September 10, 2025 • 67 mins
In this powerful episode of 1 in 3, Linda shares her deeply personal story of trauma, PTSD recovery, and the transformative power of therapy after sexual assault. A casual comment from a professor unexpectedly triggered buried memories decades after her assault—forcing her to confront emotions she’d long mistaken for strength.
Rather than continue suppressing her pain, Linda began a courageous journey through trauma therapy that changed every part of her life. She explains how trauma impacts both the mind and the body, describing memory as “biology plus biography”—a powerful lens that helps listeners understand why traumatic memories fragment and later resurface as PTSD symptoms.
Linda’s description of the persistent “creepy feeling” in her back, which she came to recognize as dread from her assault, offers a visceral illustration of how the body stores trauma even when the mind tries to forget.
The conversation also explores what therapy really looks like, beyond the media portrayals. Linda opens up about her fears of seeking help—the shame, cost, and belief that “being strong” meant handling everything alone. She reveals how the hardest work of therapy ultimately led to the deepest healing: becoming her authentic self, finding love with her soulmate, and maintaining gratitude even after his passing.
For anyone living with trauma, questioning therapy, or supporting a loved one through recovery, Linda’s story is both validating and inspiring. Her message is clear: healing is possible through vulnerability, connection, and courage.
📘 Ready to start your own healing journey? Discover more in Linda’s book, Braving Therapy, and remember—you never have to face trauma alone.
Linda's Links:
https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/linda-feig-knipe/
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
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Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi warriors, welcome to One in Three.
I'm your host, ingrid.
Trauma affects us all indifferent ways.
Some of us bury it, whileothers face it head on.
My guest today, linda, is theauthor of Braving Therapy, where
she shares her journey intotherapy and the lessons she
learned along the way.
Let's dive in to the importanceof therapy and healing trauma.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Please welcome, linda .
I'm looking forward to talkingwith you.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Oh, I'm very much excited for this episode because
I think there's a lot ofrelatable information that we're
going to be sharing, not justfor myself, but also for many
listeners.
But before we dive into thatconversation, could you share a
little bit of a background aboutyourself, just so the listeners
could get to know you a littlebit?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, I am in upstate New York.
I'm actually sitting in alittle cottage that I have on
Lake Ontario right now.
I'm really resistant to leavingfor the year because that means
summer's over.
So I grew up in this area.
(01:24):
I actually grew up in Summerson the Lake.
I have a big, happy family andmost of them have cottages or
trailers around here.
We're we're pretty just normalmiddle-class family.
That was close, a lot ofsiblings, um.
So I I will just start out bysaying I don't know why, but
(01:46):
when I was in high school Iremember this, um I just felt
really strongly that it wasn'tfair that I had such a happy,
loving family and so many people, um just kind of were twisted
around, um, by what life hadhanded them, that I kind of were
twisted around by what life hadhanded them, that I kind of
(02:07):
made it.
I felt like my purpose in lifewas going to be to help people,
you know, to help people kind offind their way, because I felt
very lucky and then, as I wentoff on my own, I had a lot of
difficult experiences.
(02:28):
Life is harder than you thinkit's going to be when you're a
kid for some of us and in my 20sI had a couple of really
traumatic incidences and one ofthem was I was living alone in
an apartment in Florida, veryfar away from my family, and my
apartment was broken into and Iwas raped by someone I didn't
(02:50):
know and because I was strongand tough, I just buried that
and moved on with my life.
I got married, I had children,and then I had worked as a
social worker.
Children and then I had workedas a social worker and I went
(03:14):
back to school.
I was a Red Cross director tooand decided to go back to school
for counseling as in schoolcounselor.
So because my thinking was Iwas working with a lot of people
who were making bad choices asa Red Cross director in a small
chapter and thought if I canstart helping people make better
(03:34):
choices when they're youngerespecially career choices and
things maybe people could have abetter direction.
As soon as I went into the gradprogram, I was close to 40, and
at the end of the first class oncounseling theories we were
talking about therapy and Iasked a question and the
(03:58):
professor made a statement aboutwhen therapy is worse before it
gets better.
Is in the situation where youhave a rape in your background
that you didn't deal with.
And when you go through therapyit's going to be pretty hard
for a while until it starts toget better.
And that was my situation.
(04:19):
I'd never dealt with it and Ijust I wanted to blink.
And we were sitting in a circleof about a dozen students and I
was just telling myself don'tblink, don't blink, they'll all
know.
And that started as soon as Ileft there.
I started with post-traumaticstress disorder symptoms and
(04:40):
they got to be severe.
I had all of the symptoms thatyou've heard about for PTSD and
finally I didn't know what wasgoing on.
I finally went back and talkedto the professor a couple of
weeks later.
He explained PTSD and told me Iwas really going to need to see
(05:01):
a therapist.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So that was the start of that's the beginning of the
book going through that period,yeah, and I think that you and I
have different stories butsimilar backgrounds, where I
also have gone through my lifethinking I am so lucky to have
(05:25):
the amazing support of familyand friends around me that just
surrounded with love and youknow, that's unfortunately not
the case for everyone and I alsodid the same thing of when I
left my abusive relationship.
I thought I was okay, I'm atough person, I'll, you know,
(05:46):
buck up and carry on.
And it was not quite as long asyou, but quite a while later
before I realized that I wasstarting to show cracks of PTSD.
So could you do you mind justdescribing a few of the
characteristics of PTSD forthose who may not be familiar?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Well, yeah, so I'll tell you the characteristics of
PTSD first, and then I'm goingto explain a little bit about
memory and how we storeespecially traumatic memories.
But for PTSD there's lots ofintrusive thoughts or
re-experiencing.
(06:29):
So intrusive meaning they justcome into your mind and you
can't control them, which wasone of the things that was
driving me crazy, because I wasI guess I was a pretty
controlling person as far as myown thoughts and behaviors and
(06:51):
things.
I was very disciplined and itwas like why can't I just put
this out of my mind and youcannot.
So you're experiencing, youexperience sensations, you
experience thoughts that youcan't stop thinking about or you
just re-experience whathappened.
So that's one of the symptoms.
(07:13):
Avoidance is another one.
You just want to avoid anythingthat reminds you of the trauma
and anything that might, youknow, trigger any of those
feelings again.
And nightmares, all of that andI'm feeling like there is more
(07:37):
that I'm not thinking of,because there is a list of like
three main areas, butre-experiencing and avoidance
and like nightmares and thingsare a big part of it.
And sensations I had very weirdsensations in my body.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And that's so important too, is paying
attention to your body.
I have found that my body willspeak to me before my brain
catches on to something that'snot feeling right, yeah yeah,
actually, I had this very creepyfeeling in my back and it was
very funny.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It wasn't funny, but it was very interesting to me.
It felt like my description ofit to my therapist at the time
was that it felt like I wasstanding with my back against a
wall that had lots of spidersand bugs and snakes and
(08:36):
everything, and that I was likeright in front of this wall and
I knew that they were all behindme.
And if you can imagine thatcreepy sensation and I didn't,
and I would have that feeling inmy back and I would just, I
would be in a crowd at night andI would have that feeling in my
back and I was just like Icouldn't get rid of the feeling
it's very creepy.
(08:56):
And so this went on for monthsthat I was, and it was
interesting because, as becauseI was in a grad program and I
had started with my therapist,my grad program was in
counseling and counseling theoryand all of that while I was
seeing a therapist.
So I felt like I was getting towatch both sides of it, like I
(09:21):
would be watching him when hewas working with me of it, like
I would be watching him when hewas working with me.
It took me months to figure it,to think about what it was, and
I finally realized and I don'tremember what the situation was,
(09:41):
but that was exactly the samefeeling and, if I explain this
as you think about being a kid,when you used to sit around and
tell ghost stories in the darkwith your friends and you would
feel that creepy heebie-jeebiesfeeling in your back and you'd
want to turn around because itfelt like that people would
laugh at you, so you wouldn'tturn around and you'd just sit
(10:06):
there with that feeling in yourback.
That's the feeling that I washaving in these just normal
situations.
It was that creepyheebie-jeebies feeling in my
back, but then I was having avery difficult time because you
really start numbing yourself toemotions.
Identifying emotions andidentify the emotion that I was
(10:29):
feeling as a physical sensationin my body is dread, and dread
is the feeling I had had whenthis attack was about to occur
and during the attack to occurand during the attack.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's so interesting how you're able to tie those
feelings years later to thatspecific experience.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It took a long time for one thing, and the other
thing was even.
I mean, therapy was very hardbecause I was really resistant
to talking about a lot of things, because a lot of my book is
about shame and vulnerabilityand hiding things and being
tough and not revealing ourweaknesses.
(11:15):
But I would be sitting intherapy going man, this is
fascinating and this ishappening to me At the same time
that I can barely talk becauseI'm so anxious, but cognitively
I was going wow.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
You know, I have the same kind of brain and I was
thinking the same thing likethis is the craziest trip.
Like I wish I was watching amovie to see all this happening
instead of actually experiencingit happening instead of
actually experiencing it.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah yeah, I didn't like the experiencing it, but it
was an amazing, an amazing.
Even thought that stuff that Ihad read about was actually I
was actually experiencing it andI didn't have control over it.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, that's crazy too, actually learning about it
and experiencing it at the sametime.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So you asked a question about talking about
PTSD a little bit and I saidthat I would go back and talk a
little bit about memory.
So generally, when we rememberthings, generally when we
remember things, there was awhite paper that I read way back
then because I was in gradschool, I had access to the grad
(12:37):
school library and so I wasreading academic papers about
this all the time, and oneperson described memory as
biology plus biography equalsmemory.
So the biology is theexperience and the way we
experience it, our sensations inour body, and the biography is
(12:59):
the narrative that you put to it.
Cognitively, you combine thesensations that you had with the
narrative that you put to itand you store it properly in
your memory.
And there's a part of our brainthat deals with all of the
really scary kind of stuff thatyou have to make decisions about
(13:21):
right away.
It's called the amygdala, and aprofessor, when she was
describing it, said the amygdalais like the old Ernestine
operator skits that they used tohave on some shows, where
(13:41):
somebody would call up and thenErnestine would plug it into the
right place.
And that happens in the amygdala.
It has to make decisions reallyquickly, and what happens with
some people with trauma is it isthe sensations and the whole
(14:03):
trauma is so uncomfortable tothink about.
That you don't think about.
You shove the sensations awayreally quickly without any
narrative to them, and soactually those sensations are
shoved away with other kinds ofmemories, things that were
happening around the same time.
(14:24):
So that's how they come poppingout when you don't have any
control about them.
If you had memories that wereproperly stored, with the
narrative and stuff, you wouldhave more control over those
thoughts.
But when you just shove awaysensations without putting any
narrative to them, it's likesomething that's misfiled in a
(14:47):
file cabinet and you go to pullout a file and all of a sudden
this weird paper comes out thatjust got stuck in there.
So that's how the PTSD symptomskind of keep coming back out
when you don't want them and inthe strangest times.
Okay, and that explains alsowhy some people are, you know,
(15:24):
able to carry on with their life.
For, however, although as I wasin my therapy, I realized how
insidiously that protectivefeeling is like you just are
much more controlling in yourlife.
You kind of shut down youremotions, are much more
controlling in your life.
You kind of shut down youremotions because all of that
(15:49):
feels kind of unsafe.
You feel like you need to keepthings into control.
When I first started my gradprogram and it was a summer
class there were only a dozenstudents in the class and I
remember two of us in the classwere very cognitive thinkers and
everybody else in the class waskind of more emotional in their
responses and we felt just thetwo of us you could tell by the
(16:11):
way we were talking we felt verysuperior for just making
decisions cognitively.
But through the class I startedrealizing that I referred to my
emotions in the third person.
Like I couldn't even claim anemotion I would say it's a
feeling of being uncomfortable,it's a feeling of having a
(16:34):
creepy sensation, it's a feelingof being sad.
I didn't even say I'm sad andas I was going through the class
I started going wow, what's thedeal?
And I said that to my sisterand she said, wow, I always am
examining my emotions and I saidI never thought about it.
(16:56):
But when I realized that whenI'm describing how I feel about
stuff, I describe it as afeeling that I don't say I feel
and that's a real numbing kindof I'm afraid of emotions.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I don't even want to claim them always find it easier
to describe somebody else'semotions than my own.
Or if I actually in therapy,when I was talking about my
(17:31):
emotions, I was referring tomyself in a past tense, so, like
you know, younger me.
And that was okay, but it wasdifficult for me to say myself
yeah, you can't claim ityourself.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And the other thing that I realized and I thought it
was just an empathic, I thoughtit was just me being empathic,
except that this doesn't happento me much anymore is I would
feel very deeply emotions that Ithought other people were
feeling.
So if something happened tosomebody, and oh, so during that
(18:09):
time or before that time Iwrote about this I think it was
probably early in my therapy Ihad three little boys and there
was a mother who had been in acar accident with three little
boys and they had all beenkilled, I could not.
I was so overcome with griefbecause I was feeling the grief
(18:33):
that I imagined she must befeeling, and I was so overcome
with grief that I almostcouldn't function.
And I used to do that justabout everything that I imagined
people were feeling, and Idon't do that anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I was the same.
I mean, it would be somethingsimple, Like if I saw somebody
eating lunch by themselves.
I created this narrative thatthey didn't want to be by
themselves and I felt so sad forthem, Like did they lose?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
somebody.
Yes, they must be soembarrassed and alone.
Yes, oh my goodness, and itdidn't even occur to me that
maybe they really needed to getaway from all the people.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Actually, yes, my sister is an LCSW and I've told
her about this and she said youknow, some people actually just
want to eat by themselves.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, yeah, I'm deaf and when I'm alone, please don't
come up and talk to me.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay, I'll keep that in mind.
Okay, so what?
You know, what preventssomebody from moving on when
they are stuck sort of in thiscycle, either of recognizing
some of the features of PTSD or,you, you know, still ignoring
or not ignoring, but, you know,bypassing that well, I think
(19:57):
it's really easy when you're notsuffering from the craziness of
ptsd.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I mean, once ptsd surfaces you're gonna have to do
something about it, you know,because maybe you can wait it
out until it gets buried again.
But for me it went on for fiveyears.
So you need to deal with it andyou need help with that.
It's not something that you canjust tell yourself.
(20:26):
I can control this, put it away.
And the reason is because it'svery uncomfortable to talk about
trauma, like people who've hadtrauma I mean for military
people.
You know, actually they'vedeveloped many different
(20:50):
therapies for military peoplebecause going back and talking
about that stuff is so awfulthat it's re-traumatizing.
But for my situation, beingable to talk it through and
(21:10):
being able to startunderstanding the emotions that
I was feeling at the time kindof released those emotions that
I had buried and I had justbecome super numb as far as
being an emotional person wasconcerned, I was still kind and
(21:35):
I felt good stuff, I felt lovefor my kids and things, but I
didn't feel a lot of negativeemotions and I think they would
come out in kind of controllingways, like I would try and keep
everything under control so thatI didn't have to deal with them
(21:58):
, and I'm thinking you need togo back to the question because
I think I got off track.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Well, you did kind of cover it.
It was.
You know what prevents peoplefrom moving on.
So obviously when they'reshowing the signs of PTSD,
there's sort think.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I want to see a therapist Because and most of my
book is I don't know if I wrotea book about breathing therapy
(22:41):
and it was about this journey oflike seeking of realizing I
needed to get therapy afteralmost 20 years and seeking it
and all of the things that I hadto overcome when I was thinking
about therapy.
And it was funny because myoldest son, who was a great, he
(23:06):
was a very good sounding boardfor me and he said you need to
include a chapter, or at leastwrite about all of the reasons
why people don't want to go totherapy, because he'd been
through that himself and his.
You know people that he knewand you well, first of all, you
(23:28):
think you can handle it yourself, or you can, you know, talk to
friends, but you don't want totalk about things.
There are certain things youjust tell yourself you're never
going to talk about, becausethose are the things that are
the skeletons in your closet orthe things that you hide, and
you just, even if you went totalk to somebody, you wouldn't
(23:49):
talk about that stuff, and myfear was that maybe they would
somehow know how to get that outof me, and so that created fear
.
There are practical fears likehow am I going to fit it in, how
am I going to pay for this, howam I even going to find the
right person?
Everything in my head is such ajumbled mess I don't know how
(24:14):
I'd ever start talking about itto begin with.
And then what if it's the wrongperson and I have to go find
somebody else?
All of those things, likeeverything that you can think of
(24:42):
that you're creating anobstacle for yourself about
therapy will come up.
And there are, when you'rethinking about it, things like
worrying about other peoplefinding out you're in therapy.
Well, who's going to tell themunless you tell them?
Because the therapist can'ttell them.
And and honestly I will tellyou that I know people in
(25:08):
positions that people do go andtalk to bartenders, things like
that, and they do talk.
So if you want to be able totalk to somebody, if you're
using somebody because you needto let down, find a therapist
because they are the one personthat can't talk about what
you're saying Everybody else.
If you go and talk to somebody,you have no idea who they're
going to tell.
(25:30):
So, worrying about that,worrying about finding the right
therapist, what I have said isit may seem like a jumble in
your head, but you'll knowyou're talking to the right
person when you're talking aboutthe right stuff very quickly.
Different organizations thatyou can go to.
(25:57):
There are mental healthassociations and things to be
able to pay for therapy, and nowthey're doing therapy online so
you can fit it into your life.
There's always a solution toall of those, but the big one is
worrying about talking aboutstuff that you don't ever want
(26:19):
to reveal, and a good therapistlets you make the decision about
what you're going to talk about.
A good therapist is not goingto direct you.
They're going to help you talkand, honestly, if you go to
somebody who directs theconversation, then you probably
need to find a differenttherapist.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah.
So I have a few things I wantedto mention, but directing the
conversation is a big one,because there were times I would
go into my therapist and Iwould say what should I do?
And she would look at me.
She's like okay, ingrid, weneed to talk about this, let's
process through, you knowwhatever.
And I'm like no, I just wantyou to give me the answer, I
just want you to tell me.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I just want you to fix me.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yes, so I know a few reasons that people don't want
to go to therapy is like youmentioned what are people going
to say?
I do believe that, at leasttoday, the stigma of therapy is
not such a prevalent thinganymore.
People are more open in talkingabout mental health and going
(27:26):
to therapy, so that's a reallynice thing.
That's happened over the years.
And regarding people who talk,that's bartenders, yes, people
who cut your hair I mean mytherapist, the girl who cuts my
hair.
Sometimes I would go in and Isaid so, hey, I haven't seen my
therapist in a couple you know,couple weeks, so I'm going to
(27:46):
unload on you quick, becauseyou're therapist number two.
But yeah, they will talk, theyabsolutely will talk.
And another thing that I wantedto bring up that is as recent is
chat GPT.
Apparently, a lot of people aregoing to these AI tools and
using AI as their therapist,which, surprisingly, I heard
(28:09):
about this and I plugged youknow just a made up story into
ChatGPT and it gave prettydecent advice.
But something to keep in mindis one, it is AI.
Two, if you speak with atherapist or if you speak with
an attorney, they're held totheir client privileges and
HIPAA laws for you know,therapists.
(28:31):
But ChatGPT is not HIPAA laws,for you know therapists, but
chat GPT is not.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, the other thing that would really terrify me
with chat GPT is we still don'tknow which direction it's going
in.
Yes, and there have been timeswhen it has told I've heard some
stories about things that it'stold young people to do.
That are terrifying.
I mean, you're talking tosomething that doesn't have a
conscience.
That's pretty terrible.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Why don't you just kill yourself, right.
So I did want to bring that up,because that's not a good
alternative to actual therapy?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
No, you don't know what you're getting.
You don't know what you'regetting.
Exactly, and another goodresource is I know your story is
(29:33):
not again the same as mine, butdomestic violence.
A lot of domestic violenceagencies out there do have
resources available forindividuals if they need
assistance with therapy, thatyou are able to get therapy
through those organizations.
So that's a good place to checkout Right therapy through those
organizations so that's a goodplace to check out Right.
And there are a lot of rapecrisis programs that are
available that will providecounseling.
It may not be long-term, butfor things like rape crisis, the
quicker in any kind of therapy,the quicker you get it, the
(29:56):
less you've kind of internalizedall of that trauma and let it
get mixed up in the way that youjust function in the world.
It's a little easier to parcelout and take care of it.
So, yes, it's well worth it andtake care of it.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So, yes, it's well worth it.
Another common theme that comesup is when dealing with trauma
is control, and I think,regardless of whatever kind of
trauma you've experienced ifit's you mentioned war trauma,
rape, trauma, domestic violence,trauma, any kind of trauma, a
car accident sort of trauma youdon't have control of that
situation.
So naturally, following theincident, your brain may want to
somehow grab onto it or you mayconsciously say I need to
(30:42):
control this narrative.
I was not able to control thatin the past and I mean that's
like I said, it's a common themethat I've seen is trying to
control the narrative.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I was going to say I think the control thing
also has to do with avoidanceand one of the ways that that
part of your brain works, theamygdala, and they call it the
amygdala attack.
But we are on the lookout forthreatening kind of things and
(31:22):
when you're in that state whereyou're trying to control
everything, a lot of things looklike a threat that aren't
necessarily a threat, but a lotof things look like a threat.
And the amygdala was the partof our brain that is on guard to
keep us alive.
I mean, that's ultimately inour reptilian brain.
That's how we were kept alive,as it was on guard against
(31:47):
threats.
And then, the minute that itperceives a threat, it does
things like you will start tohyperventilate, your eyes might
dilate, you feel your heart rateincrease.
Well, those are all things thatare going to help you to either
(32:09):
fight or escape.
To either fight or escape.
So the heart pumping bloodfaster, which you can feel, your
heart pounding is pumping bloodinto your muscles in case you
need to run or you need to fight, and the hyperventilating is
oxygenating yourself and youreyes dilating is so that you can
(32:29):
see things better.
So your brain is responding ina way to protect you.
The problem is, a lot of thingsaren't threats really anymore.
You start perceiving so manymore things as threats.
So that's one of the reasonswhy PTSD feels so crazy, because
(32:57):
you can't control the reptilianpart of what your body is doing
to protect you.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right, so okay, so we've talked about why people
need therapy and why people stayaway from therapy.
So can we talk a little bitabout actual therapy, because
that is some difficult work andI don't want to say, you know,
emphasize the difficult part,because I don't want to steer
anybody away from therapy,because it is an incredible
(33:26):
experience, but it is a lot ofwork.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, so I will say that, as hard as therapy was,
while I was in it, I wasthinking to myself this is the
hardest thing I have ever done,but I'm growing more than I have
(33:49):
ever grown at any other time inmy life.
Like going through somethingthat difficult, I learned so
much.
I became the person that Ialways wanted to be.
I am much more authentic nowthan I ever was before.
It was the most difficultexperience, but the best
(34:15):
experience of my life.
Yeah, there's something elsethat I was going to say about
that, but I will.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
So I'm the kind of person where you know we talked
about being strong that I wantto tackle things head on.
So when I started noticing thelittle cracks in my exterior
when I went into therapy, I saidthis is what's going on, let's
get to it, let's.
This is what's going on, let'sget to it, let's jump in and
take care of it.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I want in and out.
You're fast, me too.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Me too, in and out, and it was not fast.
And actually when we startedthe conversation, actually I
wanted to talk about that quicktoo.
I did not.
I had not done therapy beforeand I wasn't sure, you know, I
had seen things on TV.
Am I supposed to lay down onthis couch?
What am I?
You know what's supposed tohappen?
And it was really uncomfortable.
(35:08):
I sat down for a minute and Isaid I don't know what to do.
I'm not sure what I'm supposedto do.
And she was just like this isyour time, whatever you want to
do.
And I said, all right.
And then I get almost the sameconversation.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yes, it was just a really comfortable.
Yeah, don't make me talk, right.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
And so I just was like looking around.
I was like, so I mean, today Ijust started like talking about
my day and then eventually shedefinitely was the right person
for me and I was able to startopening up.
And then that's when I jumpedin I said, okay, this is why I'm
here and I want to get thistaken care of.
And as we talked more to try tofigure out the right modality
(35:52):
to get to the root of my trauma,we discovered other pieces that
played into it too, and thingsthat that you said.
Like what you mentioned, youbecame your more authentic self,
and here I am in, you know,older age.
I was like I wish I would haveknown these things about myself
(36:12):
when I was 20.
And it's really incredible howthis word is overused, but I
don't know what other word touse is empowering.
It really is because you startto understand yourself and you
start to recognize things thatyou never recognized about
yourself before.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
So let me say, when I've done author talks, it's so
interesting.
So I wrote this book becausenot because it was therapeutic
for me I was a counselor.
I used all of the information.
I channeled my therapist, mypsychologist a lot when I was
(36:52):
working with students because wedid a lot of personal
counseling.
So I had a very purposeful lifeafter that.
But I didn't feel like I wasdone with the experience until I
passed along the learning,which is why I wrote the book.
I just needed to pass alongthat learning because even when
(37:12):
I was sitting there I was like,oh my gosh, I am changing so
much.
So that was a big goal of thebook.
But when I do author talks, Iwill see people sitting in the
audience.
I'm talking about things thatyou won't share because there
(37:49):
are certain things that you keepto yourself.
There are things that youberate yourself about and just
like things like how could I beso stupid to do that?
I won't do that again.
You won't talk about that stuffto anybody else because it
embarrasses you.
And I was talking about thatfor myself, because that was one
(38:14):
of the things that made itdifficult to go to therapy is I
knew there were things I did notwant to reveal and I see these
accomplished people in theaudience shaking their heads.
Yes, when I'm talking about thestuff that you keep to yourself,
that you berate yourself aboutand ruminate over, you know how
(38:35):
could I do that and try andfigure it out yourself.
And my message is that thatstuff is toxic.
That when you are holding stuffinside that you won't talk
about, you do not let yourselfbe vulnerable.
That that is toxic.
Shame is toxic.
That when you can reveal that,you really discover how much we
(39:02):
have in common, becauseeverybody's got that stuff.
And what feels great is tofinally talk about something
that you are so ashamed aboutand somebody goes oh yeah, that
happened to me and this is howI've, and like, suddenly it's
not so bad, but when you keep itto yourself, it becomes
terrible and it causes anxietyand it can cause depression.
(39:28):
And there's a psychologist thathas a podcast and a newsletter,
dr Margaret Rutherford, whocalls it perfectly hidden
depression.
And it's accomplished peoplewho will not reveal those things
(39:48):
they ruminate about.
And that was keeping me alsoout of therapy.
Like until I had to go, I wasnot interested.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Same and therapy is.
It's like a purge right, you'regetting all of that out and
it's in a non-judgmental space.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I do have to ask you, Ingrid, how long were you in
therapy dealing with the?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
trauma.
So I initially went, I only didlike three sessions.
I'm like I'm good, but thenthat's when I formed my little
bubble that I was okay, and thenI went back and it was a year
and a half.
That was super, super intense.
I mean, we did EMDR, which is,you know, if that's something
(40:39):
that you're going to do.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
I would have loved to do that my therapist.
It was early on in the EMDR andhe was like I'm not sure about
that.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yes, it was incredible.
The things that that's when Iwas talking about.
I felt like I was watching amovie.
It was, it was.
It was just incredible.
My, my brain is very vivid.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Let me say EMDR.
For your listeners, it is eyemovement, emdr, eye movement.
Oh, I just knew it.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I always miss it?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Oh, it's eye movement , desensitization and
reprocessing.
So it is the same kind of eyemovement that happens when
you're dreaming.
Your eyes go back and forth andit's like you're watching a
movie, but you can do it withoutfeeling the sensations in your
body, so you're able to actuallyreprocess that information and
(41:40):
trauma, being desensitized to it.
You desensitize and thenreprocess.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yes, it's.
You know that you are in a safeplace, you are in the present
place that you are and you'reable to you know, if it starts
to become too vivid, you're ableto return back to that place.
And it was wild.
I had crazy dreams.
Some people have nightmares andI've always had really vivid
(42:10):
dreams.
So perhaps I had nightmares,but it just wasn't that big of a
deal to me.
But it was really strangebecause things that were sort of
repressed started surfacing.
So there was a song that I hadreally liked prior to doing a
few sessions of EMDR and thenall of a sudden I heard the song
(42:30):
on the radio and I was like, ohmy gosh, I can't listen to this
right now.
And it was weird because ituncovered something.
But it was the emotions that Iwent through.
I mean, there was some uglycrying happening, there was
anger, there was an at the end,just the like.
(42:53):
I said, I did it twice.
The second session I did thisrelease that all of a sudden
happened was like you know, Ihave this giant smile on my face
sitting on the couch and I waslike, oh my gosh, this is the
most incredible, liberatingfeeling I've ever had and it was
(43:13):
just amazing.
And if somebody does want to doEMDR, it is intense and you do
have to make sure you have apractitioner that really knows
what they're doing and isproperly trained with it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
So, because it sounds so, if people aren't familiar
with it, can you describe and Ionly know it by description is
like they use their finger or apencil to go back and forth and
you just watch it to make youreyes move back and forth.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yes, so my therapist sat in a chair across from me,
not too close but not too faraway, and I sat on the couch and
she just did this with herhands, really slow at first, and
then she would change the speed.
Yes, and so you're watching itback and forth and I think some
(44:07):
may use like a metronome or somesort of a sound effect as well
to keep that pace of that TikTokback and forth.
And so we just do that and westart talking about the memory.
What we did is we, aftertalking, before we started
actual therapy, we came upon onespecific memory that I would go
(44:29):
to, and so we went to thatspecific therapy and just talked
about it, like describe whereyou are, describe what's
happening, and it just like tookme, took me in there, where
there was, you know, like I said, the first hesitancy of my
first visit of what do I talkabout?
What am I supposed to do.
It just started coming pouringout.
(44:51):
Sometimes there wasn't much,like you know, she would say
what's going on?
I'm like I don't know nothingreally, and so we would just sit
and continue doing it untilsomething came up.
It was really interesting.
I didn't.
I knew a little bit about itbefore we started and enough to
(45:12):
make the informed decision thatI wanted to do it.
But I also did not look too farinto it because my brain is
also something that would put upa block of.
Okay, I know, this is what'ssupposed to happen next and I'm
not going to let that happen.
Yes, exactly, exactly.
That was.
That was the whole thoughtprocess, and I told her.
I said please don't tell me toomuch, because I don't want to
(45:34):
to like block this, and I feellike I will.
And at first I was like this isreally ridiculous, I can't
believe.
I'm sitting on a couch, likeyou know, looking back and forth
, and all of a sudden I was likethis legit worked for me, and
I'm not sure if that's a, youknow, a modality that works for
everyone or that is for everyone.
No, I think it's very effectivethough.
(45:56):
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
So we were talking about therapy and I know that's
a really important thing forpeople to understand what it is.
So I wrote this book, and Iwrote this book for people who
had had trauma to understandthat it's not only important to
pursue therapy but to stick withit, that you need to stick with
(46:22):
it through the end.
So I was in therapy for fiveyears really working on this,
and the reason is because I hada couple of things I was never
going to talk about.
One was a date rape that Inever even identified as a rape
until well into therapy, and Iwas so humiliated by it that
when it happened, I said I'mnever going to think about this
again.
I'm never going to.
(46:42):
I said I'm never going to thinkabout this again, I'm never
going to admit it, I'm nevergoing to talk about it, and I
couldn't, and that was one ofthe things that kept me out of
therapy.
The other was that my marriagewas in trouble.
We had a lot of difficultiesbetween us and within the first
month or less, my therapist hadsaid to me well, we haven't
(47:06):
talked about your marriage,it'll be good to talk about that
next time.
And I said to him my marriageis just fine, we don't need to
talk about that.
And so he made a note and now,20 plus years later, he says,
yeah, I remember when you saidthat and I was like, oh, that's
a problem.
And I was so afraid that if wegot into those things, that life
(47:29):
would change and the date rapewas humiliating for me.
So I just did not want to evencreate a visualization about
that for anybody, create avisualization about that for
anybody.
And my marriage.
I was really afraid if westarted talking about it, that
my marriage would end.
(47:49):
So that stuff.
There would be sessions becauseit's like you said, a good
therapist is going to let youlead because you need to keep
control.
When you've been in a trauma,you need to be the one in
control.
If somebody is leading youaround, you are not in control
and you're probably not going tostick with that and it's
probably not going to be thathelpful.
But it took me a very long timebecause one of the things that
(48:15):
I, when I was sitting in therapyI mean one of the things in my
head was, if I start theconversation, then he's going to
know what I think about, and Iwanted to be able to control
what other people thought aboutme.
So I had a very hard timestarting the conversation and
(48:36):
the only time he would reallystep in and take charge was when
I said I need help.
And if I said I need help thenhe would help me start talking.
And you know, as soon as Istarted talking, the
conversations would go to areasthat were important and they may
not.
They may never have been aboutthe rape.
(48:58):
I always felt like we should betalking about that, but there
was so much in the 20 yearsalmost from the time I'd been
raped that I kind of twistedaround and you know it was like
my feelings about things, theway I related with people, all
of that.
So so those were theconversations of therapy.
(49:20):
And I know one person said inthe reviews I have about 75 to
80 reviews on Amazon andGoodreads and I said that I
wrote the book for people whohad had trauma, but what I
discovered was that the book Isent the book out to a lot of
people to read it just because Ineeded to get reviews, and then
(49:43):
a lot of other people startedreading it.
A psychiatrist said this reallyreveals what's going on in the
mind of your patient when you'restruggling with getting them to
talk.
And there's a lot of time thatI was depressed and I talk a lot
about depression and a lot ofpeople resonated with that.
A lot of people resonated withthe holding stuff to themselves
(50:07):
and not realizing how toxic thatis.
So all of those parts of it notthe trauma or the rape, but the
therapy and the way we changeperspectives and how healing it
is to talk with somebody and getout your emotions resonated
with everybody.
(50:29):
Because what I did is in themajority of the book.
I wrote about what was going onin my head when I wasn't
talking and why I wasn't talking, and arguing with myself about
why it was so hard for me to sayanything and changing my
perspective.
And part of the perspectivechange was my conversations with
(50:52):
my therapist, ryan, and part ofthe perspective change was that
I wrote in a journal all of thetime and I would talk to people
just about how I wasexperiencing the therapy friends
of mine or my sisters andperspective changes that came
from that.
And my former husband, myex-husband, who is the father of
(51:17):
my boys.
I was married to him for 20years and at the end of really
while I was going throughtherapy.
We both went into therapy andrealized that we were a mismatch
.
We both had trauma issues andso we did split up.
But my husband and I would talkabout it quite a bit, and he
(51:39):
described he said two thingsthat have I put them in the book
, I think, because they soresonated with people.
First is that you go throughyour life collecting garbage and
keeping it in a bag that youdrag around with you in your
life and that's like all of thetrauma and stuff you don't want
(52:00):
to think about or talk about,but you keep it in the bag and
you just drag it around, likedragging a garbage bag
everywhere you go.
And then you meet the personthat you want to go through life
with and you each have yourgarbage bag full of stuff and
you take it and you dump it overyour partner's head and I was
like that is such a wonderfuldescription of what we do.
(52:22):
Yes, and the other thing hesaid about therapy because he
got a therapist too is that atherapist is like I was, the
same way I was like I just wantyou to fix me and I just want
you to tell me what to think orwhat to do or what to talk about
.
And he said being in therapy islike going through a jungle
(52:43):
with a machete and yourtherapist is behind you telling
you what to cut.
So your therapist isn't leadingyou through the jungle, your
therapist is just behind you and, as you're seeing branches and
areas that are all thick andit's that chaotic, like there's
(53:05):
just so much crap in your headand the therapist is telling you
where to cut.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
I love that analogy too.
Those are both great analogies.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, yeah, and that's a lot what therapy is
like and that's a lot what thetherapeutic conversation is like
.
You come up with the topics andyour therapist will maybe
restate what you said in adifferent way and maybe with
emotion, so that you can hear it.
Reflective listening, whichgood therapists will do a lot is
(53:37):
if you say something, they willrepeat it back to you with
emotion, like it sounds like youjust said blah, blah, blah, and
it sounds like it was veryupsetting for you and you may
not have realized it wasupsetting, but that allows you
to go deeper into that said.
(53:57):
You know, I've always beenafraid of therapy because you
know, you see what it is on TVwhere people are asking you how
you feel and that's the lastthing you want to talk about is
how you feel, and that is not.
That is not how it is.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
No, you're totally correct on that, because my
therapist would.
You know, I laugh actually alot.
I still go to therapy becausedoing this podcast I was like
I'm not doing this by myself,like I need to make sure that
I'm talking about notnecessarily conversations, that
(54:34):
anything that I put out on thepodcast, you know, is obviously
it's out there.
But if there's privateconversations I've had with
guests I don't talk about that.
Obviously it's out there.
But if there's privateconversations I've had with
guests, I don't talk about that.
But I just want to make surethat nothing else bubbles up and
I want to keep myself asgrounded as possible and just
open and I love continuing tolearn about myself.
(54:56):
And there's times I go in I waslike so nothing's happened, I
don't go.
I think I go every two or moreweeks and sometimes it's like
there's nothing that's reallyhappened and so we just start
talking.
She's like hold on a second,can we?
Can we go back to what you justsaid?
And then it's like, oh yeah,you're right, we do need to talk
(55:17):
about that a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, it was funny.
I see my therapist maybe onceor twice a year.
Now it's been 20 years and whenI was writing this book we met
a couple of reasons.
I put a lot of words in hismouth because the book is a lot
of dialogue.
It's a lot of, it's not just astory I told and I wanted to
(55:39):
make sure, as I was puttingwords in his mouth, that I was
being true to the conversationsthat we had.
And his concern was that when Igot into talking about the book
and things that it wouldn't bere-triggering and we talked a
lot about that but I don't seehim all that often he did send
(56:00):
me notes.
He sent me a lot of his notesfrom when I was in therapy and I
included some of them in thebook so that people could see
what it is that they're writing,which isn't a lot, but it's
enough to keep them on track.
I did the same thing.
(56:24):
I went to him this springbecause I was really struggling
with marketing the book andtalking about depression and I
was getting down.
It was just a lot and we had agreat session and then he set up
another one for a couple ofmonths down the road just to
make sure I was doing well.
And then I was like I went inand I was fine and I said
(56:46):
everything's been fine, I've hada great summer.
And he said, well, what wasgoing on that you let yourself
get so depressed and you didn'ttalk to anybody.
And I was like, because I knowbetter, and I was just I don't.
Okay, this is what was going on.
(57:06):
I cannot.
When it gets to be chaotic stillas healthy as I am when I get
chaos in my head and getdepressed, I cannot say to
somebody I need to talk, I can't, I need to talk, I can't.
But what I realized I could doafter I went to him the first
time was I could do something.
(57:27):
I call it throwing your hatover the fence with a text.
And so I said to my two bestfriends who I was going to be
seeing the next week I've beenreally depressed.
I just am really strugglingright now.
So that when we were togetherand they didn't jump on it, they
were wonderful about it, butthey gave me space to talk and
(57:47):
they already knew it wasn't that.
I had to say it face to face,and that's something that I had
discovered even in living ahealthy life is when I start
feeling depressed, or ifsomething has embarrassed me.
I still can't just say it, butI can send it out there in the
(58:07):
universe in a text or somethinglike that, and then that can
help me over the hump.
Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah, I find that for me, I have difficulty asking
for help and saying that outloud like I need help, and it
could be with you know whatevervariety of topics.
So let's talk about your book,braving Therapy.
So it takes us on the journeyof prior to therapy in therapy
(58:35):
yes, and then okay.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
The majority of the book is in therapy.
I mean the beginning of the book.
The prior is just the setup ofwhat happened to me and I was
very careful writing what Iwrote about because I didn't
want to trigger anybody that thebook could help, because the
primary goal of the book was tokind of be a companion for
people who are in therapy.
So it is laid out.
(58:58):
The therapy section is laid outby sections.
I talk about trust.
Well, I talk about seekingtherapy and pursuing therapy and
just what it's like, what theconversation's like and
journaling and the strugglesthat you have with trust.
There is a chapter about thatand I didn't realize that I
didn't trust and it was a hugeissue.
(59:19):
There's a chapter aboutdepression and suicidal ideation
and all of that.
It's not just things that Iwent through, but I also was a
companion for students who weregoing through it when I was a
school counselor and I wouldexplain, I would work as their
companion, and that's kind ofhow I wanted to lay out the
(59:41):
middle of this book to be acompanion for people in therapy.
And it goes right through.
It's partly a companion ofexplaining things and partly a.
This is how kind of stuff youcan expect.
This is how you heal, becauseas my perspectives changed and I
(01:00:05):
talked all the way through itabout what I was thinking and
how my perspective reallychanged, which was healing but I
go right through depression andthen the worst of it, which was
when I finally talked aboutthat date rape, and then the
things that I think about justin our society that put us in a
(01:00:25):
position where it's easy to getinto those situations.
And then the last part of thebook is the promise Like when
you stick it out, life changes,your life changes and the change
that I was afraid of my husbandat the for over 20 years to
(01:00:45):
this wonderful woman and I metthe love of my life, who was my
(01:01:07):
soulmate, and we had a wonderful15 years together and when he
died and when he died I keptexpecting that depression would
come back.
I kept expecting that thedepression would come back.
But the other thing thathappened to me through all of
this time is I started todevelop a real feeling of
(01:01:27):
gratitude for my life and whatI've already got.
And when Bob died I still justfelt so grateful that I had had
him in my life.
He was kind of the last pieceof my healing, because he taught
(01:01:48):
me that I was acceptable, nomatter what I thought about,
that he loved and accepted me,no matter when.
Stuff that I would start to tryand bury, and he wouldn't let
me bury it because I'd start togo flat, which you recognize as
the like, you start turning offyour emotions and everything and
he would help me talk aboutthings and make me realize that
I am acceptable and lovable andthat was like the final piece.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
And I'm just so grateful for that.
Well, and then, like you said,through therapy, you got to
become your authentic self.
So it's like your authenticself is living this, actually
living your life with the loveof your life, which is beautiful
.
So your book you mentioned it'son Amazon and Goodreads, it's
on Amazon and Goodreads.
Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
You can get it in any bookstore.
It's on Barnes, noble.
So wherever you get your books,you can order it or possibly
buy it.
It's in some libraries.
Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And I'll include all of your links in the show notes,
but do you have any specificlinks that you want to share
with listeners?
Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
So I will have and I'm not sure if they're up there
yet, but I for that wouldinclude, like the overcoming
objections to therapy, what toexpect in therapy, how to find a
(01:03:28):
good therapist, those kind ofpieces of information that
people can just have sent totheir emails.
So that will be up there.
And yeah, I'm on BravingTherapy.
Alphide Naip is on Amazon orBarnes and Noble.
(01:03:49):
You can find the book there weboth said it's a pretty quick
read.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Okay, perfect, it's on my read list.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
It's on Kindle.
Yeah, it's also on Kindle.
Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Okay, and so, finally , linda, I believe that every
story carries strength, and whatis the strength or message that
you want to leave withlisteners?
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Oh.
I think the big message is it'smy philosophy of our life here
on earth too but my trauma andyour trauma, you know people may
say, oh, that was awful and itwas, and I wouldn't wish it on
(01:04:34):
anybody.
However, everybody has reallyreally hard situations that they
go through in life.
Everybody.
Everybody has things that theywould rather just bury.
(01:04:55):
Well, there are some peoplethat talk about everything, but
I think some people that talkabout everything do that.
So, and whatever you're afraidof being vulnerable is what
causes connection.
That is what connects you topeople and makes you feel like
(01:05:20):
life is worth living and you'renot alone.
But I guess my message is weall have hard stuff and it might
just be drama in your life, butit is kind of trauma to you and
you need to deal with it.
Please don't bury it.
And the other part of it thereason I wrote Braving Therapy
(01:05:44):
is when you go into therapy,when you've got a good therapist
, don't just go and stop.
Stick with it until you are allthe way through, and I kept
wondering what that was going tolook like when I was in therapy
, but you'll know when you'reall the way through.
(01:06:04):
It's transformative.
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
It really is, and thank you, linda, for joining me
today, thank you for your bookand thank you for all of this
information, super helpfulinformation for all the
listeners.
Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
It's been a real joy talking with you, ingrid.
Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
It really has.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you, okay, take care.
Thank you again, linda, forjoining me today, and thank you,
ingrid, it really has.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you, okay, take care.
Thank you again, linda, forjoining me today and thank you,
warriors, for listening.
I have included the links Lindawas referring to, as well as
her one in three profile in theshow notes.
I'll be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong andwherever you are in your journey
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Transcript Emily Beynon.
Hi warriors, welcome to One in Three.
I'm your host, ingrid.
Trauma affects us all indifferent ways.
Some of us bury it, whileothers face it head on.
My guest today, linda, is theauthor of Braving Therapy, where
she shares her journey intotherapy and the lessons she
learned along the way.
Let's dive in to the importanceof therapy and healing trauma.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Please welcome, linda .
I'm looking forward to talkingwith you.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Oh, I'm very much excited for this episode because
I think there's a lot ofrelatable information that we're
going to be sharing, not justfor myself, but also for many
listeners.
But before we dive into thatconversation, could you share a
little bit of a background aboutyourself, just so the listeners
could get to know you a littlebit?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, I am in upstate New York.
I'm actually sitting in alittle cottage that I have on
Lake Ontario right now.
I'm really resistant to leavingfor the year because that means
summer's over.
So I grew up in this area.
(01:24):
I actually grew up in Summerson the Lake.
I have a big, happy family andmost of them have cottages or
trailers around here.
We're we're pretty just normalmiddle-class family.
That was close, a lot ofsiblings, um.
So I I will just start out bysaying I don't know why, but
(01:46):
when I was in high school Iremember this, um I just felt
really strongly that it wasn'tfair that I had such a happy,
loving family and so many people, um just kind of were twisted
around, um, by what life hadhanded them, that I kind of were
twisted around by what life hadhanded them, that I kind of
(02:07):
made it.
I felt like my purpose in lifewas going to be to help people,
you know, to help people kind offind their way, because I felt
very lucky and then, as I wentoff on my own, I had a lot of
difficult experiences.
(02:28):
Life is harder than you thinkit's going to be when you're a
kid for some of us and in my 20sI had a couple of really
traumatic incidences and one ofthem was I was living alone in
an apartment in Florida, veryfar away from my family, and my
apartment was broken into and Iwas raped by someone I didn't
(02:50):
know and because I was strongand tough, I just buried that
and moved on with my life.
I got married, I had children,and then I had worked as a
social worker.
Children and then I had workedas a social worker and I went
(03:14):
back to school.
I was a Red Cross director tooand decided to go back to school
for counseling as in schoolcounselor.
So because my thinking was Iwas working with a lot of people
who were making bad choices asa Red Cross director in a small
chapter and thought if I canstart helping people make better
(03:34):
choices when they're youngerespecially career choices and
things maybe people could have abetter direction.
As soon as I went into the gradprogram, I was close to 40, and
at the end of the first class oncounseling theories we were
talking about therapy and Iasked a question and the
(03:58):
professor made a statement aboutwhen therapy is worse before it
gets better.
Is in the situation where youhave a rape in your background
that you didn't deal with.
And when you go through therapyit's going to be pretty hard
for a while until it starts toget better.
And that was my situation.
(04:19):
I'd never dealt with it and Ijust I wanted to blink.
And we were sitting in a circleof about a dozen students and I
was just telling myself don'tblink, don't blink, they'll all
know.
And that started as soon as Ileft there.
I started with post-traumaticstress disorder symptoms and
(04:40):
they got to be severe.
I had all of the symptoms thatyou've heard about for PTSD and
finally I didn't know what wasgoing on.
I finally went back and talkedto the professor a couple of
weeks later.
He explained PTSD and told me Iwas really going to need to see
(05:01):
a therapist.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So that was the start of that's the beginning of the
book going through that period,yeah, and I think that you and I
have different stories butsimilar backgrounds, where I
also have gone through my lifethinking I am so lucky to have
(05:25):
the amazing support of familyand friends around me that just
surrounded with love and youknow, that's unfortunately not
the case for everyone and I alsodid the same thing of when I
left my abusive relationship.
I thought I was okay, I'm atough person, I'll, you know,
(05:46):
buck up and carry on.
And it was not quite as long asyou, but quite a while later
before I realized that I wasstarting to show cracks of PTSD.
So could you do you mind justdescribing a few of the
characteristics of PTSD forthose who may not be familiar?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Well, yeah, so I'll tell you the characteristics of
PTSD first, and then I'm goingto explain a little bit about
memory and how we storeespecially traumatic memories.
But for PTSD there's lots ofintrusive thoughts or
re-experiencing.
(06:29):
So intrusive meaning they justcome into your mind and you
can't control them, which wasone of the things that was
driving me crazy, because I wasI guess I was a pretty
controlling person as far as myown thoughts and behaviors and
(06:51):
things.
I was very disciplined and itwas like why can't I just put
this out of my mind and youcannot.
So you're experiencing, youexperience sensations, you
experience thoughts that youcan't stop thinking about or you
just re-experience whathappened.
So that's one of the symptoms.
(07:13):
Avoidance is another one.
You just want to avoid anythingthat reminds you of the trauma
and anything that might, youknow, trigger any of those
feelings again.
And nightmares, all of that andI'm feeling like there is more
(07:37):
that I'm not thinking of,because there is a list of like
three main areas, butre-experiencing and avoidance
and like nightmares and thingsare a big part of it.
And sensations I had very weirdsensations in my body.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And that's so important too, is paying
attention to your body.
I have found that my body willspeak to me before my brain
catches on to something that'snot feeling right, yeah yeah,
actually, I had this very creepyfeeling in my back and it was
very funny.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It wasn't funny, but it was very interesting to me.
It felt like my description ofit to my therapist at the time
was that it felt like I wasstanding with my back against a
wall that had lots of spidersand bugs and snakes and
(08:36):
everything, and that I was likeright in front of this wall and
I knew that they were all behindme.
And if you can imagine thatcreepy sensation and I didn't,
and I would have that feeling inmy back and I would just, I
would be in a crowd at night andI would have that feeling in my
back and I was just like Icouldn't get rid of the feeling
it's very creepy.
(08:56):
And so this went on for monthsthat I was, and it was
interesting because, as becauseI was in a grad program and I
had started with my therapist,my grad program was in
counseling and counseling theoryand all of that while I was
seeing a therapist.
So I felt like I was getting towatch both sides of it, like I
(09:21):
would be watching him when hewas working with me of it, like
I would be watching him when hewas working with me.
It took me months to figure it,to think about what it was, and
I finally realized and I don'tremember what the situation was,
(09:41):
but that was exactly the samefeeling and, if I explain this
as you think about being a kid,when you used to sit around and
tell ghost stories in the darkwith your friends and you would
feel that creepy heebie-jeebiesfeeling in your back and you'd
want to turn around because itfelt like that people would
laugh at you, so you wouldn'tturn around and you'd just sit
(10:06):
there with that feeling in yourback.
That's the feeling that I washaving in these just normal
situations.
It was that creepyheebie-jeebies feeling in my
back, but then I was having avery difficult time because you
really start numbing yourself toemotions.
Identifying emotions andidentify the emotion that I was
(10:29):
feeling as a physical sensationin my body is dread, and dread
is the feeling I had had whenthis attack was about to occur
and during the attack to occurand during the attack.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's so interesting how you're able to tie those
feelings years later to thatspecific experience.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It took a long time for one thing, and the other
thing was even.
I mean, therapy was very hardbecause I was really resistant
to talking about a lot of things, because a lot of my book is
about shame and vulnerabilityand hiding things and being
tough and not revealing ourweaknesses.
(11:15):
But I would be sitting intherapy going man, this is
fascinating and this ishappening to me At the same time
that I can barely talk becauseI'm so anxious, but cognitively
I was going wow.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
You know, I have the same kind of brain and I was
thinking the same thing likethis is the craziest trip.
Like I wish I was watching amovie to see all this happening
instead of actually experiencingit happening instead of
actually experiencing it.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah yeah, I didn't like the experiencing it, but it
was an amazing, an amazing.
Even thought that stuff that Ihad read about was actually I
was actually experiencing it andI didn't have control over it.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, that's crazy too, actually learning about it
and experiencing it at the sametime.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So you asked a question about talking about
PTSD a little bit and I saidthat I would go back and talk a
little bit about memory.
So generally, when we rememberthings, generally when we
remember things, there was awhite paper that I read way back
then because I was in gradschool, I had access to the grad
(12:37):
school library and so I wasreading academic papers about
this all the time, and oneperson described memory as
biology plus biography equalsmemory.
So the biology is theexperience and the way we
experience it, our sensations inour body, and the biography is
(12:59):
the narrative that you put to it.
Cognitively, you combine thesensations that you had with the
narrative that you put to itand you store it properly in
your memory.
And there's a part of our brainthat deals with all of the
really scary kind of stuff thatyou have to make decisions about
(13:21):
right away.
It's called the amygdala, and aprofessor, when she was
describing it, said the amygdalais like the old Ernestine
operator skits that they used tohave on some shows, where
(13:41):
somebody would call up and thenErnestine would plug it into the
right place.
And that happens in the amygdala.
It has to make decisions reallyquickly, and what happens with
some people with trauma is it isthe sensations and the whole
(14:03):
trauma is so uncomfortable tothink about.
That you don't think about.
You shove the sensations awayreally quickly without any
narrative to them, and soactually those sensations are
shoved away with other kinds ofmemories, things that were
happening around the same time.
(14:24):
So that's how they come poppingout when you don't have any
control about them.
If you had memories that wereproperly stored, with the
narrative and stuff, you wouldhave more control over those
thoughts.
But when you just shove awaysensations without putting any
narrative to them, it's likesomething that's misfiled in a
(14:47):
file cabinet and you go to pullout a file and all of a sudden
this weird paper comes out thatjust got stuck in there.
So that's how the PTSD symptomskind of keep coming back out
when you don't want them and inthe strangest times.
Okay, and that explains alsowhy some people are, you know,
(15:24):
able to carry on with their life.
For, however, although as I wasin my therapy, I realized how
insidiously that protectivefeeling is like you just are
much more controlling in yourlife.
You kind of shut down youremotions, are much more
controlling in your life.
You kind of shut down youremotions because all of that
(15:49):
feels kind of unsafe.
You feel like you need to keepthings into control.
When I first started my gradprogram and it was a summer
class there were only a dozenstudents in the class and I
remember two of us in the classwere very cognitive thinkers and
everybody else in the class waskind of more emotional in their
responses and we felt just thetwo of us you could tell by the
(16:11):
way we were talking we felt verysuperior for just making
decisions cognitively.
But through the class I startedrealizing that I referred to my
emotions in the third person.
Like I couldn't even claim anemotion I would say it's a
feeling of being uncomfortable,it's a feeling of having a
(16:34):
creepy sensation, it's a feelingof being sad.
I didn't even say I'm sad andas I was going through the class
I started going wow, what's thedeal?
And I said that to my sisterand she said, wow, I always am
examining my emotions and I saidI never thought about it.
(16:56):
But when I realized that whenI'm describing how I feel about
stuff, I describe it as afeeling that I don't say I feel
and that's a real numbing kindof I'm afraid of emotions.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I don't even want to claim them always find it easier
to describe somebody else'semotions than my own.
Or if I actually in therapy,when I was talking about my
(17:31):
emotions, I was referring tomyself in a past tense, so, like
you know, younger me.
And that was okay, but it wasdifficult for me to say myself
yeah, you can't claim ityourself.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And the other thing that I realized and I thought it
was just an empathic, I thoughtit was just me being empathic,
except that this doesn't happento me much anymore is I would
feel very deeply emotions that Ithought other people were
feeling.
So if something happened tosomebody, and oh, so during that
(18:09):
time or before that time Iwrote about this I think it was
probably early in my therapy Ihad three little boys and there
was a mother who had been in acar accident with three little
boys and they had all beenkilled, I could not.
I was so overcome with griefbecause I was feeling the grief
(18:33):
that I imagined she must befeeling, and I was so overcome
with grief that I almostcouldn't function.
And I used to do that justabout everything that I imagined
people were feeling, and Idon't do that anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I was the same.
I mean, it would be somethingsimple, Like if I saw somebody
eating lunch by themselves.
I created this narrative thatthey didn't want to be by
themselves and I felt so sad forthem, Like did they lose?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
somebody.
Yes, they must be soembarrassed and alone.
Yes, oh my goodness, and itdidn't even occur to me that
maybe they really needed to getaway from all the people.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Actually, yes, my sister is an LCSW and I've told
her about this and she said youknow, some people actually just
want to eat by themselves.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, yeah, I'm deaf and when I'm alone, please don't
come up and talk to me.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay, I'll keep that in mind.
Okay, so what?
You know, what preventssomebody from moving on when
they are stuck sort of in thiscycle, either of recognizing
some of the features of PTSD or,you, you know, still ignoring
or not ignoring, but, you know,bypassing that well, I think
(19:57):
it's really easy when you're notsuffering from the craziness of
ptsd.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I mean, once ptsd surfaces you're gonna have to do
something about it, you know,because maybe you can wait it
out until it gets buried again.
But for me it went on for fiveyears.
So you need to deal with it andyou need help with that.
It's not something that you canjust tell yourself.
(20:26):
I can control this, put it away.
And the reason is because it'svery uncomfortable to talk about
trauma, like people who've hadtrauma I mean for military
people.
You know, actually they'vedeveloped many different
(20:50):
therapies for military peoplebecause going back and talking
about that stuff is so awfulthat it's re-traumatizing.
But for my situation, beingable to talk it through and
(21:10):
being able to startunderstanding the emotions that
I was feeling at the time kindof released those emotions that
I had buried and I had justbecome super numb as far as
being an emotional person wasconcerned, I was still kind and
(21:35):
I felt good stuff, I felt lovefor my kids and things, but I
didn't feel a lot of negativeemotions and I think they would
come out in kind of controllingways, like I would try and keep
everything under control so thatI didn't have to deal with them
(21:58):
, and I'm thinking you need togo back to the question because
I think I got off track.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Well, you did kind of cover it.
It was.
You know what prevents peoplefrom moving on.
So obviously when they'reshowing the signs of PTSD,
there's sort think.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I want to see a therapist Because and most of my
book is I don't know if I wrotea book about breathing therapy
(22:41):
and it was about this journey oflike seeking of realizing I
needed to get therapy afteralmost 20 years and seeking it
and all of the things that I hadto overcome when I was thinking
about therapy.
And it was funny because myoldest son, who was a great, he
(23:06):
was a very good sounding boardfor me and he said you need to
include a chapter, or at leastwrite about all of the reasons
why people don't want to go totherapy, because he'd been
through that himself and his.
You know people that he knewand you well, first of all, you
(23:28):
think you can handle it yourself, or you can, you know, talk to
friends, but you don't want totalk about things.
There are certain things youjust tell yourself you're never
going to talk about, becausethose are the things that are
the skeletons in your closet orthe things that you hide, and
you just, even if you went totalk to somebody, you wouldn't
(23:49):
talk about that stuff, and myfear was that maybe they would
somehow know how to get that outof me, and so that created fear
.
There are practical fears likehow am I going to fit it in, how
am I going to pay for this, howam I even going to find the
right person?
Everything in my head is such ajumbled mess I don't know how
(24:14):
I'd ever start talking about itto begin with.
And then what if it's the wrongperson and I have to go find
somebody else?
All of those things, likeeverything that you can think of
(24:42):
that you're creating anobstacle for yourself about
therapy will come up.
And there are, when you'rethinking about it, things like
worrying about other peoplefinding out you're in therapy.
Well, who's going to tell themunless you tell them?
Because the therapist can'ttell them.
And and honestly I will tellyou that I know people in
(25:08):
positions that people do go andtalk to bartenders, things like
that, and they do talk.
So if you want to be able totalk to somebody, if you're
using somebody because you needto let down, find a therapist
because they are the one personthat can't talk about what
you're saying Everybody else.
If you go and talk to somebody,you have no idea who they're
going to tell.
(25:30):
So, worrying about that,worrying about finding the right
therapist, what I have said isit may seem like a jumble in
your head, but you'll knowyou're talking to the right
person when you're talking aboutthe right stuff very quickly.
Different organizations thatyou can go to.
(25:57):
There are mental healthassociations and things to be
able to pay for therapy, and nowthey're doing therapy online so
you can fit it into your life.
There's always a solution toall of those, but the big one is
worrying about talking aboutstuff that you don't ever want
(26:19):
to reveal, and a good therapistlets you make the decision about
what you're going to talk about.
A good therapist is not goingto direct you.
They're going to help you talkand, honestly, if you go to
somebody who directs theconversation, then you probably
need to find a differenttherapist.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yeah.
So I have a few things I wantedto mention, but directing the
conversation is a big one,because there were times I would
go into my therapist and Iwould say what should I do?
And she would look at me.
She's like okay, ingrid, weneed to talk about this, let's
process through, you knowwhatever.
And I'm like no, I just wantyou to give me the answer, I
just want you to tell me.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I just want you to fix me.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yes, so I know a few reasons that people don't want
to go to therapy is like youmentioned what are people going
to say?
I do believe that, at leasttoday, the stigma of therapy is
not such a prevalent thinganymore.
People are more open in talkingabout mental health and going
(27:26):
to therapy, so that's a reallynice thing.
That's happened over the years.
And regarding people who talk,that's bartenders, yes, people
who cut your hair I mean mytherapist, the girl who cuts my
hair.
Sometimes I would go in and Isaid so, hey, I haven't seen my
therapist in a couple you know,couple weeks, so I'm going to
(27:46):
unload on you quick, becauseyou're therapist number two.
But yeah, they will talk, theyabsolutely will talk.
And another thing that I wantedto bring up that is as recent is
chat GPT.
Apparently, a lot of people aregoing to these AI tools and
using AI as their therapist,which, surprisingly, I heard
(28:09):
about this and I plugged youknow just a made up story into
ChatGPT and it gave prettydecent advice.
But something to keep in mindis one, it is AI.
Two, if you speak with atherapist or if you speak with
an attorney, they're held totheir client privileges and
HIPAA laws for you know,therapists.
(28:31):
But ChatGPT is not HIPAA laws,for you know therapists, but
chat GPT is not.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, the other thing that would really terrify me
with chat GPT is we still don'tknow which direction it's going
in.
Yes, and there have been timeswhen it has told I've heard some
stories about things that it'stold young people to do.
That are terrifying.
I mean, you're talking tosomething that doesn't have a
conscience.
That's pretty terrible.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Why don't you just kill yourself, right.
So I did want to bring that up,because that's not a good
alternative to actual therapy?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
No, you don't know what you're getting.
You don't know what you'regetting.
Exactly, and another goodresource is I know your story is
(29:33):
not again the same as mine, butdomestic violence.
A lot of domestic violenceagencies out there do have
resources available forindividuals if they need
assistance with therapy, thatyou are able to get therapy
through those organizations.
So that's a good place to checkout Right therapy through those
organizations so that's a goodplace to check out Right.
And there are a lot of rapecrisis programs that are
available that will providecounseling.
It may not be long-term, butfor things like rape crisis, the
quicker in any kind of therapy,the quicker you get it, the
(29:56):
less you've kind of internalizedall of that trauma and let it
get mixed up in the way that youjust function in the world.
It's a little easier to parcelout and take care of it.
So, yes, it's well worth it andtake care of it.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So, yes, it's well worth it.
Another common theme that comesup is when dealing with trauma
is control, and I think,regardless of whatever kind of
trauma you've experienced ifit's you mentioned war trauma,
rape, trauma, domestic violence,trauma, any kind of trauma, a
car accident sort of trauma youdon't have control of that
situation.
So naturally, following theincident, your brain may want to
somehow grab onto it or you mayconsciously say I need to
(30:42):
control this narrative.
I was not able to control thatin the past and I mean that's
like I said, it's a common themethat I've seen is trying to
control the narrative.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I was going to say I think the control thing
also has to do with avoidanceand one of the ways that that
part of your brain works, theamygdala, and they call it the
amygdala attack.
But we are on the lookout forthreatening kind of things and
(31:22):
when you're in that state whereyou're trying to control
everything, a lot of things looklike a threat that aren't
necessarily a threat, but a lotof things look like a threat.
And the amygdala was the partof our brain that is on guard to
keep us alive.
I mean, that's ultimately inour reptilian brain.
That's how we were kept alive,as it was on guard against
(31:47):
threats.
And then, the minute that itperceives a threat, it does
things like you will start tohyperventilate, your eyes might
dilate, you feel your heart rateincrease.
Well, those are all things thatare going to help you to either
(32:09):
fight or escape.
To either fight or escape.
So the heart pumping bloodfaster, which you can feel, your
heart pounding is pumping bloodinto your muscles in case you
need to run or you need to fight, and the hyperventilating is
oxygenating yourself and youreyes dilating is so that you can
(32:29):
see things better.
So your brain is responding ina way to protect you.
The problem is, a lot of thingsaren't threats really anymore.
You start perceiving so manymore things as threats.
So that's one of the reasonswhy PTSD feels so crazy, because
(32:57):
you can't control the reptilianpart of what your body is doing
to protect you.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right, so okay, so we've talked about why people
need therapy and why people stayaway from therapy.
So can we talk a little bitabout actual therapy, because
that is some difficult work andI don't want to say, you know,
emphasize the difficult part,because I don't want to steer
anybody away from therapy,because it is an incredible
(33:26):
experience, but it is a lot ofwork.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, so I will say that, as hard as therapy was,
while I was in it, I wasthinking to myself this is the
hardest thing I have ever done,but I'm growing more than I have
(33:49):
ever grown at any other time inmy life.
Like going through somethingthat difficult, I learned so
much.
I became the person that Ialways wanted to be.
I am much more authentic nowthan I ever was before.
It was the most difficultexperience, but the best
(34:15):
experience of my life.
Yeah, there's something elsethat I was going to say about
that, but I will.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
So I'm the kind of person where you know we talked
about being strong that I wantto tackle things head on.
So when I started noticing thelittle cracks in my exterior
when I went into therapy, I saidthis is what's going on, let's
get to it, let's.
This is what's going on, let'sget to it, let's jump in and
take care of it.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I want in and out.
You're fast, me too.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Me too, in and out, and it was not fast.
And actually when we startedthe conversation, actually I
wanted to talk about that quicktoo.
I did not.
I had not done therapy beforeand I wasn't sure, you know, I
had seen things on TV.
Am I supposed to lay down onthis couch?
What am I?
You know what's supposed tohappen?
And it was really uncomfortable.
(35:08):
I sat down for a minute and Isaid I don't know what to do.
I'm not sure what I'm supposedto do.
And she was just like this isyour time, whatever you want to
do.
And I said, all right.
And then I get almost the sameconversation.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yes, it was just a really comfortable.
Yeah, don't make me talk, right.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
And so I just was like looking around.
I was like, so I mean, today Ijust started like talking about
my day and then eventually shedefinitely was the right person
for me and I was able to startopening up.
And then that's when I jumpedin I said, okay, this is why I'm
here and I want to get thistaken care of.
And as we talked more to try tofigure out the right modality
(35:52):
to get to the root of my trauma,we discovered other pieces that
played into it too, and thingsthat that you said.
Like what you mentioned, youbecame your more authentic self,
and here I am in, you know,older age.
I was like I wish I would haveknown these things about myself
(36:12):
when I was 20.
And it's really incredible howthis word is overused, but I
don't know what other word touse is empowering.
It really is because you startto understand yourself and you
start to recognize things thatyou never recognized about
yourself before.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
So let me say, when I've done author talks, it's so
interesting.
So I wrote this book becausenot because it was therapeutic
for me I was a counselor.
I used all of the information.
I channeled my therapist, mypsychologist a lot when I was
(36:52):
working with students because wedid a lot of personal
counseling.
So I had a very purposeful lifeafter that.
But I didn't feel like I wasdone with the experience until I
passed along the learning,which is why I wrote the book.
I just needed to pass alongthat learning because even when
(37:12):
I was sitting there I was like,oh my gosh, I am changing so
much.
So that was a big goal of thebook.
But when I do author talks, Iwill see people sitting in the
audience.
I'm talking about things thatyou won't share because there
(37:49):
are certain things that you keepto yourself.
There are things that youberate yourself about and just
like things like how could I beso stupid to do that?
I won't do that again.
You won't talk about that stuffto anybody else because it
embarrasses you.
And I was talking about thatfor myself, because that was one
(38:14):
of the things that made itdifficult to go to therapy is I
knew there were things I did notwant to reveal and I see these
accomplished people in theaudience shaking their heads.
Yes, when I'm talking about thestuff that you keep to yourself,
that you berate yourself aboutand ruminate over, you know how
(38:35):
could I do that and try andfigure it out yourself.
And my message is that thatstuff is toxic.
That when you are holding stuffinside that you won't talk
about, you do not let yourselfbe vulnerable.
That that is toxic.
Shame is toxic.
That when you can reveal that,you really discover how much we
(39:02):
have in common, becauseeverybody's got that stuff.
And what feels great is tofinally talk about something
that you are so ashamed aboutand somebody goes oh yeah, that
happened to me and this is howI've, and like, suddenly it's
not so bad, but when you keep itto yourself, it becomes
terrible and it causes anxietyand it can cause depression.
(39:28):
And there's a psychologist thathas a podcast and a newsletter,
dr Margaret Rutherford, whocalls it perfectly hidden
depression.
And it's accomplished peoplewho will not reveal those things
(39:48):
they ruminate about.
And that was keeping me alsoout of therapy.
Like until I had to go, I wasnot interested.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Same and therapy is.
It's like a purge right, you'regetting all of that out and
it's in a non-judgmental space.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I do have to ask you, Ingrid, how long were you in
therapy dealing with the?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
trauma.
So I initially went, I only didlike three sessions.
I'm like I'm good, but thenthat's when I formed my little
bubble that I was okay, and thenI went back and it was a year
and a half.
That was super, super intense.
I mean, we did EMDR, which is,you know, if that's something
(40:39):
that you're going to do.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
I would have loved to do that my therapist.
It was early on in the EMDR andhe was like I'm not sure about
that.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yes, it was incredible.
The things that that's when Iwas talking about.
I felt like I was watching amovie.
It was, it was.
It was just incredible.
My, my brain is very vivid.
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Let me say EMDR.
For your listeners, it is eyemovement, emdr, eye movement.
Oh, I just knew it.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I always miss it?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Oh, it's eye movement , desensitization and
reprocessing.
So it is the same kind of eyemovement that happens when
you're dreaming.
Your eyes go back and forth andit's like you're watching a
movie, but you can do it withoutfeeling the sensations in your
body, so you're able to actuallyreprocess that information and
(41:40):
trauma, being desensitized to it.
You desensitize and thenreprocess.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yes, it's.
You know that you are in a safeplace, you are in the present
place that you are and you'reable to you know, if it starts
to become too vivid, you're ableto return back to that place.
And it was wild.
I had crazy dreams.
Some people have nightmares andI've always had really vivid
(42:10):
dreams.
So perhaps I had nightmares,but it just wasn't that big of a
deal to me.
But it was really strangebecause things that were sort of
repressed started surfacing.
So there was a song that I hadreally liked prior to doing a
few sessions of EMDR and thenall of a sudden I heard the song
(42:30):
on the radio and I was like, ohmy gosh, I can't listen to this
right now.
And it was weird because ituncovered something.
But it was the emotions that Iwent through.
I mean, there was some uglycrying happening, there was
anger, there was an at the end,just the like.
(42:53):
I said, I did it twice.
The second session I did thisrelease that all of a sudden
happened was like you know, Ihave this giant smile on my face
sitting on the couch and I waslike, oh my gosh, this is the
most incredible, liberatingfeeling I've ever had and it was
(43:13):
just amazing.
And if somebody does want to doEMDR, it is intense and you do
have to make sure you have apractitioner that really knows
what they're doing and isproperly trained with it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
So, because it sounds so, if people aren't familiar
with it, can you describe and Ionly know it by description is
like they use their finger or apencil to go back and forth and
you just watch it to make youreyes move back and forth.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yes, so my therapist sat in a chair across from me,
not too close but not too faraway, and I sat on the couch and
she just did this with herhands, really slow at first, and
then she would change the speed.
Yes, and so you're watching itback and forth and I think some
(44:07):
may use like a metronome or somesort of a sound effect as well
to keep that pace of that TikTokback and forth.
And so we just do that and westart talking about the memory.
What we did is we, aftertalking, before we started
actual therapy, we came upon onespecific memory that I would go
(44:29):
to, and so we went to thatspecific therapy and just talked
about it, like describe whereyou are, describe what's
happening, and it just like tookme, took me in there, where
there was, you know, like I said, the first hesitancy of my
first visit of what do I talkabout?
What am I supposed to do.
It just started coming pouringout.
(44:51):
Sometimes there wasn't much,like you know, she would say
what's going on?
I'm like I don't know nothingreally, and so we would just sit
and continue doing it untilsomething came up.
It was really interesting.
I didn't.
I knew a little bit about itbefore we started and enough to
(45:12):
make the informed decision thatI wanted to do it.
But I also did not look too farinto it because my brain is
also something that would put upa block of.
Okay, I know, this is what'ssupposed to happen next and I'm
not going to let that happen.
Yes, exactly, exactly.
That was.
That was the whole thoughtprocess, and I told her.
I said please don't tell me toomuch, because I don't want to
(45:34):
to like block this, and I feellike I will.
And at first I was like this isreally ridiculous, I can't
believe.
I'm sitting on a couch, likeyou know, looking back and forth
, and all of a sudden I was likethis legit worked for me, and
I'm not sure if that's a, youknow, a modality that works for
everyone or that is for everyone.
No, I think it's very effectivethough.
(45:56):
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
So we were talking about therapy and I know that's
a really important thing forpeople to understand what it is.
So I wrote this book, and Iwrote this book for people who
had had trauma to understandthat it's not only important to
pursue therapy but to stick withit, that you need to stick with
(46:22):
it through the end.
So I was in therapy for fiveyears really working on this,
and the reason is because I hada couple of things I was never
going to talk about.
One was a date rape that Inever even identified as a rape
until well into therapy, and Iwas so humiliated by it that
when it happened, I said I'mnever going to think about this
again.
I'm never going to.
(46:42):
I said I'm never going to thinkabout this again, I'm never
going to admit it, I'm nevergoing to talk about it, and I
couldn't, and that was one ofthe things that kept me out of
therapy.
The other was that my marriagewas in trouble.
We had a lot of difficultiesbetween us and within the first
month or less, my therapist hadsaid to me well, we haven't
(47:06):
talked about your marriage,it'll be good to talk about that
next time.
And I said to him my marriageis just fine, we don't need to
talk about that.
And so he made a note and now,20 plus years later, he says,
yeah, I remember when you saidthat and I was like, oh, that's
a problem.
And I was so afraid that if wegot into those things, that life
(47:29):
would change and the date rapewas humiliating for me.
So I just did not want to evencreate a visualization about
that for anybody, create avisualization about that for
anybody.
And my marriage.
I was really afraid if westarted talking about it, that
my marriage would end.
(47:49):
So that stuff.
There would be sessions becauseit's like you said, a good
therapist is going to let youlead because you need to keep
control.
When you've been in a trauma,you need to be the one in
control.
If somebody is leading youaround, you are not in control
and you're probably not going tostick with that and it's
probably not going to be thathelpful.
But it took me a very long timebecause one of the things that
(48:15):
I, when I was sitting in therapyI mean one of the things in my
head was, if I start theconversation, then he's going to
know what I think about, and Iwanted to be able to control
what other people thought aboutme.
So I had a very hard timestarting the conversation and
(48:36):
the only time he would reallystep in and take charge was when
I said I need help.
And if I said I need help thenhe would help me start talking.
And you know, as soon as Istarted talking, the
conversations would go to areasthat were important and they may
not.
They may never have been aboutthe rape.
(48:58):
I always felt like we should betalking about that, but there
was so much in the 20 yearsalmost from the time I'd been
raped that I kind of twistedaround and you know it was like
my feelings about things, theway I related with people, all
of that.
So so those were theconversations of therapy.
(49:20):
And I know one person said inthe reviews I have about 75 to
80 reviews on Amazon andGoodreads and I said that I
wrote the book for people whohad had trauma, but what I
discovered was that the book Isent the book out to a lot of
people to read it just because Ineeded to get reviews, and then
(49:43):
a lot of other people startedreading it.
A psychiatrist said this reallyreveals what's going on in the
mind of your patient when you'restruggling with getting them to
talk.
And there's a lot of time thatI was depressed and I talk a lot
about depression and a lot ofpeople resonated with that.
A lot of people resonated withthe holding stuff to themselves
(50:07):
and not realizing how toxic thatis.
So all of those parts of it notthe trauma or the rape, but the
therapy and the way we changeperspectives and how healing it
is to talk with somebody and getout your emotions resonated
with everybody.
(50:29):
Because what I did is in themajority of the book.
I wrote about what was going onin my head when I wasn't
talking and why I wasn't talking, and arguing with myself about
why it was so hard for me to sayanything and changing my
perspective.
And part of the perspectivechange was my conversations with
(50:52):
my therapist, ryan, and part ofthe perspective change was that
I wrote in a journal all of thetime and I would talk to people
just about how I wasexperiencing the therapy friends
of mine or my sisters andperspective changes that came
from that.
And my former husband, myex-husband, who is the father of
(51:17):
my boys.
I was married to him for 20years and at the end of really
while I was going throughtherapy.
We both went into therapy andrealized that we were a mismatch
.
We both had trauma issues andso we did split up.
But my husband and I would talkabout it quite a bit, and he
(51:39):
described he said two thingsthat have I put them in the book
, I think, because they soresonated with people.
First is that you go throughyour life collecting garbage and
keeping it in a bag that youdrag around with you in your
life and that's like all of thetrauma and stuff you don't want
(52:00):
to think about or talk about,but you keep it in the bag and
you just drag it around, likedragging a garbage bag
everywhere you go.
And then you meet the personthat you want to go through life
with and you each have yourgarbage bag full of stuff and
you take it and you dump it overyour partner's head and I was
like that is such a wonderfuldescription of what we do.
(52:22):
Yes, and the other thing hesaid about therapy because he
got a therapist too is that atherapist is like I was, the
same way I was like I just wantyou to fix me and I just want
you to tell me what to think orwhat to do or what to talk about
.
And he said being in therapy islike going through a jungle
(52:43):
with a machete and yourtherapist is behind you telling
you what to cut.
So your therapist isn't leadingyou through the jungle, your
therapist is just behind you and, as you're seeing branches and
areas that are all thick andit's that chaotic, like there's
(53:05):
just so much crap in your headand the therapist is telling you
where to cut.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
I love that analogy too.
Those are both great analogies.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, yeah, and that's a lot what therapy is
like and that's a lot what thetherapeutic conversation is like
.
You come up with the topics andyour therapist will maybe
restate what you said in adifferent way and maybe with
emotion, so that you can hear it.
Reflective listening, whichgood therapists will do a lot is
(53:37):
if you say something, they willrepeat it back to you with
emotion, like it sounds like youjust said blah, blah, blah, and
it sounds like it was veryupsetting for you and you may
not have realized it wasupsetting, but that allows you
to go deeper into that said.
(53:57):
You know, I've always beenafraid of therapy because you
know, you see what it is on TVwhere people are asking you how
you feel and that's the lastthing you want to talk about is
how you feel, and that is not.
That is not how it is.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
No, you're totally correct on that, because my
therapist would.
You know, I laugh actually alot.
I still go to therapy becausedoing this podcast I was like
I'm not doing this by myself,like I need to make sure that
I'm talking about notnecessarily conversations, that
(54:34):
anything that I put out on thepodcast, you know, is obviously
it's out there.
But if there's privateconversations I've had with
guests I don't talk about that.
Obviously it's out there.
But if there's privateconversations I've had with
guests, I don't talk about that.
But I just want to make surethat nothing else bubbles up and
I want to keep myself asgrounded as possible and just
open and I love continuing tolearn about myself.
(54:56):
And there's times I go in I waslike so nothing's happened, I
don't go.
I think I go every two or moreweeks and sometimes it's like
there's nothing that's reallyhappened and so we just start
talking.
She's like hold on a second,can we?
Can we go back to what you justsaid?
And then it's like, oh yeah,you're right, we do need to talk
(55:17):
about that a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, it was funny.
I see my therapist maybe onceor twice a year.
Now it's been 20 years and whenI was writing this book we met
a couple of reasons.
I put a lot of words in hismouth because the book is a lot
of dialogue.
It's a lot of, it's not just astory I told and I wanted to
(55:39):
make sure, as I was puttingwords in his mouth, that I was
being true to the conversationsthat we had.
And his concern was that when Igot into talking about the book
and things that it wouldn't bere-triggering and we talked a
lot about that but I don't seehim all that often he did send
(56:00):
me notes.
He sent me a lot of his notesfrom when I was in therapy and I
included some of them in thebook so that people could see
what it is that they're writing,which isn't a lot, but it's
enough to keep them on track.
I did the same thing.
(56:24):
I went to him this springbecause I was really struggling
with marketing the book andtalking about depression and I
was getting down.
It was just a lot and we had agreat session and then he set up
another one for a couple ofmonths down the road just to
make sure I was doing well.
And then I was like I went inand I was fine and I said
(56:46):
everything's been fine, I've hada great summer.
And he said, well, what wasgoing on that you let yourself
get so depressed and you didn'ttalk to anybody.
And I was like, because I knowbetter, and I was just I don't.
Okay, this is what was going on.
(57:06):
I cannot.
When it gets to be chaotic stillas healthy as I am when I get
chaos in my head and getdepressed, I cannot say to
somebody I need to talk, I can't, I need to talk, I can't.
But what I realized I could doafter I went to him the first
time was I could do something.
(57:27):
I call it throwing your hatover the fence with a text.
And so I said to my two bestfriends who I was going to be
seeing the next week I've beenreally depressed.
I just am really strugglingright now.
So that when we were togetherand they didn't jump on it, they
were wonderful about it, butthey gave me space to talk and
(57:47):
they already knew it wasn't that.
I had to say it face to face,and that's something that I had
discovered even in living ahealthy life is when I start
feeling depressed, or ifsomething has embarrassed me.
I still can't just say it, butI can send it out there in the
(58:07):
universe in a text or somethinglike that, and then that can
help me over the hump.
Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah, I find that for me, I have difficulty asking
for help and saying that outloud like I need help, and it
could be with you know whatevervariety of topics.
So let's talk about your book,braving Therapy.
So it takes us on the journeyof prior to therapy in therapy
(58:35):
yes, and then okay.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
The majority of the book is in therapy.
I mean the beginning of the book.
The prior is just the setup ofwhat happened to me and I was
very careful writing what Iwrote about because I didn't
want to trigger anybody that thebook could help, because the
primary goal of the book was tokind of be a companion for
people who are in therapy.
So it is laid out.
(58:58):
The therapy section is laid outby sections.
I talk about trust.
Well, I talk about seekingtherapy and pursuing therapy and
just what it's like, what theconversation's like and
journaling and the strugglesthat you have with trust.
There is a chapter about thatand I didn't realize that I
didn't trust and it was a hugeissue.
(59:19):
There's a chapter aboutdepression and suicidal ideation
and all of that.
It's not just things that Iwent through, but I also was a
companion for students who weregoing through it when I was a
school counselor and I wouldexplain, I would work as their
companion, and that's kind ofhow I wanted to lay out the
(59:41):
middle of this book to be acompanion for people in therapy.
And it goes right through.
It's partly a companion ofexplaining things and partly a.
This is how kind of stuff youcan expect.
This is how you heal, becauseas my perspectives changed and I
(01:00:05):
talked all the way through itabout what I was thinking and
how my perspective reallychanged, which was healing but I
go right through depression andthen the worst of it, which was
when I finally talked aboutthat date rape, and then the
things that I think about justin our society that put us in a
(01:00:25):
position where it's easy to getinto those situations.
And then the last part of thebook is the promise Like when
you stick it out, life changes,your life changes and the change
that I was afraid of my husbandat the for over 20 years to
(01:00:45):
this wonderful woman and I metthe love of my life, who was my
(01:01:07):
soulmate, and we had a wonderful15 years together and when he
died and when he died I keptexpecting that depression would
come back.
I kept expecting that thedepression would come back.
But the other thing thathappened to me through all of
this time is I started todevelop a real feeling of
(01:01:27):
gratitude for my life and whatI've already got.
And when Bob died I still justfelt so grateful that I had had
him in my life.
He was kind of the last pieceof my healing, because he taught
(01:01:48):
me that I was acceptable, nomatter what I thought about,
that he loved and accepted me,no matter when.
Stuff that I would start to tryand bury, and he wouldn't let
me bury it because I'd start togo flat, which you recognize as
the like, you start turning offyour emotions and everything and
he would help me talk aboutthings and make me realize that
I am acceptable and lovable andthat was like the final piece.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
And I'm just so grateful for that.
Well, and then, like you said,through therapy, you got to
become your authentic self.
So it's like your authenticself is living this, actually
living your life with the loveof your life, which is beautiful
.
So your book you mentioned it'son Amazon and Goodreads, it's
on Amazon and Goodreads.
Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
You can get it in any bookstore.
It's on Barnes, noble.
So wherever you get your books,you can order it or possibly
buy it.
It's in some libraries.
Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And I'll include all of your links in the show notes,
but do you have any specificlinks that you want to share
with listeners?
Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
So I will have and I'm not sure if they're up there
yet, but I for that wouldinclude, like the overcoming
objections to therapy, what toexpect in therapy, how to find a
(01:03:28):
good therapist, those kind ofpieces of information that
people can just have sent totheir emails.
So that will be up there.
And yeah, I'm on BravingTherapy.
Alphide Naip is on Amazon orBarnes and Noble.
(01:03:49):
You can find the book there weboth said it's a pretty quick
read.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Okay, perfect, it's on my read list.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
It's on Kindle.
Yeah, it's also on Kindle.
Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Okay, and so, finally , linda, I believe that every
story carries strength, and whatis the strength or message that
you want to leave withlisteners?
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Oh.
I think the big message is it'smy philosophy of our life here
on earth too but my trauma andyour trauma, you know people may
say, oh, that was awful and itwas, and I wouldn't wish it on
(01:04:34):
anybody.
However, everybody has reallyreally hard situations that they
go through in life.
Everybody.
Everybody has things that theywould rather just bury.
(01:04:55):
Well, there are some peoplethat talk about everything, but
I think some people that talkabout everything do that.
So, and whatever you're afraidof being vulnerable is what
causes connection.
That is what connects you topeople and makes you feel like
(01:05:20):
life is worth living and you'renot alone.
But I guess my message is weall have hard stuff and it might
just be drama in your life, butit is kind of trauma to you and
you need to deal with it.
Please don't bury it.
And the other part of it thereason I wrote Braving Therapy
(01:05:44):
is when you go into therapy,when you've got a good therapist
, don't just go and stop.
Stick with it until you are allthe way through, and I kept
wondering what that was going tolook like when I was in therapy
, but you'll know when you'reall the way through.
(01:06:04):
It's transformative.
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
It really is, and thank you, linda, for joining me
today, thank you for your bookand thank you for all of this
information, super helpfulinformation for all the
listeners.
Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
It's been a real joy talking with you, ingrid.
Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
It really has.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you, okay, take care.
Thank you again, linda, forjoining me today, and thank you,
ingrid, it really has.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you, okay, take care.
Thank you again, linda, forjoining me today and thank you,
warriors, for listening.
I have included the links Lindawas referring to, as well as
her one in three profile in theshow notes.
I'll be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong andwherever you are in your journey
(01:06:42):
, always remember you are notalone.
That's the number one.
I-n the number three podcastcom.
Follow 1&3 on Instagram,facebook and Twitter at 1&3
Podcast.
To help me out, please rememberto rate, review and subscribe.
(01:07:10):
1&3 is a .5 Pinoy productionMusic written and performed by
Tim Crow.
©.
Transcript Emily Beynon.
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