The Many Layers of Trauma

Trauma happens when we experience events that feel difficult to cope with or out of our control. It could be one incident, or an ongoing event that happens over a long period of time. When trauma occurs big emotions like rage, grief and hopelessness also occur. Addressing our trauma means facing and moving these big emotions. But because we live in a society that represses emotions, many people struggle to find the capacity or even the space to process their trauma.

Cat and Jayenna share their journeys with trauma, moving the emotions and reclaiming their light.

#traumahealing #emotionalhealing #freewoman #healingjourney #abusesurvivors 

https://www.thefreewomanpodcast.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, welcome to our podcast. Welcome, free woman. It's so great to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Yeah, happy new week. Hope you survived whatever you're going through. We have.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I mean, clearly we're here. You don't see the mess that went on behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I feel like last week wasn't too chaotic. I actually got to lay down and rest and read a book. So that to me feels like a quiet, successful, non-chaotic week.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Yeah, my week wasn't that way.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

I can't even remember what happened.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Yeah, I had a lot of like uh kind of family drama and a doctor's appointments, and it was just pretty busy. Um that's true.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

I did have well, I did have a lot of appointments during the week, but my weekend was lovely.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

So it's so so nice when you can have a relaxing week. Yeah, and I've been having a lot of uh uh I've been doing a lot of my trauma work, been trying to go into old memories, old emotions. Um and so I feel like and then coupled with doing different like like doctor's appointments, medical treatments, I definitely have been feeling the emotions coming up, which is fantastic, but it also is a lot when you're also busy and um can't really sit with things and have a proper cry because Yeah, just stays inside because you know you still gotta feed a family and well I was like sitting outside on my way to my harp lesson. I had all of these like memories and emotions come up, and then I get there and I'm like three minutes late, so I don't even have time to sit there and process. I'm like, oh my god, just like stop crying so that you can be a normal human being because you have to get through this lesson that is scheduled and this person is waiting for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Well, not only that, you're also we both are are trying to get our hormones balanced, and that's a whirlwind, like getting that all figured out, and then your body adjusting and adapting to that, and one day you're you feel great, one day out of seven, but the other six are like just out of balance.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, um, the hormone replacement therapy, our gender-affirming care that we are on as middle-aged women, um adjusting to the hormones and figuring out the right balance is a whole journey, too. And I'm so grateful for hormone replacement therapy, but um it takes some finagling to find the right balance, and that is also a journey.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

You know, you're exhausted, emotional, emotional, cranky, moody, yeah, maybe some rage comes up, can it can affect your sleep. Yeah, I mean, I just started testosterone last week. I'm actually really looking forward to the rage. I'm like, I should be pissed off. You're like, bring it, bring it, like please wake that up in me because we've been dorm at way too long.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Have you looked up when that usually hits? So we can all be prepared.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

It varies, it varies between person. So I just have been taking it for four days now, so we should be okay for a little while. Hopefully, once the snow melts and things fall outside, I can I will be hitting me and I can just go be outside.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah, I can really tell when it's the the hormone replacement therapy that's hitting me because it it does. It just like is not normal emotions. Yeah. I'm like, wow, I just feel like I got hit by a train. It's like I took NyQuil in the middle of the day or something. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

The tired falling over. The tiredness that comes in is it is like you said, like taking NyQuil during the day. It's you're exhausted. I just want to lay down, but yet, you know, I still have to go pick up my kids from school, and someone's gotta be a mom, someone's gotta be a parent, so I gotta do it. It's really hard, and then the kids are like, Why are you just always so tired? I'm like, I don't know. This is what you have to look forward to, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Yeah, we we got to have talked about this obviously in um frustration of like, wow, I just feel horrible today, but also as this opening where I'm like, wow, I feel like so many emotions that have been hard for me to access are now coming to the surface. I'm actually able to like feel some grief about some really awful things that happened. Yeah, and so I don't know, I guess it's that making lemonade out of lemons type of uh thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah, it's like you asked for it, so here it is. Like, you made your bed, here you go. Like, you know, I do. I want to access the deep dark wounded parts of myself, but as I've like you've been saying, like tapping into them, it's it's uncomfortable, and and uh the emotions on top of the emotions that are coming in with the hormonal replacement. I'm just like, I don't know what to do with this. Let's just sit in my bed all day, let's have a good cry. Let's keep some food in here.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Don't text your ex.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Don't text your ex. And like, let's not make any big decisions while we feel this way. Yeah, I get it. And let's just read in a book, read a book and be in another world for 24 hours because this world is wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

But the thing with trauma that is so tricky is oftentimes the emotions are really hard to access. They are, especially if it's like early childhood or like in my case it was um domestic violence, you know. I had to be in fight or flight, I had to be in survival mode. And um Yeah, so you can get through it. I I yeah, I had to take care of kids, I had to work three jobs, I had to do all of these things. And so then when you're finally in a safe space, it's like oh well, you're still in shock. Uh I mean uh it we've been wanting to feel all those emotions. We told ourselves we'd feel all those emotions as soon as we were in the safe space.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

But now they they're stuck, but we're saying yeah, they hid it, they hid in a very dark corner within yourself somewhere, and they're like, come try and find me. Let's play hide and seek. It is really like hide and seek. And it's like, no, we're safe now. I promise. I'm keeping you safe. We can do this now. And it's like, mm-mm, oh, nope, nope. We are not coming to the surface.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

It's like trying to hit a moving target. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Hold still, hold still. And then I'm like, well, I gotta go to my heart blessing now that I finally found it. Yeah, I gotta go inside and back and talk to a human, not seem crazy, not seem crazy.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

God, we're all just pretending, aren't we? We're all we are, we are all just a little bit crazy inside because we're all pretending and keeping all this trauma, all these feelings, just deep down, doormat, covered with bricks, and we're all just pretending. And then one day we just start feeling things while we're grocery shopping. And it's like, goddamn, not right now. It's like trying to hold a poop in.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

What I need to do. No, this is gonna hurt. It's gonna be it's gonna be junk and dry. Like my little. I mean, not the analogy I was thinking of, but it works. An analogy just came too, and we need to laugh a little bit. What can I say? No.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Yeah, I I was more thinking of like a nuclear bomb went off somewhere within your emotional world. Well, that can happen too when you uh don't go poop right away. And then you just kind of like pulled a blanket over that spot and didn't think about it ever again. And it's just rotting in there, just rotting, dead things, smelling. Yeah, it's like you know, when a woman has a miscarriage and the baby doesn't come out. Oh yeah. It's a problem. It it kills you. It does, it kills you. You can't have rotten things inside of you.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Emotions are the same with it.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

You can also die from not pooping. Yada is also a thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

It is, it's the same things with our emotions, with our pain, our rage, our grief, even joy. If we try to keep joy at bay and we just choose to be bitter and sick.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

I mean, you see this in all of the men that we're taught to never cry. Yeah. That only women, only sissy girly girls cry. And then look at them, they're in their 70s and they can't even tell their sons that they love them.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

They all have a pot belly full of rotten shit. It's just emotions, prostate cancer all sitting there because they were not, they were told not to cry, and that you can't say I love you to your children.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah. And sometimes it comes out too as just rage, right? Yep. Sorry to pick on you men, but it's just a good easy example of repressed emotion, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah, it is because it's kind of general, it's like throughout the country through lifetimes where it's been taught men don't have feelings. And I actually used to believe that. I literally believed that men didn't have emotions.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

I thought they like had like a brain damage or something, like that part of them just didn't fire up and I or couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

And I still sometimes feel it. Like sometimes I'm like, well, men don't feel like it just kind of comes in like really quickly and then goes away. And I'm like, it's so funny that I still feel shocked when I see a man in a healthy way express his emotions, and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Yeah, it's like well, I mean, all it takes is being a mother. Yeah, I swear the boys are more emotional than my son.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Is a was a lot more emotional than my boy.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

So we're all minor boys. I mean, I only had one daughter, but yeah, my boys were more emotional. I was like, oh my gosh, it's like having a PMSing girl, except for their seven.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah, so instead of telling my son not to feel, I actually studied him and found out he's highly sensitive like I am. Oh, here comes our bald kitty, if you're watching.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

This is the kitty with fur issues for those of you watching. He is loved, he is safe, he's very happy.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Don't judge us. Anyway, so yeah, so the what was I talking about? That the emotions. The emotions. Well, we were talking about Oh, our son.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Your son was very sensitive. Highly sensitive. And I'm not saying this is a bad thing that the boys are more emotional. I think emotions are fantastic. It's just was eye-opening to me that we have done this to that we do this to boys, that they have are so sensitive. Yes, and we shame them for at least our generation, right? 80s, 90s, early 2000s, we shamed boys for having emotions.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Well, yeah, I mean like it is, I think it's very just recent. That John Wayne cowboy, yeah. It's very recent that we're actually talking about boys being allowed to cry and have emotions. Like I noticed the difference between my son being at his dad's versus with me. My son has all this pent-up anger because he's not allowed to express it at his dad's. Yeah. And so then when he comes with me, it's like a safe place to do it. But I'm like, I'm not gonna be your punching bag every week, so we're gonna find we're gonna do therapy, which has been gr amazing for him. But I'm just like, wow, you have just so much emotion. Let's learn how to communicate, let's learn how to feel these emotions.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I mean, we still still see men being shamed for emotions in modern times with you know all of the progressiveness that we have attempted to accomplish.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Well, you know, baby steps, it's gonna take a while.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

I mean, they're they're called what, like baby or snowflake liberals or this or that if they show emotion.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Show any empathy at all, like any care at all in the world? It's like, why shouldn't we care about humanity?

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Why do we hate humans for having natural human emotions? They're not hurting anyone. Yeah. I I'm sorry, did that man crying somehow attack you? I know. That's it affect your life in any form.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Make you feel uncomfortable and insecure about what's going on inside of you. Yep. Yeah, he's not a sissy, that's actually really attractive and brave. So thank you for being that way if that's who you are.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

And then, you know, women, we repress our anger.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, we do because we were told when we were little that we don't get to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

A lot of women repress all of their emotions as well, just because that narrative that men are being told they're wussies, and women don't want to be that either. We don't want to be seen as overly emotional or irrational. Just too much.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

She's a bitch. Because she expressed how she feels.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

All of this toxicity around normal human emotions, and then you go through something really traumatic. Or several different traumatic things. And the emotions around that are big. Yeah. They're I keep going back to your poop analogy. It's good, right? If you can't even get out a pebble, you're not gonna be able to get this one out.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah, have you ever been really constipated before and had to do it? It's awful.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Okay, okay. If you've only given birth to four-pound babies, a 12-pound baby might be too much. You might it might you might get stuck. You'll need emergency procedures. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

You're gonna need a C-section. Well, you can't do that with emotions. You actually have to go through the process and eliminate. Well, I guess to gently you have to let each step of it come up and feel and until maybe you just get to that real big grunt of a feeling and feel the rage and we do have um interventions for emotions.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Um that I'd say like the equivalent of having like a c-section might be different forms of medication. Oh, that's true. Um, and like when people get stuck in the depression, and usually if you're depressed, there's a reason.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Mm-hmm. It's stuck.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

It's stuck emotion, stuck trauma. Um, that's one of the ways that something rotting inside you becomes known is through that flat feeling, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Well, and just know when you start doing your trauma work, you will feel depressed often. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

But medication can sometimes help people to get because it's a stuckness, right? They can it can help people start to feel like the normal range of emotions again, so then they can like take action, like maybe go to the gym or change their diet or do or get the divorce. Yeah, well, or do the things they need to do to get unstuck.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Movement is important, being you know, staying active in your life, not lying in bed all day. Yeah, because it does make you feel that way, and there's nothing wrong with you if you seek help in that way. Like I would find like a professional, like I talk to my therapist quite often about it, versus just a doctor who doesn't know what's going on with me internally, and that made me feel a lot safer and a lot more comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, and well, finding people that it's safe to emote around because sometimes just having someone one witness you is so powerful. Like you know, it's like having a midwife, it can kind of like help guide you through birthing that emotion. Yeah, and um a therapist is a great person for that, a best friend, a spouse, a partner, not your children. No, please a lot of people make that mistake. Yeah, your children are not your therapist or your parent. Really, you don't say there's a unique kind of trauma that is associated with doing that.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, it's called parentification. I'm so glad there's like um words for all these things that happened in my life.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

It's nice. And I I know that we tend to on the negative side over label.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

But having the labels has really helped me coming from a time when there was no words to describe what I was going through.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

It helped me too, because it helps me to kind of navigate the trauma. I mean, I used to always say I feel like my mom's parent, and now I there's a word for it. Parentification. Yeah. And I'm like, no way, that's me. It's trauma. That was my whole childhood and my adult life with my mom until, you know, I left.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah, it's really, really sad when adult, you know, wounded adults do that to their kids. So, you know, if you find yourself wanting to do that with your kid, maybe get a therapist.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

You should get a therapist. Do not put that responsibility on your child. They will not only do that with you, they will grow up doing that with everybody else in their life.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

If you can't find, you know, or afford a therapist for whatever reason, there's also like online chat forums, there's online Facebook groups, there's online options where you can talk with other survivors.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

I've like found some really great therapists even on YouTube. Same. And they have programs that you can do uh through their channel.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

I recommend Dr. Romani to everyone. Yeah. She helped me so much when I was in the early stages.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, love Dr. Romani. There's another one, but I can't think of his name right now. But every time I watch one of his videos too, I I have like a huge a huge epiphany or like a click go off, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, that is exactly what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Or the free woman podcast.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah, like follow and subscribe. Yes, please. We have lots of experience around all of this. We are not professional doctors, but we can definitely talk about trauma and the signs and the symptoms and the lived lived wisdom. The lived wisdom of it because it is, it's really hard, and it's hard to start seeing people clearly as well because it is kind of foggy.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Um well, trauma makes everything very confusing, and we've talked about this, it's like the upside down. It's kind of like you're in a snow globe and things keep changing direction. So when you go into that those trauma memories, it feels really discombobulated.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Well, a lot of times too, I'm like, God, am I just crazy? Am I what am I crazy?

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Like, well, and then there's rat because so often with trauma, it's not like you have video footage of what happened. Yeah, it's just what you remember in your own brain, and it feels like a shook snow globe.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Well, and if you try to talk to family members about what happened, or parents and they usually don't want you to they don't want you to. What can't you just forget about the past? Or, you know, they try to water the narrative, like they try to make it confusing, and yeah, so that's why it's nice to have, you know, I mean I've schools.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

So there have been times where it has just been nice hearing my kids talk about their trauma because I'm like, okay, it was real, it did happen. I was yeah, it was bad.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Well, it's been interesting with our friendship how much we've been able to help each other because in a way we've like mirrored each other with like your ex and your kids, which reminds me so much of my childhood, yeah. My siblings, um, and it's like helped me to ri have memories come up, but also just see how you are standing up for your kids and taking care of them. I'm like, oh, that would have been nice. Like, I really wish I had that, or you know, I wish I had a safe home, or a mother who fought for me, or tried to keep me safe, but also just see hearing your kids talk about it too and seeing their trauma. And I'm like, oh, that's so similar to me and like what I've been through. And you know, I try to let you know, I'm like, hey, I survived, I'm okay. I mean, I would I wouldn't say I have survived, but it's not been easy, but um, you know, I think your kids do have a chance, especially where they have you and you've been helping them at such a young age.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

It really um helped me listening to your story too, and how you're like, I wish my mom would have done that, and your kids are so lucky that you like you're standing up for them or that you're not letting that happen. You're protecting that this or that, and I'm like, okay, because sometimes it does feel like a lot and you doubt yourself. Um that's why finding community with other survivors can really help, even if it's just listening to someone on YouTube or observing Facebook group chats or something, or listening to podcasts, yeah. There or podcasts are just throwing that in there. Yeah, it can really ground you in reality because well, not only do abusers purposefully gaslight you and make you feel crazy, your own trauma brain can kind of make you feel crazy. You feel ungrounded.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Very much in like, um, it's it's good to find ways to ground into reality because what I have found with my brain and the way I did handle things from a young very young age is I I created a fantasy for most of my life. Yeah. To guilty. Yeah. To um Survive and also in a sense to avoid um reliving the memories. Yeah. You I I tried to stay always in this like happy pot, which is not there's nothing wrong with be happy and positive, but I would try to stay in this fantasy of happy, positive, don't look at those things mindset because when I did, it was really triggering, really uncomfortable, but you can only avoid for so long.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Well, the fantasy is essential to a point till we get to that safe place where we are safe to feel. Yes. Where we're not in survival, where we're not in fight or flight. It's like we we kind of have to move through that stage to the safe place stage to then release the fantasy and feel the emotions. Well, it's like you have to get through it somehow.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, the fantasy kept me safe within myself. It taught me to numb. It taught me to see only what I need and want to see instead of seeing people for very very clearly. And it taught me to ignore anytime I felt pain within myself or suffering, I just told myself, well, this is just how it is. Or I just ignored it. Yeah. Until I got to the point at the age about 35 where I went through a very dark um depression. I guess you can call it depression. Um, but it's when I basically felt like my soul left my body. And I know there are terms and like real words for this, but that's what it felt like to me. I felt like everything inside me turned off. And it was because I avoid I avoided the truth and my trauma for so long that one thing finally triggered me, and I felt myself curl up into a ball inside myself and disappear. And so I had to work at finding myself. And then once I did, it's almost like I um took off some of the mask and I started to see things for what they were or what they are. And that is when I got divorced. That is when I started to say yes to me, because I was like, How did we get here and how do we never feel that way again? Yeah. I mean, I have felt that way again because you know it's in layers. But um I have always kept that vow with myself that I will never allow something like that to happen to me again, meaning the abuse. Like I will always choose me first, I will always love me. So trauma, just doing trauma work and being in reality, it's it's hard, it's difficult. I get why some people don't ever want to do it because you have to just face the truth.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Um well, and the the more it builds up, the bigger it becomes. And it's why a lot of times with the those really big emotions that need to be moved, you have to do it in pieces. Um, because it could cause, and we have seen this happen in people, it could it can cause psychotic breaks. Yeah, it can cause psychosis. You can go cuckoo, yeah, and so it's really good to trust your own psyches process to not to to when things come up go into them, but also it's like don't force, don't force the process. It's it's just like birthing a baby. You gotta trust the body, it knows what it's doing.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

It comes in waves, and you know, you can't just push that baby all out in one big giant contraction that would kill you.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah, you gotta let the the birth process play out. The contractions are gonna build, they're gonna get closer together.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

It's gonna be body slowly opening up for this big birth.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

And just when you think you're done. Then you have the afterbirth. Then you have the plus end, and you're like, oh my god, what number? And then how long does it take the body to get back to quote normal afterwards? You know, it's a whole process.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

That's another thing with the trauma work, is it it is like your body, it's you, it's like the emotional part, the mental part, and it's the physical part as well. And it can make you very sick or sick through the process. Um, because it takes a lot of energy. I mean, that's one of the reasons I uh went into perimenopause early is because my um because of the adrenal burnout from all the stress of doing my trauma work, but also just life, because I guess that went hand in hand. You just go through life and then the trauma work comes with it. And and yeah, so my body, I've had to, I've had to be kind to it, I've had to let it rest, I've had to kind of see it at a different angle. Where before I was like, well, I can do anything and get everything done and do it all on my own. And now I'm like, no, we can't. We actually cannot. We need to allow this body to rest and do nothing and love it, even.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Well, I think a good example of a collective trauma, uh trauma that is happening on a mass scale right now would be the release of the Epstein vials. And you see just the shock and the depression and the rage and all of this range of emotional responses, and then you also see the fantasy and people who are just not ready or willing or capable or wanting to see yet, and how they kind of put it over here in this other box because we do have to keep functioning, we do have to keep showing up for our kids. Yeah, we have to keep working, we do have to keep working and paying bills and just and um yeah, it's it's really interesting to see this kind of collective trauma response playing out because it's the same thing that we see in ourselves and in the people we work on who deal with trauma. It's almost it is too much to feel, and when you have something that's that big emotionally, what do you do with it?

SPEAKER_00 28:32

What exactly? What do you do with it?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

And the definition of like trauma is something awful is happening and you feel powerless to stop it. That's what trauma is.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, well, it's um you do feel powerless. Um it's a hard feeling. It is a really hard feeling. I um have felt that a few different times during my journey, and uh even though I felt completely powerless, there was a part of me that stepped forward and told me that it will take care of me. It was like me finding the power within myself and the courage to face these things.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Yeah, dark, really dark, deep trauma exposes you to, like you said, reality in a way that is quite jarring.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

And we've all had this reality that we've thought we were in.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Yeah, and then you And then suddenly you find out that that's not real.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

It's not real.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

It's uh it's the same thing, you know. You went through with your ex, I went through with my ex, and we realized that we were married to a monster.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah, to an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Uh well, yeah. I guess mine was more monstrous than yours.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Yours is more of a monster. Mine is like this petty thief.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Yeah, he's a con man.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

He's a con man, and he lies and betrays you and cheats and rapes.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Yeah, where mine purposefully hurts people and enjoys it and gets pleasure out of it.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

It's more like my dad. It's dangerous and it's scary.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yeah, and it's like I used to say when we were going through right after our divorce, I just and going through the custody stuff, and I'm like, wow, I was baking cookies in the kitchen while Hannibal Lecter was dissecting humans in the basement, and I was so clueless. How did I not realize that I was living with this this really dark monstrous thing? Well, I for me And as a society, we have done that. We have we've been living with this really dark monstrous thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

It's because you don't want to see, you don't want to see the truth. It hurts to see if we avoid, then we won't feel it. We don't have to feel it.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

And we also don't have to make some really difficult choices.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

We We don't have to face that this is where we're at now.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Well, we have been we have been sold this lie since childhood. If we do A, B, and C, then we get this magical, happy life, and it's a lie. And in order to get that life, a lot of other people have to get hurt or are getting hurt. And then if you decide to wake up and actually look at what's going on, it kind of makes you feel sick and disgusted that this is actually going on, and also kind of like um guilty that maybe you haven't done enough. No, then you might have to feel some of your piece of accountability of this whole like game that's going on.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Well, I mean, we've been talking about this because you have been reading um Dances with Wolves, yeah. And so much of what we were taught about the colonization of America was utter nonsense. Yes. Propaganda and the dark parts were left out, and we see this again and again in American history. The dark parts are left out.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Always we live in this fucking fantasy.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Not only what we did to the natives, but during World War II, we had like camps for Japanese people.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Oh, and not even the let's talk about slavery. Yeah. What we did with slavery and with black people and what we still do to them.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

We could go on and on and on and on and on. Yeah. And on. There's whole books written on them. Yeah. About these untold parts of our history and how we have all benefited from atrocities. And so I feel like what's happening now collectively is we're not able to hide anymore from the fact that our government has committed atrocities that we and that we have all been living in this kind of fantasy.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

We have. But you know what? The veil is getting thinner. And dun dun dun! Dun dun dun. The veil is getting thinner, as you said. The fantasy is starting to fade. So we are in a place where we need to choose and decide what kind of person are we gonna be during all of this.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

The situation that I found myself in when my ex moved in his second wife and was becoming very violent, and I knew that I just had to face this, that I could no longer pretend anymore, that I had I was either going to that I had to face this because my life and my children's lives were on the line, and that was really, really hard. Well, I had to do things that I did not want to do that I never wanted to think about doing that I did not want to face.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, it's really uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Well, and I had that really dark moment with myself where I just didn't know if I could even face what I was facing in my life, um, just being so afraid of becoming homeless and not having the finances to even care for my children anymore.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

And also my trauma coming up with we both faced homelessness, we both faced this huge obstacle of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Yeah, and I was like, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can do this. I am just one person, but in that moment, I I was like, I am going to do this, I am gonna do this for my children. I'm like, this it's like they only have me. And I'm like, you know, I have been let down so often in my life, and I was being let down even in that moment by my family and people I thought that would be there for me. And I was like, I'm gonna do it for my children, I'm gonna give back up and do this for my children. And then immediately after that, I started seeking help too, because I was kind of afraid of um myself, of like, you know, you're in you go so deep into it, and then you have to face these really scary parts of yourself. And at moments I was afraid I was gonna hurt myself because I just didn't know if I can do it. And it is, it's really a choice within yourself and finding that bravery and courage that's inside all of us. We just have to choose. And that's when we we hopefully can start making some change in the world.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

But well, it's really interesting how people seem to always think that the trauma that's happening over there isn't their problem. But what we've seen again and again, and what we're seeing now, is that this really dark aspect in humanity that we thought was only gonna affect people of a certain color or people of certain countries. Different countries, never here we're realizing that no, it's affecting us too. I mean, not to even go into the problem with that kind of thinking to begin with, that you can disassociate from someone's struggle just because they live in a different country or a different color than you. But if it happens to your neighbor, if your neighbor is being abused, if the kids are being abused, if I mean you turn a blind eye to it there, it is going to eventually affect you.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

It does. It does eventually affect you.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

We have to stand up for victims, we have to believe them, and we have to create systems that support them and create actual consequences for abusers.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

So, how many times, like you and I, when we've like shared our story, even just online, and how many people attack us and call us the narcissist or us the abuser? And I'm like, this is why it is so hard for the victims to stand up for themselves, to consistently have to give you a share your story. Even though every almost everyone else is against you because it's almost like holding up a mirror to their face and reminding them that they didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Yeah, that is a huge part of my trauma, is all of the places I went to for help for my children that ended up just being another form of abuse, another way for my abuser to hurt me and the children.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Um everywhere from therapy to school counselors to um legal action to even support CPS, all of these different systems that are supposedly in place to help victims, to help children, are just other forms of abuse.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

And that was really an awful way to learn that truth. Yeah. Um, and it's also another part of the pain that has to be processed. That's what I'm saying. Like, trauma is big emotion, it is big rage, it is big grief. And when you're going through it, you can't process it because you are trying to get your kids out of this situation or a shred of their humanity intact.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, you're trying to survive. Yep. Trying to keep your head on your your shoulders so you can actually do it.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

And then afterwards you're like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 38:50

What just happened? Yeah, but then it's it's like this huge thing that it's it's and now it's in the distance because you've been pushing it down for so long, so you don't go cuckoo when you have to testify in court.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

You know, when you have to show up in functioning ways.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah. You're just, well, for me, I I just numb it all out and I just push it down. And then, you know, I don't know. Like for me, like how I've been talking about things that have happened in my past experience, especially the um being molested or being raped. And I still can't feel it. Like people are like, wow, you know, like as I've shared with, they're like, aren't you angry? Aren't you like, you should like, why didn't you leave? And I'm like, I don't even know. I didn't feel I felt shocked and I felt numb. And then I just was like, Well, this is my life. I just let's just keep pretending, let's just keep being who we are. Because nobody ever helped me as a kid, so I just thought you just keep going, you just ignore it, you just push it down. And I remember feeling it come up a few times, and I'd be like, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, let's just push that right back down. And talking about it now, like feeling safe and like I can actually talk about is actually starting to bring up some of the rage. I'm like, man, I I should be pissed, I should be mad. And I'm like, yeah, I should be mad, but where are you? Like, come up. I'm like, and then I feel it sometimes and I'm like, oh God, oh no, never mind. Too much, too much, never mind. But yeah, it's just it's so in it's just interesting what we do as humans to survive.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

But here's the thing: like we were saying, if you don't find a way to access the emotion, if you don't find a way to move it in pe digestible pieces, then you do become blocked, you do become stuck, and that can manifest as you know, things like depression or other diagnosable things, but also it can manifest in you living your life as a shadow of yourself. You're not this fully vibrant, fully passionate, yeah, human. You're kind of this echo of your true self.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

I love yeah, that's beautiful. I love how you said that. It for me, I have I have felt how much it has um stunted me or has kept me stuck. It's almost been like a handicap. And it's also made it very difficult to be creative, and um, especially as I've been pushing myself to open up these layers, peel back these layers of trauma and trying to get into it. And the closer I've been getting into it, I've been feeling that heaviness and that depression and that feeling of like, I don't know, maybe we'll just stay comfortable and stay where we are. But I I also just want my wholeness. I'm like, I want to reclaim what was taken from me from a young age and through my young adulthood and through my marriage. I'm like, I am going to reclaim this. I am going into the battlefield.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

And I will be victorious.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Perfectly said. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

And I want my light back. I want my creativity back that I had as a kid. I want to feel excited again. I want to feel I want to feel these good and happy emotions again. Um, but that have been blocked because of the trauma.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Yeah, it's it's I and I want to say like that I was hadn't felt all of my emotions. I don't I don't feel like my block has been that big. I've I've definitely felt the joy come in again. Same, yeah, you know, had the full range of emotional experiences. But when it comes to pursuing the things that the the dreams, right? Um the creativity, the stuff that really makes my life feel passionate and exciting and like I can go out there and I can do it. Yeah, the trauma has blocked that.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

It has. And it also 100%. At moments I've have felt myself self-sabotage too, or I am not worthy of this, or you know, just like the really dark negative thoughts that come in as well. And you know, I'm not sure how that will be. Um, if once I am able to move this block, I'm sure I'm still gonna have to battle the negative thoughts because that's just human nature. But I'm talking about like the really but the negative heavy parts of me that don't allow me to have joy or allow me to have certain things, and it's just this like abuse cycle have going on inside myself, and it's the Abuse I grew up with. It's like still in me. It's kind of hard to explain.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, for me, I'm still kind of exploring it, but it's this creative uh part of myself, this expressive part of myself that's very connected to my inner, like inner child, right? That's that's what creativity is, is this us being able to step into that childlike curiosity and exuberance for the world.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

And it feels like I reach for it and it almost just like turns to smoke right as I'm grabbing it.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Oh, that's frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Yes. It's like, oh, I'm gonna get it this time. It's like right there, and then it's just it's like haha, no, you're not. Yeah, and but as I've been, you know, doing this trauma work, the pat I'd say it was kind of part of my New Year's resolution was to go towards some things. And so as I've been doing that since January, it's been two months. Um yeah, it's I can I'm still reaching and it's still smoke, right? But there's all of this like emotion coming up with it. And I'd say I'm actually feeling her fingers before she vanishes now.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Ah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

And so it's like getting closer, but then this like emotions are getting bigger along with it. And I'm just like, oh I don't see even just talking about it. I'm emotional. I'm like, ah, it's like, how am I supposed to like go to the grocery store and make dinner tonight? I just need to like.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

I know. Well, that's that's what's so hard about our capitalistic society. No, we're supposed to be just robots and slaves. Like we don't have time, we don't have space to be human, true, authentic, creative humans. And we do like emotional humans. Like, where and when do we get to have time to feel this grief or this pain or whatever it is we need to process?

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Well, do slaves need to be mentally healthy? No, I guess that's the question.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

No, they don't our overlords have decided no. No, we don't.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Some of us are fighting back saying no to this. I am going to reclaim this part of myself and fight back because this is this is what being alive is about. This is what human is, like being human, like being able to, like you said, be childlike and and explore these wonders and curiosities and and to be creative and fun and like develop and evolve ourselves, but we can't when we're all just so mentally ill, sick, and tired and worn out.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

And the thing with trauma, as we mentioned earlier, is you can't force it. And that's one of the reasons I really hate when people talk about just forcing your way through the white writer's block. Because um writer's block is one of the things I've dealt with. Um, and I'm like, no, forcing your way through it, if it's like what I'm dealing with, if it's related to trauma and emotional blocks, it's almost just like beating yourself with a stick. Well, it's like pushing and just like write something.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yeah, and pushing too soon and then tearing everything. You know, like that doesn't feel good.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Whether it's a baby or a poop.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Not stronger.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Not good. You might need some lubrication in there first. Yeah, you do know.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yeah, maybe take some some lox fish.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Yeah, yeah, and that's what I felt. I was like, you know, I am past, I have learned my lesson on abusing myself. Yeah. Because I used to do creativity that way. I used to do it just like I used to run in that way where I would talk abusively to myself. Um, and so I decided I'm not going to abuse myself in my creativity either. I am not gonna engage in the kind of um just mental practices I would have to to force myself to do this.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Well, it is a process, it's kind of like how you said you just were feeling the little inner child in you, her fingertips. And something I have found as I've been working with a therapist for the last three years or working on myself is there is a part inside me, like the really deep part of me that's been there since the beginning, that is learning to trust me, the all of me, the who I am now, because of all of the betrayal from by myself and by those close to me. And I have just it's been so interesting to me how I've been slowly the internal part of me has been giving me little hints or clues or showing me stuff and then waiting to see how I not necessarily handle that, but how I process it and if I'm still um if I'm gonna betray myself again. And I haven't been betraying myself anymore, and that's why I feel like I've been able to get closer to the rotting pot of trauma. That's why I feel like I've been able to get closer to understanding the truth of what happened in my childhood and through my adult life, and it's because I am finally being honest with myself, I'm finally not betraying myself, and I am finally finding this trust within me.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

You're building trust with yourself, you're teaching yourself that you can trust you.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Yes, and it's been just so eye-opening, and I think as I've been doing that, I've been able to start to process the anger I have towards myself that I betrayed myself so much in the past, but I also am trying to be gentle and soft with it because I'm like I didn't know. Yeah, I had no idea, like nobody, nobody told me or protected me or told me these things were wrong or bad. I mean, I felt like they were bad, I didn't like them. But now I'm able to look at it from my eye point, my eye view, and be like, that was wrong, and I am pissed. But I'm also going to never let this happen to us again. And also for my children and like protect them. And I think that's how you really heal yourself. I think that's how you heal and protect your children. Like that's how you it's like creating a new cycle inside yourself, a new cycle in your family. Like we actually protect ourselves, we protect our children, we don't let this disease affestation come in and destroy the light within you.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

Yeah, I feel like so much of our struggle with trauma work in our society is that we're so impatient. Oh, yeah. We are so impatient, and I see this in mental wellness gurus. I see this in the new age spiritual movement, I even see this in traditional religion, this idea that you can just find Christ, or that you can just love and light, or that you can just it's like putting a band-aid over it. Yeah, yeah, it's just this easy fix, not even easy, quick fix.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Sprinkle some fairy dress.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Or you can just do the ayahuasca ceremony, and suddenly you will be this new person. And trauma doesn't actually work like that. It doesn't, but there are those big breakthrough moments, like you do have the big breakthrough moments where where you get a nice sizable chunk of rot out of you, yeah, but it is a process.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

You have it is a process, you have to go to where the birthplace of that rot is, and that it still is alive in your life, and you have to pull it out by the root, yeah. You do, you gotta pull that sucker out from the root, and then you have to just make sure you keep that clean, like you have to mother it and take care of it, and you know, make sure you got everything out because sometimes little pieces stay in there.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

It's a process though, it's a process even getting to that point because you have to build trust with yourself, you have to start to get to know yourself, you have to wait for it to be ready. And sometimes it's like you need to go through a few more things in your life. Like with my children, I know there are some things they're just not gonna be able to process until they've had an adult relationship or they've had children themselves. Well, it's just that the journey brings you different experiences.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Walking the path, living life, having relationships, that is how you heal. Well, that is going through things because you then you start to see, well, how did I do this before? How am I gonna do it differently now? Or sometimes that's when you have like epiphanies come in, and then you start to heal. You can't just hide in a cave and expect to, you could probably do some healing, but you if you want to really get in there, you have to live life, you have to go through things, you have to experience other people and relationships.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

Well, and that's another part of our collective trauma that we do as humans, as uh this trauma thing is this chasing thinking that if you get to the the level of income or the living in the nice neighborhood, the perfect partner if you can just get over this trauma or you can just get the relationship that that's when you'll finally arrive. That's when your life will finally start. But the thing is, it doesn't is it starts right now. It started yesterday, it started the day before. Like life has already begun. And if you're not living in that moment, in this moment right now, thank you for being present in this moment with us. We are all alive right now in this moment experiencing life, um, then you miss you miss life, you miss the whole point of all of it, and so so often with trauma work, uh you know, you think if you can just get beyond this one thing, then you're gonna all be better. It's gonna all be better, but there's always something new. There is all life is uh seasonal, it is, and there are nice warm days and there are rainy wet days, and no matter how much of your quote work you do, there's always going to be a need to process another rainy wet day when it comes along.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Yeah, it it's life that is the human life, and you're still gonna have to make hard choices, you're still gonna have to find parts of you that are afraid. Um still gonna have to feel some rage, hidden rage, and like, oh I'm still mad about that.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Yeah, it's like, oh, if I can just get to retirement, or if I can just to get to where my kids are adults, or just get to where they're not toddlers anymore, or if I can just get to that size of pants that I've been wanting to wear.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

If only my body looked like a big thing. If only my body would be really happy.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

But guess what? You know, the body is always going to have something going on with it, and you're not getting any younger, especially as you get older. So appreciate your body today. Uh-huh. You know, appreciate the day that you're in, the moment you're in.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

It's all about just right now, being present.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

It is, and trauma work is that way too. It's learning to be present again in your life because one of the things that trauma does is it takes us out of the present.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

Puts you into a fantasy, right for me.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

Takes you out of your body, it takes you to a dissociative state, and there's this constant, obviously, we still need to like address the trauma, right? But that's one of the ways that you address trauma is you actually learn how to be present in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

And then it's real. Yep. And that just hit me the other day when we were sitting. I mean, I've like felt it, but the other day when we were just sitting and talking, I'm like, oh my god, exactly. Everything you just said, I was like, oh my god, it's just being here right now. This is the real right here.

SPEAKER_02 57:05

This is my life, right now.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

This is real. Yeah. And you know what? I can choose to be bitter and upset right now, or I can just be like, wow, this is amazing. Like, look at what I have.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Look at where I'm at, look at how far I've come.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Well, and even being present when it's not so amazing. Yes. Being able to sit with whatever it is that is your reality, having the resilience. And that's another thing that doing trauma work really brings in is you keep going into that dark rot that's inside of you and little by little pulling it out, and little by little facing the hard things, and it creates this resilience in you. So you're not running away from your life all the time. Yeah. Just because something hard happened, or that person sent that text to you, or work did the thing, or life didn't turn out the way you could. Or our government is full of corrupt, crazy, disgusting people. Yeah. You can actually face that with a clear mind.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Yeah. And it's like, well, what can I do?

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Rather than the this vibrating energy.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

Yeah. It that is being completely in the moment and alive. Because all you have right now is this moment. Right now. Yep. This is it. Hello. Hello. Welcome to your moment. I hope you're enjoying it with us. I know we had a lot to say, a lot of really deep. But this is what it's like to hang out with us. We love going into these things and talking about this and exploring it, and we've both been doing the work. I hope that our words can help you.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

Yeah, it's hard to talk about anything more service level when this is what we're going through right now. We are in the midst of doing some trauma work right now, Kat and I are. And so this is what we've been up to. And we wanted to share with you what we have been up to in the hopes that maybe that will be useful. I I hope it is. And if you're constipated, take some laxatives. And be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with yourself. You know, you might be attached to a toilet all day if you're not. You might not be able to go to the grocery store.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Yeah, take the day off. Feel some feels and go to the bathroom.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

Thank you so much for joining us.