Joyously Free!: Trauma and Identity – Knowledge is Power

In this episode of Joyously Free!, host Joanie Lindenmeyer talks with social worker Patrick Quivey about the impact of trauma on identity, especially within the LGBTQ+ community. They explore how trauma shapes perceptions and self-worth, the challenges of external validation, and the ongoing nature of identity formation. The episode highlights the importance of self-discovery, the […]

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Hi, and welcome KCIW listeners of one hundred
point seven at kciw.org,
Brookings, Oregon, and syndicated to our listeners at
KZZH
ninety six point seven FM access humble Eureka,
California.
This is joyously free with me none better
than best selling author Joni Lindenmaier.
I'm so glad you are tuning in. I'm

(00:32):
a thirty four year resident of Harbor, Oregon,
a retired Del Norte High School Crescent City
teacher, and a twenty twenty five Lambda nominated
author who has published three books in two
years and with an audiobook in my own
voice of my memoir none better. I love
life, and more importantly, I love being with
you today, the producer and host of this
show. I'm so glad you are here with

(00:53):
us. Let's begin with our morning salutation.
It's a brand new day.
Never been lived before. Oh my gosh. Oh
my gosh. We have a repeat guest speaker
today, and he knew that answer. So I
hope you had it too, everybody.
So this radio radio show, as Will and
Viv named it, is a show that talks
about
LGBTQ plus stories and tips along with religion,

(01:15):
church, faith, spirituality,
and joy. It is about spreading abundant joy
and freedom, hence the title Joyously Free.
It is also the book, my second book,
that I coauthored with Elizabeth Ann Atkins.
In this radio broadcast, we have no hate
speech,
no hate behaviors, and no bullying. It will
be blasted with the three c's, courage, confidence,

(01:36):
and collaboration.
Together, let's seek understanding.
Think out of the box.
Be open minded as an open parachute.
Well, with every show, we always begin with
a prayer or a quote. So let's open
our hearts,
asking our creator to shine light on our
community
and our world.
I excitedly believe in hope, in the power

(01:58):
of the divine, and that Jesus, God, whatever
name you put on a higher being, is
always with me and with you. So be
not afraid or troubled,
saddened or depressed.
Joy and peace are an internal expression of
love and harmony that is already within us,
and we only have to reach deep within
and let it out.

(02:19):
All is well with my soul, and abundant
love is everywhere.
So let's center ourselves.
Take a deep breath in
with the good
and out with any doubt.
Again, breathe in through your nose
with hope

(02:39):
and out from your mouth with
fears. Last one,
take a big deep breath in with joy,
and out with worry or despair.
In the name of Mother Earth,
God our creator,
Jesus our redeemer,
and the blowing winds of the Holy Spirit,
we say, hi. Thank you for this beautiful,

(03:02):
beautiful day.
Oh my gosh. My quote today is something
that I saw in a in a book,
and it is this.
Just love everyone.
I'll sort them out later,
says God.
I just thought that was the cutest thing.
Just love everyone. I'll sort them out later,

(03:23):
says God. Oh my gosh. When that spoke
to me, it was like, you know, don't
worry about all the judgment or the condemnation.
Just be kind. Be respectful.
Be loving. God will take care of the
rest as long as we are pure of
heart. That's what hit me.
So my my reflection is short and sweet.
You know, just love everyone. I'll sort them

(03:45):
out later, says God. Believe that.
So we lift up our friends. We lift
up our family this day. We ask our
creator for guidance and healing.
We ask for the holy one to be
a part of us in everything we do.
Bless us today to do your will, oh
creator god. Let's have a happy day together

(04:05):
here on KCIW
and KZZH.
Well, we have a guest speaker that is
just incredibly
smart,
articulate,
and,
filled with so much knowledge that we can
gain wisdom from it as well. I wanna
welcome you again,
second time coming through here, to Patrick Quivey.

(04:26):
Thank you, Patrick, for being with us again.
Well, thanks for having me with that introduction.
I was wondering who was gonna be doing
the talking.
Oh, it's you. It's you, the articulate one.
Well, our title today, Patrick, is trauma and
identity,
knowledge is power.
You're a licensed clinical
Social worker. Social worker Right. With so many

(04:48):
talents and so much wisdom. We we just
really wanna hear what's on your mind today
with trauma and identity,
Knowledge is Power. So before we start, how
are you today, Patrick?
Well, today,
just fine. Nothing went wrong, which is unusual
status. Oh my gosh. I think people can
relate to that for sure. Yeah. Yep. Look.

(05:10):
I'm glad to hear that. Yes. So,
yeah, I'm here. I'm awake.
I'm never awake at 7AM. I'm I'm not
a morning person. So by 11:00, I'm usually
I've I've had a cup of coffee. I've
tooled around, and things start occurring to me.
On the way up, things occurred to me
to say today that I had not planned.
So, you know, you you never know what's

(05:32):
gonna come popping forth. And And I like
that because I'm spontaneous as well. And so
we will have a conversation about so much,
and I'm gonna have you lead us off
with what you're wanting to share with us
today. And I'll jump in every now and
then with some questions that will help me
and maybe the listeners understand even more. Does
that sound good today? Sure. Alright. We'll let

(05:52):
it roll. Alright. Let's roll. Okay.
Trauma
knowledge,
and a big
phrase out of the last couple of decades
of psychology has become the word trauma encoding.
The idea that knowledge is coded,
and there are different ways in which it

(06:13):
is locked and unlocked,
the way we get a bead on what
we're looking at and the way that we
get diffuse and not notice anything, both of
which are particularly useful and value,
valuable. I was driving,
around downtown,
a couple days ago with my wife, and
she yelled out, stop.
And I almost ran a stop sign. I
had not noticed what was really important because

(06:35):
I was looking at something else. I was
looking at our destination, a big Romiano's cheese
store, and I almost ran through
a stop sign, and I thought, oh, here
we go. I'm so focused on what I
wanna see that I'm not seeing what's really
important. So one was one was,
central vision down the road,
six, eight blocks away, and one was peripheral

(06:57):
vision, which was the, stop sign coming up
on my right.
And, of course, I had my alter ego,
the one who's smart in the family, yelling
stop.
And, you know, I don't wanna listen to
her.
Uh-huh. But she's the one. So I think
we play this out internally as well. And
the way in which trauma

(07:18):
affects us
is that it
works as roadblocks
in our progression
of our development from early childhood,
from the beginning of our identity,
which is formed out of the crucible of
our own family
and our our society around us.
And,
those roadblocks,

(07:40):
sometimes
hold on to the trauma so that we
don't
want we don't pay attention to them later
on, but they still keep coming up.
So
I can so relate to that, and that's
why I wrote two books, Joyously Free and
Healing Religious Hurts,
because we all experience some kind of trauma,
some kind of hurt, some kind of pain.

(08:02):
And how do we get through that? Keep
on going. I'm loving this. Well, did it
help you to write? Oh, absolutely. I mean,
you have all your audience, the your readers,
but did it help you
to put it out and put it on
paper, objectify it, stand back and say, did
I write that? Exactly. And, yes, it did.
Yeah. Because you sort it out in your

(08:22):
own mind and heart as you're writing it.
And that's one of the things I totally
recommend to everybody is to journal,
to write out what you're feeling. Do you
do that as a social worker and a
counselor? Do you recommend that? Mostly my practice,
you know,
constrained by the profession is that you write
about what what goes on in the session.
And there really isn't a lot of time
to write a whole lot,

(08:44):
but I do write from time to time.
I've I've been out of active practice for
a decade now, a little bit here and
there,
But I I still maintain the license because
it's part of my identity, and I can't
give it up yet.
Got it. There we go. Back to the
identity part. Yeah. The the state has me
for a few $100 every couple years or

(09:04):
so, and, you know, I pay my money
and I get my little my little certificate
that says you are who you are. You
know? Right. Right. And we all have different
certificates, don't we? Oh my goodness. Yeah. Why
don't you talk a little bit about that?
Well, you know, we live in a day
and age where there's actually a war going
on internally in our country about the nature
of identity.

(09:24):
And,
the
the background for that is that they liked
people in power. We could even say at
this moment it is the right wing in
in The United States who are who
are at the controls of power,
may falsely acute associate identity with character

(09:47):
And in a way in which
it would impose
restrictions on identity is to make us assume
that,
a person of the other identity is a
criminal of the worst kind.
And we are
In America,
and particularly since, you know, our founding, we

(10:08):
were an experiment coming out of the European
tradition
of self,
self development.
We were the land of the free. We
had a frontier, you know, and granted there
were problems in taking it from the indigenous
people, but people saw themselves as masters of

(10:28):
their own,
their own destiny. Yep. Wanting that freedom. Yeah.
And the whole idea of being being a
person yourself
was
kind of new, you know, and then
it reeled back into the
revolutions in the August
in Europe. People said, you know, let's cast
off this, autocracy

(10:49):
of of royalty.
Let's let's
be self determinate. So
the,
the the equipment for that means that we
become reliable reliant on our character,
and the character is what gives us the
rock of our own stability,

(11:09):
in the sense of
personality, for instance, can sell you a car,
and character
will build it.
And
America
was built on people
establishing that their own character
allowed them
to take over
the,

(11:32):
the position of aristocracy
that says,
I am not just
as good as my last job.
I am important because I am who I
am. Mhmm. Which means I have the ability
to see what I see,
to say what I see, and to determine
for myself my choices about it. Absolutely. Used
to be,

(11:54):
only for the upper class, only for the
aristocracy.
Right. And we have established it that, no,
we can do that. So a lot of
that is being taken over at the moment
by artificial intelligence
and
and, all kinds of,
dispersing of our own knowledge based as outside
of ourselves instead of within. Right. Right. So

(12:15):
building that character for the person that builds
their own character,
they're fighting against some of the historical
perspectives. They're fighting against their own society,
their family, and all of that to be
true to themselves. Is that true? Yeah. And,
you know, I I have never been, a
specifically a therapist for the LGBTQ community. And

(12:36):
when it started coming up, I thought, well,
I'm not one. I'm I'm, you know, straight,
but,
I can identify with the trauma, and I
I kinda let others people do it. You
know, if if they are proficient at that,
they they should go where they, you know,
they they know the territory better, but over
time, just got to get to know it.
And,

(12:59):
so
with
the,
the onset of
of looking at how do people recover from
trauma and how do they develop their own
identity,
the the big transition
comes with
determining for themselves,
am I a good person? Which is one

(13:20):
of the huge,
passages for a person who is coming out
of the closet, coming to grips with himself
and says, I have these parts within me
that are trying to wake up,
and if I am, let's say, gay,
am I a good person? Well, let me
ask my dad.
You know, let me ask the people I

(13:41):
live with. And that may
put them back in the closet because they're
not ready to say,
you are who you are and you're a
good person. Mhmm. So there's this
this,
overarching
threat held over us by the rest of
society that says, if you're
divergent,

(14:02):
you're not good. Mhmm.
And yet we have to look within ourselves,
discover
our own
our own aristocratic
self view of the world and say,
I see what I see,
and I'm okay. Absolutely. Alright. Absolutely. And going
internal is so important for every single person,
and people can do that at all ages

(14:23):
of their life. It's not just a one
time done and thing. You know? For some
people, it is. Like, I met a lady
this last week, Patrick,
and she's, Sue, 76, 77 years old. And
I said, well, when did you first know
that you were
on the LGBTQ spectrum? And she goes, oh,
I knew at age five. I knew in
kindergarten.
Mhmm. And most of us LGBTQ

(14:44):
people on the spectrum, we knew at an
early age that there was something different about
us. And, yes, we would need to buck
our family or or go against our society
or whatever that was to be true to
ourselves.
And so but the trauma part get into
the trauma part because I think that's really
super important because knowledge is power.
Knowledge is power. Trauma encodes knowledge so that

(15:06):
that either it can be remembered and dealt
with later or it can be forgotten and
and pushed aside.
So let's
I brought some notes with me. Uh-huh.
Let's go look look for a moment what
happens with trauma and how does it how
does it
affect
our identity?
And

(15:26):
it's common.
Okay? You look at
three quarters of children have had some kind
of traumatic experience,
before the age of five. So we're talking
about before people even really have a complete
sense of who they are,
they've been smacked around. They've had some kind
of trauma that is overwhelming

(15:46):
or underwhelming in the sense of,
not enough,
not enough care, not enough deliberate
infusion of love and and care and being
objectified by somebody else as as an extension
of themselves. They they have no identity. Mhmm.
So they're missing love. They're missing something that

(16:07):
is important for their growth. Yeah. There's either
a loss
and or,
abuses such as sexual abuse, neglect,
exposure to domestic violence,
traumatic loss.
I remember one gal I I dealt with
at the age of four. She had been
in Germany during the bombing of of,

(16:27):
of of her city by the American bombers,
and the house
blew off the top of the basement where
they're hiding. And she said the next few
years,
she didn't remember a thing. Yeah.
And in therapy,
it woke up.
And there she was, like a four year
old in a 65 year old body. It

(16:47):
was amazing,
but she finally had to deal with that.
Mhmm. And it came when trauma was revisited.
The code was broken when when someone,
held her up at gunpoint, basically put her
back in the position of of existential
dread, not going to die. Mhmm.
So Fear. These traumas

(17:08):
get infused,
they get encoded,
and
code is an interesting word because
it is like breaking
a safe. It's like a combination lock.
And the combination twirls around where the same
elements of recognition
of the same kinds of trauma come up,
and
it unlocks this drawer, and inside are all

(17:30):
the feelings
stuck, hold hold on to,
unprocessed
waiting.
Also known as triggers? Triggers. And it scares
us because
you don't get the feeling that you have
as a 65 year old or a 35
year old as how you handle things. No,
you get it raw like you are five.
You get it raw like you are 10

(17:50):
or 15.
So, identity
formation, you know, it's a normal thing, it
happens throughout our whole life.
It's integration of our emotions,
our intellect, putting it all together in one
kind of recipe.
And, you know, with a recipe, you gotta
add this element before you do this one.
It's it's it's a careful little dance.

(18:12):
And it's different for everybody. It is.
So some of the things that happened with
this is
is people blackout for
much of their childhood. They can't remember it.
It's it's the lost years, you know,
and they can't remember growing up.
And they need to go back to that
in terms of healing to find their joyous

(18:34):
moments. They're trying to figure it all out.
So there's some missing parts,
and
they don't know what it is,
you know?
It it
it it seems to be gone, and there's
a reason why.
In order to continue to function,
we sometimes have to wall off these invasive

(18:57):
feelings,
these arresting images,
these,
pieces of self that are like dynamite.
And
we do that
in order that we may continue on.
I I think it's,
actually,
rather than looking at it as only a
dysfunction, it is a natural function that allows

(19:19):
us to get up and go. When I
got up and got on the on the
car today,
to drive here, I didn't think about my
running stop sign almost the other day. I
didn't think about running into a semi truck.
Right. Because
I'm in denial Mhmm.
For good reason. Because it's not really gonna
happen. Mhmm. Oh, gosh. I hope not.
But, again, that knowledge is power. So when

(19:40):
you know these triggers, you know these things
about you, you can begin to deal with
it. Correct? You can. Yeah. And you can
say, alright. I'm a big boy now,
and let's help this side
come back and absorb these feelings and and
allow ourselves to be our own tour guide
for our inner self.
Right. Is there a time limit on that?

(20:00):
Like when it hits or how long that
might happen, this journey of of healing
with this trauma?
I I have seen people in
their later years, let's say post-60s,
deal with it.
I was wisely

(20:21):
counseled by one of my colleagues once. I
went to him in the beginning of this
treatment with a 19 year old, and I
said, What do I do with this? And
he said, Repress it.
And I didn't pay attention.
I
proceeded to try and unearth all these things
with a 19 year old.
And so I think that

(20:42):
staging is important.
It's actually kind of important sometimes to just
get your life in order as best you
can,
get through high school,
try to get
the assemblage
of the parts that get you through society,
and then later on as we
get a little more mature to deal with

(21:02):
it. Now that's not saying just repress it
all, but actually that system works a little
bit. Mhmm.
So
yes, you can deal with it at practically
any
any stage,
but the younger you are, the more you
need a guide.
Gotcha.
Gotcha. Like parenting.
And so That's a great tip right there.

(21:23):
That's a great tip. Yeah. In in one's
thirties, one starts to
to feel that they've got their sea legs
under them and can begin to,
deal with it. Often, people start dealing with
their own trauma when they have children of
their own.
And I remember that for myself, certain kind
of traumas. I look at the five year

(21:44):
old I have with me and I go,
oh,
that reminds me of what I went through.
Let me go process this before I try
to to do it with my kids Mhmm.
My own kids. So
it's a lifelong thing. And if you got
it all at once, that'd be too much.
So don't expect it to happen like you
go to therapy and you're done six weeks.
One session or six weeks and you're done.

(22:04):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So So what's the youngest person that you
have
counseled and been a part of their journey
in the therapy world?
Sometimes it's not a matter of them having
a complete understanding, but more a restructuring of
how they feel about themselves

(22:26):
because,
they're still working it out, and and it's
a bit early to know everything. But I've
seen kids five and six years old, you
know,
one particular trauma where a couple of a
couple of children had lost their parents suddenly
in an automobile accident was just, you know,
their very definition of trauma
and just help them kind of process it
by playing it through. Mhmm. So,

(22:47):
play
is an important part of this. I think
we talked about in the last broadcast
about the last podcast about
the ability to play. It's a way of
working through one's own,
capacities
before one has to use them. You know?
Mhmm. Mhmm.
It's rehearsal.

(23:07):
Mhmm.
So Well, probably a five year old is
not listening to this podcast right now, but
there may be parents and grandparents listening to
this. And so what would be a tip
for parents and grandparents
if they're thinking something
needs to happen better for their their their
beloved.
Well,

(23:30):
if you ask a child directly what is
going on with you,
they don't have the capacity
to
distance themselves from the event in a,
they process it concretely.
So when you ask them what happened,
their

(23:50):
expression of it is a re experience of
it.
So
that is invasive.
If you play,
they've extended it from themselves, which is why
we use play therapy.
Can you give an example of play therapy
or playing?
Well, playing is messing around. It is not

(24:12):
entirely deliberate.
It is it is an oblique approach to
things. Imaginative,
creative,
spontaneous.
I I had one kid
who had been through a lot of trauma,
and he had had cancer
as a child. And so
not only did he go go through that
himself, all of his little friends in the
hospital, many of them died. And it was

(24:34):
just probably, like, a war zone for a
child.
And he was very angry,
and people were not hearing him. So he
was playing in my office. I had a
little bit of a place playroom set up,
and he had this Tyrannosaurus
Rex.
I I I loved it. The Tyrannosaurus Rex
was pouncing around the room attacking things when

(24:56):
he was angry, you know. And at one
point, he stopped. He stared me in the
eyes, raced across the room,
and
the the Tyrannosaurus
Rex bit me on the hand.
And I went, Ow, you bit me! And
this was genuine because I was surprised.
And he looked at me as if, Uh-huh,

(25:17):
you got it now?
Uh-huh.
And all of the anger
just sort of subsided.
Someone finally just
understood, I'm a Tyrannosaurus
Rex and I am angry.
And so when you're playing with people,
with children, people, you're not necessarily asking them
to

(25:37):
talk as an adult about what really happened.
You're allowing them to structure the experiences so
that they can can rehearse it and feel
safe and have a good ending. Oh my
gosh. And that is a great way to
end the show today. I love that example,
that story, and just listening and being there
for that child, letting that child play

(25:58):
to get the answers of what's going on
is phenomenal.
Patrick, this went by so fast, and knowledge
is power. Trauma and identity, you definitely covered.
I wanna thank you, and I wanna thank
all the beautiful listeners on the gorgeous coast
of Southern Oregon and Northern California for being
with us in this joyously free manner. We've
learned a few things from Patrick today. You've

(26:19):
inspired us. You've challenged us. You've shared some
stories and hopes and loves, and so we
appreciate that big time, Patrick. Thank you so
very, very, very much. You're you're a man
of wisdom. You're a man of wisdom.
It's been fun. It's been fun? Good. Good.
Good. Good. Good. So we also wanna thank
KCIW,
our team. Mike Gorse is on the sound

(26:39):
today. We have Tom Bozak, Candice, and Rose.
That's what makes all this happen as a
team. We'd love to air this on KCIW
and KZZH
Access Humble. Thanks to Nate, Dawg, and Matt
down there.
You can order any of my books which
deal with trauma in healing religious hurts and
the the healing part as well. So we
like to know that you are

(26:59):
an important part of our life, all you
listeners. If you're having any challenges, get a
hold of KCIW
or myself.
Facebook is probably the best way to get
a hold of me. But we wanna just
say smile big, wear bright colors, and
be you. Love you bunches. Have a great
day. Bye.