Genesis The Podcast

Healing Beyond Trauma

• Genesis Women's Shelter & Support

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For decades, the path to healing from domestic violence trauma was long, arduous, and often incomplete. Laura Frombach's powerful journey demonstrates why that happens and how dramatically the path to healing has changed.

Growing up with two alcoholic parents in a violent household, Laura witnessed her mother's startling transformation from a kind person to someone cruel and sadistic. Only decades later did Laura connect this personality shift to likely traumatic brain injury caused by her father's repeated abuse. This revelation came amid Laura's own struggles with alcoholism and recovery, including a devastating relapse after 16 years of sobriety and 20 years of talk therapy.

The game-changer? Discovering that trauma lives not just in our thoughts but in our bodies. "I found out that trauma doesn't just live in your mind, it lives in your nervous system. It buries itself in your muscles, your gut and even your breath," Laura explains. Through body-based healing approaches like EMDR, somatic therapy, and breath work, Laura finally accessed and processed trauma that talk therapy had only helped her name but not feel.

Joy Farrow, a retired deputy sheriff with 28 years of law enforcement experience, adds critical perspective on why this matters beyond individual healing. She explains how understanding trauma biology transforms how we respond to survivors: "For far too long we expected survivors to give clear, linear stories. But trauma scrambles the memory because it's stored in the body, not just the brain." This insight changes everything from how survivors testify to how quickly they can reclaim their lives.

What took Laura 50 years might now be possible in months or years rather than decades. This offers profound hope to anyone who feels healing is out of reach. As Laura says, "As long as you are breathing, healing is never out of reach." Whether you're a survivor, support person, or helping professional, this episode provides vital information about cutting-edge trauma recovery approaches and why the body must be enlisted in the healing process. Listen now to discover how these breakthroughs are changing lives and offering new paths to recovery.

Speaker 1:

In this final edition of the three-part conversation with Laura Frambach and Joy Farrow, we build on the topics of weaponization of kindness and technology through a personal story of generational domestic violence and the potential for healing and growth beyond the trauma. I'm Maria McMullin and this is Genesis, the podcast. Laura Frambach is a survivor of generational domestic violence and the co-author of Street Smart Safety for Women a guide to defensive living co-written with Joy Farrow, a retired deputy sheriff with 28 years of law enforcement experience. Laura's story began in a violent home with two alcoholic parents Her father's brutality mirrored by her mother's descent into sadism and addiction, likely driven by undiagnosed trauma and brain injury from abuse. She followed a familiar path into alcoholism, but has been in recovery for over 35 years and in therapy for more than 30. But it wasn't talk therapy that led to true healing. That came later, through modalities like EMDR, somatics and breathwork body-based approaches that didn't exist when she started her journey. Together, laura and Joy now share a vital message Healing is possible, and today it's faster, deeper and more accessible than ever.

Speaker 1:

This episode will discuss domestic violence. Laura and Joy, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having us. Thank you, it's good to be with you.

Speaker 1:

So we're in our final conversation of a three part series where we're talking about different concepts related to domestic violence that we don't always get to cover in depth on the show or really get to read about, because there's not a lot of research done about these topics. We talked about the weaponization of kindness, we talked about the misogyny of technology, and now we're going to talk about something maybe a little bit lighter. We're going to talk about topics related to healing. We often say at Genesis, women's Shelter and Support that there is help and there is hope and there really is, and you're both an example of being helpful. Joy worked in law enforcement and you're both an example of being helpful. Joy worked in law enforcement, laura, you were in the Army, and you all co-authored a book called Street Smart Safety for Women, and you're doing amazing outreach work and presentations across the country on topics related to domestic violence. So in part one, laura, of our series, you talked about your mother's experience with domestic abuse. Just recap that story for listeners to give us a jumping off point.

Speaker 2:

I was raised with alcoholism and domestic violence and although my father was violent to the whole family, he wasn't as bad as my mother, but she was also victimized by my dad. The interesting thing was that my mother's family said that she hadn't always been like that, that she was once the nicest person anyone ever knew, and none of us could figure out what changed, why she changed from being the nicest person anyone ever knew to being a cruel and violent person, and we kept going around and around about that. What could have happened to her? And then, just a few years ago, after actually about five decades, it occurred to me that maybe the violence could have traumatized her, actually caused traumatic brain injury, and that was the game changer for me.

Speaker 1:

Was there any confirmation that she had a traumatic brain injury?

Speaker 2:

No, my mom passed away about 25 years ago. But what I will tell you is that there is confirmation that I did not imagine the split between her personalities, the change in her personality. My aunt and my grandmother talked about it for many years and my mother continued to deteriorate until she passed away. She drank more, she was angrier, she made angry phone calls and my aunt and my grandmother was like what could have happened to her.

Speaker 2:

And then, subsequently, after I had this realization, joy and I talked to a number of my family members and almost inevitably within five minutes and many of them I hadn't seen since I was a child within five minutes they said what happened to your mother. She used to be such a nice lady. So really that confirmed the fact that my mother had that personality change. And when I looked up traumatic brain injury caused by strangulation and repeated blows to the head, which I know that my mother endured because I witnessed it all of the pieces fell into place. So I didn't just want to come out and make this claim that my mother had changed without corroboration, but from everything I've been able to determine and again Joy's been with me during many of those conversations that was a real change and my mother went from being a very, very kind, loving person to truly being somebody I thought was possessed.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing you were able to connect the dots and try to get some perspective on her experience along your journey to try to heal from the trauma of all of the abuse that occurred when you were a child, and you've said that talk therapy helped you survive, but it didn't necessarily help you heal. What finally moved the needle in your recovery and what should today's survivors know about the power of body-based healing?

Speaker 2:

Here's the thing Talk therapy did save my life, but it did not heal me fully and, believe me, I spent 20 years in talk therapy. So here's what changed everything. So, like my parents, I'm an alcoholic, but unlike them, I found recovery. But I relapsed after 16 years of sobriety and 20 years of therapy, and I had various therapists. So I kept trying different therapists, but the relapse wasn't just for a weekend. I went back to drinking for over a year because I just couldn't stay sober.

Speaker 2:

Once I started again, and I had a pretty low bottom to begin with.

Speaker 2:

So it wasn't that I didn't know from experience what alcoholism can do. So after all that work, though, I thought I was well, I thought that I was cured, and so the relapse was actually a very big surprise to me. And I was even more surprised to find out that I could not stay sober again even after all that time, even after all the insight and all of the tools. So I finally went back to therapy with yet another therapist, but this time I discovered something new body-based healing, and that changed everything. I found out that trauma doesn't just live in your mind, it lives in your nervous system. It buries itself in your muscles, your gut and even your breath. So for me, it wasn't until I started doing somatic healing, body-based work like EMDR and breath work and later neurofeedback, that I was finally able to feel the trauma that talk therapy had only helped me to name, and it helped me to realize the disassociation I'd been living with. By the way, since relapsing, I now have 17 years of consecutive sobriety, so it worked.

Speaker 1:

Well, congratulations on that, and that certainly sounds like a breakthrough moment for you using those types of therapies. And I would also add not to your experience, of course, but just to this conversation that it can be different for everyone. Absolutely, some people can heal just with talk therapy. Others don't want talk therapy and they, you know they want to try some other form of therapy or options that are meaningful to them. So I'm really proud of you, laura, for just working to figure it all out. You've done a tremendous job just taking care of yourself and bringing yourself to this point now to help others. Your family was decimated by domestic abuse and, as you suggested, it almost destroyed you, but your message is one of hope. What would you say to someone who feels like healing is just too far out of reach for them?

Speaker 2:

I tell people that, as long as you are breathing, healing is never out of reach. I've been in recovery altogether for about 35 years, and in that time I have seen people from every walk of life and at every stage of rock bottom find their way back. I know someone now who is clean and sober today after 45 years of trying to get sober 45 years. So if that person can do it and I can do it then you can do it too, and that's what persistence and hope can do. And so, from my experience, healing from abuse is no different, and it doesn't matter how long it's been or how bad it got or how bad it is today. What matters is that you start. And so I'll add that it's been my experience that both trauma and addiction both thrive in isolation. They need isolation. They thrive in silence and secrecy, which is why community is so important for recovery. So, whether it's a support group, a faith-based community, an organization like Genesis or even a podcast like this, one connection is what breaks the cycle.

Speaker 1:

Very true, Very true. Now you call your recovery a 50 year journey, but you emphasize it doesn't have to take that long anymore. What breakthroughs in trauma science do you want all of us to hear loud and clear?

Speaker 2:

So here's what I want every survivor and every helping professional to hear loud and clear Body-based trauma recovery has completely changed the game full stop For years. Recovery has completely changed the game full stop. For years I did what we were all told to do. I talked about the trauma over and over and over, but what I didn't realize was that I was talking about it while completely disassociated and disconnected from my body, and I think that's true for many survivors trauma survivors is that we have to disassociate to survive. So I could describe what happened, I could name it, but I really couldn't feel it. I didn't cry, I just could tell somebody over and over again what happened and sometimes I even felt bad for them that they had to listen to it. But I found that for me, as you mentioned, everybody's different, but for me, if I couldn't feel it, then I couldn't heal it, and that didn't shift until I enlisted my body in the process through somatic work and EMDR and breath work and other nervous system modalities, and that really was the game changer for me.

Speaker 1:

So can you give us one example of body based therapy?

Speaker 2:

I will say the one that really was a game changer for me was EMDR. So that's rapid eye movement where you talk about the trauma but the therapist moves a pencil or finger or some other object. I think it's almost like hypnosis. What it does remarkably, and I can't tell you the science behind it, but there were certain situations where I would be nauseous even just thinking about the situation. And after going through EMDR and repeating it over and over again not again like talk therapy where I just repeated it so many times, but really going through that process of using that eye tracking that the feeling of nausea, the feeling of revulsion actually went away. I'll share with you that. You know I'm a tough customer, so I would play with it and I would bring it up just to see if it really worked, and I'm happy to say that it did. But I use probably, I would say, over a dozen over the course of time because we have to heal slowly. I used a number of those body-based tools in order to reset my nervous system.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's incredible. You have such determination. I mean, it says a lot about you and just your willpower and your determination to feel the way that you want it to feel and live the life that you want to live, that you want it to feel and live the life that you want to live Joy. So there are some studies now that show trauma-informed, body-based therapies like EMDR and somatics can reduce PTSD symptoms in a fraction of the time, as Laura just alluded to, that it used to take with talk therapy alone. From your law enforcement perspective, how does that shift change the game for survivors and what does it tell us is possible now?

Speaker 3:

This is really a game changer. So from my law enforcement lens, this is just amazing and I have done it myself at work. I had several sessions of it, of EMDR. Yes, just from some reoccurring incidents at work. Laura said, why don't you try this? And I did and it was amazing.

Speaker 3:

And what we know of EMDR and somatic therapy is that they can help survivors process trauma faster. It also helps survivors feel safe in their own bodies again. So talk therapy can take years to get there and that speed matters. It means survivors may feel stronger and more in control sooner, and that changes everything from how they testify to how they live. It also breaks that old belief that healing has to be long and slow. The body can actually be a part of the solution. So survivors don't have to keep reliving the trauma, they can release it, and that opens the door to real empowerment and faster justice. So it also changes how we in law enforcement understand trauma. For far too long we expected survivors to give clear, linear stories. But trauma scrambles the memory because it's stored in the body, not just the brain. So when a survivor can't recall things on command or shuts down, it's not defiance, it's biology. So that's a call to be more trauma-informed. It pushes us to listen differently and support better and protect with empathy. We're not just helping people survive, we're helping them recover.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I love what you said about it. It's not defiance, it's biology. That's so smart and, coming from a former law enforcement professional, it's incredibly insightful for you to understand it that way, and my hope would be that you share that with other members of law enforcement so that they can learn from your experience and your understanding of trauma informed practices. What I'd love to do now is just wrap up the three episodes that we have recorded and give people a summary of each one, so let's start with the weaponization of kindness, laura. What were the key takeaway points from that conversation?

Speaker 2:

Our hardware, our body-based hardware, tells us to be safe, but society installs a bug that says be nice, be kind, and predators weaponize our inclination to be polite and kind at all costs. And how do we overcome that kind? And the important thing is the turning point that says am I being nice because I want to be or am I being nice because I'm afraid of the consequences if I don't?

Speaker 3:

I'm going to say that your intuition is not woo-woo, it's your survival hardware, and your gut instinct is hardwired for survival. So ignoring it in favor of politeness is a glitch we've been trained to accept and it's time to uninstall it. Yeah, that's excellent advice.

Speaker 1:

And then in episode two we talked about the misogyny of technology. Just give us a few points of the key takeaways there.

Speaker 2:

Misogyny has weaponized technology, because the algorithms pointing people, especially young men, to harmful content, to toxic content, is not an accident. They're not stumbling upon this content by accident. This is a business model. The creators monetize the content Every click that happens. Cha-ching the platforms get upwards of 30% of all of that content as well. So, to be succinct, it isn't an accident, it's a business model.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a great point. And to combat all of that, we have several things. So first we have the possibilities of future legislation, which we talked about in the second part of this series, and then, of course, what we just talked about, all of these opportunities for healing. They are helpful, they create hope. There's all kinds of possibilities that we can grow from our traumatic experiences and really live the life that we want to live, and you're both an example of that. Any final thoughts before I let you go.

Speaker 2:

We want listeners to know. It's just what you've said, maria there is help and there is hope and, as I've said when we started this series, I am 70 years old and I've been doing this for 50 years and I do not want one more person to have to do that, and with today's trauma-based science, they don't have to, and I want to say that you're stronger than you think you are, so reclaim your power and take control.

Speaker 1:

Joy, Laura, thank you so much. I've learned a lot from both of you and I appreciate you being on the show, spending the time and for talking with me today.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much.

Speaker 1:

Maria. Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women in abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence, and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at GenesisShelterterorg and when you follow us on social media on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis Women's Shelter, and on X at Genesis Shelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by call or text at 214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.