187: You Can Lose Your Old Life And Still Be Alive

A bomb goes off, you make it home without a scratch, and everyone assumes you’re fine. 

In this episode swap, Manya is a guest on Grieve Then Achieve with host Kate Nudds. They talk about the invisible aftermath of surviving the Boston Marathon bombing: PTSD symptoms that hijack sleep and focus, the raw-nerve feeling of living in fight-or-flight, and the isolation that can follow when the world only recognizes physical injuries. Manya shares the frightening, disorienting thoughts that showed up early, and why taking them seriously was part of staying safe and getting support.

We also dig into the grief that can live inside trauma--grief for the life you had before, the innocence of believing “this doesn’t happen to people like me,” and the future that suddenly feels uncertain. We talk stigma, why self-reported mental health wounds are often doubted, and how that doubt shapes recovery for disaster survivors who don’t look injured.

Then we get practical about resilience and trauma recovery: therapy and trauma-specific counseling, mindfulness and meditation to calm the nervous system, movement through yoga and walking, and the surprising power of channeling anger into advocacy and meaningful action. 

If you’ve ever felt dismissed because your pain didn’t show up on the outside, you’ll hear language for what’s happening and options for what to do next. 

Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you’re bringing into your own healing.

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Transcript

Fear That Shows Up Uninvited

Manya Chylinski 0:01

I was very afraid that I was just going to walk in front of a car. Right. That I was that somehow all of this fear and pain, I didn't specifically think of suicide. I wasn't specifically thinking I want to end this all. I just was afraid if I'm walking down the street, I might just jump in front of a moving car.

Why This Conversation Matters

Manya Chylinski 0:27

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Monia Chelinsky. This week's episode is special. This is an episode of a podcast called Grieve Then Achieve, hosted by Kate Nudz, that I was a guest on and shared about my story and talked about the concept of grief as a survivor. I think you're really going to enjoy this.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So, hello and welcome, Manya. Thank you so much for joining me on the Grieve Then Achieve podcast. I'm really glad to be here, Kate. It was a pleasure to be on your podcast, and I thank you very much for uh returning the paper. Um, I think this is going to be uh such an interesting conversation between us because this is uh slightly different grief to perhaps the other um um the other people that I've had on on different episodes. So tell me about your your grief journey. Tell me about you and and and why we're talking today.

What It Felt Like At The Bombing

Manya Chylinski 1:32

My grief journey started, and to address what you just said, I didn't even realize it was a grief journey. I didn't understand what grief was. I am a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing. I am so thankful that I did not have any physical injuries. However, I walked away and thought I was okay, but I wasn't. I developed post-traumatic stress and that seriously impacted my life, my ability to function, all of those things that anybody who's gone through grief can understand. And as I said, at the time I didn't recognize the role grief was playing in the midst of all the other emotions that I was feeling. I was directly across the street from the first bomb. So I saw it explode, and my brain knew something was going on and that I was in danger, and I was frozen in place. And then the second bomb went off about 12 seconds later, and I turned to look down the street and see that cloud of smoke rising and realized this is bad. We have to get out of here. And with my friends, we evacuated. And as I said, initially I thought, okay, that was awful. I witnessed a murder. I'm okay, thank goodness. And as I say, quickly realized that I wasn't okay. And it's only looking back that I recognize the grief of that loss, losing the life I had before, losing the innocence of traumatic things don't happen to me, to people like me, to people in this neighborhood, which is I realize now was a naive viewpoint, but I I think I was just sad for all of those losses.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Of course. And we're in such a bubble, aren't we? That you that's really resonated with me where you said, yeah, this doesn't happen to me. This doesn't happen to me. I'm in my little bubble, and then it does happen. What showed up for you? Because you said you you realized that you that you weren't okay. What was that realization? What did that look like? It was a couple of things.

PTSD Symptoms No One Could See

Manya Chylinski 4:09

In one was that I isolated myself, I was afraid to talk to people, largely because I was afraid of sharing that I was struggling, because we weren't hearing the story about people with mental health wounds. And I had people say along the lines of, well, of course you're okay, you didn't have any physical injuries. And you know, and later on had people say, you know, nothing really happened to you, suck it up. So early on, I got the message that this isn't the story people are talking about, and I don't want to be vulnerable and share that this is that I'm struggling with this. Yeah. And I also recognize now as I look back that that kind of isolating myself was a go-to coping mechanism when something difficult happened. You know, just I'm gonna close in on myself and figure out how to deal with it, even knowing that I don't even know how to deal with it, but I'm just gonna somehow figure it out on my own. Um, so that isolation was one piece of it. And the other piece of it was losing my ability to function in life. I was able to do the basics, get up in the morning, you know, take a shower, go to work. Um, I didn't do much work when I was working, but I had, you know, this is now me at work, staring at the computer, unable to focus. Um, was able to dress myself, all of those things. So from the outside, you wouldn't know, but I was, I had trouble sleeping. When I did sleep, I had just horrific nightmares. Um, had trouble eating, making food, buying food, just the simplest. The night after the bombing was on a Monday, Tuesday, I realized I didn't have any food or there was no food I wanted to eat in my refrigerator. I ended up going to just the local convenience store and I got corn chips and queso for dinner. And I think that's what I had for about three or four days. Just that was all I could manage to do.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah.

Manya Chylinski 6:34

In retrospect, it makes me smile thinking that was that my comfort food? Did I just see it and it was easy? It's just not something that I typically eat. And there were tears, many, many, many tears. I am a generally sensitive person, so tears are not a surprise for me. That is also a go-to coping mechanism. This was on a scale I'd never seen before.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Right. So there was a level that you normally and then a sensitive level, and this was a a deeper level than that.

Manya Chylinski 7:15

Absolutely, yes. And I think a lot of your listeners, whatever their experiences are, will understand this. I felt like I was just this raw nerve. Just anything would set me off. And anything in terms of something happening in my environment or somebody saying something to me or not saying something to me. And again, in retrospect, I realized, you know, my body was in fight or flight mode. I was still, you know, part of the challenge of post-traumatic stress is that your body stays in that mode to protect you. So I realize now that's where a lot of this kind of that feeling came from. But I was just, it did not take much to um set me off to crying or having an anxiety attack. Um, you know, and in my case, that an anxiety attack manifests itself that I need to move to just keep things to somehow take care of it. It involves a lot of movement. So I had many times where I was just kind of, you know, running in place, trying to get out the energy, trying to figure out what to do with this pain that I was experiencing.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

And how long did that last? And then what did you do?

Manya Chylinski 9:17

The acute phase I imagine was relatively short, a week or two. The bombing happened on a Monday. The following Monday, the city held a moment of silence for those who were killed in the event at the same time. And I watched it on TV and felt like I want to be part of this. And within about a half an hour after that ending, I was on the phone to my doctor's office asking to see someone in their behavioral health department. Something about that moment clicked in me that

Asking For Help And Taking Action

Manya Chylinski 9:58

I'm not okay. And so definitely that first week was the very acute stage. And I don't know what the stage below that is, but I was in that stage for probably several months. Again, where I was showing up for life, and you could see me, and you might even not know anything was wrong. But all of this stuff was what was going on in the background, and it was difficult to focus on work. And I eventually got to a point where I could do work, but it was still difficult to focus, and um still didn't necessarily want to share my story with my name attached to it. Early on, though, in that summer, a few months after, I started recognizing the fact that I felt invisible and the fact that there wasn't a lot of public support for survivors like me. There was some, and I kind of got into any of those pieces that I could. And I started to realize it doesn't have to be this way. If we actually understood that these kind of people have these kind of feelings after these major events, after disasters. And I started doing research and realizing, oh, people do know that this happens. And they're typically in an event like this, there are many more people who are experiencing mental health wounds than people who have physical wounds. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a report and it talks about disaster mental health, and mass violence is considered a disaster. And it's, I sometimes get this number messed up, but I want to say it's between four and 50 people have a psychological wound for every one person who has a physical wound. So I started to realize it's knowable, it is a known fact. We are somehow choosing not to pay attention to the mental health side or to talk about it very much. So that's when I started doing things like talking about it and reaching out to my city leaders, and that eventually led to getting on stages and talking about it and to where you and I are today. That came from a place of anger. I felt very angry, and that has been a defining emotion of my experience, has been anger throughout, and much less so today because I'm actively working to make some changes. I still can get really angry about things. Um, and unfortunately, still today, as we're recording this, it's 11 and a half years later, still it is somehow codified in the experience that survivors like me don't count. So we don't get invitations to things that other survivors get invited to. And so it is not something that is just in the moment that they didn't pay attention to us. It was what set the course of the response and set the course of the lives of those of us who experienced only psychological wounds and didn't have physical wounds. So it was in starting to take some action that I started to feel better.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Right, right. And that came from the anger. Taking the action came from the anger. Yes. Yeah. That is fascinating, isn't it? That that even though we're even what we know about mental health and what we know about the impacts of war and everything, and we're still not really focusing on mental health and the effects and the differences with the physical and the mental.

Manya Chylinski 14:03

Sure, the reasons are are more complex than one word, but I do think it has to do with the stigma of mental health issues. And a mental health challenge is personally defined. It's me not functioning the way that I usually function, and you can't see that. There's no blood, there's no obvious physical manifestation unless in some way you recognize my behavior change. But the world at large doesn't can't automatically see that. And I think

Why Psychological Wounds Get Dismissed

Manya Chylinski 14:44

we still, for whatever reason, don't trust people's report self-reports. And because we can't see it. We can't prove that with an x-ray. And uh, you know, when we're talking about recovery from trauma and post-traumatic stress. And so I I feel like it's stigma and it's maybe fear. If if that could happen to you, it could happen to me. And it looks awful, and I don't want that to happen to me. Yeah, I am rejecting this. Yes. Yes, I reject your reality. Um, yeah. And honestly, I also think a little bit of it is a lack of awareness. It's not a malicious, I see you, I see this thing happening to you, and I don't care. I think it's also can be difficult for people, if they haven't gone through something like this, to understand what it feels like from the inside, of course, because they don't have that lived experience. For others who may have experienced something in the past, I think sometimes you don't want to see it because for all those reasons. I didn't get help, so we're not gonna help you, or I don't even want to admit that something happened to me. So admitting that something happened to you means I have to deal with something in my own life that I don't want to deal with. So I think it's it's complex, but I do think some of it is maybe a lack of education or a lack of attention.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

And and we I talk a lot on these different podcasts about lack of education around grief, the one thing that we are all going to experience in some form. Um, and if we were just talking about it more, it might help. And I I guess the question really is for you. So, when did you realize that grief was playing a part as well?

Manya Chylinski 16:53

Not until very recently.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Right.

Manya Chylinski 16:56

So it was 2013, and I want to say that my recognizing that grief was playing a role was really probably just in the last couple of years when I started doing my own podcast and talking to people about their experiences, and I did an episode on grief, and I have now done a few episodes on grief, but that first one right around then was I think the first time I thought of that word

Realizing Trauma Can Be Grief

Manya Chylinski 17:34

in relationship to what was going on to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Making that connection.

Manya Chylinski 17:38

Yes. I was that was never a label that I would have used during my experience early on.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

And in talking about it, you recognized it yourself. So just that sort of self-awareness piece?

Manya Chylinski 17:53

I think so. And reading about it as I it's interesting that you asked that because now I'm thinking about this. I happened upon several different grief experts, grief counselors, and would follow them on social media and read their things because a lot of the language and the communication about building awareness for people experiencing grief is very similar to building awareness for people who are experienced trauma. And so I was taking those things in. You're very familiar with this, and I'm sure your listeners are too, with the phenomenon of people not knowing what to say after someone you love dies. Well, they also don't know what to say after you've experienced a bombing, for example. Um, so I started reading those kinds of resources through the lens of, oh, yeah, that's the same if you've gone through a trauma, but didn't connect. Well, maybe that means what I was going through was grief. Like I didn't make that connection until I started doing the research and talking about it for my podcast. And I don't know if there's any reason behind that, or if it was a fear of naming that as one of the experiences, or if it just took me a long time to connect the dots for just whatever regular reason.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Well, we don't really talk about it, do we? And that's the thing. We don't always equate grief to to an event like that. Most people, when they're talking about grief, are talking about a bereavement or you know, of a of a close loved one. And and that thing, so it's talking about loss helps us understand loss is grief. And of course, you it lost the life that you had and and you know and and the the future. So yeah, it's it's I I I I guess you're putting a label on it, we're putting a label on it, aren't we? But did did it did it change things for you? Did it did it help then realizing that actually I'm grieving? Did what sort of was there a was it a light bulb moment? Actually, I'm grieving, but it did it make any changes for you? Did it help?

Manya Chylinski 20:09

It's interesting you ask it that way, because I'm not sure I actually had a light bulb moment and actively admitted to myself I am grieving the loss. And I honestly think that still is a little bit of resistance on my part. I still have resistance to dealing with some of the emotions that came up because of this, which you know it's pretty complex and also it touches all sorts of different areas of your life. And I realize that there are parts of the experience that I still have boxed away.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah.

Manya Chylinski 20:54

And I think talking about grief, I recognize it's part of the experience, and I haven't actually connected it personally to myself, if that makes sense. It's still in a box. I see the box and I see it has a label.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

You just don't want to open it. Yeah, we can keep that box over there.

Manya Chylinski 21:22

There are other boxes, some which have labels, some don't. It's just in a pile. Just over there. Just over there. I see it. I know it's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We see you.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

And uh because this podcast is called Grieve Then Achieve, let's let's link it to achieving whilst grieving. How have you coped and and what would you suggest for anybody that's experienced anything even similar? I mean, what would you do you have particular what worked for you? I suppose healthy, maybe not just eating crisps, but you know, did you did you have healthy coping mechanisms? And and your podcast is all about resilience, isn't it? So I mean it's it's it's perfect because I guess it is about building resilience.

Manya Chylinski 22:09

Yes. I did have a few coping mechanisms. And what's interesting is I think is interesting, is again, in retrospect, looking back, I didn't know I was necessarily tapping into some of these things, and I can recognize them looking backwards, but in the moment I just was doing what felt like I needed to. Do in the moment. So I mentioned that I got angry. So one of the things that helped me heal was taking some sort of action. I wrote letters, I started speaking, and realized that by sharing my story and putting my name to

Tools That Supported Recovery

Manya Chylinski 22:50

it, I was helping to get rid of the stigma about talking about this and that I was going to be making a difference for people, even though I was probably never going to meet anybody that I made a difference for. Had to just trust that putting this out into the universe. And then that has that has become, you know, the change in career that I have and those things. The other coping mechanism, I would say two others. So one was leaning into therapy and counseling. That is something that traditionally works for me. So that was, I mentioned a week after I called the therapist at my doctor's office and said I need to come in. That is a way that works for me. And I know somebody who says that there's only three things that you need to heal from something like this. And it's time, talk, and tears. And that talk doesn't have to be to a therapist, it can be to family, friends, coworkers, a faith leader, in my case, therapy, and doing some trauma-specific counseling, both group and individual. And then the third thing that really helped me was mindfulness and meditation and really starting to connect my mind and my body and recognizing my responses and then learning techniques to calm my nervous system down in the moment when I needed to. And uh the fourth thing was exercise, and that ties really closely to the mindfulness and meditation because I started out by building up a yoga practice. I started with a trauma-sensitive yoga practice and then moved into yoga in community studios and then on my own. Um, and again, that was to get my body moving and get the stress and the trauma out, um, and also connected to that mindfulness. And I am a walker. I love to just set out for long walks, and um that is also a big coping mechanism for me when I'm stressed. I will stand up from this desk, walk out the door, and just go for a walk. Um, you're out in I live in the city, so sometimes I'm in nature, sometimes I'm in the city, but fresh air, moving, other people. Um, it just it I recognized how important it is to keep my body moving.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yeah, yeah. That that mind-body connection, isn't it? That we store so much in the body. Um, and the book, The Body Keeps the Score, I recommend it all the time because it's just I do too.

Manya Chylinski 25:45

Yeah. Incredible to it's a little academic, but when you can get through some of those pieces, it's such good information at the core.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah, I put it on audio. I found that a bit easier because I kept picking the book up and putting it down and picking it up and putting it down. And I was like, Kate, you need to get through this. So I put it on an audio book and that that solved the problem. But excellent, excellent. Just so informative, and and it is understanding that connection. And you're right, it's that there's um there's yoga for grief as well, actually, which is interesting because again, storing it in the body. Yeah. Oh, we could just talk about this for forever. There's so so many things I want to ask you, and so much, but um I guess you know, to keep it kind of uh short-ish, is there anything else that you wanted to mention that has come up for you now? We're we're talking about things, anything else that um you'd like to talk about?

Manya Chylinski 26:38

I think reminding people, reminding your listeners, as you are going through something like this, to let it happen. Let yourself feel the things you're feeling. And if the thing you're feeling is fear, or the thing you're feeling is that right now what you need is to isolate, then that's okay. That's what you need to do. Um it's really just about when you're in the thick of it, it's just about surviving. Waking up in the morning, keeping yourself safe. Um I will tell you that I was very

Let It Happen And Stay Safe

Manya Chylinski 27:19

worried early on. This is gonna sound, I don't well, it sounds strange to myself. I don't know how it's gonna sound to your listeners, but I was very afraid that I was just going to walk in front of a car. Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Right.

Manya Chylinski 27:36

That I was that somehow all of this fear and pain, and it this I didn't specifically think of suicide. I wasn't specifically thinking I want to end this all. I just was afraid if I'm walking down the street, I might just jump in front of a moving car.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Almost unconsciously.

Manya Chylinski 27:59

Yes, yes. And and that was very scary, and you know, I had to have conversations about that. I guess what I want to say is whatever you're feeling is normal. The fear, the uncertainty, the confusion, the not wanting to get out of bed, the not wanting to take care of yourself, the wanting to eat the corn chips for dinner, like all of these things are just your body trying to deal with this massive trauma, or not so massive trauma, but that you are that is feeling to you a massive trauma. And just be have grace for yourself. And it's and it's hard, that's really hard.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, it's that self-awareness piece, isn't it? It's understanding what's going on for you and and and being okay, especially with a grieving process. It's going going through the grieving process. You can't go over it, you can't go around it, it catches up with you eventually. But it you're right, it's that grace, it's allowing yourself to go through the process.

unknown 29:01

Yeah.

Manya Chylinski 29:02

And early on, you don't even necessarily you can't necessarily name it. And you're just if I stopped you on the street and said, Is this what's happening to you? You probably wouldn't even be able to acknowledge it. So just trust that what you're doing is what you need to be doing. And if you're scared about something like I was, then address it. Um, but don't worry, and also don't worry if you can't name the feeling or you can't figure out what you're feeling. Uh, because at some point you will, and that when you're ready to do that. I'm I have become a believer in you know, that we deal with things when we are able to deal with them. And so having patience if in this moment I'm not quite able to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah. And obviously, as a trainee counselor and as a coach, I'm a huge advocate for talking. And I do think you just sometimes need to unpick what's going on, and that that's what the talking does. It can it can make absolutely.

Manya Chylinski 30:10

You know, I I repeat that time, talk, and tears. Um, it I think that is how we get through almost everything. And um just the time piece is hard. We all want to feel better sooner than we feel better. It's hard to have that patience. I still sometimes, it's you know, 11 years, I still, every once in a while, something will hit me and I'll be crying, or I'll have a beginning of an anxiety attack. And, you know, rather than thinking, oh, come on, it's been 11 years. I think, oh, okay, whatever. It's only been 11 years. I'm still feeling this. It was a lot of work to get to a point where that didn't bother me.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Of course. Of course. Patience and grace, as we said, as you said. Mania, it has been incredible. Thank you so much for your time. Like I say, we could talk for hours about this, but it's you've given us a little glimpse, and that that has been brilliant.

Manya Chylinski 31:13

Thank you so much. Oh, I'm so pleased to share, and and hopefully there's some uh nuggets in there that people can use. Of course, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Thanks very much.