Creating Mental Health Stories in Conversation with Laura Farrell | RDID, Ep 109

It seems only fitting, as the New Year begins, that we take a little look back-- not just at 2024, but at the beginnings of this entire mental health storytelling organization. So we cordially invite you to sit back, get in a comfy, meditation-esque position and join Recovery Diaries Executive Director Gabriel Nathan and writer, editor, RDID producer Laura Farrell, also a somatic therapist, as they talk about how they came to be involved in mental health storytelling, and what they hope to achieve through this new podcast venture.

Gabe and Laura have been colleagues at Recovery Diaries for over ten years and they both came to the organization through a heavy dose of serendipity; Laura through a connector while she was looking for work at Philadelphia's local public television affiliate; Gabe through his work in development at a local, non-profit psychiatric hospital.

While they may never have intended to end up at Recovery Diaries, they have both gained so much from the organization; from helping individuals with mental health and/or addiction challenges tell their stories through essays and films to gaining a greater perspective about the intersection between storytelling and mental health-- it has been quite a ride! And that ride continues, all these years later, with the creation of the Recovery Diaries in Depth podcast. As essay reading is a core component of Recovery Diaries in Depth, in this episode, Laura reads an essay she wrote for the website several years ago about magical thinking as a trauma response. After her reading, she and Gabe explore the essay’s themes and meaning, particularly in the current political climate.

So join Gabe and Laura as we take a peek behind the curtain at this organization that specializes in stories of mental health, empowerment, and change.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://recoverydiaries.org/

Transcript

Recovery Diaries in-Depth Team Origin

Gabe Nathan 0:04

Hello , this is Recovery Diaries In-Depth . I am so , so lucky to be joined here in the studio by Laura Farrell . She is my colleague . She is a writer , editor and producer of Recovery Diaries In-Depth . She's also a somatic therapist and we are just going to have the greatest conversation you've ever heard in 2025 . Each week , we'll bring you a Recovery Diaries contributor folks who have shared their mental health journey with us through essay or video format . We want to see where they are in their mental health journey since initially being published on our website .

Gabe Nathan 0:37

Our goal is to continue supporting our diverse community by having conversations here on our podcast to follow up and see what has shifted , what has changed and what new things have emerged . We're so happy to have you along for this journey . We want to remind you to follow our show for new and back episodes at recoverydiariesorg . There , like the podcast , you'll find stories of mental health , empowerment and change . You can also sign up for our mailing list there so you never miss a new podcast health , empowerment and change . You can also sign up for our mailing list there so you never miss a new podcast episode , essay or film , and you can find this podcast pretty much anywhere . You get your podcasts . We appreciate your comments and feedback about our show . It helps us improve , make changes and grow . And , of course , make sure to like , share and subscribe . Laura Farrel Hello , hello .

Laura Farrel 1:30

Hi , gabe . Hi , it's great to see you .

Gabe Nathan 1:32

It's great to see you too , like literally see you .

Laura Farrel 1:34

I know we're here in the studio together .

Gabe Nathan 1:37

I can't believe and this is one of the things about working for an online publication is it's like we live a couple miles away from each other , but we never really see each other . It's been a long time .

Laura Farrel 1:48

It has . So it's so nice to be here together and get to be in this conversation not on a virtual space , Cause we speak a lot- of course , in a virtual way , but it's nice to be in the room in the resident field together .

Gabe Nathan 2:01

So it feels like uh , like it should yeah . Um Resonant feel together , it feels like it should . Yeah , exactly , so , yeah , so , like it's the new year it is , and happy 2025 to you .

Laura Farrel 2:11

And to you .

Gabe Nathan 2:16

And to all of you listening in streaming land and so like it's a thing I guess in the new year to look back and I thought it would be fun to kind of look back at . So we both work for Recovery Diaries and we've been doing that for a while and I actually don't think that I know your story of how you fell into working here . So let's look back together .

Laura Farrel 2:43

I would love that . How did it begin for you ? Oh , oh , I want to ask you the same question as well , so I'm excited because I don't know your origin story either . I know when we met , but , um , so the way I came into the recovery diaries family was in , I want to say it was 2011 through 2012 . So we're talking a moment ago now . Um , I it was either a summer between college and I was still a student or I had just graduated .

Laura Farrel 3:16

The timing I'm not time isn't real to me , so it's very hard for me to lock it in hard for me to lock it in , but I had had an interview at WHYY to intern on a science-based show that was health-focused and , because of the life I had led , my health had mostly been mental health-focused .

Laura Farrel 3:38

I was more interested in mental health than the physical . Now , being a somatic therapist , I feel like the physical has actually come a lot more into my interest . However , at the time I was interviewing with this person and I just kept bringing up mental health and she , the person I interviewed with , was like I really need to connect you to these other folks that are actually going to collaborate with us and do this project where they're bringing in folks to tell their stories . It's called Recovery Diaries . I actually think you would be way better suited working with that team . So this person just kind of became a bridge for me to bud and I met Buddy and Glenn at that time and I just started participating as an intern , a paid intern . I want to mention too , because they always treat us well , recovery Diaries . So I really appreciate that and it's hard to . I want to mention too , because they always treat us well recovery diaries .

Laura Farrel 4:26

So I really appreciate that and it's hard to find , especially in 2012, . That would be hard to find , but I got to participate in having folks who primarily we were talking with , people that heard voices share their stories at WHYY . So we were working with all this professional equipment and we would get to come in and talk to these folks and I learned so much and , honestly , I think it's what started me in my field of work that I've been in . I think that was a big change moment for me , that storytelling as a creative isn't just about writing narrative or creating narrative , but also allowing people to tell their stories , creating meaning through experience , the transmutation of pain , and I just got to witness that in so many beautiful ways and I just became close with Buddy and Glenn . It was a great group to work with and I started writing essays for the website from there and then stayed connected in that way and eventually was brought on as an editor and now here we are working on the podcast together because I have had a lot of trauma and inconsistency in my ability to hold maybe a job .

Laura Farrel 5:51

That is a typical job , but this is an asynchronous job that has allowed me to manage myself at different times , go back to school , all of these things . So it felt like being a part of this team has been such a blessing to me , not only because of all the stories and information I get to learn that gives me a better way of seeing the world and seeing experiences I didn't understand , um but also not only in the work we present and the importance of it , but just in what the security it's given me . So it's really been , and it all happened by this like happenstance of someone that was like I could be a bridge for you , which we don't have people becoming bridges all the time . So I'm just so grateful for that person too and I don't remember her name , but lovely person at WHYY that connected me .

Gabe Nathan 6:37

Yeah , but she's , she stayed with you , and it is so important because I find that there there are those people who are willing to be connectors , right , yes , and I think it takes a very special person to be able to do that . So , whoever you are at WHYY , thank you for doing that and thank you for bringing Laura to us . It's pretty great .

Laura Farrel 7:03

And when did you come into the team , Gabe ? I remember when I met you , but again time , yeah , I'd love to hear it from your perspective .

Gabe Nathan 7:13

Well , it was the heady days of 2014 . And so I was working at a locked inpatient psychiatric facility in Norristown . I started there in 2010 . And I worked on the unit for three years and , after an assault on the unit , I tried to leave and the medical director declined to accept my resignation , which was an odd experience and she said I don't want to lose you . What can we do to keep you here ? And I said I'm done being on the unit , so if there's something else that I can do here that doesn't involve direct patient contact , then I'll consider staying . So she moved me upstairs , where all the offices are , and basically invented a job , which is a tremendously privileged position that I found myself in . It was very strange and very sweet and very the whole thing was bizarre . The whole place was bizarre . That's a whole other story , but anyway , she created a job that was kind of a hybrid of development , fundraising and community outreach , and since the job didn't exist , I had kind of carte blanche to make the job what I wanted it to be . So , amongst other things , because it was a nonprofit hospital , I was charged with raising funds . So we got a huge chunk of money from the county and from other funders , and then there was whatever else that we could raise to help balance the books , and so I was kind of shaking trees for funding .

Gabe Nathan 9:09

And , as you probably know , mental health funding is , you know , it's not readily available . There are very few private foundations who are funding things that have to do with mental health . But in doing research I found this gentleman who was doing this extraordinary thing called Recovery Diaries , and it was this platform for essays and films , and I said , kai , I have to meet this guy . Because I said , kai , I have to meet this guy ? Because of course , I was enmeshed in mental health work at the hospital , but also creative writing and creative expression has always been a part of my life as a child and as an adolescent and an adult . So I wrote to Bud and then I met with Bud and we had lunch together and we became friends and saw a couple films together at the Ritz at the Bourse .

Laura Farrel 10:10

I love the Ritz .

Gabe Nathan 10:13

It's fabulous . And he gave a couple small grants to the hospital and he said you know , do you want to start editing essays ? You know , we're looking for an essay editor . He said do you want to start editing essays ? We're looking for an essay editor . And so I would work at the hospital during the day and I would edit a couple essays at night . And that carried on for a couple years and then , around Thanksgiving in 2016 , my phone rang and it was Bud and he said I don't want to be editor-in-chief anymore . My life is moving in different directions and I'm getting interested in different things . Will you take over as editor-in-chief

Heart-Centered Community Building Conversation

Gabe Nathan 10:55

?

Gabe Nathan 10:55

And then it became a full-time job . It just became what I did for a living and I was not prepared to have like a leadership position . It's not something that I'd ever done , it's not something I ever saw myself doing , but it became such a natural extension of the work that I had already been doing and I kept a portfolio of authors who I worked with . I still have a portfolio of authors who I worked with . I still have a portfolio of writers who I work with at the site editing essays , and it's been incredible really to work with you and Leah and Glenn , you know , making the films and being kind of caretakers for these stories .

Gabe Nathan 11:53

And I , like , I hate the word content . The word content makes me want to rolf because I don't view these , these essays and these films as content . They're human beings and we get the privilege of bringing these people to our community every week and I just think that's extraordinary . And I think about some of the patients at the hospital and I think about the things that they shared with me in private and in the little interview room or the piano room or the day room , and there's all of that in them too . And to be able to help people bring that forth and make it cohesive and organized and put it out there in , you know , professionally laid out essay or a beautifully produced film , I want to give that to all of those people who I remember and I know that isn't possible for lots of reasons , but I don't know . We can do it , we can do it for whom we can do it , and I think that's meaningful , I think that has meaning .

Laura Farrel 13:28

I think so too , and I think in what you shared something that I didn't know about your story that I'm just witnessing , which I think also mirrors the work that we do , which is altruistic , of course , in many ways and is about meaning making and how we navigate our own pains and make meaning and bring community and humanness to these essays not to this content , as you say , but something I was thinking about , as you were sharing , is , both in the psychiatric hospital you worked at and at Recovery Diaries , people reached out to you and created this new position for you , which speaks to who you are as a person , and I think we've both been a part of this team for 10 years and I've gotten to work beside you and I think that really just speaks to your character and I just wanted to witness and name that here on this as well .

Gabe Nathan 14:20

Thank you , laura , and I'll bat one back to you . I think that the people with whom you work , the essayists who collaborate with you on their pieces , and your clients with whom you work in your practice , are so lucky because they're getting to benefit from someone who's such an empath and who really feels truly and deeply for other human beings , and that's we were talking before we started about . Would you call them business doctors ?

Laura Farrel 15:01

Oh , yes , yes , Business doctors versus health doctors . I kind of grouped them in this way , and you are so not a business therapist and you're so not a business editor .

Gabe Nathan 15:11

You're just a real human human to use that word again , connector and I think you do that in a really beautiful way . So I always feel really good when I have a writer who I know I'm giving to you and I think very carefully about like who I give to you or who I give to Evan , or who I give to myself , um , to work with and , um , I know it just feels really good , uh , passing people along to you .

Laura Farrel 15:42

Well , I always love the work . I've learned so much and it's , I think too and this speaks to this project and this podcast as well and why we're building this podcast is to grow our community in a heart-based way , not to grow our community in a like we want to gain followers and we want all the quick baby content , but like , in this way of like . No , we want to get back in touch with the people that have been on our , been in our website , that have been in our community , check in with them , show them our care , show them that we're all still connected here , build this system of support . And that has to be hard work . It can't be this very intellectual . Well , what is going to get clicks ? And , yes , we think of these parts too to bring in readership , because the work we make is amazing and we want that . But also , I just I think part of this project from the beginning , but also this new podcast that we're starting this new year . It's very heart-centered , it feels Starting this new year .

Gabe Nathan 16:41

it's very heart-centered . It feels oh , 100%

Navigating Boundaries in Mental Health

Gabe Nathan 16:43

. I wish I cared more about the follows and the likes and what's going to get people . I wish I was more minded like that , but I really couldn't give a shit . I don't care . Like you said , the only reason I do care about it is I don't want to hide this light under a bushel .

Gabe Nathan 17:01

And if we're going to be doing the podcast , we're going to be making the films , and I've had this conversation with Glenn . There's nothing that kills me more than making these gorgeous films and having them sit on YouTube and being seen by 400 people 500 people . That drives me crazy . And it's not about monetization , it's not about anything like that . It's just about having more eyes on the work .

Gabe Nathan 17:25

Because and I've said this over and over again I think the biggest lie that mental illness tells you is that you're alone and that it's only . You're the freak , you're the idiot , you're the loser . You're the only one who's ever felt like this . You're the only one who's ever felt like this . And it doesn't matter the stats that one in four Americans or one in five Americans , or whatever it is , lives with mental illness or lives with depression . That doesn't matter , because when you're in the throes of it . It really does feel like it's only you , and these essays and these films and this podcast are here to show you , not just tell you you are not alone , because that doesn't mean anything , Right , but when you can see someone , that means something , I think .

Laura Farrel 18:16

I completely agree . This is why this project is so important to me . But in Maslow's hierarchy of needs , when self-actualization being the very top , the basic needs are , yes , our physiological needs , but beyond that , before safety , safety comes third is belonging . People need to feel a sense of belonging , and that's so lost in this individualist , capitalist hellscape that we're in . And to find places where that isn't the norm , where we're communicating differently , where even the work conversations are not this hierarchical structure that we're trying to maintain , it feels like that's so rare to find . So , finding this team and knowing you for over a decade now , that's so important to me , because you don't usually get to work with people for that long either .

Gabe Nathan 19:04

Yeah , not anymore , that's very true .

Gabe Nathan 19:08

And it's funny that you bring up belonging and this is not . I'm not promoting it , I don't give a shit if anyone reads my personal whatever , but I just created a sub stack and I was thinking about what to call it and , you know , because it's like a mix of this and that and just kind of whatever bullshit comes into my mind , and I just randomly settled on you Belong here and because I just want , I want to create professional and personal spaces where people feel like they belong . Um , and I think there's so , so many silos out there where it's just for people who think this way , or it's just for people who believe this , or it's just for people who want to talk about this , and we can't , you know , do any of that Just create a warm , nice space where people feel like they belong .

Gabe Nathan 20:01

Um , and I think Recovery Diaries has been doing that for a long time now and again for people with mental health challenges , especially serious and persistent mental illness , spaces where you feel like you belong are few and far between , and it's really lovely to make that and have that as a worker bee and as a place for other people .

Laura Farrel 20:43

Right , no , I would love to read your sub stack Also . This excites me and I'm glad that belonging is coming up here and I think in all of that I'm always called to Octavia Butler , especially in the times we're living in . But kindness eases change Like that is what creates . Change is if we can be kind and loving to each other and working as a therapist , somatically , if people don't feel safe and that I'm kind and moving from my heart , the change process isn't really going to happen . That's just not going to happen , especially working with trauma , which I primarily work with . That's just . We need to feel safe . We need to feel that sense of belonging to each other , with each other , in community , and part of that is seeing stories that you thought you were alone in , which is what this project is all about . What Recovery Diaries is all about Speaking about your work as a therapist one of the things that I'm curious about , and I'll tell you why .

Gabe Nathan 21:29

Every now and then , I will get an email from someone who published with us five years ago , six years ago , seven years ago , who says to me hey , I wrote this essay and essay and I'm a therapist now and I'd like you to take my essay down because I have concerns about . You know my patients or clients . You know reading my work and you know they're Googling me and you know , and as a therapist , you're trained about disclosure and to not give too much , and I feel like when I wrote this essay , I was giving too much and of course , we accede to their request and we take the piece down . But I'm so curious how you navigate those issues because you have multiple essays on our site . They're very vulnerable . We're going to be hearing one soon . So how do you deal with that and how do you navigate , knowing that there are pieces of you that are very Google-able and out there and yet maintaining that boundary as a clinician ?

Laura Farrel 22:43

I love this question and it's hard to answer too , because boundaries are important and we were just talking about boundaries before we started too and I love this quote of boundaries being the distance that I can love you and myself simultaneously . And I think in this work I'm there , I'm in the room , it's relational , my experience lives in the relationship , whether or not I'm naming what those experiences are and I bring myself to the work and as someone who has needed to rely on clinicians a lot in my life , someone who has needed to rely on clinicians a lot in my life , I'd rather someone that has walked down that path on their own . I would much rather that , because why am I to trust someone that hasn't walked that path ? It's helpful to me and , yes , I haven't had a ton of clinicians that are disclosing to me in session , but if , if there is writing that a clinician has done , that actually would draw me to them further as someone that wants to understand , and I think there's this book called Radical Healership that I turn to a lot that really opened my eyes to no ourselves are part of this work .

Laura Farrel 23:57

It's a relationship and I think the kind of like Freudian kind of blank slate or , you know , therapist , that's very just doesn't say anything , that's . I think the work is so relational and just thinking of resonant field , it's felt , it's felt so and I think the reason my clients trust me is an awareness that I know what I'm talking about , which comes out of my experience , is an awareness that I know what I'm talking about , which comes out of my experience . So , yes , there's times that I think about the essays I wrote when I was 22 .

Laura Farrel 24:31

And I'm like whew that's a lot to have on the internet , but this is me , this is who I am and I've done so much work around not apologizing for who I am anymore because that's been a big part of my healing journey and I want to promote that to my clients because the work is altruistic for me . So this is a part of me . This is a part of me . You can find it on the internet and I'm not ashamed . I'm not ashamed of these parts of myself and if that makes you not want to work with me , I understand . I accept that . But I think I draw in the people who I'm meant to in the work .

Gabe Nathan 25:07

I love that response and I think it's great and it's actually it's part of what I encourage people who come to me pre-publication and we have lengthy guidelines on the site that I make everybody read before they agree to work with us . And one of the things and I wrote them myself I believe in what I wrote and we require people to publish under their real , full name . That's something that is different about us than lots of other sites that publish mental health essays . They'll allow you to publish as Gabriel N . They'll allow you to publish as Eschgolis or whatever you want to call yourself . Right , we don't permit that and I tell people before they start the editing process like , we're very SEO-minded and we want our essays to be very Google-able because we believe they're important . We want people to find them .

Gabe Nathan 26:02

So when people are Googling your name potential employers , potential lovers , whoever people are going to be Googling you and they're going to be finding this stuff . So be ready for that and understand that . But what I will tell you is , if there is a potential employer who's Googling you and finds your essay writing about your life with bipolar disorder or major depression and decides they don't want to hire you , fuck them . Great Better you know that up front . You don't want to work for that piece of shit anyway Right Now . That's a very easy thing for someone who has a job to tell someone else Now , that's a very easy thing for someone who has a job and to tell someone else . But , honestly , if they're going to be a discriminatory piece of shit , or like a client of yours who's going to Google you and read something , you're like , oh well , laura went through X , y and Z . I don't know if I want to work Great .

Laura Farrel 27:08

Then go find another therapist who is pretending that there's some kind of blank slate , when they've gone through all this other stuff too , that they're just not talking about , right , right , and I think too like I really appreciate you bringing this up because it's about integrity , right , and I think oftentimes we have to survive , so we abandon our value system in order to survive , and I've done it for jobs before , I've done it for relationships , I've done it for whatever it is , because we live again the capitalist hellscape that I spoke to earlier . We are living in this system and we're participating in this system and the banality of evil it rains on . But I do think something that , again , to speak to the new year and resolution , I'm like do nothing without intention . And if I am in a relationship where someone isn't honoring a part of myself , or that part is too much , or that part is too ugly , or that part is too chaotic , whatever it may be , and they don't want to employ me or be in relationship with me because of that , then yeah , that relationship isn't for me and instead of pretending I'm something I'm not , let me just walk away from that . Let me walk away from that which , again , there's privilege in this .

Laura Farrel 28:03

There's not always that possibility and I've had a ton of jobs where my integrity , my values I've abandoned and I just don't want to do that anymore , and I've been again . This is why this being on this team is such a blessing to me . I don't have to do that here at Recovery Diaries . I don't have to do that now that I work for myself . I've had to do it in other spaces , but it's performative and then the work doesn't feel as true and it doesn't feel from that heart space . It comes into this heady , agenda-based place that so many people are living in agenda . I'm like we all have to get back to intention , because agenda is hierarchical at the end of the day , and it's why we're all in power struggles so constantly . It's fake .

Gabe Nathan 28:38

It's fake , yeah , completely , and one of the day , and it's why we're all in power struggles so constantly it's fake , it's fake , yeah , completely and one of the things I love about working here is if I'm feeling like shit or you know , we can . We can all be very open about that . I mean , we all have mental health challenges and and it's it's really nice to just be able to own that and talk about that and be real about that . And I think there's very little fakery here and keeping things in the closet . I think it's a nice , it's a professional place to work , but it's not . We don't have to pretend Right , we don't have to pretend which is and again , I've done a lot of that in other places and it's it's wonderful to be able to let that go .

Laura Farrel 29:31

I completely agree . I completely agree and like , yes , everything needs boundaries , as we're talking about in this conversation as well . And I'm not always quick to share parts of myself in certain settings , because that's just , that's sacred , that part of myself , and I'll share it when I'm ready or if the space provides an opportunity to share it . So I do want to name that in all of this too . But it's nice to know that there's that safety , that sense of belonging , that if I'm having a really rough day , I know I could call you and be like I can't do it today and I know you would understand , because that's what our work is about and we honor that in the work , because that's what the work is about . So if you're doing that work but you're not honoring it in your work , it's like what are you doing ? That's confusing .

Gabe Nathan 30:15

Yeah , yeah , yeah yeah . And so , related to sharing parts of yourself , um , as I mentioned , you have shared parts of yourself beautifully and I think it would be lovely if you did that here . So , um , you know , as you know , part of our podcast is is dipping back into older essays , um , so I know you have one for us , um , to read here on the show and I would love to just I I have read it aloud , uh , you can hear if , for some bizarre reason , if you want to hear me read it , you can go to the essay on our site and listen to me read it , but I would much , much rather sit back and listen to you read it .

Laura Farrel 30:58

I'm so excited to read it for you , this essay . I haven't returned to it in a while . I did read it before I came here , but I'm very and I listened to you read it actually as well , which was beautiful to hear . It's really nice to hear my words in your voice . I was like wow , because I don't know if I had listened to it before and it really was moving to me . So thank you for your reading of it . I do encourage people to read it if they want to listen to it again in your words . But yes , I would love to read it .

Gabe Nathan 31:26

Go for it .

Trauma and Magical Thinking

Laura Farrel 31:27

And this essay is called Magical Thinking as a Trauma Response how I Created Safety Through Imagination . It's difficult for me to root myself in reality when that reality has twisted into things beyond my imagination , beyond dream . Thus , I will start this essay with a dream itself . It is a simple one . This is a dream in which there is someone there to rescue me from a violence I cannot understand . It's like I'm underwater , but I can tell that something is happening to my body . However , there's a barrier , a barrier between myself and a violence that's happened too quickly . That barrier , I later discover , is my trauma response . I became lost in action and confusion emerges . It's like all my senses are dulled . I can't tell what is happening around me . While lost in uncertainty , I abandoned myself and my value system . I no longer can understand that what is happening is wrong . You , whoever you are in this dream it always changes come to my rescue . It is only then that I acknowledge what has happened was wrong , bad , violent . I couldn't tell what was happening until I'm finally rescued from it . The dream does not wake me from my sleep , but deepens the quality of my rest . I now have a sense of understanding . I can sleep now .

Laura Farrel 32:54

This has been an ongoing , recurring dream I've had since the age of 19 , when I was assaulted by men I had previously considered to be my friends . The problem within the dream is the reliance on someone to rescue me , someone to make me understand . It's interesting because , before everything happened , I was wildly independent . Of course , as a child , I relied on the care of my family , for which I recognize and have gratitude , for the privilege within that type of care , and of course , I also rely on the farmers that harvest my food , the people who stitch my clothes , who build the buildings and the heating systems that keep me warm . In this way , you could say I've never been independent , but as I grew older , I found myself wanting to be alone , needing to be alone to restore . I also found myself not needing people for my emotional regulation . I found myself alone , often , mostly because I wanted to be , but sometimes because it felt as though it was my only option . I was constantly tending to my internal world as a way to preserve it . This was work I did alone as a child .

Laura Farrel 34:02

I was often lost in daydream , perhaps at times in a way that could be represented as maladaptive . The worlds I created guided me and created meaning in my quiet life . I learned things through the places I dreamed up . From my small home in a quiet town I spent time alone with my toys , but I didn't even need them to guide the narrative . I could sit alone with my thoughts and that was enough to entertain me . I invited characters into my living space . They became a part of my day-to-day life , almost like magical realism . These invented characters affected my reality . It became an issue at times in school . In class , teachers thought I had a hearing issue because , lost in my imagination , I did not always respond when called to , when called on in class .

Laura Farrel 34:51

As I grew older , the importance of imagination stayed with me . I imagined things that I wanted , bringing me warmth and hope . I relied on my imagination to regulate my pain , my longing . I did not rely on others .

Laura Farrel 35:06

Magical thinking has always felt relevant to me in trauma work and thinking of trauma responses . As I've moved through the world as a therapist , a writer , an artist and a person with repeated traumas , I've begun to explore this concept . The core issue with trauma is one's reality . First trauma occurs , then a rupture of reality which can be followed by perception into a zone of magic . And yes , trauma did create a new landscape I had to move through . In the past , my ways of moving through had all been rooted in imagination , magical thinking .

Laura Farrel 35:46

As a child , I dreamed of worlds I wanted to live in , often lost in my imaginary worlds . This was my first learned coping mechanism as a child . In trauma , my sense of reality altered when I realized safety was not guaranteed to me . I've learned this lesson before . Through sudden deaths of loved ones and within this grief , my sense of reality shifted from what I thought I knew to something else entirely , shifted from what I thought I knew to something else entirely A world with someone to the sudden world without them . And where was it they went to ? Because I experienced death in early childhood . It prepared me for reorganizing and rethinking the way I knew the world to be . This is perhaps a lesson of growing up the realization of nothing as permanent , the process of finding ourselves through pain and then finding our way outside of pain . Within my pain and grief , I had to find a way to make meaning For me . This became living with intentionality around what was lost and carrying that person with me , remembering what they had given me .

Laura Farrel 36:50

As I grew older and experienced pain in new ways , I experienced loss in new ways . Trauma ruptures reality . People I had once trusted became people I now lost , but for different reasons than the losses I had previously experienced . My trauma was a grief process , an angry one at that . These new lessons felt difficult to face and the need for magical thinking as a way to make meaning felt more pressing in my world .

Laura Farrel 37:17

When trauma became a repeated pattern in my life , my brain did not know how to process this ongoing experience of loss around what I had once known . I believed that people were good . My trauma made me realize this was not always the case . I learned this lesson again and again in my early 20s . As I muddled through new and unfamiliar territory , I felt lost , confused , uncertain how to go on . I almost got lost in my pain because my imagination ran wild . I invented other worlds that were safer to exist in , but that was not my reality . It all started to blur into one another During this time . After multiple experiences of sexual violence and abuse , my brain began to go back to my earliest learned coping mechanism world building and imagination .

Laura Farrel 38:07

Magical thinking is defined as the belief that one's ideas , thoughts , actions , words or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world and also the belief that unrelated events are causally connected , despite the absence of any plausible link between them , particularly as a result of supernatural effects . Particularly as a result of supernatural effects , my brain created a world that was safe for me to live in , since my repeated traumas had ruptured my sense of safety . These worlds were magical and that magic created safety . I dreamed up a world in which our small daily gestures and exchanges could create larger political shifts and changes . This world promoted a deeper sense of safety . I could again move with ease . But this world that I dreamed of was not real . The world I dreamed of was connected to an election and grander political change . I dreamed of this all felt connected to a sense of utopia .

Laura Farrel 39:08

In the past several years , I had experienced a lot of direct harm at the hand of others . This in many ways made me fearful of strangers , of others , even at time of friends . I had allowed fear to become a dictator for so many experiences , and now I wanted to turn away from fear and love with a deeper intention and less conditions . I wanted to be a person who could love through pain and not move through the world as traumatized and sorrowful . This was a new realization and in part because the election resurfaced both old and recent traumas that made me want to be mean , made me want to turn away from the world . How could I do the opposite ? This is , in part , why I began to obsess over the small daily gestures of life , with my server , the man on the street , a passerby , the train conductor , all of these small moments held within them , someone on the receiving end , moving through their own world of trauma and turbulence , some of which felt shared and activated by the current political moment . Turbulence , some of which felt shared and activated by the current political moment .

Laura Farrel 40:13

I began to attach to the idea that my small daily gestures could impact political change . This put power into my hands . After years of feeling powerless . I had clarity in the what , the secret politicians that were everywhere . I just had to find them . I had to learn how to talk to them . I had to figure out the ways in which I could use my abilities , my sensitivities , my power to give to a collective need . I had the capacity . I could feel it as if my whole body was transforming . I moved differently , with greater speed and certainty . I did not fear death . My body felt more powerful than before because it moved with a greater purpose . My body felt more powerful than before because it moved with a greater purpose .

Laura Farrel 40:52

In a society that is completely built around the concept of oppression , there is no real freedom . This shift , this moment , could be an access point into a greater freedom previously unknown . The ways in which I had been oppressed , abused , hurt by those I thought were my own made me aware of this in a deeper sense . It was not until I became specific about the ways in which I was oppressed that these thoughts began to actualize . It was not until my trauma bubbled up and exploded through me that I saw a newness , an opportunity . This is how I believed I tapped into the world of politics . It was a world of the many oppressed , the many affected , seeking a new kind of freedom we had once been promised . American freedom was always about oppression . This moment could be about something else , and gaining access to the voices of the secret politicians working on the subway or in the grocery store or that I passed on the street , created a greater access to a deeper and realer reality , one of change . Looking at history , I realized that when revolutions happen , when the lower class takes power from the higher class , they often perpetuate a similar system of abuse and oppression , because that is all they know . This is part why this moment is so secret underground is all they know . This is part why this moment is so secret underground .

Laura Farrel 42:15

I move with deeper clarity , believing in a collective consciousness that could promote actual , real political change tied to an election . The problem was that my newfound world and thoughts and imagination was not actually real . But what I dreamed began to blur with what was reality . To write the specifics of the world I created would take much greater space , as there was much to what I learned , what I imagined as true , what could shift and what could change . But the reality was this was not true . Systems were built to oppress , not enlighten me . Could there be a space of both ? I believed this to be true , but when I was hospitalized in what did appear as a manic episode during this time , my imagined world crumbled around me , lost , re-traumatized and in a psychiatric ward , I began to recognize the world was not magical . Through time and space , I have learned to re-invite magic into the world through a continued practice of healing . Even if I cannot change the entire world , I can change myself and others through the practice of healing . This does feel like magic to me .

Gabe Nathan 43:23

Wow , I would just like to take a moment and just be and then to thank you for writing that and for sharing that . It's inescapable to think about . You know , here we are again . It's January 2025 . And I'm , you know , oftentimes when someone on the show has read a piece that they've written , I'll simply just ask them like what was it like to go back to that ? To go back to that . But it feels so much more loaded to ask you that and I'm curious if that part of you is reactivated now with what we're experiencing as a nation and what you're experiencing personally .

Laura Farrel 44:30

Thank you for your words , thank you for these questions and taking that pause . I think pause is so important for integration , so I really appreciate that as well . Oh , it is a very activating time and it's interesting .

Hope and Belonging in Community

Laura Farrel 44:49

I chose this essay to read because it does feel very present and it feels present in a number of ways .

Laura Farrel 44:59

I think thinking of this time in my life . I was younger , I was not grounded , I wasn't sleeping because I was very activated , I was in my trauma responses in a big way , living in hypervigilance constantly , which is not orientation . I was falling down all the time . I was very clumsy during this period of my life because I was not oriented in a grounded way , which is what safety and belonging is meant to do . Right , and , I think , because I felt so unsafe , which many people can speak to in the world we're living in currently .

Laura Farrel 45:39

Um , because this is we were all just speaking about this before we record it too because this is his second time running , it feels different than the first time in in certain ways . Um , it feels different than the first time in certain ways . It feels scarier in other ways . So I think I do still believe in the magic of the minute gestures . I still believe in the magic of the mundane . Even the other day , I was stressed out and I was at the grocery store and I was like what a miracle . Like how is all this food here ? There's everything I could want here and this took so many hands . And we are all connected to each other all the time and we don't think about it , and I use nature as a big piece of reminding me how we're connected . I learned this fact a while ago , but I bring it up all the time . But , um , when Pangea existed and the continent .

Gabe Nathan 46:31

We're going way back . Yeah , we're going way back right now .

Laura Farrel 46:34

And the continents separated . The tectonic plates hit against each other in that separation , and the way that Africa hit against North America is why we have the Appalachian Mountains , and I think about this all the time . So if you're walking in the Appalachian Mountains , there's a connection to a place you've never been because of the tectonic plates and what happened and we are not thinking about the interconnection between all things . And if you do stop and notice the minute , synchronicity start to pop up , messages start to appear , you do start to notice things , and most of that noticing is like oh , we got to look out for each other , we got to build community , we have to take care of each other , and now I'm just trying to do that in a grounded way .

Laura Farrel 47:18

I think when I was in my early twenties and this experience happened , I wasn't grounded . I think the message of the experience was beautiful . Where it landed me in a psych ward yeah , that was a bummer for sure . I learned a lot through it . The notes , the notes from that hospital visit . I still read them and laugh sometimes because I was yeah , I was on one for sure .

Laura Farrel 47:42

But I do think that that's what pain does . It leads you to these places that are non-realities , and I do think suffering can connect us if we find our way through it . But if we can't find that belonging , that community , that support , then we can become ungrounded and it can look so many other types of ways . So the message of this essay actually feels completely true to me , even though I wasn't grounded in reality at that time , putting that in quotes here , and I've been working on a larger sci-fi project based on this experience for a long time now and I've been reading the draft of it because I want to write a second draft connected to this election , because the first one's about the 2016 election . And , yeah , I've really been thinking about the political , the personal and just how we care for each other in community , and I think this experience speaks to all of that .

Gabe Nathan 48:44

Well , it's so much . It's so much what's happening , and listening to you talk about it , it actually feels very hopeful to me and that aspect of the magical thinking about those little connections having power . It reminds me of a Mark Twain quote , because there's one for everything . Mark Twain quote , because there's one for everything . It goes something like change doesn't occur at the center , change occurs at the edges , in the everyday lives of everyday folk , and I love that quote . And it feels very hopeful now because so much attention is being paid to the center . And in this country , what is the center ? It's the White House and it's everything the schmuck does and every stupid course soundbite . But that actually doesn't matter , right ? What matters is you at the supermarket .

Gabe Nathan 49:48

Right you at the supermarket and me at the car wash or so-and-so , getting the mail and waving to the letter carriers or going to the next house . That's the stuff that actually matters . It's all of those thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of little interactions and the way in which we conduct ourselves , because that's choice is a choice that we have to make about how we see each other and how we treat each other , and that has power and meaning . And that even brings it back to Recovery Diaries how we treat our authors , how we treat the people we make films about , how we treat each other at work , how we're talking to people on the podcast and not treating them as content , treating them as people , as human beings who we're giving to other human beings . That's where the power lies , really , and that isn't magical thinking , that's real , I think .

Laura Farrel 51:09

I completely agree , and that isn't magical . Thinking is so connected because I think , in a world that isn't acknowledging our humanness , it's easy to just mirror that pattern and match that energy instead of modeling what feels true to your heart , which is that we are connected and we all need belonging , which is that we are connected and we all need belonging . And I think , yeah , I'm just , I'm bowing to the wisdom that you shared and what you shared and I'm just feeling . I am feeling that hope and hope is different than faith , and I do have a sense of faith too , because of connections like this , because of these real , real moments , cause hope . Yeah , hope can be fantastical , but faith is no .

Laura Farrel 51:56

We're having this real conversation right now , Gabe and I have felt supportive from you for so long and I'm just , I'm grateful , I'm just so grateful and that is magical , but it's also real . It's both . It's both end .

Gabe Nathan 52:06

Well , I I mean , what better way to end than on a note of hope ? And that's what I hope that our essays give people , our films , the show I think it does . I want it to , I want it to continue . I want to continue giving that to people with you , and I'm just so glad that we got to spend this time together .

Laura Farrel 52:35

Me too . This has been so fun and I love being in this studio with you . Thank you so much for this conversation , these thoughtful questions and just thank you for our connection truly , and for this project . I'm so grateful .

Gabe Nathan 52:49

Let's keep it going , let's keep it going .

Laura Farrel 52:51

Happy New Year . Happy New Year .

Gabe Nathan 52:57

Happy New Year . Thank you again for joining us in conversation today . It's beautiful to see the progression of our contributors . That was so , so lovely , thank you , thank you . Thank you to Laura Farrell , my colleague . She is a writer , editor and producer of Recovery Diaries in Depth . She's also a somatic therapist and I'm so , so grateful to Laura for joining us for this first episode of Recovery Diaries in Depth for 2025 . Before we leave you , we want to remind you to check out our website , recoverydiariesorg . We want to remind you to check out our website , recoverydiariesorg . There , like this podcast , you'll find additional stories , videos and content about mental health , empowerment and change . We look forward to continuing to grow our community . Thank you so much for being a part of it . We wouldn't be here without you . Be sure to join our mailing list so you never miss a podcast episode , essay or film . I'm Gabe Nathan . Until next time , take good care .