):
our own solo trips because I have found that I
needed it creatively, artistically have needed it, but just for myself.
I'm an only child, like you know, like being around
people all the time is just not how I am wired.
I think I am an extroverted introvert or no, sorry,
an introverted extrovert. I think my true basis is introversion.

(01:10:41):
But I you know, I love being out in social
but I need I need that time. I think Tracy
Ellis Ross had said once, you know, like, because I
she gives big, she has to restore big. And I
love when I get to go out and I get
to be with people, or I get to perform, or
and I love to be there and be present and
give everything I have. I love it. It feeds me

(01:11:05):
connecting with people. But in order to do that in
a way that doesn't drain, girl, I need solitude. I
need time to figure out you know, I need time
to figure out my own shape and what my needs
are so I can be sensitive to it, Doctor Emily,
So I give yourself permission to not be sensible. Right,

(01:11:27):
the more you allow your body to be and do
what it needs more cleanly, those wounds can heal oof.
And finally, doctor Matthew, you know, as I said at
the top of this episode, this conversation is probably one
of the most important part one of them. They're all
important but was so specific to my identity and my body,

(01:11:50):
and in some ways I was scared to have this
part of the conversation publicly because it is a minefield
and I don't want anything to be taken out of
context next Anyways, I appreciate Matthew saying I don't think
there's a rule book that says you need to be
okay focus on taking care of yourself. That's so, so,

(01:12:14):
so so liberating. And I also love when you said
healing doesn't equate to being okay, but it's about removing
shame from the experience and being curious about how it's
showing up in the body. That's also I think a
new you know, for me, I think I've always equated

(01:12:37):
healing to being okay. As I dig deeper, I think
that's such a surface, uninvestigated belief. Let's call it that
healing means that you're okay, because you know, like I
would say that I've healed from my estrangement to or
I'm healing and in some ways healed from my estrangement
from my mother, but I wouldn't say that I'm okay

(01:12:59):
with it. And so I think, you know, doctor Matthew
beautifully points out that you know, it might remove shame
from it, Like I'm not ashamed of my estrangement. I
am always curious about where it shows up and how
it shows up in my body. And so taking taking

(01:13:21):
away the idea that healing must mean that we're all good,
you know, healing just means we're functioning and hopefully functioning
healthily again and in a way that we have our agency,
we have our autonomy again. I think that's what healing

(01:13:45):
gives us back, is agency on autonomy. Rage, my love's
rage is roles really difficult for me, but I love
you know, accessing the hurt beneath the anger. You know,
they always say that anger is really a mass for sadness,
but also the beauty and the importance of anger. And

(01:14:06):
you know, for those of us who feel like we
don't have space that is dangerous to express a rage.
It's it is, as Matthew says, that's some white supremacists
a philosophy and is reaffirmed by the white supremacy that
runs rampant in our country and in our in our world,

(01:14:28):
the anti blackness that runs rampant in our world globally,
That gets reinforced. But your rage is part of your humanity.
My therapist actually helped me this, the difference between rage
and violence. I think there's there's a period. I don't think.
I know there's a there's for a lot of my
life where I equated rage to violence, that if somebody

(01:14:49):
was rageful, that we were going to be violent, either
with their words or with their you know, with their
physical actions. And so I was always afraid of my
rage because I thought that it meant it inevitably met violence.
But rage doesn't mean violence. Rage is part of our humanity.
And I love when Matthew says anger is how we

(01:15:12):
set boundaries sometimes like knowing that you're angry, knowing where
that rage is coming from, actually is what creates revolutions, right,
is what allows us to rebel and break the systems
and rebuild what is actually working and what actually supports us,
whether they are our personal systems or our cultural systems.

(01:15:36):
I love You're not a burden. Ask for help. I
don't know who needs to hear that, but let me
say it to you. You're not a burden. Ask for
help whatever it is that you're going through. And Chelsea,
I bestis Chelsea who is I think in the second
episode of the show, we talked about going through divorce

(01:16:00):
and her best advice was learned how to ask for help,
and that has continued to come up in this first
season of the show. But I recognize that we may
not ask for it because we feel like we're too much.
And so I just want to in the same way
that you're going to hear doctor orcall's voice saying, so
I want you to hear my voice saying you are

(01:16:21):
not a burden. You're just not ask for help, and
finally hear what we're not sharing is getting stored in
our bodies. I'm sure you've maybe read the book or
heard the title The Body keeps the score Baby. Something
that I am learning deeply that even if I may

(01:16:42):
not consciously be thinking about a thing, my body is
reacting and is I won't even say responding, because I
would I always say that response is usually conscious, but
reaction is that's a knee jerk. Were just reacting. Your
body is reacting to a lot of shit because it

(01:17:04):
is it is where we store everything. So sharing speaking
using your voice, whether it is you know, to the world,
but most importantly, you're trusted, your trusted community. Well that

(01:17:25):
is all I got. But before I go, I do
want to just say thank you, thank you for being here,
for your support, for your love, for your emails and
your d ms and your texts, and I just I'm
grateful for this hommunity and for this space too. You know,

(01:17:49):
be able to hold the multitudes of myself, and I
hope you feel the ability to hold multitudes of yourself.
And I also want to say thank you to my
friends Erica and Kirk who listened to drafts of this
episode to help make sure that I was creating a
safe container not just for you, but also for myself.

(01:18:11):
You know, they they are chosen family, so they wanted
to make sure that I also stayed safe inside of
this instead of executing this particular episode. And then of
course I have to say thank you to doctor Raquel
and doctor Vanessa, doctor Matthew, and doctor Emily. I appreciate

(01:18:36):
you more more than I can say. And to to Vincent,
my producer, and to our sound engineer Joel Who and Graham,
who were also part of these conversations. You know it is.

(01:18:58):
This was obviously a very very These were very difficult
conversations and very sensitive conversations, and so it required all
of us to show up a little that much more intentionally,
that much more open, and so I'm just grateful, grateful
to everyone, and most of all to you. So I

(01:19:24):
love you and thank you, and I'll see you when
the new season drops. I think I think it's in October.
I'm not sure what the exact date is, but it's happening.
We're currently in production. I've had some great interviews so far,
and I'm really excited to bring you a new season,

(01:19:48):
a full video podcast. I'm very, very excited to bring
that to you. So I'll see you soon. I love you.
Take care of yourselves. I love you. I love you.
Oh wait, I love you. Bye. Thank you so much
for listening to tell Me Something Messy. If you all

(01:20:08):
enjoyed the show, send the episode to someone else you
might like it. Tell Me Something Messy was executive produced
by Ali Perry, Gabrielle Collins, and Yours Truly. Our producer
and editor is Vince de Johnny. For more podcasts from
iHeartRadio and The Outspoken Network, visit the iHeartRadio app or
anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.