Trauma, Loss, and the Strength of Vulnerability in Motherhood: Caralyn's Story

In this extraordinarily candid episode, Caralyn Dreyer shares her challenging path into motherhood. She speaks honestly about living in "survival mode" her whole life, sharing her journey as an adoptee, her experience with sexual assault in college, and her time in a physically and verbally abusive relationship. 

She talks about the deep pain of going through two miscarriages, the confusion around early loss, and her struggles with suicidal thoughts afterwards.She highlights the crucial role of external support and antidepressant medication in managing severe postpartum depression, ultimately realizing she had to prioritize her own mental health to be the parent her son needed. 

This conversation is a powerful testament to vulnerability as strength and finding hope after walking through hell.

Key Takeaways

• Trauma's Lifelong Impact: Spending a lifetime in "survival mode" can often be attributed to a series of consecutive traumas that begin early in life.
• The Silence of Loss: The lack of a "manual" and the intense stigma surrounding early pregnancy loss means many survivors suffer in silence and carry feelings of shame.
• Generational Cycle Breaking: Recognizing and healing from your own trauma is critical to breaking negative generational cycles for your children.
• Vulnerability as Strength: Sharing dark and personal experiences is an act of courage that can help others feel seen and validated.
• Medication is a Tool, Not a Cure: Antidepressants can be a real lifesaver for handling serious issues like postpartum depression, but they work best when combined with therapy that helps develop long-term coping skills.

To learn more about Caralyn, visit her Instagram, Threads, or Blog accounts.

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Visit our Patreon to help support our mission to normalize the conversation and end the stigma surrounding PMADs!

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (01:31)
Hello today, I'm here with Caralyn Caralyn. How are you?

Caralyn Dreyer (01:36)
Hi, I am well. How are you?

Chelsea Myers (01:40)
I am a little frazzled on a Friday morning, but you know, we're, we're doing our best. We're gonna, we're gonna power through. We're moms. That's what we do. Right? Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Caralyn, I'm excited to finally get to sit down with you. it takes a while, man, with a lot of my guests. It takes a while to finally get to meet you, but ⁓ boy, I remember all of you.

Caralyn Dreyer (01:50)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (02:07)
And I look forward to meeting all of you and I've been really looking forward to sitting down with you. So this is exciting for me. Yeah. Well, we'll just jump right in with both feet. Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and who you were before starting your parenting journey?

Caralyn Dreyer (02:12)
Yeah, same. Same here.

Well, I'm Caralyn, obviously. I'm a mom. Before I was a mom, however, I grew up in a small town. I'm an adoptee, so I was adopted. So that brings like a little interesting layer to the whole journey of motherhood for sure. for the most part, I had a typical childhood.

I did deal with some bullying growing up. I definitely struggled already. We'll say adolescent age with like depression and anxiety. But at that time you kind of just chalk it up to like adolescent moodiness, that type of thing. But I know for certain now in hindsight, it was like a lot deeper than Obviously, I grew up in a predominantly white town. So

there was the racial aspect that really weighed heavy on me. For the most part, I was treated with kindness and acceptance, but I did experience being called the N-word, things of that nature. So right off the bat, just kind of, my identity was a little bit off kilter, I guess, if that's the way to put it, just with all these little factors. And then I...

I'm a survivor of trauma also. I was sexually assaulted in college. ⁓ I had my first abusive relationship. I believe I was 20. And that was a physically abusive relationship, definitely verbally, psychologically, ⁓ emotionally.

This individual was very controlling. Looking back at it, I do wonder if it was narcissistic abuse. just with some of the things that were done to me, ⁓ I was defecated on in this relationship. ⁓ I'm trying to use a scientific term, but somebody pooped on me just to break things down simply.

Chelsea Myers (04:33)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (04:44)
so there's that, ⁓ he put his hands on me once, pushed me down in a parking lot. Also, in addition to that, he ended up breaking up with me actually, ⁓ which was the best thing ever. It was my sort of chapter of independence. After that, I got my own place. I was ripping and running, going to college, working. and then.

like 20s and 30s, you know, just kind of like living life. ⁓ But the depression and anxiety obviously got worse as I got older because I had experienced trauma and I had attempted suicide. Probably, I want to say it was like,

Chelsea Myers (05:22)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (05:33)
seven or eight months after the sexual assault. ⁓ In addition to that, I had almost died of alcohol poisoning because I had started self-medicating with alcohol because I did not ever go to therapy for any of these things. So yeah, it's a miracle, honestly, that I'm okay now. I don't promote self-healing, by the way, for really, really, really serious things.

Chelsea Myers (05:50)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (06:02)
It's possible,

but I don't want to be out here necessarily advocating for that. I could have probably for gone like a lot of things had I gone to therapy after all these things. so there's pretty much that just being a survivor of trauma. And honestly, looking back, I spent a good portion of my life living in survival mode because all of these things happened.

pretty much consecutively. I maybe had a couple years in between where things like weren't too crazy, but it was like after I started healing from one thing and thinking I'm good, something else happens. was just a lifetime of survival mode really, which now explains like a lot of things.

Chelsea Myers (06:48)
Yeah. And I, A, I appreciate you being so candid and so vulnerable in sharing all of that. It's really, it's so important. It's so important, but it, but you don't owe it to anybody either. So no, right. So I, I appreciate you sharing it and it does inform a lot of, of your journey ahead, I'm sure.

Caralyn Dreyer (06:57)
Yeah.

No, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Chelsea Myers (07:16)
So knowing you have a history with mental health, knowing you did not have the support that you needed, was mental health something that was even talked about within your family or did you kind of feel like you were fending for yourself?

Caralyn Dreyer (07:32)
I, okay, so my impression of mental health growing up was basically I equated that purely just with like mental illness. I didn't look at it from the aspect of like mental health is like physical health. You have to eat properly, you have to sleep, you have to have healthy habits. I really equated mental health with specifically mental illness. And so,

Chelsea Myers (07:42)
Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (07:59)
It wasn't really talked about in our household. know probably the depressive side of me was viewed as me being dramatic or moody or being too sensitive. Yeah. right off, yes, like the stigma, the stigmatization, that's a mouthful this early, but the stigma already was like there. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (08:11)
Mm-hmm.

That resonates, yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (08:26)
when I was growing up. So no, it wasn't talked about. And in fact, we were not really like a let's get in touch with our feelings type of family. And that's because my parents weren't raised that way. And the reason I do bring up so much of my past on this episode is also to speak to the importance of breaking those generational cycles, because my parents, knowing their background, they definitely had trauma.

hands down. And I absolutely believe that the reason or because they weren't able to maybe heal from that or even recognize it really affected the way I was brought up in terms of emotions and mental health. So to answer your question, it no, it wasn't it wasn't framed as mental health, I guess it was just framed as like personality traits.

Chelsea Myers (09:13)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (09:23)
If that makes any sense, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (09:23)
Mm hmm.

that makes that makes perfect sense. ⁓ I think and again, like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try to guess like your parents generation, but it is really interesting. Now, I think becoming parents ourselves as well and realizing ⁓ what it what it takes and what it takes out of us, we sort of can look in retrospect and be like,

Caralyn Dreyer (09:28)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (09:51)
⁓ my parents didn't have that to give. right? And no one was supporting them. No one was talking about it. And like, I'm feeling these things. And like you said, being cycle breakers, I feel like this generation of parents is, we're becoming the cycle breakers because we are talking about it. We are being loud about it. But rather than go down a rabbit hole, because I could do that for days. ⁓

Caralyn Dreyer (09:55)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah... Yeah...

Chelsea Myers (10:18)
I'm curious, like, because your early adult life and your teen life, it was kind of fraught with trauma and confusion and identity. ⁓ Just, I won't say identity crises, like identity confusion even. ⁓ Was motherhood ever something you really thought about in, deeply at all?

Caralyn Dreyer (10:38)
Yeah.

Absolutely, but you want to know something. I think that I looked at motherhood as something that I was supposed to be doing. You know what I'm saying? It's like the next phase when you're an adult. And I did, I at one time thought I wanted two girls and two boys after having one child. I'm glad, I don't think I would have made it through labor of multiple children.

Chelsea Myers (10:57)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Caralyn Dreyer (11:10)
But yeah, and I think the adoption aspect too, I had in my head like this mental picture of like one day I will have my own biological family. I'll have my husband, our kids will be biologically related to us. So I think from that aspect, like the biological part of a family was like extremely important to me at that time.

Chelsea Myers (11:22)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (11:38)
But that changed, you know, when I was in my 30s and I wasn't really getting it right with the dating situation, I came to a resolution that maybe I won't have children and I'm gonna be okay with that because society puts so much pressure in families and culture and stuff to, you should have kids, you should have a family, you should this, you should that, but that's not always in the cards for everyone.

So it definitely changed. And certainly when I went through the traumas and stuff like that, that definitely didn't change my mind about wanting a family. Certainly it wasn't a priority at that time, it didn't, having been in abusive relationships didn't deter me from believing that I could have a happy, healthy life with a family.

Chelsea Myers (12:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that again, like that's a really important distinction to make too. That your trauma doesn't define you and maybe even in those moments too, like first, you can speak to this as well, but when you're in those types of relationships, typically you don't see them for what they are.

Caralyn Dreyer (12:32)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (12:52)
Right? So motherhood is this thing that's sort of tethering you like I'm supposed to be doing this despite, despite everything. But your journey to motherhood didn't quite go according to plan either.

Caralyn Dreyer (12:59)
Yeah.

No, it did not. I was around 32 or 33. I was in a serious relationship with a guy that we had gone to college together. I relocated to Florida because that's where he was stationed. He had been in the Marines at the time. And we were going to get married and all these things and I got pregnant.

And so I was excited. I was a little worried because we weren't maybe like stable in terms of like future planning for that. Because it was not unplanned, but it wasn't like we sat down with calendars and things of that nature. so I got pregnant and I made it to about, gosh, I for sure made it through the first month.

Chelsea Myers (13:47)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (13:59)
And I don't, I don't remember. My memory's not very well, but I miscarried. And I actually miscarried at home. I didn't really know what was going on. I had really, really bad cramping. I had bleeding. I feel like I went to the doctor before that. I don't remember if I had like spotting and they just said to be careful or because it was so early. I don't know that it was.

Chelsea Myers (14:05)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (14:23)
too concerning, but I ended up passing the fetus.

⁓ I have, this is the first time I'm publicly sharing this and I want to, it's not challenging at all, but I want to because I know there's other people out here who can relate, but I passed the fetus and I flushed the toilet. you know, I like who, how no one gives you like a manual for like, what do do when these things happen? And I told my boyfriend and you know, we went to the hospital, we went to the emergency room.

Chelsea Myers (14:54)
No.

Caralyn Dreyer (15:03)
cleaned everything else out.

Yeah, I went home and I think I was just in shock. I really was in shock. I still am honestly talking about it now. I'm still kind of in shock about the whole thing. And I remember the next morning just waking up feeling so empty.

Chelsea Myers (15:28)
Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (15:28)
I

don't even know how to like really fully describe it. guess you had somebody growing inside of you, you know, for those weeks or whatnot. And then the next thing you know, there's nothing there. And my boyfriend actually got me a dog and pets are the best therapy. I'm telling you what, if I would not have had that dog to take care of, I don't even know.

Like what, I don't even know what I would have done. ⁓ And I think somebody actually recommended that to him. Like, you know, maybe you can get her a pet or something so she can, you know, it helps you heal. ⁓ But I did not go to counseling for that. ⁓ If this has ever happened to you, I would highly recommend if you feel comfortable that you go to counseling. I'm sure that that stuff still probably comes up.

Chelsea Myers (15:55)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (16:21)
later now is like unprocessed grief, I'm sure. ⁓ And so I just kind of carried on with life. And as a matter of fact, days after that miscarriage, I took my final exam for my masters.

Chelsea Myers (16:24)
Mm-hmm.

my goodness. Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (16:38)
Yeah, I,

and this is why I speak to living in survival mode. I mean, there's no reason I would have been able to do that, but for survival mode and because of like the emotional unavailability of my parents, I really did learn to become a high functioning person when it came to mental health or, you know, someone dies the next day I'm up and moving like nothing happened. Like I really learned.

how to be that way. And so I took the exam. Life went on. I actually got pregnant again. I miscarried again. This time it was much earlier. ⁓ And that was the second time in life that I had very, very, very serious suicidal ideations.

The first time I had written a note and done all that stuff, this time it was more like I went outside, I was gonna drive my car into a pond. ⁓ And I just, at this point I had survived a sexual assault. I had been in an abusive relationship. I was still processing stuff from childhood, still processing the first miscarriage. And at this point I was just like, I don't even know how I can carry on in life anymore.

Chelsea Myers (17:38)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (17:58)
⁓ thank God I had the wherewithal to call a friend having experienced something like that before. And they helped me, you know, reconcile things and process. But again, I did not go to therapy for that and just continued on with life. and I think it was at that point also that again, I kind of told myself, maybe it's just not in the cards for me to have a child.

⁓ I was never really given clear answers for the causes of the miscarriages, which is pretty typical. But I was reading an article recently about how women can store trauma in your uterus and stuff like that. And I really do wonder if that had something to do with it. ⁓ I don't know. There is.

Chelsea Myers (18:26)
Right.

Yeah, there's this whole, there's a whole,

there's a book that I have yet to read, but has been recommended to me several times. The Body Keeps the Score, I think, or The Body Holds the Score. Yeah, and again, like you said, you'll probably never definitively know why these things happened, but I do believe that your body does hold on to trauma.

Caralyn Dreyer (18:56)
Yeah. Yeah, I have yet to read that too.

Right. Yep.

I too.

Chelsea Myers (19:16)
Yeah, and you certainly went through some incredibly challenging situations. Challenging is such a small word, but the situations that you found yourself in are beyond what a lot of people can imagine. And I also want, I want to acknowledge like your, your courage and your strength in being vulnerable and sharing.

about your losses, especially when you noted that like, there's no manual for this. No one tells you what to do. Like I didn't know what to do. I, and you're absolutely right. And ⁓ I have not experienced a loss personally, but I've spoken to so many families at this point who have.

Caralyn Dreyer (19:50)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (20:05)
And so many of them say the same thing, especially when it's an early loss. They're like, well, what do you do? Am I supposed to go to the doctor? Am I supposed to bring the fetus with me? What is supposed to happen? And I think it's because we don't talk about it. We're not talking about it. So the second time around when

Caralyn Dreyer (20:11)
Yeah.

Right.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (20:30)
you were making a plan, you were making a plan for suicide, you did reach out to somebody. When you experienced that first loss, did you speak to like your parents? Did you speak to anyone about it?

Caralyn Dreyer (20:48)
Bye.

Honestly, I feel like I probably like talked about it, but I don't think it was to the extent of crying and getting someone consoling me and things of that nature. So I would say no, not really, not beyond. Honestly, I maybe really didn't speak to anybody about it. I don't know. It was such a long time ago, but I know it was not to the extent that I felt like I could start healing from it. I really think it was something that I just

Chelsea Myers (21:00)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (21:18)
Well, let me just toss that in the bag of traumas and crappy things and we'll just keep carrying all this stuff along. No, I did not talk about it nearly enough, but I think I had so much shame with having flushed a fetus down the toilet. I still see it, if I close my eyes right now, I can see it, clear as day.

Chelsea Myers (21:27)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (21:44)
I'll never forget that image ever. I really won't. But no, if you are listening, talk about these things with somebody, please, please, please, please, because not everyone's as fortunate as me. I could have had someone not pick up the phone or who knows what, or I could have decided to not call anybody at all and just end everything.

Chelsea Myers (21:44)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (22:11)
You know,

it's just, just hope, I hope people get from this episode that you can overcome. might not move on to the life that you wanted, but there's hope. I've walked through hell a number of times and there's hope. It's possible. It's possible. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (22:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

There

are so many things that are resonating with me and I want to make note of them because like you said, they're so stigmatized. like I do this exact same thing. Like when I speak about my past traumas, it's almost nonchalant and it can come off that way to someone who doesn't know you or who hasn't experienced trauma on their own, you know? ⁓

But I almost feel like exactly like what you said, like, okay, I just chalk that up to another thing. Like you get to a point in your life where you just expect bad things to happen. Right? So, so even you're like, yup, I had a, I had a miscarriage and, and, and I, I was being abused and I, I was defecated on and like, yeah, like just add it to the list. Right. But what's.

Caralyn Dreyer (23:04)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (23:28)
what's so important is recognizing, I mean, the culmination of all of those things is so much to carry, but everybody's carrying something and it's okay. It's okay to talk about it. It's okay to talk about it. The other thing that I also want to note and why I think it is, I mean, it's so...

Caralyn Dreyer (23:38)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Chelsea Myers (23:53)
Vulnerability is strength. That's kind of my like catchphrase. But what another reason that I especially appreciate you being so open and vulnerable about your experiences with loss is the culture that we're in right now. It's really scary in a lot of in our country to share details like that. Because depending on where you live, you don't know.

your own safety, you know what I mean? And it has to be okay to talk about these things. It has to be okay to share these things. Otherwise, just like you, there's going to be someone sitting at home who has gone through the exact same thing, sitting in their bathroom, probably sitting on the bathroom floor and saying, what do I do now?

Caralyn Dreyer (24:24)
Yeah.

Hmm

Thank you.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (24:44)
What

do I do now? And it doesn't mean we have the answers. It doesn't mean that we know like, okay, well, this is what's gonna make you feel better. But just like you were saying, Caralyn, like speaking about it, and I do appreciate that you are advocating for seeking help from like a therapist or someone. What do you think held you back from doing that?

Caralyn Dreyer (24:48)
Right. Yeah.

right.

I think just a pattern of knowing I can push on through life without having to it. You know what I mean? I went to a like pre counseling after the sexual assault. was basically just to meet the person. I never returned. ⁓ After the abusive relationship, it's like trauma sickens us in terms of making us feel like everything has to be a secret.

Chelsea Myers (25:19)
Yeah.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (25:42)
And so I think it was just, it was just another, well, I know I can make it. I made it through all these other things. So why do I need to go talk to a stranger about it? And I think also it was the thought of having to rehash everything. And I just, after I was sexually assaulted, I did not file a police report. My parents didn't even know about it. ⁓ I just decided at that point in life.

Chelsea Myers (25:57)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (26:11)
that when hard things happen to me, I'm going to power through it. I'm going to feel the feels and do what I got to do, but I have to keep pushing on in life. Nobody can know that these things have happened to me because then they're going to judge me. And if as long as I just keep it to myself, I'll judge myself. I can do that all day long, but I can't stand for someone else. I don't want someone else judging me.

Chelsea Myers (26:33)
Same here.

Caralyn Dreyer (26:39)
So I'm just gonna keep it in. I had kind of developed like an early distrust when it came to sharing my feelings because of some adverse reactions I got from my mom. I just kind of developed this sense of like hyper-independence, trust no one, that type of thing. And it's interesting because I...

Chelsea Myers (26:39)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (27:03)
I have my master's in forensic psychology, so clearly I know the benefits of therapy and counseling, which makes it all the more strange. Yeah. Yes.

Chelsea Myers (27:11)
Isn't it funny how many of us end up in these fields where like,

I think it almost, this is just my like personal take it or leave it, but like, I feel like it stems from us trying to understand, like we need an understanding of it. Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (27:27)
Bingo. You are right. You are so right.

And I remember high school was when I fell in love with psychology because at the time I was grieving my grandmother dying, I was doing with an eating disorder and all these things, but being in psychology class, I could have a front row seat to why I was going through the things that I was and all of that stuff. you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

Chelsea Myers (27:51)
Yeah.

Yeah. I just, I would never know speaking to you today that you had, that you struggled with sharing so openly because you're doing an absolutely beautiful job of walking us through some really, really dark times for you. I'm curious when the shift happened or it may not have, like when you did finally

Caralyn Dreyer (28:06)
Thank you.

Chelsea Myers (28:19)
get pregnant, you have a son. ⁓ What was that experience? Was there fear associated with it? there like, walk me through that?

Caralyn Dreyer (28:29)
That experience was not good. ⁓ So, okay, so after I dated the guy in the Marines, we eventually broke up, obviously. We're still great friends, but I jumped right into another relationship without giving myself time to be alone. And I met my son's father on an online dating app. Ladies, gentlemen, please don't necessarily...

Chelsea Myers (28:33)
Okay.

You

Caralyn Dreyer (28:58)
use those avenues for a life partner or a co-parent. ⁓ I'm sure there's many success stories. However, I think those are in the minority. ⁓ So I met my son's father right off the bat. He seemed like a nice enough guy. He was really nice, really sweet. ⁓ And we started dating. I think I moved in with him like really quickly. I've always been one of those

Chelsea Myers (29:04)
Ha ha ha ha!

Hmm

Caralyn Dreyer (29:27)
people, like, let's just go for it. Let's wing it. You know what I mean? Not really thinking about the consequences. So we moved in together. We had been dating not long. I want to say we'd only been dating for maybe like five or six months before I got pregnant. But I it wasn't like again, it wasn't necessarily like a surprise. We had talked about having kids.

Chelsea Myers (29:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (29:52)
I would say also you should definitely get to know somebody over time before making these decisions. But I got pregnant. Before I got pregnant, I started noticing very concerning behaviors from my son's father. He was very extremely controlling, was constantly accusing me of like cheating on him. He was very verbally.

abusive. Now it wasn't at the climax to where when I got pregnant, I was necessarily worried about it because I think at that stage, like the behaviors were like intermittent or I was just in denial about the situation. So I got pregnant and then around six months, I started spotting and given my history, I immediately went to the hospital this time.

Chelsea Myers (30:28)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (30:50)
⁓ they, I went to the emergency room so they couldn't do much, but just tell me to be on bed rest, make an appointment with your doctor, which I did. I went in to the doctor and she let me know that your hormone levels are not where they should be. I'm recommending that you take some hormones. Well, I was on Medicaid. They did not cover that. My abusive.

Chelsea Myers (31:13)
Okay.

Caralyn Dreyer (31:19)
⁓ boyfriend obviously was not, you know, my biggest supporter and he didn't even offer to like, let's try to figure out how we can pay for this. So I literally was sent home and literally had to give it to God. There I had, I had nothing. There was nothing else I could do. Nothing. I was terrified. ⁓ because I was pretty certain I was going to miscarry because I'd already done it twice.

Chelsea Myers (31:36)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (31:44)
So I called my family, a couple of friends, let them know what's going on and just did the best I could for the remainder of the pregnancy to be as stress-free as possible, which was impossible being in an abusive relationship. My son's father would call me at work and just like hound me on the phone during lunch breaks. I would return for my lunch breaks in tears, just stressed like to the max. I'm like, what am I going to do? And I wanted to make things work.

Chelsea Myers (31:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (32:14)
because I never envisioned myself being a single parent. I knew I could, but that's not how I grew up and I didn't want to raise my child that way. But I also had the wherewithal to know that this is not going to be a safe situation for myself or a child. I had to have been maybe seven, eight months pregnant and I created a safety plan.

Chelsea Myers (32:39)
Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (32:39)
to

exit this relationship. And while he was out doing something one night, he had another child from another relationship who lived with us. He was in the shower. I quickly packed up as much as I could while I'm pregnant, went downstairs, packed up my car. And then the next morning I left for work. As usual, I sent him a long message and

The rest is kind of pretty much history. I delivered my son a day early. I worked up until the day I was gonna actually go into work when I was having contractions. Cause I was like, ⁓ well I gotta go to, cause I'm like, I'm a single parent now. I gotta, I have to go to work. But ⁓ obviously someone was like, no.

Chelsea Myers (33:21)
my gosh.

Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (33:31)
Caralyn, can't do that. They're like, go to the hospital. And thank God I did because I was dilated enough that he was coming soon, but my son's father was not there. And I was surrounded by friends and stuff and my son was born. The first night home, I sat on the floor of my apartment. I didn't have a lot of furniture at the time and literally was like, what the hell do I do now? I mean, I

Chelsea Myers (33:57)
Yeah!

Caralyn Dreyer (33:58)
didn't know how

to be a parent and take care of a kid. I worked in childcare for like 10 years. I wasn't like an idiot when it came to kids, but it's like, this is my kid. I'm not sending it home with somebody else. Like this is my kid. And I...

Chelsea Myers (34:08)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (34:13)
I was like survival mode to the max by the time my son was born because I hadn't even begun to deal with the abusive relationship. The next one I had found myself in. And I can remember people ask me, well, where is he going to go to preschool? What's he going to do about this? And I would get so overwhelmed because

I'm like, dude, I'm trying to figure out the next few hours. Like, I don't know what the heck he's going to do in three or four years from now. And my son's father put me through post-separation abuse. yeah, he filed false allegations against me, claiming that I was inappropriate with the child who lived with us.

Chelsea Myers (34:40)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Ugh.

Caralyn Dreyer (35:03)
so much so that the police got involved. I had a detective come to my house, child services came to my house, and he was alleging that my son was possibly the product of me being inappropriate with his half brother.

Chelsea Myers (35:03)
Yeah.

⁓ my gosh.

Caralyn Dreyer (35:22)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (35:23)
⁓ my gosh. Talk about control.

Caralyn Dreyer (35:26)
Yeah.

It was horrible. It ⁓ was awful. I had my son on my leg when the detective was there. She's swabbing us for DNA. And to this day, it's not a closed case because I basically now clearly they know he was lying. for me to close a case, I have to produce evidence saying that I didn't do these things. So that's always kind of like been a dark

Chelsea Myers (35:54)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (35:56)
cloud over my head. I, was the first few years of my son's life were a joy in that I enjoyed being a mom, but it was a nightmare with his father, not to mention postpartum depression on top of that. mean, that is a real thing for people out there.

Chelsea Myers (36:15)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (36:19)
who think postpartum depression is not real and that the severity of it is not real, you are sadly, sadly mistaken.

Chelsea Myers (36:28)
Yeah, There are so many risk factors and contributing factors that can increase your likelihood of developing a perinatal or postpartum mental health disorder, right? And you at that point in your life, we're like ticking all the boxes, right? Like, yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (36:37)
Yeah.

Yep, check, check, check, check.

Yep, I need an extra page of paper. Check, check, yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (36:47)
Exactly. Yeah.

we right? We laugh, otherwise we'd cry. But like, the, there's also a biological aspect to it. And you were already predispositioned to depression and, it sounds like anxiety. So it was a perfect storm for you. So I also

Caralyn Dreyer (36:56)
Yes.

Yes, yes.

Absolutely.

Chelsea Myers (37:13)
want to highlight that you acknowledge the duality of it. Like you talk about what a joy it was to have your son and to be his mom, while also acknowledging how freaking hard it was to just make it hour by hour. And that's all you can do sometimes. Sometimes it's minute by minute. Yeah. What kind of

Caralyn Dreyer (37:21)
Yeah.

Yes.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it really is.

Chelsea Myers (37:43)
Support? Did you have any support network to fall back on?

Caralyn Dreyer (37:49)
I did, thank God, the place that I worked at. I had already been working there, I think, for a little over a year before I got pregnant with my son. And I had made some of the most amazing friends that actually I would consider family. And I did have support. A friend's mom watched my son while I went to work.

I had another friend and her husband at the time would watch him on the weekends. People would give me rides to the grocery store if I needed. I didn't have a car, so I was really reliant on other people, but people just, no hesitation. What do you need? How can we help? I didn't really have to buy anything for my son when he was first born, because I had such generous friends that really made sure I had everything I needed.

Chelsea Myers (38:27)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (38:45)
for when he came. I remember having to call friends like, need a couple bucks for milk. I need, you know what I mean? Cause I had a job, but my, paycheck was sucked up with like rent. And because I had a job, I did not get a ton of benefits. Thank God for WIC, you know, that's a godsend. But yeah, I did have a lot of support cause I've always had a strained relationship with my family. So that's never been a go-to for me.

Chelsea Myers (38:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (39:14)
That's no diss against them. That's just a personal choice. ⁓ I'm very cognizant of safe spaces. ⁓ And my family just hasn't always been that. And that's not their fault. That just is what it is. ⁓ But yeah, I thank God for the friends that I had. And eventually, at some point, I was so frazzled that I had a friend tell me, have you ever thought about getting on medication?

Chelsea Myers (39:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (39:43)
And I was like, no. And she's like, well, this is the doctor that I go to. And I will say if it had not been for the antidepressants. ⁓ Now, granted, I've already proved I can survive and be high functioning, but I had literally reached that tipping point where had it not been for that medication, I don't even know what I would have done. And it was still

Chelsea Myers (39:43)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (40:10)
It was still hard, but I could manage, because you don't want to take medication necessarily to be numb to everything. And I will say this also, I do wish I would have had counseling in addition to the medication, because medication does help. But when you pop a pill, it is not automatically teaching you coping skills.

Chelsea Myers (40:17)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Caralyn Dreyer (40:34)
So for that, it was a godsend. I did, I think I stayed on those for, I was on them for two years, got off of them, got back on them later again. for anybody that, you know, suffered, you know, you have these stigmas with medications and all these things, if it's something that's going to help you look into it, but look into it because it's not always the answer for everyone. ⁓ But

Chelsea Myers (40:58)
Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (41:04)
Yeah, those were some really rough years, but I remember very vividly, I was having a hard time one day and I was laying on the couch and my son was a toddler. And for an instant, I looked at the situation through his eyes and I was like, I don't want him to grow up regaling tales of how, my mom was just always sad and...

She always laid around and our house was always a mess. And look, if this is your life, there's no judgment there. I'm not judging at all. I get through cycles of that myself. But for your children's sake and for the narrative that we begin writing for our children, if you need to go get help or just even if you talk to somebody, please do that. We have to give our kids the best shot that we possibly can.

With my son's father in that situation, he doesn't know his dad. ⁓ It's actually not safe for that to be that way. I have a family violence protection order on my child support case where I live. I had to fight to get that. And thank God I'm in a state that recognizes the seriousness of things like that, because I wasn't even able to get a restraining order against him at one point in time years back. But for the sake of our kids,

Chelsea Myers (42:05)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (42:29)
We've got to address our mental health. We just have to. And I appreciate your podcast and the space that you provide because mental health, you know, around parenting and all that stuff, we have to talk about these things. And we're going to keep raising generations of parents who are in survival mode. And we're eventually going to have a whole planet of survival mode people.

Chelsea Myers (42:53)
Mm hmm. And there's... Yes!

And it's not to say to like, I try to reiterate, like there will be moments, there will be seasons where you are in survival mode. And that doesn't, but that doesn't mean that's a chapter. It's not your whole story. It doesn't have to be your whole story. And you're so right, the stigma around medication,

Caralyn Dreyer (43:09)
Yes. Yes.

Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.

Chelsea Myers (43:22)
⁓ And I myself am still on a medication journey and I advocate for like speak to your doctors if this is something but what I say always is it's a tool. It's a tool to help you regulate enough to access coping skills and just like you said, connecting medication with therapy, that's like

Caralyn Dreyer (43:30)
Yes.

Yes.

Chelsea Myers (43:45)
that would be like chef's kiss. But if all you can do, if all you can do is one or the other, or if all you can do is just like you did that one day, reach out to a friend and say, I'm not okay. It's okay to say I'm not okay. ⁓ And you reiterated so much like, we have to do this for our children. And, you know, I think maybe you don't give yourself enough

Caralyn Dreyer (43:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (44:15)
credit for you did you also did it for you. You do have this like you say, this pattern in your life of like, all right, I'm just going to pick myself up and start again and I'm going to pick myself up and start again and you did. ⁓ But you made those decisions for your son and in doing so, you also made those decisions to protect yourself, right?

Caralyn Dreyer (44:21)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And I get now why so many parents say having a child like saved their life. Because for me, it forced me to know that I need to take care of myself. Now, if I want to, if I'm single, no kids, and I want to run my life into the ground and all these things, that's fine. But it's like when you have someone you have to take care of.

Chelsea Myers (44:44)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (45:10)
you hopefully start to realize how much you have to take care of yourself. Because I have post-traumatic stress and all that, sometimes my patients can wear thin. But if I don't recognize, I'm gonna be shouting at my child all the time and they're gonna just get the brunt of everything. So yes, I don't give myself enough credit for having done these things for myself.

Chelsea Myers (45:15)
Hmm?

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (45:38)
Absolutely, I'm working on it. Maybe by the time I'm 80, I'll get there. No, I know, I'm just teasing.

Chelsea Myers (45:39)
Yeah. Well, it's not, it's not,

it's not a it's not a judgment at all. It's more of like, I just want to, I want to empower you a little bit because just hearing you speak about this. Yeah, hearing you speak about your journey. Again, a lot of it resonates and for reasons that are personal to me, but I

Caralyn Dreyer (45:47)
No, I know.

I know, I appreciate it.

Chelsea Myers (46:04)
I know that at the end of the day, if you don't choose you, then you can't choose your child. You can't choose your child. And I'm not sure how old is your son now?

Caralyn Dreyer (46:08)
Yes, absolutely.

He's ten. Yeah. they're so fun. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (46:15)
He's 10. I have a 10 year old too. ⁓ my goodness. have a, ⁓ it's the pre hormonal. Everything is, yeah. It's

fun times at my house, but I'm curious. Are you open with him about not necessarily maybe what you went through, but in terms of like, yeah, mom, I'm having a really tricky mental health day or like, do you talk about those sorts of things?

Caralyn Dreyer (46:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes, absolutely. Because my son, mean, kids know, they know when you're off, they know when something, and I never want him to think that me being off is him, like that he's done something. But yeah, I don't do it so much now, but when I was really a single parent and on my own, I would have to tell him like, look, buddy, mom's having kind of a sad day today, you know, so.

Chelsea Myers (46:50)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (47:12)
This is just what's going on. And yeah, I'm very open and honest with him. I ad nauseum, you know, try to teach him that it's okay to have your feelings. Like if he cries, cause I took something away, I'm not gonna take the tears away from you. I always tell him you're allowed to feel sad about it, but you know, we have to do X, Y and Z, but I'm, he, I'm.

Chelsea Myers (47:25)
Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (47:39)
I'm very cognizant for him to be aware of what mental health is and things like that. But yeah, I try to be authentic with him. He knows the situation with his father. I don't talk negatively about his father to him, of course, but he knows it's not safe for us to be around him. And...

Chelsea Myers (47:48)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (48:03)
I tell them too, if you know, when you get older, if you want to be able to talk about these things with someone and it can't be me, please tell me. Because I have no problems having him go to a therapist. I wish my parents would have had a little more education about me going to therapy is not an indication that you're a sucky parent necessarily.

Chelsea Myers (48:17)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (48:28)
The

stuff I was going through had really nothing to do with my parents. I was sad about my grandma. was sad about, I had a number of classmates die in car accidents growing up, because of where I lived. There was so many things that had nothing to do with them. as parents, and I get it, I'm a parent, it's easy to take things personally and put things on yourself. But I think we just need to keep having these conversations for ourselves, but also so that when our kids grow up,

Chelsea Myers (48:37)
Mmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (48:57)
they are having these conversations with their kids.

Chelsea Myers (49:01)
Yeah.

Do you find that he communicates with you about how he's feeling? Like that you're a safe space for him? Yeah.

Caralyn Dreyer (49:09)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I really work on my reactions because I never want to give him a reaction that he thinks, I can't talk to her about stuff like that. Because that's and just letting him know that no matter what it is, we're going to figure it out. But

Chelsea Myers (49:16)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (49:32)
just oh, and I have to pry sometimes when I'm trying to keep that dialogue open, because I know it's gonna slip away the older he gets. And I just want him to know that you can always come to your mom, you know, no matter what it is, you can always come to me.

Chelsea Myers (49:48)
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's just my daughter. don't know if it's the age, but they're at again, like we are into psychology. I don't know if it's a nature versus nurture thing, but there seems to be this inherent like worry, at least on my daughter's part. She talks, what feelings are, it's just like talking about the weather at our house. we're like, we're, I'm having a hard day today, but like she, she.

Caralyn Dreyer (50:11)
Yeah, same.

Chelsea Myers (50:17)
will say like, don't want to be in trouble. Like for some things, I don't want to be in trouble. And I have to say like, well, what does that mean to you? It's like we've never, and again, this is a personal parenting style thing, but like, I'm like, we don't, you've never been grounded. You, we don't, we don't yell at you. mean, obviously we yell sometimes you can't control it, but like, what does in trouble mean to you? Because I'm not,

Caralyn Dreyer (50:21)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah

Chelsea Myers (50:47)
I'm not sure what you're afraid of. And I don't know if your son does that. Her explanation of it is like, I don't want you to be disappointed in me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it is, think that's again, why it's so important to be like, well, you know, like,

Caralyn Dreyer (50:57)
Same, that's what my son says or that I don't love him anymore. He thinks if I'm upset, I just stop loving him. Yep, yeah, yep.

Chelsea Myers (51:09)
just because I have feelings, like I'm not, okay, I'm gonna pause right here and say this took me until I'm almost 37 and it has taken me this long to realize I'm not in trouble for having feelings, right? Like, just like you were saying when you were younger, like we were called moody, we were called sensitive. So I guess I understand it to a degree of like, well, if I have feelings, then someone's gonna be mad at me or I'm gonna be in trouble, but.

Caralyn Dreyer (51:13)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah

Chelsea Myers (51:40)
Yeah, I just that was a rabbit hole. told you I always find them. But

Caralyn Dreyer (51:43)
No, that's a good one though.

Cause you got to make that distinction with them. And I also just the other day told my son, my frustration is my frustration. That is not any indication of how you need to choose to feel. And I always remind him I'm upset with situations and circumstances, not with the little boy that's standing in front of me.

Chelsea Myers (51:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (52:11)
It's, you really gotta be engaged in this parenting process, man. You really do.

Chelsea Myers (52:16)
Yeah,

well, and it wasn't it wasn't modeled for us for so many of us. I mean, some, some people, some people had had that hallmark childhood and boy, boy, do I wish I understood what that was like. But for many of us, it wasn't modeled for us. It wasn't modeled for our parents. But just like you're saying, like, we are breaking the cycle by and it's by talking about it.

Caralyn Dreyer (52:21)
Right, that's true, that's true.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (52:43)
by talking about how we're feeling. Yeah, it sounds simple. It sounds simple. It's like, Oh my god, please stop screaming at me. But but yeah, so I mean, there's so much and I'm sure there there is so much more we kind of we kind of like glazed right over your son's like early childhood and whatnot. But I just

Caralyn Dreyer (52:44)
Yeah, simple. Yeah. Yeah, right, until five minutes in, it's like,

yeah.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (53:13)
I want to like take a moment and just acknowledge like the things that you have endured. You again, I'm just meeting you, but you make it very clear that that does not define you. That is not your whole story. You fought for safety for yourself and for your child.

And I am so grateful that you chose this space to speak about some things that you said you'd never spoken about before. Because, I mean, I hope, I hope that it makes it a little easier to maybe talk about it the next time or talk about it to someone else. Yeah, but I, but I'm also thankful because I know that there's someone out there right now that's like, okay, Caralyn talked about it.

Caralyn Dreyer (53:43)
Yeah.

It will. It will. It really will.

Chelsea Myers (54:03)
I can talk about it. Right? So I just, I sincerely appreciate your vulnerability. You ever, like I said, every now and then, like you just meet someone who's like, well, I'm not really like, I don't like to share a lot. You just gave me so much of yourself and I, and I'm holding space for that. And I see you and I want, I hope that, I hope that you feel that. Um, uh.

Caralyn Dreyer (54:07)
Yep.

I do.

Chelsea Myers (54:33)
I just, yeah, I'm having a, I'm also having a mom brain moment where all the tabs close down in my brain at once. So this is me. This is me trying to like, it happens to me so much. ⁓ I usually edit it out and I'm trying not to because I'm fine. It's so relatable. ⁓ but, but yeah, it's like when you're mid sentence and then like your brain just shuts down. That's fun. ⁓ but I guess like,

Caralyn Dreyer (54:41)
I hate when that happens.

Yes. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (55:02)
to bring us home, to bring us all the way back around. I so admire the strength in your vulnerability. And I'm so glad that we were able to talk today, finally, like,

Caralyn Dreyer (55:14)
I know,

Chelsea Myers (55:15)
I know it's not,

Caralyn Dreyer (55:15)
I know.

Chelsea Myers (55:16)
I say face to face, it is technically face to face, and if my listeners want to connect with you, is there a way that you would prefer that to happen? Is there a way that they can kind of follow your journey?

Caralyn Dreyer (55:33)
Yeah, I'm literally everywhere. I'm on Blue Sky, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. I'm a blogger.

Chelsea Myers (55:41)
Girl, how do you

do that? How do you? I can barely juggle my social media and it's mostly meta. So I don't know how you do it. Yeah. ⁓

Caralyn Dreyer (55:51)
survival mode. It's it's

it's something I'm working on. Actually, I have like severe. It's a trauma response, the busy body syndrome. It's a real thing. And that's this is why I also blog. So I'm on medium and sub stack. And then I have my own mental health blog and any profile you visit. All this information is on there. And if you just honestly type Caralyn Dreyer in Google, it'll pull up whatever you might want to know.

Chelsea Myers (56:00)
⁓ I get that. Mm-hmm.

Caralyn Dreyer (56:21)
You

Chelsea Myers (56:22)
perfect. It'll be linked in the show notes to all of your social media handles. ⁓ I follow you. it's yeah, like I said, I can barely keep up with threads and blue sky and Instagram and YouTube. so props to you. Now I'm trying sub stack. Now I'm gonna have to follow you on sub stack if I'm not already. I'm giving it a try. We're seeing how it goes. But

Caralyn Dreyer (56:42)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (56:48)
But yeah, so that'll be linked in the show notes so that people can follow your journey and maybe reach out if this episode resonated with them. But now I have a challenge for you. I have started, I know, I've started ending my episodes a little differently. I'm hearkening back to my millennial roots. So back in the days before...

Caralyn Dreyer (57:00)
Okay.

Chelsea Myers (57:13)
like cell phones and we couldn't just be reached all the time. And if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to leave an actual message on like a voicemail, like an answering machine. So you don't know anything about my next guest. You don't know who they are. You don't know their story. But you called into Quiet Connection today and they weren't here to answer. And you can interpret this however you want to. But if you

Caralyn Dreyer (57:25)
Yeah

Chelsea Myers (57:43)
If you were to leave them a message, what would you, what would that message be?

Caralyn Dreyer (57:48)
Hmm. That message would be that your past does not have to define you, nor do the perspectives or how other people view your journey or the choices that you make for how you heal, whatever you choose, like it's okay. And you're worthy of

taking care of yourself and doing whatever it takes to be your best self, whether that's mental health, physical health, whatever it is, and just know that hope is a real thing. It's a real thing and it's there. And it's just always there, no matter, it's in your darkest, darkest time, hope is always there underneath the surface and...

You can end up living the life, a life that makes you happy. Like I said before, it might not be the life that you wanted, but you can find joy and happiness and peace. You can find peace, but it can come at a cost. It can come at a cost, but just keep pushing through. It will. I've had to say a lot of goodbyes the past couple of years because...

My peace and my mental health are top priority. ⁓ and for anybody listening, can do the same. Please prioritize yourself and know that it's all gonna be okay. Those like the most random, they're probably like, click next message.

Chelsea Myers (59:23)
Yeah... Yeah... I love... NO!

No, no, but that's so one of the things that I love about this is that every message is unique and every message is very unique to you, right? And the fun part, I keep saying this, but the fun part is to get your message, have to, you're going to have to listen to the episode before yours.

Caralyn Dreyer (59:33)
to re-record.

Bye!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (59:57)
and see if it resonates with you. It's kind of a fun little ⁓ experiment. So, right? It may or may not resonate. We'll see. But yeah, Caralyn, just thank you so much. This has been such a joy. We've covered some really, really heavy topics, but you were able to convey them in a way that is relatable, that is digestible, and that also provides hope.

Caralyn Dreyer (59:58)
Right. Oh, I like that. That is, I like that.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:24)
And I just, really appreciate you spending time with me this morning.

Caralyn Dreyer (1:00:28)
well, thank you so much for having me. I've had a great time. We did touch on some heavy stuff, but I really have enjoyed myself. I enjoyed the conversation and you're doing amazing, amazing things. And if for you, if you ever have those hard days where you feel like you're not doing enough, nobody sees you, nobody hears you, we do and we appreciate you. I almost got teary eyed there, but seriously.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:42)
Thank you.

my gosh, okay, you're gonna, I know you're gonna make me cry.

You're gonna make me cry. ⁓ thank you so much.

Caralyn Dreyer (1:00:56)
Oh, but seriously, you are appreciated. You are appreciated. You are.