Brave Enough to Heal Knipe’s Journey Through PTSD Therapy and Truth

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello everyone, and welcome, Welcome, Welcome once again to Emerge
and Empower podcast TV with yours Julie dotor lynnj. Now,
we have individuals that come on every week, as you know,
and they here to tell their story of their emergence
and it is an incredible path to healing. And it

(01:08):
is so fulfilling when we find individuals that come on
and I've turned their pain in the purpose and their
tests into testimony.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Today is no different.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
But as you know, what, every story is different because
the experience is different. The journey may seem similar, but
they're not all the same. So on today, we have
a special guest that will be sharing her story of
her emergence. So what I'm telling you to do right
now is to go ahead and subscribe subscribe to our

(01:40):
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Speaker 3 (01:48):
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Tell you subscribe and also share because sharing is caring,
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Subscribe, Subscribe, subscribe, it says it already, subscribe, like and share.
I'm gonna give you a moment so you can get
yourself situated, if you have to park the car, if
you have to put the kids you know, in the
room to give them their toys, whatever it is you
need to do, so that you can pay attention to
the story. I know you have to replay. You can

(02:27):
always go back and catch up later. But may this
bless each and every one of you as you come
on today. May healing begin today because it is time
to heal for real?

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Can you say that with me?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
It is time to heal for real, and we'll be
right back with our guess after our paid commercial best
seller soon to be New York Times bestseller.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
All right, introduce yourself.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Hi everyone.

Speaker 5 (02:59):
My name is to Linda Joseph and I'm a pastor, mentor,
life coach And basically this book's about my journey and
it's a journey to healing. It starts from my childhood
to life and marriage into helping other people heal. So
my whole point of view is making you be the
better person.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
That God created you to. Mere am.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
All right, So what do we have on here today?
As you can tell, she has a name that's also
similar to mine, we have the same first name, and
her name is Linda, and on today, I would like
to just bring you into a balue and then we'll
bring it right into the set so you can have
an understanding of who this woman is and what she

(03:44):
has gone through in her own past experience a man
in her own past experience.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
And again, if you have a story to tell, this.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Is the platform that we call onto you to come
on and share your story. Okay, share your story. So
Linda is a school counselor and a rape survivor, She
shares her journey with PTSD, mental illness and healing in
the supportive memoir. After being triggered during a graduate course

(04:19):
all Right, she finds herself spiraling into flashbacks and depression,
reliving the events of her assault while suffering from insomnia
and obsessive thoughts. Here's the thought, I thought I was
going to go crazy, she writes, feeling that drove her

(04:40):
to visit with her professor one on one and seek
out the therapists to help explore her traumatic history, despite
having prior negative experiences with counseling. The result is displayed
with vulnerability and sensitivity here and what Linda describes as
a road map of what to do about PTSD. Her

(05:06):
transparency is powerful, and as she sparkles her breakthrough and
private therapy conversations throughout the emotive memoir and breaches her
compartmentalized memories to ignite the process of self discovery and
emotional growth. She writes from a place of self reflection

(05:29):
and understanding, digging into her childhood and early experiences coping
with grief and pain, while siphing her memoirs of sexual
assault and recognizing how those events shape her relationships, specifically
her first marriage. Riders will be swept into her sessions

(05:50):
with her therapists Ryan Keller as she unpacks deeply complex
revelations and share the highs and lows of counseling Steadily
compassionate towards those who have suffered sexual Aboosese, Linda urges
readers to learn from her repressed emotions and seek support,

(06:12):
discussing how to find the right therapists, recognize the lingering effects.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Of trauma, and more.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Her first hand account in inspiring as the journal entries
terrapist notes relate conversations she includes here as she reflects
that my being brave enough to do this might inspire
readers to be brave enough to tell their story and
that will help them heal. So you will be ready

(06:41):
to be able to experience her experience here on today
as she share it with you.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Are you ready?

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Let us welcome Linda to the said. Welcome to emerge
and empower on today. Welcome. Introduce yourself to our audience.
In short, just went through your bio.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yep, thank you, doctor Lynn. I'm so excited to be here.
It was great talking with you the other day. Yeah,
I go by Linda Knipe my writing is Linda L
five Knipe. I'm a retired school counselor. I've been retired
for quite a few years now, but I come from

(07:24):
I come from a large, happy family. I come from
a pretty secure background. But I had, just like everyone has,
difficult times and some traumas in my life. And I
got to a point when I was just about forty,

(07:47):
I was in my first counseling graduate class, and it
triggered a lot of things that I had buried. And
that's what starts the book.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Wow Wow.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
So Linda, take us through your journey and what was
that like for you.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
As you start to share your story, Let's.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Just take us from as far as you can remember
and where.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Your healing journey began.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Well, I think that I always felt like I had
it all together. I was pretty mature and kind of
grew up. I was the oldest girl in a pretty
large family, so I was kind of on a pedestal,
and so that's that's a pretty heavy place to be.

(08:45):
It also hard to stay on that pedestal. But I
think it determined a lot of the ways that I
approached things, which is I could handle everything. When difficult
stuff happened, I would just deal with it, put it away,

(09:06):
and move on. It's like I didn't turn to people
for help, right And so, so I had things happen
I had when I was eleven, my grandmother, who was
my person in life. She lived just a couple of
doors down from us, and I was as close to
her almost as I was to my mom. And she

(09:28):
died in a fire at her house. And uh so
I was being one of the oldest kids in the family,
everybody was kind of you know, the kids are all
all terribly upset and crying, and my mother was trying
to stay strong, and so I just I buried my
grief and just tried to be really helpful to everybody.

(09:51):
I mean, you know, as remove on. Other things happened
in life that are tough, But I think the toughest
was I had a really unfortunate and humiliating sexual encounter
when I was in college that I totally buried. I
swore I would never even think about it again. And

(10:13):
then I had a break and rape when I was
living on my own when I was in my mid twenties.
I was living in Florida, quite a ways from New
York where my family was, so you know, and I
just I powered on with everything and got through the
shock and everything, and then moved on and I got married.

(10:38):
We had three little boys, and as they started to
get school age, I went back to a graduate program
in councilor education. I was already working on a grant
in the counseling department at the high school, so I
went back to get my graduate degree. And at the
end of the first class, we were talking about therapy,

(11:01):
and I asked if there was ever a time when
you feel worse in therapy before you feel better. And
I was thinking back to an unfortunate encounter I had
with a therapist very soon after the rape, and the
professor got very quiet and he said, well, one of

(11:22):
the times where it will be worse is when you
have a rape in your history and you didn't deal
with it, and then you start dealing with it and
therapy and it will be harder before it gets better.
And so yeah. So I'm sitting in a circle of
about a dozen students. It was a summer class, and

(11:45):
I felt like someone had just thrown something at my face,
and all I could think was I wanted to blink
really fast, and I kept thinking, don't blink, don't blink,
or they're all no right, something happened. So as soon
as I left there, I started with re experiencing. It
was very strange. Before I even got home, I think

(12:09):
I stopped in a parking lot and I felt like
somebody was climbing on me. And I pretty quickly was
not able to eat anymore, which was very strange for me. Wow,
And all I could do was drink like instant breakfasts

(12:30):
and stuff. And I was having a really hard time sleeping,
and I was I was ruminating on all of this
stuff and I didn't want to well, I didn't know
what to do. I didn't know what's going on. So
I went back after a couple of weeks and I
made an appointment and talked to my professor and he

(12:50):
explained to me what was happening, and I was What
I didn't understand was why can't I control my thinking.
I've always able to, always be able to handle things.
And he explained PTSD to me, and he said, you're
not going to be able to just put this away.
This stuff is spilling out and you can't control it,

(13:12):
and you're going to need therapy. So that put me
on the path of starting to find a good therapist
who was an expert in traumatic stress.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Okay, so in this discovery now though, as you are
going to see this therapist, was it just with a
therapist or did you bring this revelation to your family members?
Was anyone else aware as you was going through that
triggering event?

Speaker 4 (13:46):
Well? I told my husband what was going on because
I was already very busy. We have three little three
little ones, right, I'm I'm sure I told my mother
and my sisters because I talked to them about everything.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
That was.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
That was pretty much.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
It, right, So when it first happened, you didn't talk
to anybody and tell.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
You what triggered? You talked about it or did you
share it when it happened.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Oh yeah, Actually when it happened, I was involved with
the police and there was a trial and all of that. Yeah. Yeah,
we caught him. I fought him, so that's good. Yeah.

(14:43):
So there was a trial and after I met my
husband right after the end of the trial, and.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
So he was aware of what you had experienced.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
He was and he was there in the first six
months I think that we met, I was still struggling
a lot with Okay, the shock and all of that.
So he was very aware of that and eventually, you know,
I just put it behind me. And so when I
when I was triggered and I told him what happened,
he he had known, you know, he known affected me

(15:19):
to begin with, right, Yeah, so he was prepared. Yeah
mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, That's that's why I asked that because usually sometimes
when individuals are triggered, they hadn't actually spoken about it
to anyone. So I wanted to know if that share
was already done prior or during the trigger, because it's
a lot when you have to share it during the
time of trigger and nobody knew about it previously. So
here it is you coming with this uh realization of

(15:47):
your life that nobody knew about, so they didn't know
what your what your emotions were. So that part was
at least good because you had a community, you had
support in that process. And also the person went to
Drew Broadcast, which is also a great that that was
brought aware. So now that you will have this trigger

(16:08):
and you told your husband about it, take us through.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
It was it was before you could really research things
on internet, so I was using phone books to fund
therapists within my vicinity that had that he had PTSD
and sexual trauma expertise. Oh, I talked to several of

(16:36):
them and kind of I reached out and people called
me back and we hit phone conversations, and my therapist Ryan,
we talked for a bit and then he suggested that
I come in to an appointment and we talk and
make a decision after that. And as I've described in

(16:57):
the book about seeking therapy, you know, you know pretty
quickly when you're talking to the right person, you feel
that connection, you feel like you're talking about the right thing.
So that's how that's how it out with him.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, Okay, so that journey continued. Uh So we're just
going to keep going through through your steps. I know
sometimes we don't go in chronological order. But as you've
gone through this first experience and the therapy, what was
the process of the therapy for you?

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Did you find it effective?

Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah? So therapy for post traumatic stress generally they uh, well,
the most the most used and an effective therapy is
cognitive behavioral therapy, also cognitive processing therapy. It's always it's

(17:55):
all about processing those those things in your mind that
you didn't process before. So I'm gonna let me explain
a little bit about traumatic PTSD. So a lot of
people have trauma, and what happens is we we have sensations,

(18:18):
you know, that are that are very uncomfortable things that
our body does and our brain controls when something bad
is happening, and it's it's designed to protect us. So
things may happen like you're breathing increases, you know, you

(18:39):
start breathing faster, your heart starts pumping more quickly, your
eyes dilate. Those are all things that our brain has
us doing to protect us to get us ready for
like breathing faster and heart pumping faster to oxygenate our
muscles so that we can respond with either fighting or fleeing,

(19:02):
and the same with our eyes our pupils dilating to
be able to see things better. So those are all
things that we do to protect ourselves. They're kind of
they can be sensations can be kind of uncomfortable. And
when when all of that is done, when all of

(19:26):
the scary situation is over, you know a lot of times,
most of the time you put a story to it,
you talk about it, you talk about it in your head,
you talk about it with other people, narrative to what
happened and to all of those sensations that you were feeling,
and you store them in memory where you can pull

(19:48):
them up. It will if you want to pull them
up again, you can. Otherwise they stay there because it's
what I read in a paper when I was researching
it at first, when it first happened. Is it biology
and biography put together and put in your mind, and
the biology or the sensations and feelings you have, the
biography is the story about it, and you put those

(20:11):
together in the store. With trauma that you don't deal with,
you kind of just shove it away, Like when I
clean my house when I have guests coming really quickly,
and there's stuff I don't know what to do with,
but I've got to get it out of sight, and

(20:32):
so I shove it in a closet and there it sits,
and I forget about it until it happens again, and
I shove more stuff in, and pretty soon or over
the years, the closet gets fuller and fuller until you
hit a point where you can't shove anything else in.
Stuff starts popping out when you try to. And that's

(20:53):
very similar to what happens in your head with all
of those really uncomfortable feelings that you've shoved away because
they were too uncomfortable to think about and put a
narrative to. And so there were the things about my
grandmother's death and what happened to me twice with sexual assault,

(21:20):
and I just I kept shoving things in there, and
when I was triggered in that counseling class, things from
a lifetime I was almost forty years old started popping
back out again, and then I couldn't control it. Yes,
So you asked the question about what it's like in therapy,

(21:40):
is for good therapists for PTSD or sexual trauma kind
of therapy are not going to direct your therapy. It's

(22:01):
really important that the client or the patient feel like
they're in control of what they want to talk about,
because it's really important to feel safe. And a lot
of times when people are bringing up stuff that you're
not ready to talk about, that's not safe. So I

(22:22):
was in charge of deciding what I was going to
talk about, which could be really difficult because I was
very busy hiding things. My marriage was struggling, and I
didn't want to talk about that. I refused. When I
went into therapy, I said to myself, I'm never going

(22:42):
to talk about that dating situation that I'm so humiliated about.
So it was hard to bring up subjects sometimes to
talk about because when I would go into therapy, I
didn't always feel like stuff about the rape was in

(23:04):
the front of my mind, stuff that I wanted to
talk about. So eventually, over time I would just talk
about what was going on in my life with my children,
in my marriage, with work, and it would get around
to how that related to how I was, how I

(23:27):
was struggling with the post traumatic stress disorder, and what
was behind those struggles, and so we did, we would
get around to talking about it, but it was just
in a way that I was in control and my
therapist would just be able to help me talk about

(23:49):
things in a way that I didn't feel. I didn't
feel like I was being led into anything that I
wasn't ready for. So it was it was it is
a slow process, especially because I had so many, so
many challenges going on at the time. Yeah, you you

(24:15):
you asked a little bit about what it was like
talking in therapy and the kind of prevalent therapies that
are effective are cognitive their own cognitive processing. They are
also there are also other kinds of therapy. They do
play therapy for children, and you're probably familiar with the

(24:39):
the PTSD book that is out there really describing things.
The Body keeps the Score by dietyle Van der Cook,
and he talks about theater therapy, which is very much
like play therapy. But those those things are can be effective,

(25:01):
but they're not easy to access. Cognitive behavioral therapy and
cognitive processing therapy are pretty are effective therapies that that
counselors and therapists are trained in and that you can access.
It's putting a story. So the part of it, the

(25:26):
cognitive and behavior is putting a putting a story to
what you're experiencing and how you're handling that so that
those memories can be stored appropriately. It takes a long
time because as you talk about things and you get

(25:48):
new perspective, more stuff comes up. I didn't remember everything.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Right, right, It comes up?

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
So so that's so that was my roadmap to therapy,
and that's that's what the book is. Is my experience
and my experience as a school counselor kind of being
a companion for students who were also dealing with therapy.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
So okay, So as a school counselor, you also were
able to assist with.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Children.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, I So, so if if a child had PTSD
or was had sexual trauma, most we would try and
get them into therapy, okay, or you know, they they
had gotten into therapy, but it's hard and so so

(26:58):
my position would mostly be to explain what was going
on if they were being if they were being medicated,
to explain what that process is like, because the whole
medication process is is a trial and error. The same
medications don't work for everybody. Yeah, and it takes time,

(27:23):
and kids would be frustrated, their parents wouldn't know what
was going on, and and so I would explain to
parents what the kids were experiencing and how they could
be supportive and just help the kids to kind of
persevere through it. Yeah. So, and there were kids that

(27:47):
couldn't get to other couldn't get to other therapy and
affordability as well, right and so and and we were
in a location that didn't have therapists. You had to
have transportation to get to the next town. So there
were a lot of students who were had experienced trauma

(28:09):
through their lives that it was just the counselors. We
did a lot of personal counseling.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Personal counselor.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean it's a start, and it
helps because they have someone to talk to as well,
because the first key factor, I feel is to talk
about it, to be open about it, because when you
keep it all bottled up inside, that that has, you know,
it has.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
You have to find someplace.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
To put that because you can go, like you said,
you go through life, or you go through the experience
and you tend to want to put it aside, don't
want to deal with. Okay, that's done, done done, and
then you're triggered, you know, Like for me, I was older.
You know, this happened when I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
But here I am.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I have my kids, I have my life, I'm good,
like everything's going fine. But I never addressed it. You know,
everybody knew about it, and there were things that they
did not know. And so I was thirty five years
old when I was triggered. Here it is me going
back to being six years old, all right, So I
learned it.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
Was almost twenty years for me. Wow, Yeah, I lost
my train of thought.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
It was almost funny years for you.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, but what I meant, what I was saying is
when the trigger happens, it's like you're reliving, You're going
back through that experience all over again. Sounds, you know,
things that what happened, whatever it was to cost the
trigger and here it is to find and I had
to make a decision, you know what, it's time for
me to face this, deal with this, or ask God,
like why do I have to deal with this right now?

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Right?

Speaker 4 (29:45):
Oh my gosh. I talked to God all the time.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Oh my goodness, when I was like why now, Like,
I'm good, you know.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
Why aren't you know? Why can't you fix this? Why
can't I figure this out?

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Right?

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Yeah? So I so I talked to God. I did
have some revelations about that, and it was very funny
because so I'm going to jump back the thing that
I lost my train of thought on. As you said,
that people keep things in their head and they don't
talk about that. And that's one of in the reviews

(30:22):
for my book, it was one of the things that
was eye opening for me because I was very nervous
about putting my story out there and then I started
getting reviews, and I started getting people talking to me,
and nobody was talking about my story. You were talking
about the part where I was talking about how I

(30:44):
wouldn't talk, how I kept things in my head and
I was ruminating. And in the book I write a
lot of the dialogue of what I was talking about
in my head just to myself. Nobody else that The
problem with that, and I said it many times in
the book, is that when you do that, the only

(31:07):
perspective your getting is your own, and you just keep
on rehashing the same sad stuff in your heart on yourself,
and you are berating yourself, and it gets to be
a very negative self talk, which is not helpful at all.
And when I talk about that in author talks or

(31:32):
when people have read that stuff in the book, they're
all in author talks. I have very accomplished people sitting
in the audience who are sharing our heads. Yes, going,
I do that, you know, And the whole, the whole
I was on I was on a sheriff's podcast where

(31:54):
the sheriff does a podcast, and I was on with
my brother is an investigative sergeant and he's very involved
in mental health wellness for the officers, okay, and they
had read the book. They both read the book and
they were both exactly the same way. It's like, oh
my god, you know you're you're saying that we have
to talk, and we know we have to talk, but

(32:16):
it's such a hard thing to do, and so you
just huminate in your head. So that is the big
message of the book is that that is toxic.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Right, And you do mention a book here, So let
me just put the book here so everybody can see,
all right, because we keep talking about the book.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
Braving because terraby, because you have to be brave enough
to go talk with somebody who can actually help give
you perspective. You know, if you start out just talking
to people that you know, as long as they are safe,
as long as they are non judgmental, people who will

(32:58):
listen and people who are good at giving you grace,
right and perspective are really good people to talk to.
As long as there are people you feel safe with
they're not judgmental. What I've learned is that when you
talk to people and they're not judging you, they're just

(33:20):
being listening and helpful, you stop judging yourself.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
You learn to stop judging yourself. So that was really,
that was really a big revelation. And then I said
that I prayed a lot and I railed a lot
of God, and I would get very funny responses like immediately,

(33:48):
and it wasn't just an answer, it was something that
was funny, like unmistakably God with a sense of humor. Yes,
But what I realized when I was sitting in my
therapist's office is, oh, God is telling me that we
are not made to live in isolation, right. We are
made to live in community. We are supposed to share

(34:11):
our burdens and we are supposed to take them to
others and share our burdens. And I would take it
to God a lot, and that's the only place I
had for me, well me too for a long time. Yes,
I I you know, I would get messages back, but

(34:35):
it's it's when I really was able to realize that
we need to open up to others. And I realized
that I realized that keeping things to myself, even the
most humiliating stuff, is not serving me.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
No.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yeah, So so finally it took a long time. I
have a very thick head. I was very and I
was very afraid of what might have to change if
I talked about things. I do not want to talk
about my marriage because I was so afraid that if
we really started talking about it, that I would have

(35:17):
to face the fact that it wasn't healthy for any
of us in that marriage. And ultimately, ultimately that's where
I came to after after four or five years, four
years of therapy, and my therapist finally said, do you

(35:40):
want to be still talking about this ten years down
the road?

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Right?

Speaker 4 (35:44):
And it was like, I, you know, it wasn't healthy
for my boys. So we had best four years talking
about it, well, a couple of years not talking about it.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
But oh by the time not talking and then when
you came into the journey of talking about it, she's
questioned you, if you want to spend the next ten
years talking about it?

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah? Yeah, if I want to still be in that
same space, And I knew that I had to make decisions.
And also, I mean really one of the one of
the last things was talking about the humiliating dating experience

(36:28):
that I had because I blamed myself a lot for
the sexual encounter that I had and I had never
identified it as a rape, which I think happens to
a lot of a lot of women. It was college.
It was a college situation that happens a lot to

(36:49):
college young women, and you feel, you know, you feel
guilty and responsible in all of those things, and you
don't label it what it is right. And one of
the things that I did say in the book after
I finally talked about it, and I said, I never
wanted to write this chapter. I was going to skip it.
And I realized that if the book was going to

(37:10):
be authentic, that I had to talk about it, because
that's not the authentic that's the experience that so many
women have. And what I ended up saying after talking
about part of the book is talking about my story,
and then the second half of every chapter is talking

(37:31):
about my learning. And a lot of it was what
I was thinking in my head and where I was
going and how I was changing and how I was healing.
But when I finally talked about that, it was like,
I never wanted to write this chapter. I was not
going to talk about this in therapy. It took a
long time for me to My therapist didn't know what

(37:52):
the heck could happen to me because I just wouldn't
talk about it.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
And I finally realized that I was not going to
heal unless I, you know, a bullet. Yeah, And so
I revealed what happened in the book. But then I
talked about how we raise our children talking about sexual stuff.
We don't We don't educate them. As a school counselor,

(38:20):
I would talk to kids who were involved in sexual
activity and they would not talk about it. They wouldn't
talk about what they were doing. They would say, I
can't talk about it. It's too embarrassing. It's like you're
doing it, you know. And I just realized that kids

(38:42):
would joke about it, they would be really crass about it,
and they would they would make fun and all sorts
of things, but nobody talks about it in a really
vulnerable way, and boys either, and so guys are are
very confused about how to handle things. But what I

(39:03):
ultimately said is, no matter who was to blame, if
you feel like you were raped, to deal with it.
Because if you feel like you were raped, you were
raped and you have to address it. So that was
my big message.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Well, I mean, look at it as adults. It takes
you years to address it. As a kid or even
as a teen, nobody really want to talk about You
don't want to get that type of attention. So as
a result, I don't want to.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
Talk about it.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
And before you know it, you're in your early twenties,
your thirties and all of this.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
I've had someone that I spoke to. She was sixty,
you know.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Another person was eighty when they finally really confronted it,
and that's when they realized the true healing had begun.
So they were going through life just existing and not living,
never talked about it, and then this weight came off
once they voiced it, you know, they once they talk
about it, when they sat down. You know what, I'm
going to deal with this today, and I'm going to

(40:08):
tell my truth, all right. So telling your truth is important.
That's your story, you know. And you're not responsible for
what somebody else did to you. What the perpetrator did.
You know they were wrong. It was not your fault.
And stop blaming and shaming and all the things that
comes in your head as to why you don't want
to talk about it, why you don't want to share.

(40:28):
I'm in a good place right now. I don't want
to deal with this. There's so many different reasons.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Not right now. I just met someone.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
You know, there's always something that's causing you to say,
you know what, I don't want to talk about this
right now, But it's actually a lot that you're doing
is stemming from that earthplace even though you're not talking
about it, but you're still reacting from it. There are
still things going on.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
Well, you work really hard to keep control of everything.
You know, you want to keep control of other people.
You want to keep control of how they respond to things.
Right still find I still find that, and it doesn't
happen often, but in really uncomfortable exchanges that I will
get that deer in the headlights freeze, kind of trying

(41:15):
to flee response to things. And I I've been living
my life the last so my therapy was twenty years
ago and I my husband and I split up. We've

(41:37):
had a much we had a much healthier and happier
family just doing things without living together, and we eventually
both found people that were perfect for us and I
had he's in a wonderful marriage. I had a wonderful
marriage until my husband passed away four years ago, and

(41:57):
I am the loss. Thank you. My husband was such
a big part of really finishing my healing, of accepting
myself and not beating myself up about stuff, and he
would just listen non judgmentally and have very practical takes
on anything that I talked about. And I really learned

(42:21):
to talk and to not judge myself and to reach
out to other people. But recently, I think because life
has gotten away from me. It's just super busy for me,
and things have happened, and I've started to get depressed,
and you know, it comes around and it happens with everybody,

(42:46):
but I've found myself kind of falling back into the
chaotic thinking I don't want to talk about this, going
along with the you know, everything's fine, you know, and
just feeling terrible. And I finally saw my therapist yesterday.
I see him maybe once or twice a year.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Now, okay, And.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
He reminded me that you know, why are you not
talking with people?

Speaker 3 (43:17):
And you have to talk. You have to talk.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
You have to take platforms like this too to share.
Talking is healing.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
But I had been listening to another podcast where the
host said, you know, when I get depressed, I just
I don't want to tell people because I have so
many people in my life. That would love bomb me
and I don't want to be love bombed when I
feel And I said to him that's how I feel,
and he said, then tell people what you want from them.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
And it was like as soon as he said that,
I was like, oh, of course, that's it's And it
felt better when I walked out of there because I
started right away, and I don't like to do it
face to face because right then it was still a bit.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Right, whatever it is, maybe it's a text message.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
I texted some people and I said that I've been
really struggling with depression lately and I'm really looking forward
to talking with you, right, and I just need for
somebody to give me practical So what works when you
feel like this exactly? Because that's what I need, is
somebody to take me back to a place where I
can figure out what I need to do for myself,

(44:28):
right right, And that was my goodness. That was so helpful.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
And I'm glad you mentioned it because a lot of
people think and I say this a lot on the podcast,
where people say it happened a long time ago, get
over it. Something might have taken a minute to impact
your life. But it's it lasts for a long time.
It leaves an imprint, right and even though you've gone
through your stories and your journeys, you know, like for me,
I speak, I go to events and all of that.

(44:54):
When I stay busy, I'm good because I'm not thinking
about myself. I like not to think about myself. I
like not, you know so, But then when you get
alan by yourself and you have all this time on
your hand and your brain, you start thinking in these
places like wait, I already got over that, Like why
am I dealing with this?

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Why am I thinking?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Is? I've been there, done that, and so you have to.
So there are days where I get up and I'm like,
you know, I just need a me moment right now,
Like let me just feel okay, I'll be good tomorrow.
I'm not gonna stay there because I've learned. I'm not
staying there. I'm not going out today. I might have
been excited about going someplace, but so does that feeling
come over?

Speaker 3 (45:31):
I say, you know what, I will not.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Be good today. You know, let me be. You know what,
I don't want to go out. I don't want to
be a party pooper. So let's let me be or
why don't we do this instead, right, let's just do
a one on one. Let's just go to the beach.
That's you know. And so I ask what I want? Yeah,
you know, and if I if the person is not available,

(45:56):
I tell myself, you could do this by yourself. You
can you have lunch by yourself, you can go through
the movies by yourself.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
And I like me.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
I mean, I was raised with six children. My mom
had six of us. I have six children, so I
was always never a dull moment.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
In my house. But I like my quiet time, right.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
And when that happens, you know, I regroup, I pray,
I do my fast, you know, like right now I
want to fast, you know, helping other individuals do it.
But it's also refreshing me, right because when when we
sat thinking and feeling and some thought came to you
and you're like, oh my god, I'm really feeling down

(46:38):
right now or whatnot, but you don't say anything and
you hold it there, and next thing, you know, the
week that's gone and you're still in that place. You're smiling,
you're you know, you're doing everything, but you're still not
okay right until you address that. And so I would text, Hey,
I'm just gonna vent right here, and da da da

(46:59):
da da dah h you know, and I write a lot,
so it's got a long I said, you don't have
to respond, just allow me to say what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Yeah, and that works. Yeah, yeah, that works.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
So that's basically what your theorist was saying. Talk about them,
tell them.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
What you want.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
Yeah, it's it's always a work in progress, and it
is with everybody. But hiding it as toxic.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yes, yes, silence is a killer, guys, it really is.
It destroys, so it's important to do so. So Linda,
like I said, I think you're the first lender on
the set, So thank you. And they don't call Linda

(47:49):
kill the lender anymore. So we can only go back
maybe fifty years. I don't think forty, forty or thirty years.
There's no more Linda's.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
If there's a lender there, you know, up there at.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Age, it'll come back around.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I don't think it could ever
get old. Let's get into the word of encouragement. What
would you say to an individual watching right now, probably
who hasn't said anything. Would your advice be to that
person who has not confronted their truths. Well.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
I think that writing, writing helps. Writing helps a lot.
I journaled a lot, and it was the first place
that I was able to be honest with how I
was feeling in what was going on. And I am
a person I do not like to talk about other people.

(48:51):
If people are giving me a hard time or I
feel like somebody's come up short or been unfair or anything,
I don't like to go and tell other people. But
I could write it, and I could write how it
affected me, and I could write all the bad words
that I was really running through my head and start

(49:13):
to process things that way, and that's really helpful. And
then to start to think about, as you said, who
you can reach out to that isn't going to judge you,
that's just a good listener, and tell them what you
need from them. If you do not need to be

(49:34):
love bomb, then tell them. I can't be hugged when
I am upset, And I'm not sure exactly where they originated,
but it has been with me through at least my
adult life. If I'm really upset and somebody wants to
wrap their arms around me, it's like no, don't touch

(49:54):
me right now. So it's important to tell people what
you need. I need perspective. I need for somebody to
spin my thoughts in a different direction that I had
not thought about before. And so when you have somebody

(50:15):
that's that's a good practical person, that's a good person
to go talk to, right right, Yeah, people that are
highly emotional and judgmental are not the people that you
want to go to if you need safety. But do
I would start by is your journaling about your own

(50:36):
feelings and thoughts. Also write down the people that you
feel safe talking to. Yeah, and then I would, you know,
maybe just reach out to them in text. It's a
whole lot easier to start, easier, yeah, yeah, than actually
coming up to somebody saying it noney, having to deal
with what they say back to you. You might not

(50:58):
be quite ready for that.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
It's true, it's true.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Texting or if you want to do a voice note,
you know you have it. You can do a voice text.
There's so many ways that you can do it and
just find what that.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Is, whatever works for you.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
If you want to meet the person and you know,
just set it up.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Hey, I'd like to meet you know, can.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
We talk, and make sure that somebody who will actually
take notice, because there are people who might say can
we talk, and it'll.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Be like a whole week go by before they're like,
oh no. Find someone who's going to be conscious of
you know, she said can we talk?

Speaker 2 (51:36):
And who's going to push you, who's not going to say, well, no,
let's talk later. Someone who's going to say, okay, let's
do this when And a lot.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
Of times it is people who are also struggling who
will understand, yes, you know you there. They are great
people to reach out to and say listen, struggling to
can get a cup of coffee right? Something like that.

(52:06):
But I do have to say that the book's title
is Breathing Therapy, and the reason I wrote it is
because it is important when you have trauma to take
the therapy to the end. I kept waiting for my
therapist to say, Yep, we're done, Yep, we're done, and

(52:27):
he he'd let me determine when we were really done.
And it wasn't until I really was able to reach
out to other people and not need to be coming
all the time anymore. And when and for me, there
took five years because like I said, I was going

(52:49):
through a lot. I mean, it was it took us
up to our my husband's and my separation, And the.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Question I have do you feel like what you had
experience or what you were going through might have been
what brought you and your husband relationship to the place
that it got to. No.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
I think that the difficulties in our relationship were one
of the reasons why.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
I was so close to one of the reasons.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
Okay, yeah, But after after all of that, when we
were able to both move on to really happy situations,
that was also where I really developed. I'd always been

(53:44):
kind of an optimist. I also came from a great,
big family, and we were happy and close, and I'd
always been optimistic. But afterwards, when I was in my
second marriage and we were just living our life, I
just became so great. And it was it was not because, uh,

(54:05):
because things were going well. It was just grateful for
like a beautiful day or you know, being able to
have be able to sit out in the grass and
buy water and the sunshine. And I was just grateful
for what I had and that that feeling has never

(54:28):
left me. Even even when he died, I was still grateful.
I was grateful that I had had him and he
brought the balance that you need it. Yeah, and I
do a lot of things now to keep balance in
my life. I I have been a weight watcher most

(54:50):
of my adult life, but now I go. Even though
I keep my weight in check, I continue to go
for the community because people, when people talk, they remind
me of things that I do that are better for
my wellness that I had forgotten about. Things I knew
that worked but I'd forgotten about, right, And I you know,

(55:12):
I try to get regular exercise, and I pay attention
to my spiritual life. So so taking care of all
of those things to keep balance in my life right
has really helped me a lot. And even going through

(55:33):
periods where you're blue or periods where you really get
into depression, it's like I'm not letting it go.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
So yeah, so life is a lot better on this
side after the healing journey.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Oh yes, oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
I mean it's like you can finally hear, like you
can see, like things are really colorful, there's really sound
because it's like you in this tunnel right when you're
not healed, you can only see things, you can only
feel to an extent, but when true healing comes in,
I mean, you're free, you're expressive, you laugh at your

(56:13):
own jokes, you know.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
So it's a beautiful place.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
So for any of you that are on here, that
still trying to get to the other side of this situation,
it's a beautiful place, all right. And no, we don't
have to wait until we're dead and gone, because listen,
we have to suppose to start having some paradise.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Here on earth.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
I do not believe that we have to go through
all these pains and sufferings here and to wait until
after we're gone to enjoy.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
No, it's time to have.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Freedom here, laughter, here, where the colors you love, loved, sing,
Get into your hobbies, get your confidence back, because confidence
is priceless. All right, get all of that now. Okay,
your latter years be your best years. But you have
to invest in you. That's the only way that's gonna happen.

(57:07):
You have to want it bad enough, Okay, you have
to want to taste for it, like when you crave
something that you like. You need to crave healing, you know,
you have to crave that. I want to be better,
I want to be well. I want to be jovial,
all right, instead of constantly you know what, repeating that
same cycle in your mind.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
You know what you're walking.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
But you're not free, all right, So truly be free
and allow freedom to come. You know, freedom is now
and freedom is today. That's the freedom to heal for real.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
All right. I'm healed, but never doubt that's not healing.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
You're bleeding, all right, and we know what happens when
you keep bleeding out. Eventually you're gonna die out, because
that's only if you keep bleeding. Hello, that's it. But
no live there's a lot to live for and you
know why. You are that important?

Speaker 3 (58:00):
All right? You are that important.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
And if your environment is not healthy, shift, get a
new tribe, move away. I saw someone post on Facebook
she totally left the country and went to a whole
whole of the place and she's happy. So you have
to get away from and a lot of these countries.

(58:22):
I'm telling you the US, doll even though that's declining
what you have, you can survive on outside because you
don't need to spend all of that. So fine, what
makes you happy? Get your bucket lists together. Unfortunately, when
people are addressing their bucket lists, because they only have
a short period of time to live, so they're trying

(58:43):
to get certain things that know, start living. Now, do
it while you have the bread, while you have the health.
All right, get your bucket list together, the things that
you always wanted to do, do them, redo them. Who
cares how many times you revisit it something on your
bucket list, but you will be so happy and you
go to sleep peacefully because you know, even in your sleep.

(59:04):
I don't know, a lot of people don't mention this.
You can't even sleep well. Your mind is tormented even
in your sleep. You know what you're you're thinking something's
going to happen, even in your sleep. People who won't
take naps because you think something's gonna happen. We have
to truly heal. We know the world we live and
has a lot of pain. There's a lot going on.

(59:25):
But the piece that you have, the part that you
can play, you know what. It starts with healing, you know,
and healing is beautiful, all right. It boosts yourself as game.
It's not based on your weight, it's not based on
your skin color or complexion or what country you're from.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
Healing is beautiful.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Healing is internal and whatever is on the inside radiates
on the outside and it glows to the point people.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Say, what did you do different? You didn't do anything different.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
You are actually now happy, all right, And it is
it becomes contagious and people that saying I love you, and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
You're like, you know what. I know. I love me
and I great. You know this is what I bring.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
But there was a time I couldn't do that before
I was like, yeah, whatever, you know, you see greatness.
I don't see that. I couldn't connect. I couldn't connect.
But now, Linda, when somebody say I'm beautiful, I say,
of course, don't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
You know my name?

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
My name says I'm beautiful, I am Linda, I am
MOI Bonita.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Okay. But I couldn't do that until I was healed. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Nobody can't tell me nothing now, you know. And if
you come to attack my looks or whatever, I'm over it.
Like I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life.
And I am happy. When I was thin, I was
not happy. I was oh my god, self absolved, depressed.
But listen, healing is a beautiful place, all right. It's

(01:00:52):
not overnight, it's not overnight. You have to invest in yourself,
all right. Anyways, Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
Linda, you have to stick with that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Yeah, you have to. You have to.

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
So I do want to thank you for being here
on this said, I'm going to close out in prayer
for the individual that is watching right now that receive healing,
that the Holy Spirit can bring that healing and.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
That piece that in a piece that you need.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Father, in the name of Jesus, we thank you, o God,
as we close out yet another segment. We thank you
for the healing and the revelation that you have brought.
We thank you have leveed a lot for the opportunity
that is not for many on today, and that they
have decided today is the day. It could be a
month from now that they're watching yesterday's today, it could
be a year from them now that they're watching today's

(01:01:42):
the day. Whatever time or moment or second they're watching,
make a note of that and jot down today that
today is today and all of that pain stops now
and you want to be free and want to live.
So Father, allow this healing to touch every individual under
the sound of my voice and those that accompany them.

(01:02:05):
Let the healing and the blessings flow not only today
but forever.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Amen, thank you so much Linda for being on the set.
And I know you won't be a stranger because you
will be back. I love to bring people back and said,
let's revisit, let's see where you are now.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
So thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
For accepting to come on Emerging Empower today.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
We love you, how excite you. Thanks all right, thank
you so much. Let's close it out.

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