October 21, 2025 • 41 mins
⚠️ Content Warning. This episode contains discussions of childhood abuse, molestation, and suicidal ideation. Please take care of yourself while listening.
So many women are living with trauma that no one ever sees. In this powerful episode, Lyndsay Soprano sits down with Alreen Haeggquist for a deeply honest conversation about what it means to carry the weight of abuse, and what it takes to finally set it down.
Alreen shares her personal journey of surviving childhood sexual abuse and the complex path she’s walked through relationships, anger, and healing. Together, she and Lyndsay talk about the role silence plays as both a shield and a cage, the rawness of vulnerability, and the life-changing power of speaking your truth—when you’re ready.
This isn’t about perfection or tidy timelines. It’s about learning to listen to your own story with compassion. They discuss the power of journaling, the importance of understanding triggers, and how practices like gratitude and connection can open doors you thought were permanently closed.
Tune in if you’ve ever felt alone in your pain—or if you’re ready to turn that pain into something stronger than silence.
Find Alreen Haeggquist Online Here:
Website: alreen.com
Instagram: @alreen
Facebook: Alreen Haeggquist
LinkedIn: Alreen Haeggquist
Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:
Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast
Facebook: The Pain Game Podcast
LinkedIn: Lyndsay Soprano
YouTube: The Pain Game Podcast
Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to Chronic Pain and Trauma
(00:34) The Impact of Anger and Trauma
(03:41) Breaking the Silence: Personal Stories of Abuse
(09:40) The Role of Culture in Abuse and Silence
(13:36) Empowerment Through the Me Too Movement
(19:08) The Healing Power of Writing and Journaling
(26:28) Finding Gratitude Amidst Pain
(30:10) Understanding Triggers and Emotional Responses
(37:14) Building Supportive Relationships
So many women are living with trauma that no one ever sees. In this powerful episode, Lyndsay Soprano sits down with Alreen Haeggquist for a deeply honest conversation about what it means to carry the weight of abuse, and what it takes to finally set it down.
Alreen shares her personal journey of surviving childhood sexual abuse and the complex path she’s walked through relationships, anger, and healing. Together, she and Lyndsay talk about the role silence plays as both a shield and a cage, the rawness of vulnerability, and the life-changing power of speaking your truth—when you’re ready.
This isn’t about perfection or tidy timelines. It’s about learning to listen to your own story with compassion. They discuss the power of journaling, the importance of understanding triggers, and how practices like gratitude and connection can open doors you thought were permanently closed.
Tune in if you’ve ever felt alone in your pain—or if you’re ready to turn that pain into something stronger than silence.
Find Alreen Haeggquist Online Here:
Website: alreen.com
Instagram: @alreen
Facebook: Alreen Haeggquist
LinkedIn: Alreen Haeggquist
Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:
Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast
Facebook: The Pain Game Podcast
LinkedIn: Lyndsay Soprano
YouTube: The Pain Game Podcast
Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to Chronic Pain and Trauma
(00:34) The Impact of Anger and Trauma
(03:41) Breaking the Silence: Personal Stories of Abuse
(09:40) The Role of Culture in Abuse and Silence
(13:36) Empowerment Through the Me Too Movement
(19:08) The Healing Power of Writing and Journaling
(26:28) Finding Gratitude Amidst Pain
(30:10) Understanding Triggers and Emotional Responses
(37:14) Building Supportive Relationships
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys and dolls.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we jump into this episode, a note about our
content today. This is created for adult audiences only. We
advise listener discretion, so if you need a breather, take
a break.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And come back later.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about
the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
getting to the heart of how to heal. I am
your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
and anybody that is interested in having their voice.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Heard in the chronic pain and trauma world that we
live in.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Half of us women have been sexually assaulted. Doesn't that
make you fucking angry? I'd like to talk a little
bit about that. About anger. It can manifest itself in
behaviors that sometimes can feel like you're outside of yourself,
like irrational, your body can't control the emotion of it,
The tension and hostility that arises from injustice, resentment, injury, adversity, trauma,
(01:18):
all the things. It can take you down different paths,
healthy and unhealthy paths, and I have walked.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Down both of those types.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
But over the years of working through trauma and the
adversity of life's challenges that I have faced, my anger
has started to slow its role, and I've accepted the
things that have happened to me. I've accepted and forgiven
myself for my reaction to things that were out of
my control. But when you are a little girl, when
(01:51):
trauma happens to you, you don't know the havoc it
is wrecking on your precious soul and bod. Long term,
you start unpacking and understanding the complexity of your journey
and the why behind it. But until I started this thing,
I spent most of my life not saying a word.
(02:11):
I was determined to keep my abuse silent, as was
my guest. Silence is a survival tool for many of
us as we are desperate to stop feeling the feelings
that we're having and we're afraid to express them, and
those long lasting consequences are heartbreaking. So how can we
harness the power of vulnerability and break our silence to
(02:33):
overcome these emotions that we have that are making us
all chronically ill and on some days fucking crazy. So
today is going to be a conversation that will fuel
triumph in your life, and we are going to talk
with one of the most amazing women that I have
met about turning trauma into triumph. So, without further ado it,
(02:54):
I know that's a little bit longer than I normally do,
but my god, I got a build up for this woman.
I'd like to introduce you to the unbelievable badass guest
I have for you today, Allreen Hayquis, Hello, my darling.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Hello, Thank you so much for that introduction. Now I'm
all fired up.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
That's exactly the point.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Let's do this thing. We've got to get fired up.
I mean, that's the title of your.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Book, and it's basically yellow now from all the highlighting
and sadness that was in there and the tears and
the resilience that I mean, your book is freaking amazing.
But anyway, so Allreen is a San Diego attorney, so
she's just south of me, with twenty three years of
experience fighting for women who've endured sexual abuse, harassment, and discrimination,
recovering millions for her clients along the way. Her passion
(03:36):
for justice was born from her own childhood of abuse
and silence, which now she uses as fuels to help others.
Break theirs. In two thousand and eight, she founded Hayquist
and XLP, taking on major institutions like the Sulk Institute
Trader Jos, which kind of bummed me out a little
bit when I heard about Traders, Kaiser, Permanente, Go girl,
and even a president that, as you all know, I
(03:59):
absolutely hey and none of us should like her core mission.
No one's wealth, power or status puts them above accountability,
and that is what she is doing.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
So I'm rolling out the red carpet for you, babe.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I would like to start with your dad and the
dynamic of your household that was riddled with sexual abuse
and trauma.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And let's take it from there.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Got it, When you're going through it, you don't know
you're being abused, right, It's happening to you, but you're
not understanding what's happening. And so he was, now I
can identify it, right. He was emotionally abusive, he was
verbally abusive, he was physically abusive, and he was sexually abusive.
And my mom, who could see what's going on, stayed
(04:42):
silent throughout the whole time, and so it was a
very chaotic household. I think the hard part is when
you're growing up in that environment. These are your parents, right,
This is the person that's supposed to be building you up, right,
But instead he was tearing me down in the way
he made me feel. And I kept all of this inside,
(05:02):
just like many survivors do in order. It's like a
form of survival, Like you can't identify what's going on,
so you just keep it inside. And I broke my
silence for the first time when I came out with
my book so very many years later.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, and the journey that you've gone on through identifying
like that, I opened up about anger because it is
riddled through this book about it, and it actually made
me feel a little bit better about being angry because
there's a good damn reason that you were angry. Can
(05:37):
you talk a little bit more about actually what your
some of the trauma, and I know it's tough to
talk about, but some of the abuse that you went through,
and not only you're one of ten children, right, and
six of you were girls, and all six of you
went through this to a certain extent. I don't know
what the range of it was between all six of you,
but you're the one that's finally breaking your silence.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
About it, which is super amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, and so nobody's talking about it. I mean that's
and I say that like silence is the biggest gaslight,
because it's happening, but nobody's talking about it. So it's
not that I knew what was going on with my sisters, right,
Like I didn't. I mean I can see my dad,
you know, calling this every horrible name on earth, you know,
names that you don't even call your enemies, and he's
saying that to his own children. I see that, But
(06:21):
I don't know that, you know, my older sisters who
are married, like what happened to them? Right, Because this
is happening when I'm about eleven or twelve years old.
I mean I'm very young. The way the sexual abuse
stopped with me is my sister, who's seven years older.
When she turned eighteen, she ran away, or when she
graduated high school, she she took off, and she didn't
say what my dad did. She just said that he
(06:45):
was being you know, abusive, and she couldn't stay the
house anymore. And my dad lost it, right, And this
is very typical of anybody who's an abuser, right, the
first thing they do is deny it. They never take
responsibility and say yes, what I did, and he was
like everybody else, he never admitted it. And that was
(07:06):
the first time again we didn't talk about the details. Right,
there's never been a conversation about exactly what happened. We
just say, you know, what dad did, how dad was
still to this day, still to this day, wow, interesting, Yeah,
it's not. You don't talk about what happened. You just
talk about that he did horrible things. And Mom didn't
(07:29):
say anything and mom my mom still doesn't acknowledge what happened. Well,
I shouldn't say that. I think she acknowledges it. But
she says he wasn't that bad because he didn't kick
us out in the street, right, he set us, he
gave us a home, and he didn't throw us out
because we were girls. And so to her, her litmus
of what makes a good father is it's different than
what might live in. So anyway, so she took off
(07:50):
and that was the first time, you know, we got together,
we meaning you know, my sisters, to decide what we
were going to do, like are we going to report him? Right?
Are we going to or worties like what steps are
we going to do? And the decision was, now, we're
not going to say anything, and because what would that
mean for my mom, you know how, because you know
(08:10):
she was they were very codependent. But what is she
going to do without him? She didn't barely spoke English,
she doesn't drive, and she relies on him. And so
we didn't say anything. And what's interesting about that is
that also happened. And I see this with my clients, right,
they're also very scared to speak out or say anything
because what will it mean to him and his family?
And how is that going to affect their life? And
(08:31):
how is it going to affect all these other people
not acknowledging how it's really going to affect you, right,
like by continuing to not say anything and just just
let's just keep it a secret, let's brush it under
the rug and just move on, right I'm in get
on with our life and it was in the past,
and we're just going to keep it there. Yeah, And
so that's the decision that was made. So the sex
(08:51):
of you stopped around, Like I said, around when I
was twelve, my father was still abusive in all the ways,
in the sense of emotional psychological harm, in the sense
that you know, he was. Again, I don't know what
his trauma was. Obviously he had some too, but he
had a very short temper in the sense that he
would rage, you know, on a daily.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
He was always like one quote from your book is,
if you ever open your mouth again, I'll kill you.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That's that's a real uplifting.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
You say to your daughter. Of course you're scared. Why
would you open your mouth if that's how you've been raised.
And a lot of it was cultural too correct.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, so this is the way I was raised, the
way my mom raised me and kind of told me
where my place was was there was God, there was man,
and then there was me. I was always beneath the man.
And so I was supposed to get married and my
job when I got married was to serve my husband. Right,
So that's why I need to learn how to cook,
I needed to learn how to clean, and I needed
to know all those things because that's what was going
(09:49):
to happen to me when I got married and was
with the person I was. And even he doesn't do
it so much now, but you know, as I was,
you know, in law school, when I've been married with
my husband, she would still ask me as I'm coming
home from work, you know, well, where are you going
to go home and cook for him? Like, well, I'm not,
but okay.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I'm actually not. But thanks for asking. Hah. That's funny.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And that's all she knew, right right in a marriage,
you know, and you got to be with my dad
and her job was to have kids and support him.
So it's just it is a different culture and a
different dynamic. But I think there's also the just forget
about it, right, just move on and not say anything.
What's the big deal? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Well, and when you start and with you opening up
your firm in regards to helping women that have gone
through these kinds of things, it is so scary to
open your mouth about any form of abuse. I mean,
for me, just a one I can speak for myself.
Talking about what's happened to me is very very scary
for me because I didn't know if people were going.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To believe me.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And that is something that I think that was was
brought out. And you spoke about this in your book too,
about the me too movement where I know, like every
some people are rolling their eyes me too, and I'm like,
bite me.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Unless it's happened to you.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Don't judge anybody that's finally coming forward to things that
they have kept secret, who have been silent about it
because they were afraid of their abuser.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
They're afraid of what their family's going to say to them.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like my mother is one person that she doesn't know
crap about what's happened to me in my life. She
doesn't listen to this show, and I told her, if
you do, you're going to have a lot of questions.
But you know, in keeping that silence for so so long,
when you start finally doing, you feel empowered.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
But man, are you freaked out?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
How does that translate with you and your work when
you're working with your clients in regards to that.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So, I'm glad you brought up the me too movement.
So during the me too movement, I was such a champion.
I was so excited about all the women coming forward.
It was yeah, like you know one they were calling
not only us, but just seeing everything on the news,
and I was so proud of them. But I felt
like such a hypocrite during that time because I couldn't
say the words me too. And for those reasons you
(12:01):
just identified, I was still so scared of what are
people going to say? What are they going to think.
They're going to reject me, they won't believe me, They're
going to think I'm disgusting. Yeah that happened to me,
and they won't be able to look at me the same.
And that fear, you know, kept it inside of me
for a number of years until again I finally got
it out. And that's what's amazing about it is once
(12:24):
you start, you do feel empowered. You don't realize that
you're going to feel this way, but it's like this
weight gets lifted, and I see it not only in myself,
but all the women I represent. They come in in
that same place. They're so scared because people haven't believed
them right, like they have tried before they come to
a lawyer. They have tried to do something about it
(12:44):
on their own, but it wasn't good enough. And so
finding somebody that believes you, supports you, hears you, is
really what they're coming to do and then be able
to stand up to the person that caused them harm.
They always leave empowered and know that they have a
voice and oh they don't.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Have to take it.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And as an EmPATH, I know you are as well.
That's also everything is intensified in that and a lot
of us. I believe that a lot of the reason
that we are in paths is because of a lot
of the trauma that's happened to us, because we had
to feel so much and not because we wanted to.
And I know you talk about how you're like, I
don't know how to feel. I don't cry. I remember
(13:23):
there's one part You're like, I don't cry.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I don't know what's happening here, but I'm getting wet
and this is weird, and it's like and I'm a
major crier, so I'm the complete opposite of that.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So I was laughing at that part of your book
too in regards to me. But man oh Man, add
the EmPATH side of it on top of it, and
then the fear, and then because of all of our
social media and the media and the news and our
current administration, all the things. I mean, it's even scarier
and scarier by the minute for people to come out
against their abusers. And it's amazing that you're championing this
(13:53):
and championing these women to stick up for themselves in
a stand up for themselves no matter how scary it
might be. And with your background, how could you not
be like the most amazing attorney for these women.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, and we do it for our own healing, but
also to change the number that you talked about at
the beginning of the show, which is one and two
right when you're going through it. That's insane. And that
number is higher because there's so much underreporting.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's fur and I never reported anything.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
I never reported anything.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Right, Okay, there's two right there.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Exactly, And so it's such a high number it shocks you.
But at the same time it's not even accurate.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And I think what's important about that is when you're
going through it, you think you are all alone. You
don't realize how many people this has happened to because
of the fact that we're not talking about it. And
so again I think it's really important not only to
talk about for yourself, but also to help other people
so they know they're not alone. And that's why I'm
really passionate about this happening, because I've experienced it myself,
(14:57):
and I experience it every day with clients that I help.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, and I mean the tagline for my show here
is giving pain purpose, And no matter how you define
the word pain in your world, that is what I
am here to do, and I wake up every morning
doing it, and it is it is not only helped
triumph my own trauma. I'm using your word triumph because
(15:20):
it's from your book and because I don't even have
any other option in my mind right now. There is
absolutely nothing else on this planet Earth that I feel
that I need to be doing except for helping other
people get through their shit. And this is my way
of not only helping others, like how you are with
your business, but also helping myself. Like you mentioned so
(15:43):
much about writing right, the healing properties of actually getting writing.
And you went to Burning Man, which is such a
great story, which I've never been to, by the way,
And I love that you like dabbled.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
In your drugs and you went out and you partied
and into your thing at sts you like. I love that,
perspecially because I'm so calgirl with you, so I kind
of get all of that stuff too.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
But the Burning Man part of it.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Can you talk a little bit about how healing the
writing journey was for you and what that what that
experience did for you. I know that it kind of
backfired a little bit later, were like I thought that
was all gone, Like what I thought all my junk
was gone. It's not all gone right out of the gates, guys.
And I don't know if it'll ever truly be gone.
But it's the way in which we approach it and
we handle it and how we how we can persevere
(16:23):
and be successful at what we're doing, whatever that might
look like, being a mom, being a wife, being a
business owner, whatever it is, how we can use that
to fuel us to be better women in this world
for our children and for our loved ones, versus sitting
on the college punch to Netflix feeling sorry for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So journaling, for me is something I learned in college.
I did journal as a kid when I was when
I was young and going through it, the only thing
I did was pray, and I prayed every day to
be happy. That's all I did. Oh my god, I.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Ever ready get your tissues, Jesus.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
But it was it was really simp right, that's all
I wanted, Oh my god, and that at that time,
you know, I didn't know what that.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Looked like, like, yeah, what does that even mean?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
You know, And to not be in that chaotic home.
And what's interesting about that is I had latched on
at that age to the Brady Bunch, Like I always
saw myself as a kid in the Brady Beunch episode,
and so I was like visualizing this life for myself
that I now live, right, I didn't know that I
was going to be I was visualizing, but I had
(17:30):
been doing that at a young age. The other thing
I did, you know constantly when I was little, during
like art time at school or in your class, you know,
as I always drew a picture. It was the same picture,
and it was like a blue sky, you know, a
son on the side, bird you know, in the background,
green grass, and there was like a man, a woman
and a child, you know. And again I look at
(17:52):
my life now and it's like that's what I'm living,
you know. And so I think visualization is a really
big part of healing. It's a huge tool because it
can help you heal when you're not even ready, right
when you're you don't even know what you're trying to
get to. It just helps you get there sooner. It
propels you to that place. And I feel like journaling
(18:12):
is the same thing, right. The whole thing is of
getting something out. Journaling is a form to get it
out when you're not ready to say the words right.
It's not it's not ready to come out of your mouth.
But it gives you a place to put down the
things that have happened that are horrible, and you do right.
You you think about it, you ruminate over it. That
you have those memories of it, the images come up,
(18:34):
and journaling allows it to instead of being up here constantly,
is to get it out. So when I was in college,
my good friend who'still my best friend now, when we
were in living together in the in the condo, like
our second year, she would constantly journal. She had a
habit of journaling.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
And I was like, what are you doing taking the
corner over there and you got beats and okay, and.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
She said, you know, I'm just writing down my feelings
and thoughts that I don't want to share with anybody else.
And I was like, oh, okay, well I'm going to
try that. And I did. And it was the first
time that I like articulated to myself, you know, the
memories that I had of the abuse, right, the details
of the abuse growing up that I could remember, and
(19:24):
that would come up and I wrote it all down,
so they weren't necessarily how I was feeling, but they
were just these kind of like the memories that just were,
you know, ruminating in my mind. And then I held
onto this thing on, you know, and I moved with it.
And then we went to Bernie Man, and so I
was like, why am I holding on to this thing?
(19:45):
And I didn't know much about Burning Man, but I'm like, well,
I'm sure there's gonna be a fire. I'm gonna burn this.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
That's what I Said's the word on the street is
we're gonna burn stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
But you know what's so interesting about reading about Bernie
Mann in your bookcause, by the way, I just know
that Bernie Man existed.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I I didn't even know about it. Was Burning the Man.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yeah, I was like, holy crap, now I want to
go and do this because I have boxes of journals
from when I was a little kid and in high
school and in college, and I still have them.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I haven't opened them, I haven't looked at them, and
they just moved with me everywhere I go. And so
when I read that part, I'm like, I'm going to
I'm going to burning me out with Aulreine for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, and then you could burn all your journals.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh I wanted gone?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Oh yeah, So I got it all out. I went
to burning me on. I burned my journal, and I
really believed that I was done with it, right, I'm
done with Like whatever happened to me was in the past.
I did need to get over it, and I was
like at a really high of my life in the
sense of how I felt, and then it all just
came back right like it wasn't really gone. Me writing
(20:52):
it in the journal didn't make it all go away
or yeah, I have a lot of more work to go.
And so that was hard. Like when I what I
you know, was started therapy, that's where I just kept
getting stuck on. I'm like, well, I felt really good,
Like how do I get back there? Right, Like I
don't want to go through this process. I just want
to get back to where I was and I know
I can get there. And He's like, no, that's not
(21:14):
how it worked. You felt that way because yes, you
had left your home and it was a moment going
through the trauma that you did feel high, but doesn't
mean all trauma is gone because you moved out of it. Right,
Just because you move away from it or you leave it,
or you leave it behind or you separate, doesn't mean
it hasn't left a number of consequences behind.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So big time.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, I yeah, have a chapter in my book right
like you didn't make the mess, but you do got
to clean it up, and you do.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I mean good terms, yeah, I mean because you're like, God,
I'm on such a good role. I'm doing all the things.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I'm like, I'm doing all this, I'm doing that, I'm
doing this and doing that, and I'm like, why am
I still sick? Because you had chronic illness like nobody's
business that you were dealing with forever, and that was
the same thing with me. With my I'm still dealing
with my physical bullshit that's happened. Some of it is
I can't control that I have lime disease like that.
That's an element. But all the stress and all of
(22:11):
the trauma and all of that, that's I am unpacking
while you and I are speaking right now. It's what
I do here on this show is I unpack my
own stuff too, to a certain extent, and I can
feel my body responding. There are days when I am
done with this and I feel so light after I've
had a conversation with someone like you, where a it's
(22:31):
me too makes me feel better too, where I'm not Like,
I'm not scared anymore to have these conversations. If my
parents decide that they want to listen to my show,
they're going to learn a lot about me, and they're
going to want to have some conversations. Maybe they won't,
maybe they'll keep it in. They'll light of me, and
they won't tell me that they didn't they listen to it.
I don't know, but that's not my problem anymore. Like
I am not going to be protecting other people and
(22:52):
their responses to things that happen to me. I'm done
with that. That is a narrative that I am done with.
And I think that also comes with getting older, because
when you're almost fifty, you're kind of like, I don't
really give a shit anymore about what.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
You think because we're piazzers.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
But you also have learned like it comes at a
cost right to you and your body and your well being. Yeah,
in order to protect somebody else's feelings, you know, and
you speaking out? Are you coming out? Are you not
no longer wanting to say it didn't happen. You're not retroump,
you're not traumatizing them, you're not causing them pain by
(23:30):
you talking about your story and what happened. For me,
that was important to know, right, Like, I did worry
about that when I was writing my book Well how Old.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Sure, while I was reading it, I was thinking about
your mom, and your sisters and your brother. I was
thinking about everybody going, oh my gosh, this is scary exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And it was scary, right. I tried to do my
best to tell my story without their story, but obviously
it comes with it.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
You know, there are a couple of little things that
were in there that I'm like, oh gosh, the brother
in law partarticulate.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it wasn't just her dad.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, because it's just my dad. And each one has
always just been dismissed, right, And I think that's for
me and for other survivors. That's the hard part. When
it's just like let it be, you know, like it's it's,
it happens, it's common, like move on, And that I
think hurts even more than the abuse.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Sure, absolutely, just being dismissed that all it does is
make you clam up and not want to share anything again,
and then you have to get through that shell again
and break it open. And like those otters, you know
how they like slam open there the muscles or whatever
with the stone or whatever they do. It's like every
single time that we get clammed up again, like, oh,
forget that scared me. I'm not going to do that again.
(24:45):
That fear that drives us, you know, to not people.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That are supposed to protect you, right, these are the
people that are right.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
They can't do it, and you can't feel safe there
where else can you feel safe?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Because you had you had attempted suicide twice when you were.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
A little girl. I know, how the hell did your mom.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Not like lose her marbles after that? Like that's insane
to me. It's so young. You were eleven and sixteen,
I think, is what you said.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, so the first time, and again I don't
know how to kill myself. I didn't you know, there
wasn't YouTube videos, I guess on one of the.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
I don't know if YouTube was around when you and
I were eleven and sixteen.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Thank god, they.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Think, get god how to do it? And so at eleven,
you know I just went into the bathroom and took
whatever pills I could, and who knows what I was
even taking, right, And so at that age, I took
the pills. And the only thing I knew right was
I didn't want to be there anymore. And I didn't
want to be there anymore. So how do I, you know,
in my life, did not be there anymore? So I
(25:48):
thought if I'd take a bunch of pills, that would happen. Well,
knowing that happened as I went to sleep and I
woke up in morning, like it's all in the same place,
like damn it, he even took notice. And then when
I was sixteen, I did the same thing. I took pills,
and I think at that time they were I did
(26:10):
know what I was taking in the sense like it
wasn't just advail, they were prescriptions. And I passed out
and the only and I remember waking up in the
hospital and they put you in a hold, and they
bring the psychologist in and and they have your family
come in after they've you know, pumped your stomach, and
you know, my family just prayed, and at the time,
(26:32):
you know, they just blamed it on like a boyfriend,
I was with this guy and he's like, oh, they
broke up and at school like everything else, but any
acknowledgment as too, well, how about maybe what's happening, you know,
but they just were incapable of doing that. That just
wasn't I don't even think possible. They just made assumptions
and then brought me home. And so again, one of
(26:54):
the reasons I'm so passionate about what I do and
so passionate about women, you know, speak out and coming
out is that person that I was at that age
where I was so depressed and the only thing I
thought about was ending my life and not wanting to
be here, right is so foreign now, like I can't
even imagine myself being there because I love life so
(27:16):
much and I want to give to people so much
and give back and show people like, you can live
this amazing life. You're going to have to go through
some work and it's not going to seal the bads
while you're in the process of it, but you can
live the life that you think is not for you, right,
like you're For many years, I just didn't think I
didn't deserve it, It wasn't for me to have, Like that's
great for that person.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
That's great for the Brady bunch, but it's not for
this bunch, not for this bunch.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
That that wasn't my cards, that wasn't the life that
I was supposed to have. And so to be able
to say no, I do deserve that, and I feel great.
And it's because I've been doing the work. I want
others to know they can do it too. It's just
it's not overnight, right, It's not an overnight fix. A
long time to get to this point, and it's going
(28:02):
to take a bit to get you to the other
side it is.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
And there's a part of your book that I want
to read real quick.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
So in relation to this, so, when I tried to
take my own life, I wanted the deep pain inside
of me to stop. In those years, I didn't see
any purpose in life if all I would ever known
was pain, I didn't see the point in it. I
didn't know why I existed. I didn't think anyone would
notice if I was gone. And only now, decades after
my failed suicide attempts and decades after trying to fix
(28:32):
what was wrong in my life, do I feel unhindered
gratitude to be alive and that part is so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
When I read that, I.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Do, it's just like I do. I wake up every
day like wow, Like I'm so.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
You've got your son, you've got your birds, you've got
your beach, you've got your sweete, and you've got your Maya,
and you're just like, holy shit, I did it?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Get itt it?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, And you're doing it for other women. Talk about
talk about freaking amazing that intersection of injustice and empowerment, right,
You're like the epitome of it. And I'm really grateful
for you and a your book because I mean, like
I mentioned, it's just like it's ridiculously good and it
(29:14):
just it touched me in so many places because we
get stuck in ungratefulness when we have so much to
be grateful for, even in the shit, even in the
crappy stuff that's happened to us, even though we're in pain,
even though our bodies are failing us, even though we
want to punch our husbands in the face. You know,
my intention this morning, actually my intentions lately. I have
(29:38):
this app that I use for intentions in the morning,
so it sits on my on my phone, so every
second I look at my phone which of course we
all do it all day long. Today's intention was don't
go postal, just get the mail.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Because I've been under construction here for like almost two
years and this is the last week.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
We are done tomorrow, and.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I've had, like last week, i had a total of
twenty nine people in my home at the same time,
and I was in two barking doxies and a sweetie,
and I'm like, I'm going to burn the house down.
I'm just going to burn the house down with everybody
in it, and I'm going to pack a bag.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I'm going to go to hull Read's house. She's gonna
take me in.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Anytime.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
But to be grateful in the midst of our shit,
you know, the stuff that's happened to us, the navigating
this road that we've been on, where we're being like
hummeled by snowballs and rocks and just all the things
that were hit with and to come out of it
the way that you have is just incredible, you know,
it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Thank you. No, And I thought that you talked about
gratitude because that's one thing that I always come back to,
like when we have to do exactly like when things
are just you're going to continue to face adversity in
your life. It's not like it's just you know, butterflies
and you know.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Just dancing through the valley with butterflies and flowers and
beautiful music playing.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I wish that was the case.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
And so when you when you have those days and
you're feeling stuck and you just can't seem to like
get out of that headspace, the gratitude journal for me
is just like an easy place to go, like, all right,
there's a lot of shit, but let's focus on what
you're thankful for right now at this moment, you know.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
And I'm glad you brought up your gratitude journal because
I know that you had a challenge within in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Talk about that for a hot minute, because I was like, totally.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I just thought it was so stupid, right that I
like exactly, you're like, what, Yes, Like, I'm thankful that I,
you know, have a bed. You know, I'm thankful that
I have a hot shower. But then you're like, I
am thankful for.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
The likes of those things, right, And so it can
just be so simple, And I didn't want to do
it because I thought, again, I thought it was stupid, like,
what's what's this?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
What difference is this going to make? You know? But
it just helps you change your perspective. It gets you
out of that like negative headspace where you think your
whole life is doom and gloom. Just think a little
bit differently. Right, you have things that you can be
thankful for, even if it's just that you're outside or
that you have a bed, or you know you're not
living in the street, or whatever it may be. And
(32:15):
it's just so simple things. And then it starts increasing.
You know that I have a loving husband, I have
a daughter, you.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Know, like been your husband's been through the ringer with you, buddy.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
Yeah, and he's still here.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
He's still here.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well, and I identify with that because I've got my
I have my lash out moments where just deep rooted
stuff comes out and I have absolutely no idea where
it's coming from.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
What triggered?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Did I know that you talk you talk about triggers
in your book as well, identifying them, understanding what the
hell is the trigger anyways? As far as I know,
it's something that you do with a gun, like, so
don't trigger me. And learning what those are and being
able to identify those has been good for you and
your and your healing process. Can you talk a little
bit about how that has worked for you and how
how that still works for you, because I know in
(33:03):
the beginning it's really hard to identify it, like why
did that even?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Why did that piss me off? Right now?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Because that is sometimes for me, has nothing to do
with anything that's going on in my world.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
That actually triggered me.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
It's crazy, it is, yeah, and I didn't know that,
so I triggered it is what you just said. Like
my husband was the one that received probably the worst
of it, but things would just piss me off, and
he would he would be called it a trigger switch,
which using that word before I even knew what a
trigger was. But he's just like, you can go from
cold to really extreme hot in like a second and
(33:35):
not know like what's going to cause it, right, Yeah,
and I would just get so angry and I would
be so horrible, and I really believed it was other
people that was causing it, right of course, yeah, what
he said caused it. What you did made me that way,
you know, they made that argument, So therefore I'm pissed, right,
It was everything external in my life that was making
(33:56):
me angry, And that's really what I believed until I
learned that, No, it was the fact that I should
have been angry. I should have directed anger at the
abuse that was happening to me as a kid, and
I said nothing. So that repressed anger of that feeling
that I was having as a kid is now coming.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Out when I wasn't adult right with somebody, I feel.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Like somebody's betraying me or manipulating me, like that is
what I get triggered by, and that's when I get angry.
And so learning that, like having the awareness of that
has really helped because I could I could recognize it now, right,
like what you just said, when that is happening, when
you want to go postal, right, you get the exactly
And that's a tool that was something you had to learn,
(34:38):
Like I didn't always have that. Now I can be
like or if I do get postal, I can look
at it and apologize for it, or I can look
at it and say and have that conversation with myself
of well, where's that coming from, Like what really upset
me or what really pissed me off? You know, what's
the real underlying reason? And I think for my cases,
why that's become so powerful for me and why that's
(35:00):
now become like a superpower for me is like the
abusers still trigger me, right, they're abusing my clients, and
so there's still a trigger for me. But I've learned
to harness that so I can make a very persuasive
argument in court without being you know, the angry lawyer,
but at the same time represent my client in a
way that I can get people to listen. Right, when
(35:21):
you're angry and you don't make any sense, it's hard
for people to listen to you and what you're trying
to say. And so I've learned to harness that. And
that's come with a lot of years of learning how
to like identify when I'm getting angry, right, like knowing
the signs, like where my body's heating up and I
can feel it coming.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
On, Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And I kind of like bread through it and then
remember like what am I here? You know, what what
are we talking about? And getting to that place so
the anger is real. It affects your relationships. I mean,
it really took a toll on on mind with my husband,
and it wasn't until you know, we went to couple's
(36:02):
counseling and we got there and I was pissed about
being in couples counsel.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I do not want to be there, don't you dare
do this?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, exactly, so you can just stop being who you
are and we would be.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Fine, right, Yeah, this is all your fault.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
It's all your fault. We're here.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
But when we got there, you know, he said he
was scared of me. And that really was a real
pivotal moment in my life, Like, you're scary, and it's
for the first time. It allowed me to look at
my behavior and how I acted towards somebody and why
that was scary, and it reminded me of how my
(36:43):
dad was. And so again I didn't change overnight, you know,
but it just it allowed me to come up have
the awareness of my behavior and wanting to be different
for the people I loved. And so not only again,
are you helping yourself through this journey, but your relationships improved.
Not only my husband, my daughter, my colleagues, and my friends,
(37:03):
Like they all get better and you have more of
them because you're really able to get into your own
skin as you go through this process.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
And one thing that I have found by addressing a
lot of the things that we've been talking about today
is friendships. I'm glad you brought up friendship well relationships
as a whole, But for me, friendships have been a
big change in my world where I have pulled in
way better, stronger, incredible women in my world that have
(37:35):
showed up and show up for me because I've always
been the one. You talk about it in your book too.
We're literally cut from the same cloth in some places.
Whereas like I keep myself as busy as humanly possible
all the time, I still do it even though I
know I'm doing it because a it keeps me distracted
from physical pain. It also keeps me distracted from emotional
pain and lit all the things. But what's happened is
(37:57):
I am attracting better, healthier, more stable people in my
world that are supportive and understanding. Where I do tend
to kind of randomly go off the rails about my pain,
where I don't want to be here anymore because there
is so much pain in my body there's no chance
I'm making it to seventy right like or I'm like
I always sell my SUITI well you're gonna outlive me.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
And he's old. So we're like it's like he's like,
wait a second, you gotta leave me now.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
I'm the one that that's supposed to kick the bucket
before you.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I'm like, I can't make any guarantees here. Okay. You know,
like it is nuts.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
How that like that feeling of being alone in it,
in the pain, whatever, that is how you can react
to these people. But by by having better relationships to
the work that I've been doing on myself and clearing
out some of this muck and identifying why I do
the things that I do has been incredibly helpful, and
(38:54):
it helped me clean out my closet of people I
didn't want in my life anymore either.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I was like, bye, done, out of my life. You're done.
I will never speak to you again. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
It was a great run, but you do.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Not help me anymore in my life if you ever did.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
I think that's so important. I talked about that a lot,
especially when you're going through this process. Yeah, you know,
finding your tribe, getting your people, and if the current
people aren't filling that right, if they then you can
leave them completely or push them aside. Until you're ready
to go back to them yourself. Right, But I think
that relationships are really important. You don't want to do
(39:31):
it alone, and you don't have to do it alone.
That's what is important to know, is like, you're not alone,
you just might need a different group to go do
it with.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Exactly, go on vacation with a different group of people.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Okay, guys, Oh.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
My goodness, gracious, this has been incredible. I am so
incredibly grateful for you coming on here with us and
talking today. This has been It was exactly what I
wanted today to go like. So I'm very happy. Oh,
thank you so much again, love being on you got it.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
You can find Alreine all over the place, but you
can go to Alreine dot com a L R e
e n dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
You can find her book, you can read more about
her her story. It really truly got me fired up
and it made me not feel alone anymore in the
place where it is very lonely when you go through
this kind of crap in your life. Man, it just
it truly is. But there is hope and there is
a reason why we are here. And if you ever
need anything from me, you can reach out to me.
(40:29):
I can connect you with alreen whatever it may be. Women,
stick up for yourself, use your voice, don't be silent
because you're not alone in it. Thank you so much again,
I appreciate your time with us. You are exclusively invited
to share this me too, fired up fueling triumph from trauma,
VIP pain journey together, let's get to the heart of
how to heal with you by my side and Allreene's side.
(40:50):
Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your
podcast content, we will be there. Visit us at pain
gamepodcast dot com and follow us on all the socials.
Thanks for listening, my little VIPs. Catch you on the
other side.
Hey, guys and dolls.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we jump into this episode, a note about our
content today. This is created for adult audiences only. We
advise listener discretion, so if you need a breather, take
a break.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And come back later.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about
the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
getting to the heart of how to heal. I am
your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
and anybody that is interested in having their voice.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Heard in the chronic pain and trauma world that we
live in.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Half of us women have been sexually assaulted. Doesn't that
make you fucking angry? I'd like to talk a little
bit about that. About anger. It can manifest itself in
behaviors that sometimes can feel like you're outside of yourself,
like irrational, your body can't control the emotion of it,
The tension and hostility that arises from injustice, resentment, injury, adversity, trauma,
(01:18):
all the things. It can take you down different paths,
healthy and unhealthy paths, and I have walked.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Down both of those types.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
But over the years of working through trauma and the
adversity of life's challenges that I have faced, my anger
has started to slow its role, and I've accepted the
things that have happened to me. I've accepted and forgiven
myself for my reaction to things that were out of
my control. But when you are a little girl, when
(01:51):
trauma happens to you, you don't know the havoc it
is wrecking on your precious soul and bod. Long term,
you start unpacking and understanding the complexity of your journey
and the why behind it. But until I started this thing,
I spent most of my life not saying a word.
(02:11):
I was determined to keep my abuse silent, as was
my guest. Silence is a survival tool for many of
us as we are desperate to stop feeling the feelings
that we're having and we're afraid to express them, and
those long lasting consequences are heartbreaking. So how can we
harness the power of vulnerability and break our silence to
(02:33):
overcome these emotions that we have that are making us
all chronically ill and on some days fucking crazy. So
today is going to be a conversation that will fuel
triumph in your life, and we are going to talk
with one of the most amazing women that I have
met about turning trauma into triumph. So, without further ado it,
(02:54):
I know that's a little bit longer than I normally do,
but my god, I got a build up for this woman.
I'd like to introduce you to the unbelievable badass guest
I have for you today, Allreen Hayquis, Hello, my darling.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Hello, Thank you so much for that introduction. Now I'm
all fired up.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
That's exactly the point.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Let's do this thing. We've got to get fired up.
I mean, that's the title of your.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Book, and it's basically yellow now from all the highlighting
and sadness that was in there and the tears and
the resilience that I mean, your book is freaking amazing.
But anyway, so Allreen is a San Diego attorney, so
she's just south of me, with twenty three years of
experience fighting for women who've endured sexual abuse, harassment, and discrimination,
recovering millions for her clients along the way. Her passion
(03:36):
for justice was born from her own childhood of abuse
and silence, which now she uses as fuels to help others.
Break theirs. In two thousand and eight, she founded Hayquist
and XLP, taking on major institutions like the Sulk Institute
Trader Jos, which kind of bummed me out a little
bit when I heard about Traders, Kaiser, Permanente, Go girl,
and even a president that, as you all know, I
(03:59):
absolutely hey and none of us should like her core mission.
No one's wealth, power or status puts them above accountability,
and that is what she is doing.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
So I'm rolling out the red carpet for you, babe.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I would like to start with your dad and the
dynamic of your household that was riddled with sexual abuse
and trauma.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And let's take it from there.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Got it, When you're going through it, you don't know
you're being abused, right, It's happening to you, but you're
not understanding what's happening. And so he was, now I
can identify it, right. He was emotionally abusive, he was
verbally abusive, he was physically abusive, and he was sexually abusive.
And my mom, who could see what's going on, stayed
(04:42):
silent throughout the whole time, and so it was a
very chaotic household. I think the hard part is when
you're growing up in that environment. These are your parents, right,
This is the person that's supposed to be building you up, right,
But instead he was tearing me down in the way
he made me feel. And I kept all of this inside,
(05:02):
just like many survivors do in order. It's like a
form of survival, Like you can't identify what's going on,
so you just keep it inside. And I broke my
silence for the first time when I came out with
my book so very many years later.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, and the journey that you've gone on through identifying
like that, I opened up about anger because it is
riddled through this book about it, and it actually made
me feel a little bit better about being angry because
there's a good damn reason that you were angry. Can
(05:37):
you talk a little bit more about actually what your
some of the trauma, and I know it's tough to
talk about, but some of the abuse that you went through,
and not only you're one of ten children, right, and
six of you were girls, and all six of you
went through this to a certain extent. I don't know
what the range of it was between all six of you,
but you're the one that's finally breaking your silence.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
About it, which is super amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, and so nobody's talking about it. I mean that's
and I say that like silence is the biggest gaslight,
because it's happening, but nobody's talking about it. So it's
not that I knew what was going on with my sisters, right,
Like I didn't. I mean I can see my dad,
you know, calling this every horrible name on earth, you know,
names that you don't even call your enemies, and he's
saying that to his own children. I see that, But
(06:21):
I don't know that, you know, my older sisters who
are married, like what happened to them? Right, Because this
is happening when I'm about eleven or twelve years old.
I mean I'm very young. The way the sexual abuse
stopped with me is my sister, who's seven years older.
When she turned eighteen, she ran away, or when she
graduated high school, she she took off, and she didn't
say what my dad did. She just said that he
(06:45):
was being you know, abusive, and she couldn't stay the
house anymore. And my dad lost it, right, And this
is very typical of anybody who's an abuser, right, the
first thing they do is deny it. They never take
responsibility and say yes, what I did, and he was
like everybody else, he never admitted it. And that was
(07:06):
the first time again we didn't talk about the details. Right,
there's never been a conversation about exactly what happened. We
just say, you know, what dad did, how dad was
still to this day, still to this day, wow, interesting, Yeah,
it's not. You don't talk about what happened. You just
talk about that he did horrible things. And Mom didn't
(07:29):
say anything and mom my mom still doesn't acknowledge what happened. Well,
I shouldn't say that. I think she acknowledges it. But
she says he wasn't that bad because he didn't kick
us out in the street, right, he set us, he
gave us a home, and he didn't throw us out
because we were girls. And so to her, her litmus
of what makes a good father is it's different than
what might live in. So anyway, so she took off
(07:50):
and that was the first time, you know, we got together,
we meaning you know, my sisters, to decide what we
were going to do, like are we going to report him? Right?
Are we going to or worties like what steps are
we going to do? And the decision was, now, we're
not going to say anything, and because what would that
mean for my mom, you know how, because you know
(08:10):
she was they were very codependent. But what is she
going to do without him? She didn't barely spoke English,
she doesn't drive, and she relies on him. And so
we didn't say anything. And what's interesting about that is
that also happened. And I see this with my clients, right,
they're also very scared to speak out or say anything
because what will it mean to him and his family?
And how is that going to affect their life? And
(08:31):
how is it going to affect all these other people
not acknowledging how it's really going to affect you, right,
like by continuing to not say anything and just just
let's just keep it a secret, let's brush it under
the rug and just move on, right I'm in get
on with our life and it was in the past,
and we're just going to keep it there. Yeah, And
so that's the decision that was made. So the sex
(08:51):
of you stopped around, Like I said, around when I
was twelve, my father was still abusive in all the ways,
in the sense of emotional psychological harm, in the sense
that you know, he was. Again, I don't know what
his trauma was. Obviously he had some too, but he
had a very short temper in the sense that he
would rage, you know, on a daily.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
He was always like one quote from your book is,
if you ever open your mouth again, I'll kill you.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
That's that's a real uplifting.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
You say to your daughter. Of course you're scared. Why
would you open your mouth if that's how you've been raised.
And a lot of it was cultural too correct.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, so this is the way I was raised, the
way my mom raised me and kind of told me
where my place was was there was God, there was man,
and then there was me. I was always beneath the man.
And so I was supposed to get married and my
job when I got married was to serve my husband. Right,
So that's why I need to learn how to cook,
I needed to learn how to clean, and I needed
to know all those things because that's what was going
(09:49):
to happen to me when I got married and was
with the person I was. And even he doesn't do
it so much now, but you know, as I was,
you know, in law school, when I've been married with
my husband, she would still ask me as I'm coming
home from work, you know, well, where are you going
to go home and cook for him? Like, well, I'm not,
but okay.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I'm actually not. But thanks for asking. Hah. That's funny.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And that's all she knew, right right in a marriage,
you know, and you got to be with my dad
and her job was to have kids and support him.
So it's just it is a different culture and a
different dynamic. But I think there's also the just forget
about it, right, just move on and not say anything.
What's the big deal? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Well, and when you start and with you opening up
your firm in regards to helping women that have gone
through these kinds of things, it is so scary to
open your mouth about any form of abuse. I mean,
for me, just a one I can speak for myself.
Talking about what's happened to me is very very scary
for me because I didn't know if people were going.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
To believe me.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And that is something that I think that was was
brought out. And you spoke about this in your book too,
about the me too movement where I know, like every
some people are rolling their eyes me too, and I'm like,
bite me.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Unless it's happened to you.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Don't judge anybody that's finally coming forward to things that
they have kept secret, who have been silent about it
because they were afraid of their abuser.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
They're afraid of what their family's going to say to them.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like my mother is one person that she doesn't know
crap about what's happened to me in my life. She
doesn't listen to this show, and I told her, if
you do, you're going to have a lot of questions.
But you know, in keeping that silence for so so long,
when you start finally doing, you feel empowered.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
But man, are you freaked out?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
How does that translate with you and your work when
you're working with your clients in regards to that.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So, I'm glad you brought up the me too movement.
So during the me too movement, I was such a champion.
I was so excited about all the women coming forward.
It was yeah, like you know one they were calling
not only us, but just seeing everything on the news,
and I was so proud of them. But I felt
like such a hypocrite during that time because I couldn't
say the words me too. And for those reasons you
(12:01):
just identified, I was still so scared of what are
people going to say? What are they going to think.
They're going to reject me, they won't believe me, They're
going to think I'm disgusting. Yeah that happened to me,
and they won't be able to look at me the same.
And that fear, you know, kept it inside of me
for a number of years until again I finally got
it out. And that's what's amazing about it is once
(12:24):
you start, you do feel empowered. You don't realize that
you're going to feel this way, but it's like this
weight gets lifted, and I see it not only in myself,
but all the women I represent. They come in in
that same place. They're so scared because people haven't believed
them right, like they have tried before they come to
a lawyer. They have tried to do something about it
(12:44):
on their own, but it wasn't good enough. And so
finding somebody that believes you, supports you, hears you, is
really what they're coming to do and then be able
to stand up to the person that caused them harm.
They always leave empowered and know that they have a
voice and oh they don't.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Have to take it.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And as an EmPATH, I know you are as well.
That's also everything is intensified in that and a lot
of us. I believe that a lot of the reason
that we are in paths is because of a lot
of the trauma that's happened to us, because we had
to feel so much and not because we wanted to.
And I know you talk about how you're like, I
don't know how to feel. I don't cry. I remember
(13:23):
there's one part You're like, I don't cry.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I don't know what's happening here, but I'm getting wet
and this is weird, and it's like and I'm a
major crier, so I'm the complete opposite of that.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So I was laughing at that part of your book
too in regards to me. But man oh Man, add
the EmPATH side of it on top of it, and
then the fear, and then because of all of our
social media and the media and the news and our
current administration, all the things. I mean, it's even scarier
and scarier by the minute for people to come out
against their abusers. And it's amazing that you're championing this
(13:53):
and championing these women to stick up for themselves in
a stand up for themselves no matter how scary it
might be. And with your background, how could you not
be like the most amazing attorney for these women.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, and we do it for our own healing, but
also to change the number that you talked about at
the beginning of the show, which is one and two
right when you're going through it. That's insane. And that
number is higher because there's so much underreporting.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's fur and I never reported anything.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
I never reported anything.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Right, Okay, there's two right there.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Exactly, And so it's such a high number it shocks you.
But at the same time it's not even accurate.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And I think what's important about that is when you're
going through it, you think you are all alone. You
don't realize how many people this has happened to because
of the fact that we're not talking about it. And
so again I think it's really important not only to
talk about for yourself, but also to help other people
so they know they're not alone. And that's why I'm
really passionate about this happening, because I've experienced it myself,
(14:57):
and I experience it every day with clients that I help.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, and I mean the tagline for my show here
is giving pain purpose, And no matter how you define
the word pain in your world, that is what I
am here to do, and I wake up every morning
doing it, and it is it is not only helped
triumph my own trauma. I'm using your word triumph because
(15:20):
it's from your book and because I don't even have
any other option in my mind right now. There is
absolutely nothing else on this planet Earth that I feel
that I need to be doing except for helping other
people get through their shit. And this is my way
of not only helping others, like how you are with
your business, but also helping myself. Like you mentioned so
(15:43):
much about writing right, the healing properties of actually getting writing.
And you went to Burning Man, which is such a
great story, which I've never been to, by the way,
And I love that you like dabbled.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
In your drugs and you went out and you partied
and into your thing at sts you like. I love that,
perspecially because I'm so calgirl with you, so I kind
of get all of that stuff too.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
But the Burning Man part of it.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Can you talk a little bit about how healing the
writing journey was for you and what that what that
experience did for you. I know that it kind of
backfired a little bit later, were like I thought that
was all gone, Like what I thought all my junk
was gone. It's not all gone right out of the gates, guys.
And I don't know if it'll ever truly be gone.
But it's the way in which we approach it and
we handle it and how we how we can persevere
(16:23):
and be successful at what we're doing, whatever that might
look like, being a mom, being a wife, being a
business owner, whatever it is, how we can use that
to fuel us to be better women in this world
for our children and for our loved ones, versus sitting
on the college punch to Netflix feeling sorry for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So journaling, for me is something I learned in college.
I did journal as a kid when I was when
I was young and going through it, the only thing
I did was pray, and I prayed every day to
be happy. That's all I did. Oh my god, I.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Ever ready get your tissues, Jesus.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
But it was it was really simp right, that's all
I wanted, Oh my god, and that at that time,
you know, I didn't know what that.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Looked like, like, yeah, what does that even mean?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
You know, And to not be in that chaotic home.
And what's interesting about that is I had latched on
at that age to the Brady Bunch, Like I always
saw myself as a kid in the Brady Beunch episode,
and so I was like visualizing this life for myself
that I now live, right, I didn't know that I
was going to be I was visualizing, but I had
(17:30):
been doing that at a young age. The other thing
I did, you know constantly when I was little, during
like art time at school or in your class, you know,
as I always drew a picture. It was the same picture,
and it was like a blue sky, you know, a
son on the side, bird you know, in the background,
green grass, and there was like a man, a woman
and a child, you know. And again I look at
(17:52):
my life now and it's like that's what I'm living,
you know. And so I think visualization is a really
big part of healing. It's a huge tool because it
can help you heal when you're not even ready, right
when you're you don't even know what you're trying to
get to. It just helps you get there sooner. It
propels you to that place. And I feel like journaling
(18:12):
is the same thing, right. The whole thing is of
getting something out. Journaling is a form to get it
out when you're not ready to say the words right.
It's not it's not ready to come out of your mouth.
But it gives you a place to put down the
things that have happened that are horrible, and you do right.
You you think about it, you ruminate over it. That
you have those memories of it, the images come up,
(18:34):
and journaling allows it to instead of being up here constantly,
is to get it out. So when I was in college,
my good friend who'still my best friend now, when we
were in living together in the in the condo, like
our second year, she would constantly journal. She had a
habit of journaling.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
And I was like, what are you doing taking the
corner over there and you got beats and okay, and.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
She said, you know, I'm just writing down my feelings
and thoughts that I don't want to share with anybody else.
And I was like, oh, okay, well I'm going to
try that. And I did. And it was the first
time that I like articulated to myself, you know, the
memories that I had of the abuse, right, the details
of the abuse growing up that I could remember, and
(19:24):
that would come up and I wrote it all down,
so they weren't necessarily how I was feeling, but they
were just these kind of like the memories that just were,
you know, ruminating in my mind. And then I held
onto this thing on, you know, and I moved with it.
And then we went to Bernie Man, and so I
was like, why am I holding on to this thing?
(19:45):
And I didn't know much about Burning Man, but I'm like, well,
I'm sure there's gonna be a fire. I'm gonna burn this.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
That's what I Said's the word on the street is
we're gonna burn stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
But you know what's so interesting about reading about Bernie
Mann in your bookcause, by the way, I just know
that Bernie Man existed.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I I didn't even know about it. Was Burning the Man.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yeah, I was like, holy crap, now I want to
go and do this because I have boxes of journals
from when I was a little kid and in high
school and in college, and I still have them.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I haven't opened them, I haven't looked at them, and
they just moved with me everywhere I go. And so
when I read that part, I'm like, I'm going to
I'm going to burning me out with Aulreine for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, and then you could burn all your journals.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh I wanted gone?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Oh yeah, So I got it all out. I went
to burning me on. I burned my journal, and I
really believed that I was done with it, right, I'm
done with Like whatever happened to me was in the past.
I did need to get over it, and I was
like at a really high of my life in the
sense of how I felt, and then it all just
came back right like it wasn't really gone. Me writing
(20:52):
it in the journal didn't make it all go away
or yeah, I have a lot of more work to go.
And so that was hard. Like when I what I
you know, was started therapy, that's where I just kept
getting stuck on. I'm like, well, I felt really good,
Like how do I get back there? Right, Like I
don't want to go through this process. I just want
to get back to where I was and I know
I can get there. And He's like, no, that's not
(21:14):
how it worked. You felt that way because yes, you
had left your home and it was a moment going
through the trauma that you did feel high, but doesn't
mean all trauma is gone because you moved out of it. Right,
Just because you move away from it or you leave it,
or you leave it behind or you separate, doesn't mean
it hasn't left a number of consequences behind.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So big time.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, I yeah, have a chapter in my book right
like you didn't make the mess, but you do got
to clean it up, and you do.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I mean good terms, yeah, I mean because you're like, God,
I'm on such a good role. I'm doing all the things.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I'm like, I'm doing all this, I'm doing that, I'm
doing this and doing that, and I'm like, why am
I still sick? Because you had chronic illness like nobody's
business that you were dealing with forever, and that was
the same thing with me. With my I'm still dealing
with my physical bullshit that's happened. Some of it is
I can't control that I have lime disease like that.
That's an element. But all the stress and all of
(22:11):
the trauma and all of that, that's I am unpacking
while you and I are speaking right now. It's what
I do here on this show is I unpack my
own stuff too, to a certain extent, and I can
feel my body responding. There are days when I am
done with this and I feel so light after I've
had a conversation with someone like you, where a it's
(22:31):
me too makes me feel better too, where I'm not Like,
I'm not scared anymore to have these conversations. If my
parents decide that they want to listen to my show,
they're going to learn a lot about me, and they're
going to want to have some conversations. Maybe they won't,
maybe they'll keep it in. They'll light of me, and
they won't tell me that they didn't they listen to it.
I don't know, but that's not my problem anymore. Like
I am not going to be protecting other people and
(22:52):
their responses to things that happen to me. I'm done
with that. That is a narrative that I am done with.
And I think that also comes with getting older, because
when you're almost fifty, you're kind of like, I don't
really give a shit anymore about what.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
You think because we're piazzers.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
But you also have learned like it comes at a
cost right to you and your body and your well being. Yeah,
in order to protect somebody else's feelings, you know, and
you speaking out? Are you coming out? Are you not
no longer wanting to say it didn't happen. You're not retroump,
you're not traumatizing them, you're not causing them pain by
(23:30):
you talking about your story and what happened. For me,
that was important to know, right, Like, I did worry
about that when I was writing my book Well how Old.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Sure, while I was reading it, I was thinking about
your mom, and your sisters and your brother. I was
thinking about everybody going, oh my gosh, this is scary exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And it was scary, right. I tried to do my
best to tell my story without their story, but obviously
it comes with it.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
You know, there are a couple of little things that
were in there that I'm like, oh gosh, the brother
in law partarticulate.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it wasn't just her dad.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, because it's just my dad. And each one has
always just been dismissed, right, And I think that's for
me and for other survivors. That's the hard part. When
it's just like let it be, you know, like it's it's,
it happens, it's common, like move on, And that I
think hurts even more than the abuse.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Sure, absolutely, just being dismissed that all it does is
make you clam up and not want to share anything again,
and then you have to get through that shell again
and break it open. And like those otters, you know
how they like slam open there the muscles or whatever
with the stone or whatever they do. It's like every
single time that we get clammed up again, like, oh,
forget that scared me. I'm not going to do that again.
(24:45):
That fear that drives us, you know, to not people.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That are supposed to protect you, right, these are the
people that are right.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
They can't do it, and you can't feel safe there
where else can you feel safe?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Because you had you had attempted suicide twice when you were.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
A little girl. I know, how the hell did your mom.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Not like lose her marbles after that? Like that's insane
to me. It's so young. You were eleven and sixteen,
I think, is what you said.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, so the first time, and again I don't
know how to kill myself. I didn't you know, there
wasn't YouTube videos, I guess on one of the.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
I don't know if YouTube was around when you and
I were eleven and sixteen.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Thank god, they.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Think, get god how to do it? And so at eleven,
you know I just went into the bathroom and took
whatever pills I could, and who knows what I was
even taking, right, And so at that age, I took
the pills. And the only thing I knew right was
I didn't want to be there anymore. And I didn't
want to be there anymore. So how do I, you know,
in my life, did not be there anymore? So I
(25:48):
thought if I'd take a bunch of pills, that would happen. Well,
knowing that happened as I went to sleep and I
woke up in morning, like it's all in the same place,
like damn it, he even took notice. And then when
I was sixteen, I did the same thing. I took pills,
and I think at that time they were I did
(26:10):
know what I was taking in the sense like it
wasn't just advail, they were prescriptions. And I passed out
and the only and I remember waking up in the
hospital and they put you in a hold, and they
bring the psychologist in and and they have your family
come in after they've you know, pumped your stomach, and
you know, my family just prayed, and at the time,
(26:32):
you know, they just blamed it on like a boyfriend,
I was with this guy and he's like, oh, they
broke up and at school like everything else, but any
acknowledgment as too, well, how about maybe what's happening, you know,
but they just were incapable of doing that. That just
wasn't I don't even think possible. They just made assumptions
and then brought me home. And so again, one of
(26:54):
the reasons I'm so passionate about what I do and
so passionate about women, you know, speak out and coming
out is that person that I was at that age
where I was so depressed and the only thing I
thought about was ending my life and not wanting to
be here, right is so foreign now, like I can't
even imagine myself being there because I love life so
(27:16):
much and I want to give to people so much
and give back and show people like, you can live
this amazing life. You're going to have to go through
some work and it's not going to seal the bads
while you're in the process of it, but you can
live the life that you think is not for you, right,
like you're For many years, I just didn't think I
didn't deserve it, It wasn't for me to have, Like that's
great for that person.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
That's great for the Brady bunch, but it's not for
this bunch, not for this bunch.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
That that wasn't my cards, that wasn't the life that
I was supposed to have. And so to be able
to say no, I do deserve that, and I feel great.
And it's because I've been doing the work. I want
others to know they can do it too. It's just
it's not overnight, right, It's not an overnight fix. A
long time to get to this point, and it's going
(28:02):
to take a bit to get you to the other
side it is.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
And there's a part of your book that I want
to read real quick.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
So in relation to this, so, when I tried to
take my own life, I wanted the deep pain inside
of me to stop. In those years, I didn't see
any purpose in life if all I would ever known
was pain, I didn't see the point in it. I
didn't know why I existed. I didn't think anyone would
notice if I was gone. And only now, decades after
my failed suicide attempts and decades after trying to fix
(28:32):
what was wrong in my life, do I feel unhindered
gratitude to be alive and that part is so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
When I read that, I.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Do, it's just like I do. I wake up every
day like wow, Like I'm so.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
You've got your son, you've got your birds, you've got
your beach, you've got your sweete, and you've got your Maya,
and you're just like, holy shit, I did it?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Get itt it?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, And you're doing it for other women. Talk about
talk about freaking amazing that intersection of injustice and empowerment, right,
You're like the epitome of it. And I'm really grateful
for you and a your book because I mean, like
I mentioned, it's just like it's ridiculously good and it
(29:14):
just it touched me in so many places because we
get stuck in ungratefulness when we have so much to
be grateful for, even in the shit, even in the
crappy stuff that's happened to us, even though we're in pain,
even though our bodies are failing us, even though we
want to punch our husbands in the face. You know,
my intention this morning, actually my intentions lately. I have
(29:38):
this app that I use for intentions in the morning,
so it sits on my on my phone, so every
second I look at my phone which of course we
all do it all day long. Today's intention was don't
go postal, just get the mail.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Because I've been under construction here for like almost two
years and this is the last week.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
We are done tomorrow, and.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I've had, like last week, i had a total of
twenty nine people in my home at the same time,
and I was in two barking doxies and a sweetie,
and I'm like, I'm going to burn the house down.
I'm just going to burn the house down with everybody
in it, and I'm going to pack a bag.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I'm going to go to hull Read's house. She's gonna
take me in.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Anytime.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
But to be grateful in the midst of our shit,
you know, the stuff that's happened to us, the navigating
this road that we've been on, where we're being like
hummeled by snowballs and rocks and just all the things
that were hit with and to come out of it
the way that you have is just incredible, you know,
it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Thank you. No, And I thought that you talked about
gratitude because that's one thing that I always come back to,
like when we have to do exactly like when things
are just you're going to continue to face adversity in
your life. It's not like it's just you know, butterflies
and you know.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Just dancing through the valley with butterflies and flowers and
beautiful music playing.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I wish that was the case.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
And so when you when you have those days and
you're feeling stuck and you just can't seem to like
get out of that headspace, the gratitude journal for me
is just like an easy place to go, like, all right,
there's a lot of shit, but let's focus on what
you're thankful for right now at this moment, you know.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
And I'm glad you brought up your gratitude journal because
I know that you had a challenge within in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Talk about that for a hot minute, because I was like, totally.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I just thought it was so stupid, right that I
like exactly, you're like, what, Yes, Like, I'm thankful that I,
you know, have a bed. You know, I'm thankful that
I have a hot shower. But then you're like, I
am thankful for.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
The likes of those things, right, And so it can
just be so simple, And I didn't want to do
it because I thought, again, I thought it was stupid, like,
what's what's this?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
What difference is this going to make? You know? But
it just helps you change your perspective. It gets you
out of that like negative headspace where you think your
whole life is doom and gloom. Just think a little
bit differently. Right, you have things that you can be
thankful for, even if it's just that you're outside or
that you have a bed, or you know you're not
living in the street, or whatever it may be. And
(32:15):
it's just so simple things. And then it starts increasing.
You know that I have a loving husband, I have
a daughter, you.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Know, like been your husband's been through the ringer with you, buddy.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
Yeah, and he's still here.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
He's still here.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well, and I identify with that because I've got my
I have my lash out moments where just deep rooted
stuff comes out and I have absolutely no idea where
it's coming from.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
What triggered?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Did I know that you talk you talk about triggers
in your book as well, identifying them, understanding what the
hell is the trigger anyways? As far as I know,
it's something that you do with a gun, like, so
don't trigger me. And learning what those are and being
able to identify those has been good for you and
your and your healing process. Can you talk a little
bit about how that has worked for you and how
how that still works for you, because I know in
(33:03):
the beginning it's really hard to identify it, like why
did that even?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Why did that piss me off? Right now?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Because that is sometimes for me, has nothing to do
with anything that's going on in my world.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
That actually triggered me.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
It's crazy, it is, yeah, and I didn't know that,
so I triggered it is what you just said. Like
my husband was the one that received probably the worst
of it, but things would just piss me off, and
he would he would be called it a trigger switch,
which using that word before I even knew what a
trigger was. But he's just like, you can go from
cold to really extreme hot in like a second and
(33:35):
not know like what's going to cause it, right, Yeah,
and I would just get so angry and I would
be so horrible, and I really believed it was other
people that was causing it, right of course, yeah, what
he said caused it. What you did made me that way,
you know, they made that argument, So therefore I'm pissed, right,
It was everything external in my life that was making
(33:56):
me angry, And that's really what I believed until I
learned that, No, it was the fact that I should
have been angry. I should have directed anger at the
abuse that was happening to me as a kid, and
I said nothing. So that repressed anger of that feeling
that I was having as a kid is now coming.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Out when I wasn't adult right with somebody, I feel.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Like somebody's betraying me or manipulating me, like that is
what I get triggered by, and that's when I get angry.
And so learning that, like having the awareness of that
has really helped because I could I could recognize it now, right,
like what you just said, when that is happening, when
you want to go postal, right, you get the exactly
And that's a tool that was something you had to learn,
(34:38):
Like I didn't always have that. Now I can be
like or if I do get postal, I can look
at it and apologize for it, or I can look
at it and say and have that conversation with myself
of well, where's that coming from, Like what really upset
me or what really pissed me off? You know, what's
the real underlying reason? And I think for my cases,
why that's become so powerful for me and why that's
(35:00):
now become like a superpower for me is like the
abusers still trigger me, right, they're abusing my clients, and
so there's still a trigger for me. But I've learned
to harness that so I can make a very persuasive
argument in court without being you know, the angry lawyer,
but at the same time represent my client in a
way that I can get people to listen. Right, when
(35:21):
you're angry and you don't make any sense, it's hard
for people to listen to you and what you're trying
to say. And so I've learned to harness that. And
that's come with a lot of years of learning how
to like identify when I'm getting angry, right, like knowing
the signs, like where my body's heating up and I
can feel it coming.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
On, Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And I kind of like bread through it and then
remember like what am I here? You know, what what
are we talking about? And getting to that place so
the anger is real. It affects your relationships. I mean,
it really took a toll on on mind with my husband,
and it wasn't until you know, we went to couple's
(36:02):
counseling and we got there and I was pissed about
being in couples counsel.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
I do not want to be there, don't you dare
do this?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, exactly, so you can just stop being who you
are and we would be.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Fine, right, Yeah, this is all your fault.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
It's all your fault. We're here.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
But when we got there, you know, he said he
was scared of me. And that really was a real
pivotal moment in my life, Like, you're scary, and it's
for the first time. It allowed me to look at
my behavior and how I acted towards somebody and why
that was scary, and it reminded me of how my
(36:43):
dad was. And so again I didn't change overnight, you know,
but it just it allowed me to come up have
the awareness of my behavior and wanting to be different
for the people I loved. And so not only again,
are you helping yourself through this journey, but your relationships improved.
Not only my husband, my daughter, my colleagues, and my friends,
(37:03):
Like they all get better and you have more of
them because you're really able to get into your own
skin as you go through this process.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
And one thing that I have found by addressing a
lot of the things that we've been talking about today
is friendships. I'm glad you brought up friendship well relationships
as a whole, But for me, friendships have been a
big change in my world where I have pulled in
way better, stronger, incredible women in my world that have
(37:35):
showed up and show up for me because I've always
been the one. You talk about it in your book too.
We're literally cut from the same cloth in some places.
Whereas like I keep myself as busy as humanly possible
all the time, I still do it even though I
know I'm doing it because a it keeps me distracted
from physical pain. It also keeps me distracted from emotional
pain and lit all the things. But what's happened is
(37:57):
I am attracting better, healthier, more stable people in my
world that are supportive and understanding. Where I do tend
to kind of randomly go off the rails about my pain,
where I don't want to be here anymore because there
is so much pain in my body there's no chance
I'm making it to seventy right like or I'm like
I always sell my SUITI well you're gonna outlive me.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
And he's old. So we're like it's like he's like,
wait a second, you gotta leave me now.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
I'm the one that that's supposed to kick the bucket
before you.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I'm like, I can't make any guarantees here. Okay. You know,
like it is nuts.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
How that like that feeling of being alone in it,
in the pain, whatever, that is how you can react
to these people. But by by having better relationships to
the work that I've been doing on myself and clearing
out some of this muck and identifying why I do
the things that I do has been incredibly helpful, and
(38:54):
it helped me clean out my closet of people I
didn't want in my life anymore either.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I was like, bye, done, out of my life. You're done.
I will never speak to you again. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
It was a great run, but you do.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Not help me anymore in my life if you ever did.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
I think that's so important. I talked about that a lot,
especially when you're going through this process. Yeah, you know,
finding your tribe, getting your people, and if the current
people aren't filling that right, if they then you can
leave them completely or push them aside. Until you're ready
to go back to them yourself. Right, But I think
that relationships are really important. You don't want to do
(39:31):
it alone, and you don't have to do it alone.
That's what is important to know, is like, you're not alone,
you just might need a different group to go do
it with.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Exactly, go on vacation with a different group of people.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Okay, guys, Oh.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
My goodness, gracious, this has been incredible. I am so
incredibly grateful for you coming on here with us and
talking today. This has been It was exactly what I
wanted today to go like. So I'm very happy. Oh,
thank you so much again, love being on you got it.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
You can find Alreine all over the place, but you
can go to Alreine dot com a L R e
e n dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
You can find her book, you can read more about
her her story. It really truly got me fired up
and it made me not feel alone anymore in the
place where it is very lonely when you go through
this kind of crap in your life. Man, it just
it truly is. But there is hope and there is
a reason why we are here. And if you ever
need anything from me, you can reach out to me.
(40:29):
I can connect you with alreen whatever it may be. Women,
stick up for yourself, use your voice, don't be silent
because you're not alone in it. Thank you so much again,
I appreciate your time with us. You are exclusively invited
to share this me too, fired up fueling triumph from trauma,
VIP pain journey together, let's get to the heart of
how to heal with you by my side and Allreene's side.
(40:50):
Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your
podcast content, we will be there. Visit us at pain
gamepodcast dot com and follow us on all the socials.
Thanks for listening, my little VIPs. Catch you on the
other side.
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