September 28, 2025 • 50 mins
If returning to your childhood hometown stirs up memories you’d rather leave behind, does that mean you’re not ready to face them? I’ll dive into this area with a heartfelt question from someone seeking closure from past trauma, wondering if revisiting their roots could be the key to healing and rediscovering their lost self.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.
(00:10):
Thanks for joining me for another episode. Welcome to the show. I almost said love and abuse.
My other podcast is called Love and Abuse.
You are at the overwhelmed brain in case you needed to get a reminder.
Let's see if I can answer this question that came in to me.
This is somebody who said I've been listening to your podcast off and on for over the years and I've made plans for over a
(00:35):
year now to return to my childhood hometown.
My childhood trauma started when I was about five and I was sexually abused by an older sibling who was 12 at the time.
I buried the majority of what happened to me deep inside leaving it to fester as I stuffed down even more abuse from others as I grew up.
(00:59):
Those memories have slowly been turning up in the past 40 years or 40 plus years now. I'm in my 70s.
Are my memories of what happened to me at five keeping me from returning to my hometown?
So my question is, along with that other question, when I find the strength to go back to my childhood hometown, will those
(01:21):
memories be less of an issue in order for me to move on even as old as I am?
Also, will I find the me I left behind back then in the 80s when I moved out of the second home my parents raised their three children in? I'm the youngest.
I lost myself somewhere growing up with this secret I had. Wow, thank you for sharing that.
(01:47):
That is such a tough life that you've lived or at least that portion, not the whole thing, but the portion with the trauma
and the abuse and then to have to live with that and all the thoughts and emotions and the feelings that come with having survived that and experienced that.
I'm so sorry you went through that.
(02:08):
You should not have been exposed to any of that.
You should not have been violated in any way.
You should have been allowed to enjoy your, the innocence, your childhood, the innocence of childhood so that you didn't have to carry this with you.
I tear up thinking about what you lost.
(02:29):
Now, I'm not going to leave you there. That's very sad. I'm so glad you share this. Thank you for expressing that. And here's my reply to you.
Of course, people are listening right now.
They're saying you got to tell her to go to therapy. And of course, that's a disclaimer. See a professional, talk to them.
And if you've done that or if you haven't done that, I'm going to give you my thoughts anyway.
(02:55):
I'm going to give you my thoughts. This doesn't mean I'm right.
It just means what would I do?
That's kind of the way I look at it. What would I do?
I had probably 0.001% of the abuse that you experienced in my childhood.
I had very, very little actual physical or I had no sexual abuse, but actual physical abuse in my childhood.
(03:19):
And I actually faced this dilemma or decision in my 40s because I'm 55 now.
And in my 40s, I decided that I was going to visit my hometown where I grew up where some trauma took place or the main trauma that I remember.
(03:42):
And I grew up with an alcoholic stepfather, very violent, very aggressive, mostly with others, not me, but I was scared as hell. I would cower.
I would be so afraid of leaving the bedroom and hoping he didn't come down the stairs or up the stairs, depending on where we lived at the time.
(04:03):
But I was hoping he didn't come into my room.
And so I carried that fear and other things have happened as well, but I'm not here to share that.
But it was a very scary, traumatic situation for me that I carried with me.
And again, I'm not diminishing or invalidating what you went through. I'm just trying to relate.
(04:24):
I'm trying to feel where you are.
Think about where you are and carrying that for me. It changed me.
Just holding on to it, you know, having any type of grasp on it, even unconsciously, changed me.
I was a different person most of my life. I developed dysfunctions.
(04:45):
I was emotionally abusive in my relationships.
I didn't show up as the healthiest person. I was a pleaser.
I did a lot of things that made me unhappy and those around me unhappy.
And so I had healing to do.
And so in my forties, I'm having some internal, I don't want to, it's not a crisis, but it was weighing on my mind.
(05:15):
I just had to visit my hometown.
That's exactly what you're talking about here, you know, in different ways.
But I had these thoughts about going back, quote, home, where I grew up, you know, from infancy to about 13 years old.
There's a strong pull or there was a strong pull to go back to that hometown.
(05:40):
And it's funny because in the next state, that's where my family is.
And I didn't want to take my partner at the time and I didn't want to visit family.
I felt like I had to go alone.
I felt like I had to be there by myself to resolve something.
And I couldn't explain it at the time.
(06:00):
I just knew I had to be there to resolve something because I felt like I was carrying it with me.
And I don't know if that was the hatred I had toward my stepfather at the time, or if there was something I needed to heal inside of me.
And maybe that has something to do with the hatred or something else.
But at the time, I didn't know what it was. I just had this draw.
(06:24):
And I don't want to call it nostalgia. It wasn't nostalgia. It wasn't a good feeling. It wasn't a bad feeling. I just felt this pull.
And so I told my partner at the time, I'm going to take a trip.
And I'm going to go up there and just stay a couple days.
And I don't know, reconnect with myself? Ground myself? Reconnect with the trauma? I don't know.
(06:51):
But I decided to take the trip. And I drove up there.
And I found some really disgusting hotel. And I stayed in there. And I unpacked.
And then I went out and looked around town.
Hey, this is the town I used to live in.
Now there are one way streets where there used to be two way.
(07:12):
Hey, that Chinese restaurant still there after 40 years. Wow.
So I'm looking at all these places that, or at least the streets and the old church was there and the old police station in the same place.
And it felt like I was connecting with my younger self, like an inner self or an inner child.
I felt like I was connecting with him and giving him something that he lost, part of his childhood or giving his childhood,
(07:40):
something more to hold on to something stronger, something bigger than him, something more powerful than him, but something good for him.
And so I'm walking around this town as a full grown adult.
And as an adult, I'm making it very far, because my legs are longer.
(08:03):
And the town seems so much smaller when you're older, because as a child, it takes maybe two or three times the steps to walk around. So I'm making it pretty far.
And I even walked all the way to my old house.
And then we lived in another house before that. So I walked to that house.
And coincidentally, that house before, when I was younger, is where I experienced a trauma that stuck with me.
(08:31):
I've talked about it on the air before, but I'm here to respond to this person.
So I want to keep my focus on that.
But I had a trauma in that house with my stepfather.
And I'm walking down the road in this little neighborhood that I used to live in.
And I see that house and whoever owned it, I think they painted it.
And I remember the garage and I remember the front lawn.
(08:52):
And I'm thinking, wow, that house has really improved.
And then I see what looks like the owners, a man and a woman, I guess a couple. And they were working on something. And I looked over at them.
And they looked up at me and they were nice and friendly.
And I said, Hi, I used to live here.
And it was an odd thing to say right out of the blue. But he said, You did? You used to live here? And he was so excited.
(09:20):
And so he said, Do you want to see inside? And I said, What?
Okay, yes, I would love to, but I don't want to impose.
And he goes, No, no, no, come on in.
So immediately, I mean, just so friendly. I gotta send them a letter. He invited me inside.
And we went in through the kitchen.
And I said, Oh, my God, this is where I used to live. This is the kitchen. There's the bathroom over there.
(09:42):
I know what's in the next room. It was really neat.
I told him that I almost lit the kitchen on fire.
The kitchen that we were standing in.
So that might not have been there had that not been put out.
I think my mom put it out.
But that's another story for another day.
And so he took me to the next room. And I remember the trauma.
(10:04):
And I was right there, I was standing right where it happened, at least my memory of it. That's where it happened.
I thought what an amazing coincidence that I'm here in the town, in the house, where this trauma happened.
I mean, the chances of me being in the town I grew up in, in the house I grew up in, with a person who wanted to invite me
(10:32):
in, and show me around, and give me the opportunity to, and he didn't know this, to connect with a younger version of myself.
And maybe give that younger version, some strength.
And, you know, we're talking about inner child work.
And if you're familiar with that, you know what I'm talking about.
(10:52):
It's when you give the younger version of yourself what they needed when they were younger, because they didn't have it.
Because they were a different person at a different time with, you know, with no power, no ability to help themselves in many ways.
So we had to develop survival mechanisms.
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And we had to learn how to cope with the challenges that came along, very, very young age.
And we had to deal with, you know, if you've gone through trauma or abuse, we had to figure out how to get through that, survive that.
And with a fresh mind that's only been on earth for a few years, that's like talking about something that nobody knows how
(11:36):
to deal with when they're that young.
You don't know how to deal with it.
So you might repress it, you might stuff it down, you might dissociate while you're getting traumatized or abused.
You might do a number of things, you just don't know until you're in it.
Hopefully, most people listening weren't ever in something like that.
But the person who wrote to me definitely, you did something with those emotions, those thoughts, those feelings, you did something with those things.
(12:06):
And so like she said, she buried them.
So here I am standing in this spot where I don't know what I did with my thoughts and feelings and emotions, but I felt totally
out of control as a child in that house with that trauma happening to me.
And so he's talking, the owner of the house is talking, showing me this, showing me that.
(12:27):
He said, Oh, we ripped down this wall, we painted this.
And I said, Oh my God, I remember this room being so dark.
And as he's talking, I stood in the exact place, like I was saying, and I reached my hand up to the ceiling, and I touched
it, because I'm six foot four now. And I can reach the ceiling.
But I think I just wanted to touch or connect or ground myself to this place that had unpleasant memories.
(12:54):
And I wanted to make a new memory, I wanted to do something different than what happened to me.
I wanted to feel something different than what happened to me.
And I wanted to change, I wanted to heal.
So I remember touching the ceiling, I don't know if it was a beam or just a flat ceiling.
But I just remember putting my hand up and being able to touch it and being surprised like, wow, I can do this now. Couldn't do it in the 70s. But I can do it now. And I remember the incident.
(13:26):
And I remember seeing myself on the floor with my stepfather over me doing what he was doing.
It wasn't sensual, it was just, I was out of control, he was controlling me.
And it was, it was sad to see my younger self there.
But I didn't want to instill or make him think of sadness.
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I didn't want to put that or leave that here.
I wanted to give him strength, I wanted to let him know, you're gonna be okay.
You're gonna get through this, and you're gonna be okay. And this will end shortly.
It's gonna be fine, you're gonna make it through. And I'm here for you. I'm right here.
(14:10):
And that's what I gave to that younger version of me.
That's what I gave to that little boy on that day.
And once I did that, I'm not saying that magically, I felt light or anything like that.
Well, once I did that, I felt some sort of closure.
And that closure, it was really quick, felt that closure.
(14:31):
The guy, super friendly, still talking, trying to show me all the changes he made.
And I came right back to the present moment.
And I got engaged with the conversation again.
And I had realized I had just gone through a spiritual experience here.
This whole thing was arranged, you know, this is my belief, this is, you know, I don't even know if this is real, but I chose
(14:55):
to believe that this whole thing was arranged for the purpose so that I could be here in this moment.
Meeting somebody who would take me into my childhood home and show me around and give me a good feeling about this house,
where I had the opportunity to give my younger self a good feeling that he will get through this, he will survive.
(15:21):
And I am there for him from this point on. I virtually time traveled.
And all of these things lined up. The perfect opportunity showed itself.
If I had walked down the street an hour later, I might not have seen them.
And I definitely wouldn't have knocked on the door.
If I was walking down the street an hour earlier, I might not have seen them. So it was the perfect timing.
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And so I thanked him, I thanked his wife.
And it just felt so good to meet good people in a home where I had these memories. And they had improved that home.
And I got to connect with a younger part of myself.
I got to find closure on the pull that brought me back to my hometown.
(16:09):
Now, this is an experience that I had.
I'm not saying that if this person who wrote to me did the same thing, visited their hometown and went to their old house,
and they would have this magical, wonderful, good feeling come about, they may actually go into some sort of regression.
You might have a PTSD moment and go right back to where you were. Or maybe not.
(16:35):
Maybe you'll reconnect with a part of yourself that you lost.
And that's why I would want to find closure or try to go in the direction of this pull that I feel.
Because this is what it sounds like you're telling me.
You're being pulled back to a time when you were young and you experienced these things.
(16:58):
And I would find it, and I'm just giving you my opinion here, I would find it very strange that you would be pulled back to a place that would cause harm.
And I say that very carefully because I could be 100% wrong.
You could go into a regression and have some episode and suddenly you're right back there.
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And I don't want to put that into your head at all, but this is why it's important to understand where you are inside with all of this.
Have you done any healing with this?
Have you talked to anybody about this?
And, or, is this something you feel you need to do?
Do you feel like you are being drawn to connect with a part of yourself that may need to feel your presence, to feel the adult
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version of you, to know that it's going to be alright and you're going to make it through?
Do you need that strength as a child?
Do you need the adult in you to visit the child in you at that time?
Or is there something else going on? This is my story.
Maybe it doesn't feel the same to you.
(18:09):
Maybe the pull or the draw that you feel about going back to your hometown is different.
I'm going to read what you said here and see if anything I talked about has any resonance in your words.
I have made plans for over a year now to visit or return to my childhood hometown.
My trauma started when I was about five, and this was by an older brother, and I buried the majority of what happened to me
(18:35):
inside, leaving it to fester as I stuffed down even more abuse from others as I grew up.
These memories have slowly been turning up in the past 40 plus years.
Are my memories of what happened to me at five keeping me from returning to my hometown?
So, this tells me that you are having trepidation.
You maybe don't want to go to your hometown. Maybe it's not a draw.
(18:58):
Maybe it's not a pull, but you did ask a question.
Are my memories of what happened to me at five keeping me from returning to my hometown? That's your first question.
And I would say that probably 100%, 100% you feel that hesitation going back because what happened to you at five, there's a lot of trauma there. So, it's possible.
(19:21):
I don't know for sure, but it is entirely possible.
You know, we're talking about childhood trauma, and I'm discussing how healing often requires professional guidance.
(19:44):
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(20:06):
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(20:27):
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(20:58):
Let me ask you a question. Let's just say that if you knew returning to your hometown wouldn't bring up those memories, would you be okay going? That might be hard to answer.
It might be hard to get into that mind space.
You might ask, well, of course, those memories are going to come up because that was my hometown. That's where it happened.
(21:19):
And I might see old buildings that remind me of that, of course. So it's possible. I don't know.
But that wasn't necessarily your question for me.
I think you were just asking that out loud, but not necessarily looking for an answer.
So I'm going to get into your question, which you said, my question is this.
When I find the strength to go back to my childhood hometown, will those memories be less of an issue in order for me to move
(21:45):
on, even as old as I am?
And there's an also here, but I'm going to try to address this one first.
This is going to be hit or miss. I do not know the answer.
You may have stuffed those down and then you have something that absolutely triggers something so traumatic or many things
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that have happened to you so traumatic that it puts you in this space and suddenly you're having a breakdown in the middle
of a park or in the neighborhood that you grew up in.
I think the answer to that depends on your emotional stability right now.
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And again, take these as opinions, not as a professional psychiatric evaluation, because that's not what I do.
But if I were you, I would ask myself, have I been pretty stable for most of my life?
And that may or may not be indicative of what might happen, but that's a good question to ask yourself.
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Have I been stable most of my life? You know, you buried these memories. They're still in there for sure.
You know, you haven't healed, it sounds like. You haven't addressed them.
But have I been emotionally stable most of the time?
Am I able to handle challenges that come up?
Or do I have a complete breakdown?
Do I need to get away from people? Am I afraid to be touched?
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Am I afraid to be in certain situations?
Because if that exists today, then you're exposed to what traumatized you, or at least the relationships and the associations
like being in your hometown, being or seeing the house that you grew up in and all that. Here's what I would do.
(23:30):
I would imagine or visualize that I'm in my hometown right now.
I mean, you want to do this in a safe place.
And if this ever feels unsafe, just open your eyes and think of something else.
Think of something like kittens or something.
Or if that's a reminder of what you went through, think of something happy and give yourself a safe space to come back to.
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And just imagine that you're in your hometown where you grew up.
What feelings come up as you visualize that?
I'm there, there's the house, there's a building, there's this, there's the grass. What comes up now? How do you feel about it?
Are you growing anxious or are you feeling neutral? Is fear building at all?
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And if it is, I want you to wake up, snap out of it right now and go to your happy place, go to your safe place.
Because if it is, if that fear is building up, then it probably will build up when you're there.
Now, again, I can't give you the advice to do that because anyone listening that is in any type of people helper field, they're
(24:40):
going to say, don't go there, Paul. Don't put her in that space. And I agree.
I don't want you to go to that space.
I need you to feel safe inside of you.
So I don't want to tell you, Hey, this is what will happen.
And I don't want to tell you, Hey, do this right now.
And hopefully you don't get into some traumatic regressive space inside of you that you can't get out of. So please do this carefully.
(25:02):
Do this with supervision if you need to.
But I'm assuming you're reaching out to me because you've probably thought about this for a long time. Maybe you have received therapy. Maybe you've done a lot.
And so the way I answer questions might be helpful to you. I don't know.
But again, I put myself in your shoes.
I'm going to visualize how it feels in my mind, in my body, what it feels like to be in my hometown. Oh, I see that building.
(25:31):
I'm walking down the street and then I see the house I grew up in. How do I feel about that?
I think if I'm okay visualizing that, which is a lot different than being there, I know.
I think if I'm okay there, then I will take the next step forward.
And I think if I took the next step forward and I took the trip to my hometown and I started seeing these things and I stayed
(25:53):
very present about my body, about my mind, about my emotions, about my thoughts, and just kept monitoring myself, then I think I'd take the next step.
And if I kept feeling okay and I could regulate how I feel, you know, okay, I'm getting a little frightened, but... I know today is not yesterday. Today is a different time.
(26:18):
I'm in my 50s, you might say. I'm in my 70s.
I've been able to handle a lot and I've been dealing with this.
Then I will say, okay, I'm ready to take the next step and the next step. I just monitor myself.
So, if I'm in your shoes, this is what I would do. If I'm in that space.
(26:39):
And the disclaimer is, if I have a lot of trauma, that can just pop up and now I'm having a breakdown in the park.
I personally am okay with breakdowns, but I can't tell you that. I can't tell anyone listening that. Like, go have a breakdown. Because it's dangerous.
If you have a breakdown and you need somebody to pull you back out of it, or maybe your brain will do something and rewire
(27:03):
itself and then suddenly you're in this stuck state.
I don't want to put you there.
I don't want to get you there.
It's a very tricky question to answer without getting into the weeds.
But I'm addressing it because I think it's important for anyone who's been through any trauma to put their toe in the water
and find out where they are with it.
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And if after you've tried to heal or you've tried therapy or whatever steps you've taken, you still have these thoughts and
feelings and you still haven't gotten to the place that you feel better inside of you, maybe you can dip your toe into the
water and slowly put your foot in there and then go up to your ankles and then your knees.
(27:47):
That's how I enter every cold lake I've ever been in.
And just feel your way through it being present about what you're thinking, what you're feeling.
Now with that said, let's just say that no matter what I say, you're going to go back there anyway.
Your question is, will those memories be less of an issue so that you can move on?
(28:12):
Here's the thing, I don't care if you're 72 or 92 or 22, when the emotions are in there, they're in there.
When the old trauma is in there, it's in there.
And how you deal with them at 22 or 92 is probably going to be the same. It doesn't matter your age.
It matters how you cope, how you deal with challenges.
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It matters what you've healed already in your life, what you've faced in your life and worked through.
For example, there are people in their 40s and 50s that deal with their first divorce or first breakup and they are just struck so hard.
They go into depression and they can't live alone and it's just very difficult for them.
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And then there are people like me who had a serious breakup in my 30s, my early 30s, and I got into a depression.
But then I got into another relationship and that ended.
And then I got into my next relationship.
So, I had several relationships throughout my life that ended that allowed me to feel enough pain to be able to face what's
(29:25):
going on inside of me and why I get so lonely.
Why do I fear so much rejection and abandonment?
And really face and deal with all my dysfunctions and all my insecurities and all my fears and why I became so desperate to
have somebody else in my life and have somebody complete me and all that stuff.
(29:45):
I wanted to address all those things because every time I had a breakup or even a divorce, one divorce, every time that happened,
I was just in such a lousy state and it took so long to get back. It wasn't just grieving and pain.
It was like a deep, deep wound that needed healing. And I hated that feeling. I didn't like feeling that.
(30:12):
So, after my divorce, which was the final, the final break, quote, breakup that I had, I decided to address all these things. And good thing I did. I learned a lot about myself.
I decided to heal before I got into another relationship and I decided to work on my insecurities, work on my fear of abandonment
and fear of being alone and all that.
(30:33):
And that really took me out of the dysfunctions that I kept carrying into every relationship.
And so my point is, the more you deal with something, the more you heal, as long as you're willing to look at it and process
it and you find the right resources or the right people.
The more you deal with it, the more you're exposed to it, the more you get to deal with it, the more you get to process it,
(30:59):
the more that, sometimes it covers other things.
The more that comes up, that can happen too.
When you're traumatized as a child, there are things that are at the forefront of your mind when you think about it.
And then when you start healing that, there's other things underneath that might come up.
(31:20):
Like, oh, I've never had confidence in myself or I've never trusted myself or I've carried shame with me all this time.
Or I've never been able to hold a job or hold a relationship.
All these little things that might have to do with deeper fears or insecurities that can come up.
Which is why a lot of people recommend, including myself, that you might need professional help when you get to that point
(31:45):
because of all the layers that are peeled back.
And so, coming back to this person who says, when I find the strength to go back to my childhood hometown, that tells me a
lot already when I find the strength.
So there's some fear there, I'm assuming.
Will those memories be less of an issue in order for me to move on?
(32:05):
I think after you visualize and you take tiny baby steps forward and keep moving in that direction, then you might be able
to work through that as you stay present about what's happening in your mind and body.
Again, that's just an opinion, something I would do.
I'm not telling you to do it.
Now let's just say that you do go and you are hoping that these memories, these traumatic events that have occurred in your
(32:34):
past won't be an issue for you. Let's just say they aren't.
What are you hoping to accomplish by being there? Maybe there's more to this.
Maybe you're going to visit family or whatever.
I would ask myself, who am I upset at?
Who do I have maybe a deeper hate or hatred for?
(32:55):
Am I allowing myself to hate if I feel hate? Because sometimes, that's what I did.
I mean, I didn't allow myself to feel hate, so I held on to it for years.
I mean, if you want to get rid of hate, I'm not telling you you should feel it, but that's what I did. I decided to feel the hate. I do really hate that person. I really hate them.
(33:17):
And as soon as I felt it, I mean, this was a little breakdown for me, but as soon as I allowed myself to feel what I really felt, it finally came out.
Anytime you repress an emotion, you know those emotions that we stuff way down? They affect your entire being. They affect your freedom.
(33:39):
They affect your life in so many ways because you make decisions based on what's stuffed down there.
Because you don't want to feel that anymore, so every decision that you make will be evaluated and weighed against what you're holding down. I don't like that feeling.
This is like I was saying, after every breakup, I had these awful, awful feelings that brought me into near depression and one time real depression.
(34:04):
And I didn't want to feel that anymore, so I decided that I was going to face that stuff.
I decided that I was going to allow it to happen, to rise up in me, to feel what I'm feeling.
Now, with severe trauma, it is a different animal. It is a different animal.
Severe trauma that's stuffed down, these memories could pop up and new ones could show themselves as well.
(34:31):
Ones that you may not have thought about or remembered.
These are just awareness things you have to be aware of. These things could happen.
I think you need a safe space inside of you and I think you need a safe space to go.
If you have a safe place that you went as a child, then maybe find that safe space if it's still there.
(34:55):
If you have that safe space, a park or a friend or whatever.
If that's available to you, that would be a great place to ground yourself and reset.
Or you can find a nasty hotel like I did and just ground yourself there and be in your own space. I wanted to go by myself. I wanted to isolate myself. I wanted to be by myself.
(35:16):
I think my journey was about me and only me and I just wanted to connect with me.
I just wanted to connect with myself.
You may face some trauma, but you may also have the opportunity to deal with and heal that trauma.
Because you are ready to face it.
This is what I'm reading from your message.
(35:38):
From what you're saying, it sounds like you're saying I'm ready to face this.
I don't want to face it, but I'm ready to heal from it.
Again, it doesn't matter if you're 22, 72 or 92.
It's never too late to try to heal this stuff. If you feel up to it.
I think you have to make that decision inside of you.
You have to get to that point where you have to say I'm ready to address this stuff. I'm ready to heal it.
(36:03):
That doesn't mean you have to revisit the trauma.
It doesn't mean that you should visualize what happened.
Sometimes you just need to be there for your younger self.
You asked the question, will I find the me that I left behind back in the 80s when I moved out?
I don't want to give the exact year because of your privacy and all that.
(36:26):
When I moved out of the second home, my parents raised their children.
Will you find the you that you left behind back in the 80s? Let me ask you a question.
Did you enjoy being that version of you?
Did you enjoy that time of your life?
If you did, I think that's why you're asking this.
(36:49):
Here's what can happen, at least from my experience.
When somebody goes through trauma, when somebody's been through abuse, even when they're older.
What ends up happening is who they were can be destroyed.
A big part of you can be destroyed. Who you were changes. It becomes somebody new. It's somebody who's in survival mode.
(37:14):
When you're in survival mode, who you were, it starts to disintegrate.
That disintegration makes you forget who you were.
I'm not saying that happened to you.
Because if you remember who you are, great. You're already ahead of the game.
But if you forget who you were, forget what you loved and what you loved to do, how you felt.
(37:37):
Then what needs to happen is a rebuilding of yourself.
That rebuilding just means, what do I want to do with my life? What do I love?
What can I do to connect with that part of me? What do I value? What are my beliefs?
All of this rebuilding that you might have to do, which is okay. It's okay to rebuild. I had to rebuild myself. It completely changed my life. And it's okay to do that.
(38:04):
Because sometimes when you rebuild, the new version of you doesn't carry around the old trauma.
The new version of you carries around the feeling of being healed.
Or the feeling of something new, something fresh.
And something to look forward to every day.
And something to look forward to in the future.
(38:25):
Because the new you is now building off this new foundation.
The new foundation of you can move forward without the repressed negative emotions.
And when you can do that, your life changes.
And so, will you connect or will you find the person you left back in the 80s?
(38:48):
My answer to that is, if you enjoyed being that person, probably hell yes.
Because you're going to associate who you were back then in that environment.
And you're going to be in that space.
And you will probably feel that version of you come back up.
And that might have been, what, 35 years ago as of this recording?
(39:11):
And so, you were probably in your 30s.
Maybe you loved being in your 30s.
So, if that part of you is still there, you're probably getting drawn back to that part of you.
I know when I went up, I was drawn to a part of me that was lost. It changed.
I mean, I changed after that trip. Because I found closure.
(39:32):
And the closure was allowing myself to reconnect with that part of myself. And sometimes that's all it takes. It's like a full circuit. Like you complete a circuit.
You are now in this space where you are.
And now you're going to go back to where you were. Complete the circuit. Complete the loop.
So that you can move forward in a new way.
(39:54):
So, that could be on the horizon for you. Where you connect with yourself.
Or at least find the person you were back then. So, that could happen.
So, if you have good memories, great. I see that.
Like Crystal Ball says, I see that in your future.
If there's a lot of bad memories surrounding that, You've got to make sure that the new you or the empowered you wins.
(40:23):
So, it doesn't get sucked into the toxicity of what was.
And so, you have to be really careful when you're walking this line.
Because you're going to be exposed to maybe some people that were toxic for you. Or abusive towards you.
And if you're not ready for that, I want you to be either ready for it or avoid them at all costs.
(40:46):
Because if you're not ready, Then what ends up happening is you become who you were to them when you were younger.
So, if they were controlling and abusive and hurtful, They will be that same person to you. Unless they went through some enlightenment. But that doesn't usually happen. It can.
But they will be the same person to you they were then. And you're going to feel it.
(41:10):
So, before you see them, brush up on your boundaries.
And say, no, I'm not going to allow those people into my life.
Or I'm not going to allow their toxicity into my life.
Because that's not what I want for myself anymore.
And you may have to avoid them.
You may have to, maybe you'll have to see them.
(41:31):
And then you'll have to thwart their advances.
Whatever they try to do or say.
Like, I'm sorry what you said used to work.
But now I'm no longer in that space.
So, it doesn't work on me anymore.
So, you can either stop disrespecting me or I'm going to leave.
That might be uncomfortable if you've never practiced it.
(41:52):
But this is how we give us our own power.
We let people know what our boundaries are.
So, that might be how you show up.
Again, I'm not recommending you see abusive people or very toxic people.
Especially if this is a connection or reconnection with yourself.
This should be about you for you.
(42:14):
And if you're going to run into these other people because you have to go to that house or something. You have to be prepared.
You have to be prepared that they're going to try to pull out of you the version that they could hurt. The version that they could control.
And unless you're prepared for that, it can happen.
It will probably happen unless you're prepared.
If you are prepared, then you can handle it when it comes.
(42:39):
Hey, this is what you used to do. This isn't what I want.
I'm going to leave unless you stop doing that.
That could be what you have to say or you just have to go. That's a challenge. It could go in any direction.
So, I'm not going to address every single possible point of failure or success there.
So, just either be prepared or just avoid those people. And just remember the big picture.
(43:01):
You want to go back and reconnect with yourself from what I'm reading, from what I'm gathering in your message.
Or you want to find that version of yourself that you really enjoyed being.
That was your second question or third.
And the last thing that you said, and this is basically why I gave you this entire answer and started with my own story.
(43:24):
Is that you said, I lost myself somewhere growing up with the secret I had.
And that tells me that you lost a big part of yourself.
That tells me that what could have been didn't happen inside of you.
What could have been you, what could have been your foundation, what could have been so many other positive things was replaced.
(43:47):
And removed even by what you were holding on to. And yeah, that'll change your life. But it's not too late.
Even if you don't go back, it's not too late.
No matter what you do, it's not too late.
Because here you are thinking about it, bringing it up.
Maybe ready to tackle it, maybe ready to heal it. That is amazing. I'm so proud of you.
(44:11):
I mean, you don't need to hear that from me, but I'm just so proud that you're ready to tackle this. It takes time. I mean, you're in your 70s.
It took time and it does take time.
Some people never address it, but you are ready to address it.
You are ready to get a part of you back. Find yourself again. Feel good again.
Because after you start working on this and processing old trauma and abuse, and especially this one important aspect that
(44:39):
you didn't mention that I want to mention. Especially forgiving yourself.
Because we often blame ourselves for things that we didn't do.
And I don't want you to hold on to that.
And I don't want you to hold on to any of the shame or the guilt that was instilled or installed into you by hurtful people.
(45:00):
Harmful people make us feel guilty for things that we didn't do. You didn't do anything. You were just hurt. They did this to you.
And I don't want you to take responsibility for their behavior.
Because what often happens is that we think back and go, I should have done this. I should have done that.
(45:22):
I shouldn't have said that thing that day because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. I should have hid that day.
All these thoughts that in hindsight are 20-20.
But when we're thinking about them from the adult perspective, of course, we're going to have every answer.
We're going to have all the solutions or a lot of them.
(45:43):
And we're going to think back to who we were at that time and apply our adult solutions to who we were at that time.
Even though our brain was only, what, six years old or whatever, we can't.
We can't think that way at six.
All we can do is hope that people love us and give us the love that we deserve and don't hurt us.
(46:05):
We don't know what to do when they hurt us.
We know what to do when they love us.
We don't know what to do when they hurt us.
So we start to make some crap up and think that it's our fault.
So I'm not blaming you for that. I'm saying we all do this.
I don't want you to blame yourself.
So I want you to forgive yourself.
Give yourself a break for how you showed up back then, if it's in there.
(46:27):
If it's not in there, you don't have to do this exercise.
I like to say I forgive myself a break for how I showed up back then and for what I could have done or could have said, but I didn't. I forgive myself. I forgive you, Paul. You didn't know any better. You couldn't have known any better.
If you knew any better, you would have done something different, but you didn't. So you couldn't have. So it's not your fault. This isn't your fault.
(46:53):
This is something that you can heal. You can move through.
You can get past and be in a better space and start living the next 20 to 30, hopefully, years of your life feeling so much different than you used to feel. And so what? You started at this age.
(47:14):
You could have told me you were 92 and I would have said, great.
For the next few years, at least you'll feel different.
At least you'll feel better than you used to feel.
If you really want to address this and really want to heal it, then now is the time.
Now is the time to start processing and healing and releasing what you've been holding on to.
(47:36):
Because what you've been holding on to no longer serves you.
It may have served you at one time.
Believe it or not, what you've been holding on to may have served you.
It may have helped you get through the tough times. It's how you have coped.
But I think you're ready to let it go.
I want to thank you for listening to today's episode of The Overwhelmed Brain.
(47:56):
And thank you to the person who wrote that and shared that very vulnerable story.
I can't wait to get an update.
I want to hear what has happened in your life. Let me know.
Once again, I want to thank you for listening.
And I want to thank the patrons who give their support monetarily. They like to give every month.
And I'm still trying to figure out why.
(48:18):
Thank you Cheyenne and Crystal and Angel and Michelle and Wei. I appreciate all of you.
Thank you for your hard-earned money and sending it my way.
I'm assuming that you find value in this show.
And that's why I tell you, if you're listening now and you find value in this show, and you want to give back, you can do so over at moretob.com.
(48:39):
And I wasn't doing that for a long time.
When I first started this show, I was not taking money. I wasn't taking donations.
I didn't have a patron program or anything like that.
But people were writing to me saying, how do I pay you back? How do I give you money? And I said, well, okay.
I mean, I don't feel like you have to.
But here's the way to do it. Thank you again, patrons. I appreciate all of you. And I'm very grateful.
(49:04):
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse.com.
And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship and you messed things up and you want to try to make it right, head over to healedbeing.com.
And I'll teach you the formula for showing up as the healthiest version of yourself. Again, that's over at healedbeing.com.
(49:27):
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure.
And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you, you are amazing.
These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.
(00:10):
Thanks for joining me for another episode. Welcome to the show. I almost said love and abuse.
My other podcast is called Love and Abuse.
You are at the overwhelmed brain in case you needed to get a reminder.
Let's see if I can answer this question that came in to me.
This is somebody who said I've been listening to your podcast off and on for over the years and I've made plans for over a
(00:35):
year now to return to my childhood hometown.
My childhood trauma started when I was about five and I was sexually abused by an older sibling who was 12 at the time.
I buried the majority of what happened to me deep inside leaving it to fester as I stuffed down even more abuse from others as I grew up.
(00:59):
Those memories have slowly been turning up in the past 40 years or 40 plus years now. I'm in my 70s.
Are my memories of what happened to me at five keeping me from returning to my hometown?
So my question is, along with that other question, when I find the strength to go back to my childhood hometown, will those
(01:21):
memories be less of an issue in order for me to move on even as old as I am?
Also, will I find the me I left behind back then in the 80s when I moved out of the second home my parents raised their three children in? I'm the youngest.
I lost myself somewhere growing up with this secret I had. Wow, thank you for sharing that.
(01:47):
That is such a tough life that you've lived or at least that portion, not the whole thing, but the portion with the trauma
and the abuse and then to have to live with that and all the thoughts and emotions and the feelings that come with having survived that and experienced that.
I'm so sorry you went through that.
(02:08):
You should not have been exposed to any of that.
You should not have been violated in any way.
You should have been allowed to enjoy your, the innocence, your childhood, the innocence of childhood so that you didn't have to carry this with you.
I tear up thinking about what you lost.
(02:29):
Now, I'm not going to leave you there. That's very sad. I'm so glad you share this. Thank you for expressing that. And here's my reply to you.
Of course, people are listening right now.
They're saying you got to tell her to go to therapy. And of course, that's a disclaimer. See a professional, talk to them.
And if you've done that or if you haven't done that, I'm going to give you my thoughts anyway.
(02:55):
I'm going to give you my thoughts. This doesn't mean I'm right.
It just means what would I do?
That's kind of the way I look at it. What would I do?
I had probably 0.001% of the abuse that you experienced in my childhood.
I had very, very little actual physical or I had no sexual abuse, but actual physical abuse in my childhood.
(03:19):
And I actually faced this dilemma or decision in my 40s because I'm 55 now.
And in my 40s, I decided that I was going to visit my hometown where I grew up where some trauma took place or the main trauma that I remember.
(03:42):
And I grew up with an alcoholic stepfather, very violent, very aggressive, mostly with others, not me, but I was scared as hell. I would cower.
I would be so afraid of leaving the bedroom and hoping he didn't come down the stairs or up the stairs, depending on where we lived at the time.
(04:03):
But I was hoping he didn't come into my room.
And so I carried that fear and other things have happened as well, but I'm not here to share that.
But it was a very scary, traumatic situation for me that I carried with me.
And again, I'm not diminishing or invalidating what you went through. I'm just trying to relate.
(04:24):
I'm trying to feel where you are.
Think about where you are and carrying that for me. It changed me.
Just holding on to it, you know, having any type of grasp on it, even unconsciously, changed me.
I was a different person most of my life. I developed dysfunctions.
(04:45):
I was emotionally abusive in my relationships.
I didn't show up as the healthiest person. I was a pleaser.
I did a lot of things that made me unhappy and those around me unhappy.
And so I had healing to do.
And so in my forties, I'm having some internal, I don't want to, it's not a crisis, but it was weighing on my mind.
(05:15):
I just had to visit my hometown.
That's exactly what you're talking about here, you know, in different ways.
But I had these thoughts about going back, quote, home, where I grew up, you know, from infancy to about 13 years old.
There's a strong pull or there was a strong pull to go back to that hometown.
(05:40):
And it's funny because in the next state, that's where my family is.
And I didn't want to take my partner at the time and I didn't want to visit family.
I felt like I had to go alone.
I felt like I had to be there by myself to resolve something.
And I couldn't explain it at the time.
(06:00):
I just knew I had to be there to resolve something because I felt like I was carrying it with me.
And I don't know if that was the hatred I had toward my stepfather at the time, or if there was something I needed to heal inside of me.
And maybe that has something to do with the hatred or something else.
But at the time, I didn't know what it was. I just had this draw.
(06:24):
And I don't want to call it nostalgia. It wasn't nostalgia. It wasn't a good feeling. It wasn't a bad feeling. I just felt this pull.
And so I told my partner at the time, I'm going to take a trip.
And I'm going to go up there and just stay a couple days.
And I don't know, reconnect with myself? Ground myself? Reconnect with the trauma? I don't know.
(06:51):
But I decided to take the trip. And I drove up there.
And I found some really disgusting hotel. And I stayed in there. And I unpacked.
And then I went out and looked around town.
Hey, this is the town I used to live in.
Now there are one way streets where there used to be two way.
(07:12):
Hey, that Chinese restaurant still there after 40 years. Wow.
So I'm looking at all these places that, or at least the streets and the old church was there and the old police station in the same place.
And it felt like I was connecting with my younger self, like an inner self or an inner child.
I felt like I was connecting with him and giving him something that he lost, part of his childhood or giving his childhood,
(07:40):
something more to hold on to something stronger, something bigger than him, something more powerful than him, but something good for him.
And so I'm walking around this town as a full grown adult.
And as an adult, I'm making it very far, because my legs are longer.
(08:03):
And the town seems so much smaller when you're older, because as a child, it takes maybe two or three times the steps to walk around. So I'm making it pretty far.
And I even walked all the way to my old house.
And then we lived in another house before that. So I walked to that house.
And coincidentally, that house before, when I was younger, is where I experienced a trauma that stuck with me.
(08:31):
I've talked about it on the air before, but I'm here to respond to this person.
So I want to keep my focus on that.
But I had a trauma in that house with my stepfather.
And I'm walking down the road in this little neighborhood that I used to live in.
And I see that house and whoever owned it, I think they painted it.
And I remember the garage and I remember the front lawn.
(08:52):
And I'm thinking, wow, that house has really improved.
And then I see what looks like the owners, a man and a woman, I guess a couple. And they were working on something. And I looked over at them.
And they looked up at me and they were nice and friendly.
And I said, Hi, I used to live here.
And it was an odd thing to say right out of the blue. But he said, You did? You used to live here? And he was so excited.
(09:20):
And so he said, Do you want to see inside? And I said, What?
Okay, yes, I would love to, but I don't want to impose.
And he goes, No, no, no, come on in.
So immediately, I mean, just so friendly. I gotta send them a letter. He invited me inside.
And we went in through the kitchen.
And I said, Oh, my God, this is where I used to live. This is the kitchen. There's the bathroom over there.
(09:42):
I know what's in the next room. It was really neat.
I told him that I almost lit the kitchen on fire.
The kitchen that we were standing in.
So that might not have been there had that not been put out.
I think my mom put it out.
But that's another story for another day.
And so he took me to the next room. And I remember the trauma.
(10:04):
And I was right there, I was standing right where it happened, at least my memory of it. That's where it happened.
I thought what an amazing coincidence that I'm here in the town, in the house, where this trauma happened.
I mean, the chances of me being in the town I grew up in, in the house I grew up in, with a person who wanted to invite me
(10:32):
in, and show me around, and give me the opportunity to, and he didn't know this, to connect with a younger version of myself.
And maybe give that younger version, some strength.
And, you know, we're talking about inner child work.
And if you're familiar with that, you know what I'm talking about.
(10:52):
It's when you give the younger version of yourself what they needed when they were younger, because they didn't have it.
Because they were a different person at a different time with, you know, with no power, no ability to help themselves in many ways.
So we had to develop survival mechanisms.
(11:12):
And we had to learn how to cope with the challenges that came along, very, very young age.
And we had to deal with, you know, if you've gone through trauma or abuse, we had to figure out how to get through that, survive that.
And with a fresh mind that's only been on earth for a few years, that's like talking about something that nobody knows how
(11:36):
to deal with when they're that young.
You don't know how to deal with it.
So you might repress it, you might stuff it down, you might dissociate while you're getting traumatized or abused.
You might do a number of things, you just don't know until you're in it.
Hopefully, most people listening weren't ever in something like that.
But the person who wrote to me definitely, you did something with those emotions, those thoughts, those feelings, you did something with those things.
(12:06):
And so like she said, she buried them.
So here I am standing in this spot where I don't know what I did with my thoughts and feelings and emotions, but I felt totally
out of control as a child in that house with that trauma happening to me.
And so he's talking, the owner of the house is talking, showing me this, showing me that.
(12:27):
He said, Oh, we ripped down this wall, we painted this.
And I said, Oh my God, I remember this room being so dark.
And as he's talking, I stood in the exact place, like I was saying, and I reached my hand up to the ceiling, and I touched
it, because I'm six foot four now. And I can reach the ceiling.
But I think I just wanted to touch or connect or ground myself to this place that had unpleasant memories.
(12:54):
And I wanted to make a new memory, I wanted to do something different than what happened to me.
I wanted to feel something different than what happened to me.
And I wanted to change, I wanted to heal.
So I remember touching the ceiling, I don't know if it was a beam or just a flat ceiling.
But I just remember putting my hand up and being able to touch it and being surprised like, wow, I can do this now. Couldn't do it in the 70s. But I can do it now. And I remember the incident.
(13:26):
And I remember seeing myself on the floor with my stepfather over me doing what he was doing.
It wasn't sensual, it was just, I was out of control, he was controlling me.
And it was, it was sad to see my younger self there.
But I didn't want to instill or make him think of sadness.
(13:47):
I didn't want to put that or leave that here.
I wanted to give him strength, I wanted to let him know, you're gonna be okay.
You're gonna get through this, and you're gonna be okay. And this will end shortly.
It's gonna be fine, you're gonna make it through. And I'm here for you. I'm right here.
(14:10):
And that's what I gave to that younger version of me.
That's what I gave to that little boy on that day.
And once I did that, I'm not saying that magically, I felt light or anything like that.
Well, once I did that, I felt some sort of closure.
And that closure, it was really quick, felt that closure.
(14:31):
The guy, super friendly, still talking, trying to show me all the changes he made.
And I came right back to the present moment.
And I got engaged with the conversation again.
And I had realized I had just gone through a spiritual experience here.
This whole thing was arranged, you know, this is my belief, this is, you know, I don't even know if this is real, but I chose
(14:55):
to believe that this whole thing was arranged for the purpose so that I could be here in this moment.
Meeting somebody who would take me into my childhood home and show me around and give me a good feeling about this house,
where I had the opportunity to give my younger self a good feeling that he will get through this, he will survive.
(15:21):
And I am there for him from this point on. I virtually time traveled.
And all of these things lined up. The perfect opportunity showed itself.
If I had walked down the street an hour later, I might not have seen them.
And I definitely wouldn't have knocked on the door.
If I was walking down the street an hour earlier, I might not have seen them. So it was the perfect timing.
(15:43):
And so I thanked him, I thanked his wife.
And it just felt so good to meet good people in a home where I had these memories. And they had improved that home.
And I got to connect with a younger part of myself.
I got to find closure on the pull that brought me back to my hometown.
(16:09):
Now, this is an experience that I had.
I'm not saying that if this person who wrote to me did the same thing, visited their hometown and went to their old house,
and they would have this magical, wonderful, good feeling come about, they may actually go into some sort of regression.
You might have a PTSD moment and go right back to where you were. Or maybe not.
(16:35):
Maybe you'll reconnect with a part of yourself that you lost.
And that's why I would want to find closure or try to go in the direction of this pull that I feel.
Because this is what it sounds like you're telling me.
You're being pulled back to a time when you were young and you experienced these things.
(16:58):
And I would find it, and I'm just giving you my opinion here, I would find it very strange that you would be pulled back to a place that would cause harm.
And I say that very carefully because I could be 100% wrong.
You could go into a regression and have some episode and suddenly you're right back there.
(17:19):
And I don't want to put that into your head at all, but this is why it's important to understand where you are inside with all of this.
Have you done any healing with this?
Have you talked to anybody about this?
And, or, is this something you feel you need to do?
Do you feel like you are being drawn to connect with a part of yourself that may need to feel your presence, to feel the adult
(17:46):
version of you, to know that it's going to be alright and you're going to make it through?
Do you need that strength as a child?
Do you need the adult in you to visit the child in you at that time?
Or is there something else going on? This is my story.
Maybe it doesn't feel the same to you.
(18:09):
Maybe the pull or the draw that you feel about going back to your hometown is different.
I'm going to read what you said here and see if anything I talked about has any resonance in your words.
I have made plans for over a year now to visit or return to my childhood hometown.
My trauma started when I was about five, and this was by an older brother, and I buried the majority of what happened to me
(18:35):
inside, leaving it to fester as I stuffed down even more abuse from others as I grew up.
These memories have slowly been turning up in the past 40 plus years.
Are my memories of what happened to me at five keeping me from returning to my hometown?
So, this tells me that you are having trepidation.
You maybe don't want to go to your hometown. Maybe it's not a draw.
(18:58):
Maybe it's not a pull, but you did ask a question.
Are my memories of what happened to me at five keeping me from returning to my hometown? That's your first question.
And I would say that probably 100%, 100% you feel that hesitation going back because what happened to you at five, there's a lot of trauma there. So, it's possible.
(19:21):
I don't know for sure, but it is entirely possible.
You know, we're talking about childhood trauma, and I'm discussing how healing often requires professional guidance.
(19:44):
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(20:58):
Let me ask you a question. Let's just say that if you knew returning to your hometown wouldn't bring up those memories, would you be okay going? That might be hard to answer.
It might be hard to get into that mind space.
You might ask, well, of course, those memories are going to come up because that was my hometown. That's where it happened.
(21:19):
And I might see old buildings that remind me of that, of course. So it's possible. I don't know.
But that wasn't necessarily your question for me.
I think you were just asking that out loud, but not necessarily looking for an answer.
So I'm going to get into your question, which you said, my question is this.
When I find the strength to go back to my childhood hometown, will those memories be less of an issue in order for me to move
(21:45):
on, even as old as I am?
And there's an also here, but I'm going to try to address this one first.
This is going to be hit or miss. I do not know the answer.
You may have stuffed those down and then you have something that absolutely triggers something so traumatic or many things
(22:06):
that have happened to you so traumatic that it puts you in this space and suddenly you're having a breakdown in the middle
of a park or in the neighborhood that you grew up in.
I think the answer to that depends on your emotional stability right now.
(22:27):
And again, take these as opinions, not as a professional psychiatric evaluation, because that's not what I do.
But if I were you, I would ask myself, have I been pretty stable for most of my life?
And that may or may not be indicative of what might happen, but that's a good question to ask yourself.
(22:49):
Have I been stable most of my life? You know, you buried these memories. They're still in there for sure.
You know, you haven't healed, it sounds like. You haven't addressed them.
But have I been emotionally stable most of the time?
Am I able to handle challenges that come up?
Or do I have a complete breakdown?
Do I need to get away from people? Am I afraid to be touched?
(23:09):
Am I afraid to be in certain situations?
Because if that exists today, then you're exposed to what traumatized you, or at least the relationships and the associations
like being in your hometown, being or seeing the house that you grew up in and all that. Here's what I would do.
(23:30):
I would imagine or visualize that I'm in my hometown right now.
I mean, you want to do this in a safe place.
And if this ever feels unsafe, just open your eyes and think of something else.
Think of something like kittens or something.
Or if that's a reminder of what you went through, think of something happy and give yourself a safe space to come back to.
(23:52):
And just imagine that you're in your hometown where you grew up.
What feelings come up as you visualize that?
I'm there, there's the house, there's a building, there's this, there's the grass. What comes up now? How do you feel about it?
Are you growing anxious or are you feeling neutral? Is fear building at all?
(24:17):
And if it is, I want you to wake up, snap out of it right now and go to your happy place, go to your safe place.
Because if it is, if that fear is building up, then it probably will build up when you're there.
Now, again, I can't give you the advice to do that because anyone listening that is in any type of people helper field, they're
(24:40):
going to say, don't go there, Paul. Don't put her in that space. And I agree.
I don't want you to go to that space.
I need you to feel safe inside of you.
So I don't want to tell you, Hey, this is what will happen.
And I don't want to tell you, Hey, do this right now.
And hopefully you don't get into some traumatic regressive space inside of you that you can't get out of. So please do this carefully.
(25:02):
Do this with supervision if you need to.
But I'm assuming you're reaching out to me because you've probably thought about this for a long time. Maybe you have received therapy. Maybe you've done a lot.
And so the way I answer questions might be helpful to you. I don't know.
But again, I put myself in your shoes.
I'm going to visualize how it feels in my mind, in my body, what it feels like to be in my hometown. Oh, I see that building.
(25:31):
I'm walking down the street and then I see the house I grew up in. How do I feel about that?
I think if I'm okay visualizing that, which is a lot different than being there, I know.
I think if I'm okay there, then I will take the next step forward.
And I think if I took the next step forward and I took the trip to my hometown and I started seeing these things and I stayed
(25:53):
very present about my body, about my mind, about my emotions, about my thoughts, and just kept monitoring myself, then I think I'd take the next step.
And if I kept feeling okay and I could regulate how I feel, you know, okay, I'm getting a little frightened, but... I know today is not yesterday. Today is a different time.
(26:18):
I'm in my 50s, you might say. I'm in my 70s.
I've been able to handle a lot and I've been dealing with this.
Then I will say, okay, I'm ready to take the next step and the next step. I just monitor myself.
So, if I'm in your shoes, this is what I would do. If I'm in that space.
(26:39):
And the disclaimer is, if I have a lot of trauma, that can just pop up and now I'm having a breakdown in the park.
I personally am okay with breakdowns, but I can't tell you that. I can't tell anyone listening that. Like, go have a breakdown. Because it's dangerous.
If you have a breakdown and you need somebody to pull you back out of it, or maybe your brain will do something and rewire
(27:03):
itself and then suddenly you're in this stuck state.
I don't want to put you there.
I don't want to get you there.
It's a very tricky question to answer without getting into the weeds.
But I'm addressing it because I think it's important for anyone who's been through any trauma to put their toe in the water
and find out where they are with it.
(27:24):
And if after you've tried to heal or you've tried therapy or whatever steps you've taken, you still have these thoughts and
feelings and you still haven't gotten to the place that you feel better inside of you, maybe you can dip your toe into the
water and slowly put your foot in there and then go up to your ankles and then your knees.
(27:47):
That's how I enter every cold lake I've ever been in.
And just feel your way through it being present about what you're thinking, what you're feeling.
Now with that said, let's just say that no matter what I say, you're going to go back there anyway.
Your question is, will those memories be less of an issue so that you can move on?
(28:12):
Here's the thing, I don't care if you're 72 or 92 or 22, when the emotions are in there, they're in there.
When the old trauma is in there, it's in there.
And how you deal with them at 22 or 92 is probably going to be the same. It doesn't matter your age.
It matters how you cope, how you deal with challenges.
(28:35):
It matters what you've healed already in your life, what you've faced in your life and worked through.
For example, there are people in their 40s and 50s that deal with their first divorce or first breakup and they are just struck so hard.
They go into depression and they can't live alone and it's just very difficult for them.
(29:00):
And then there are people like me who had a serious breakup in my 30s, my early 30s, and I got into a depression.
But then I got into another relationship and that ended.
And then I got into my next relationship.
So, I had several relationships throughout my life that ended that allowed me to feel enough pain to be able to face what's
(29:25):
going on inside of me and why I get so lonely.
Why do I fear so much rejection and abandonment?
And really face and deal with all my dysfunctions and all my insecurities and all my fears and why I became so desperate to
have somebody else in my life and have somebody complete me and all that stuff.
(29:45):
I wanted to address all those things because every time I had a breakup or even a divorce, one divorce, every time that happened,
I was just in such a lousy state and it took so long to get back. It wasn't just grieving and pain.
It was like a deep, deep wound that needed healing. And I hated that feeling. I didn't like feeling that.
(30:12):
So, after my divorce, which was the final, the final break, quote, breakup that I had, I decided to address all these things. And good thing I did. I learned a lot about myself.
I decided to heal before I got into another relationship and I decided to work on my insecurities, work on my fear of abandonment
and fear of being alone and all that.
(30:33):
And that really took me out of the dysfunctions that I kept carrying into every relationship.
And so my point is, the more you deal with something, the more you heal, as long as you're willing to look at it and process
it and you find the right resources or the right people.
The more you deal with it, the more you're exposed to it, the more you get to deal with it, the more you get to process it,
(30:59):
the more that, sometimes it covers other things.
The more that comes up, that can happen too.
When you're traumatized as a child, there are things that are at the forefront of your mind when you think about it.
And then when you start healing that, there's other things underneath that might come up.
(31:20):
Like, oh, I've never had confidence in myself or I've never trusted myself or I've carried shame with me all this time.
Or I've never been able to hold a job or hold a relationship.
All these little things that might have to do with deeper fears or insecurities that can come up.
Which is why a lot of people recommend, including myself, that you might need professional help when you get to that point
(31:45):
because of all the layers that are peeled back.
And so, coming back to this person who says, when I find the strength to go back to my childhood hometown, that tells me a
lot already when I find the strength.
So there's some fear there, I'm assuming.
Will those memories be less of an issue in order for me to move on?
(32:05):
I think after you visualize and you take tiny baby steps forward and keep moving in that direction, then you might be able
to work through that as you stay present about what's happening in your mind and body.
Again, that's just an opinion, something I would do.
I'm not telling you to do it.
Now let's just say that you do go and you are hoping that these memories, these traumatic events that have occurred in your
(32:34):
past won't be an issue for you. Let's just say they aren't.
What are you hoping to accomplish by being there? Maybe there's more to this.
Maybe you're going to visit family or whatever.
I would ask myself, who am I upset at?
Who do I have maybe a deeper hate or hatred for?
(32:55):
Am I allowing myself to hate if I feel hate? Because sometimes, that's what I did.
I mean, I didn't allow myself to feel hate, so I held on to it for years.
I mean, if you want to get rid of hate, I'm not telling you you should feel it, but that's what I did. I decided to feel the hate. I do really hate that person. I really hate them.
(33:17):
And as soon as I felt it, I mean, this was a little breakdown for me, but as soon as I allowed myself to feel what I really felt, it finally came out.
Anytime you repress an emotion, you know those emotions that we stuff way down? They affect your entire being. They affect your freedom.
(33:39):
They affect your life in so many ways because you make decisions based on what's stuffed down there.
Because you don't want to feel that anymore, so every decision that you make will be evaluated and weighed against what you're holding down. I don't like that feeling.
This is like I was saying, after every breakup, I had these awful, awful feelings that brought me into near depression and one time real depression.
(34:04):
And I didn't want to feel that anymore, so I decided that I was going to face that stuff.
I decided that I was going to allow it to happen, to rise up in me, to feel what I'm feeling.
Now, with severe trauma, it is a different animal. It is a different animal.
Severe trauma that's stuffed down, these memories could pop up and new ones could show themselves as well.
(34:31):
Ones that you may not have thought about or remembered.
These are just awareness things you have to be aware of. These things could happen.
I think you need a safe space inside of you and I think you need a safe space to go.
If you have a safe place that you went as a child, then maybe find that safe space if it's still there.
(34:55):
If you have that safe space, a park or a friend or whatever.
If that's available to you, that would be a great place to ground yourself and reset.
Or you can find a nasty hotel like I did and just ground yourself there and be in your own space. I wanted to go by myself. I wanted to isolate myself. I wanted to be by myself.
(35:16):
I think my journey was about me and only me and I just wanted to connect with me.
I just wanted to connect with myself.
You may face some trauma, but you may also have the opportunity to deal with and heal that trauma.
Because you are ready to face it.
This is what I'm reading from your message.
(35:38):
From what you're saying, it sounds like you're saying I'm ready to face this.
I don't want to face it, but I'm ready to heal from it.
Again, it doesn't matter if you're 22, 72 or 92.
It's never too late to try to heal this stuff. If you feel up to it.
I think you have to make that decision inside of you.
You have to get to that point where you have to say I'm ready to address this stuff. I'm ready to heal it.
(36:03):
That doesn't mean you have to revisit the trauma.
It doesn't mean that you should visualize what happened.
Sometimes you just need to be there for your younger self.
You asked the question, will I find the me that I left behind back in the 80s when I moved out?
I don't want to give the exact year because of your privacy and all that.
(36:26):
When I moved out of the second home, my parents raised their children.
Will you find the you that you left behind back in the 80s? Let me ask you a question.
Did you enjoy being that version of you?
Did you enjoy that time of your life?
If you did, I think that's why you're asking this.
(36:49):
Here's what can happen, at least from my experience.
When somebody goes through trauma, when somebody's been through abuse, even when they're older.
What ends up happening is who they were can be destroyed.
A big part of you can be destroyed. Who you were changes. It becomes somebody new. It's somebody who's in survival mode.
(37:14):
When you're in survival mode, who you were, it starts to disintegrate.
That disintegration makes you forget who you were.
I'm not saying that happened to you.
Because if you remember who you are, great. You're already ahead of the game.
But if you forget who you were, forget what you loved and what you loved to do, how you felt.
(37:37):
Then what needs to happen is a rebuilding of yourself.
That rebuilding just means, what do I want to do with my life? What do I love?
What can I do to connect with that part of me? What do I value? What are my beliefs?
All of this rebuilding that you might have to do, which is okay. It's okay to rebuild. I had to rebuild myself. It completely changed my life. And it's okay to do that.
(38:04):
Because sometimes when you rebuild, the new version of you doesn't carry around the old trauma.
The new version of you carries around the feeling of being healed.
Or the feeling of something new, something fresh.
And something to look forward to every day.
And something to look forward to in the future.
(38:25):
Because the new you is now building off this new foundation.
The new foundation of you can move forward without the repressed negative emotions.
And when you can do that, your life changes.
And so, will you connect or will you find the person you left back in the 80s?
(38:48):
My answer to that is, if you enjoyed being that person, probably hell yes.
Because you're going to associate who you were back then in that environment.
And you're going to be in that space.
And you will probably feel that version of you come back up.
And that might have been, what, 35 years ago as of this recording?
(39:11):
And so, you were probably in your 30s.
Maybe you loved being in your 30s.
So, if that part of you is still there, you're probably getting drawn back to that part of you.
I know when I went up, I was drawn to a part of me that was lost. It changed.
I mean, I changed after that trip. Because I found closure.
(39:32):
And the closure was allowing myself to reconnect with that part of myself. And sometimes that's all it takes. It's like a full circuit. Like you complete a circuit.
You are now in this space where you are.
And now you're going to go back to where you were. Complete the circuit. Complete the loop.
So that you can move forward in a new way.
(39:54):
So, that could be on the horizon for you. Where you connect with yourself.
Or at least find the person you were back then. So, that could happen.
So, if you have good memories, great. I see that.
Like Crystal Ball says, I see that in your future.
If there's a lot of bad memories surrounding that, You've got to make sure that the new you or the empowered you wins.
(40:23):
So, it doesn't get sucked into the toxicity of what was.
And so, you have to be really careful when you're walking this line.
Because you're going to be exposed to maybe some people that were toxic for you. Or abusive towards you.
And if you're not ready for that, I want you to be either ready for it or avoid them at all costs.
(40:46):
Because if you're not ready, Then what ends up happening is you become who you were to them when you were younger.
So, if they were controlling and abusive and hurtful, They will be that same person to you. Unless they went through some enlightenment. But that doesn't usually happen. It can.
But they will be the same person to you they were then. And you're going to feel it.
(41:10):
So, before you see them, brush up on your boundaries.
And say, no, I'm not going to allow those people into my life.
Or I'm not going to allow their toxicity into my life.
Because that's not what I want for myself anymore.
And you may have to avoid them.
You may have to, maybe you'll have to see them.
(41:31):
And then you'll have to thwart their advances.
Whatever they try to do or say.
Like, I'm sorry what you said used to work.
But now I'm no longer in that space.
So, it doesn't work on me anymore.
So, you can either stop disrespecting me or I'm going to leave.
That might be uncomfortable if you've never practiced it.
(41:52):
But this is how we give us our own power.
We let people know what our boundaries are.
So, that might be how you show up.
Again, I'm not recommending you see abusive people or very toxic people.
Especially if this is a connection or reconnection with yourself.
This should be about you for you.
(42:14):
And if you're going to run into these other people because you have to go to that house or something. You have to be prepared.
You have to be prepared that they're going to try to pull out of you the version that they could hurt. The version that they could control.
And unless you're prepared for that, it can happen.
It will probably happen unless you're prepared.
If you are prepared, then you can handle it when it comes.
(42:39):
Hey, this is what you used to do. This isn't what I want.
I'm going to leave unless you stop doing that.
That could be what you have to say or you just have to go. That's a challenge. It could go in any direction.
So, I'm not going to address every single possible point of failure or success there.
So, just either be prepared or just avoid those people. And just remember the big picture.
(43:01):
You want to go back and reconnect with yourself from what I'm reading, from what I'm gathering in your message.
Or you want to find that version of yourself that you really enjoyed being.
That was your second question or third.
And the last thing that you said, and this is basically why I gave you this entire answer and started with my own story.
(43:24):
Is that you said, I lost myself somewhere growing up with the secret I had.
And that tells me that you lost a big part of yourself.
That tells me that what could have been didn't happen inside of you.
What could have been you, what could have been your foundation, what could have been so many other positive things was replaced.
(43:47):
And removed even by what you were holding on to. And yeah, that'll change your life. But it's not too late.
Even if you don't go back, it's not too late.
No matter what you do, it's not too late.
Because here you are thinking about it, bringing it up.
Maybe ready to tackle it, maybe ready to heal it. That is amazing. I'm so proud of you.
(44:11):
I mean, you don't need to hear that from me, but I'm just so proud that you're ready to tackle this. It takes time. I mean, you're in your 70s.
It took time and it does take time.
Some people never address it, but you are ready to address it.
You are ready to get a part of you back. Find yourself again. Feel good again.
Because after you start working on this and processing old trauma and abuse, and especially this one important aspect that
(44:39):
you didn't mention that I want to mention. Especially forgiving yourself.
Because we often blame ourselves for things that we didn't do.
And I don't want you to hold on to that.
And I don't want you to hold on to any of the shame or the guilt that was instilled or installed into you by hurtful people.
(45:00):
Harmful people make us feel guilty for things that we didn't do. You didn't do anything. You were just hurt. They did this to you.
And I don't want you to take responsibility for their behavior.
Because what often happens is that we think back and go, I should have done this. I should have done that.
(45:22):
I shouldn't have said that thing that day because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. I should have hid that day.
All these thoughts that in hindsight are 20-20.
But when we're thinking about them from the adult perspective, of course, we're going to have every answer.
We're going to have all the solutions or a lot of them.
(45:43):
And we're going to think back to who we were at that time and apply our adult solutions to who we were at that time.
Even though our brain was only, what, six years old or whatever, we can't.
We can't think that way at six.
All we can do is hope that people love us and give us the love that we deserve and don't hurt us.
(46:05):
We don't know what to do when they hurt us.
We know what to do when they love us.
We don't know what to do when they hurt us.
So we start to make some crap up and think that it's our fault.
So I'm not blaming you for that. I'm saying we all do this.
I don't want you to blame yourself.
So I want you to forgive yourself.
Give yourself a break for how you showed up back then, if it's in there.
(46:27):
If it's not in there, you don't have to do this exercise.
I like to say I forgive myself a break for how I showed up back then and for what I could have done or could have said, but I didn't. I forgive myself. I forgive you, Paul. You didn't know any better. You couldn't have known any better.
If you knew any better, you would have done something different, but you didn't. So you couldn't have. So it's not your fault. This isn't your fault.
(46:53):
This is something that you can heal. You can move through.
You can get past and be in a better space and start living the next 20 to 30, hopefully, years of your life feeling so much different than you used to feel. And so what? You started at this age.
(47:14):
You could have told me you were 92 and I would have said, great.
For the next few years, at least you'll feel different.
At least you'll feel better than you used to feel.
If you really want to address this and really want to heal it, then now is the time.
Now is the time to start processing and healing and releasing what you've been holding on to.
(47:36):
Because what you've been holding on to no longer serves you.
It may have served you at one time.
Believe it or not, what you've been holding on to may have served you.
It may have helped you get through the tough times. It's how you have coped.
But I think you're ready to let it go.
I want to thank you for listening to today's episode of The Overwhelmed Brain.
(47:56):
And thank you to the person who wrote that and shared that very vulnerable story.
I can't wait to get an update.
I want to hear what has happened in your life. Let me know.
Once again, I want to thank you for listening.
And I want to thank the patrons who give their support monetarily. They like to give every month.
And I'm still trying to figure out why.
(48:18):
Thank you Cheyenne and Crystal and Angel and Michelle and Wei. I appreciate all of you.
Thank you for your hard-earned money and sending it my way.
I'm assuming that you find value in this show.
And that's why I tell you, if you're listening now and you find value in this show, and you want to give back, you can do so over at moretob.com.
(48:39):
And I wasn't doing that for a long time.
When I first started this show, I was not taking money. I wasn't taking donations.
I didn't have a patron program or anything like that.
But people were writing to me saying, how do I pay you back? How do I give you money? And I said, well, okay.
I mean, I don't feel like you have to.
But here's the way to do it. Thank you again, patrons. I appreciate all of you. And I'm very grateful.
(49:04):
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse.com.
And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship and you messed things up and you want to try to make it right, head over to healedbeing.com.
And I'll teach you the formula for showing up as the healthiest version of yourself. Again, that's over at healedbeing.com.
(49:27):
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure.
And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you, you are amazing.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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