THE WAR INSIDE YOUR MIND: Trauma, Suicide, Identity & The Truth About Healing | Caralyn Dreyer

Welcome home.

In this powerful episode of W.A.R. Network, Stryker sits down with mental health advocate, writer, blogger, and podcast host Caralyn Dreyer for one of the rawest conversations yet about trauma, depression, suicide, identity, emotional numbness, anxiety, healing, and what it really means to survive psychologically.

This is not surface-level motivation.

This is a real conversation about:
• PTSD and trauma responses
• Depression and emotional exhaustion
• Suicide survival and mental health awareness
• Identity after trauma
• Anxiety and emotional numbness
• Healing after abuse and violence
• Survival mode psychology
• Mental health in modern society
• Social media and emotional disconnection
• Rebuilding your life after trauma

Caralyn opens up about surviving sexual violence, domestic violence, depression, anxiety, and a suicide attempt while learning how to rebuild herself emotionally afterward.

Stryker and Caralyn dive deep into the silent psychological battles millions of people are fighting behind closed doors while pretending everything is okay online.

This episode explores the uncomfortable truth about healing:
It is messy.
It is nonlinear.
And sometimes survival itself is the victory.

If you’ve ever struggled mentally, emotionally, or spiritually...
this conversation is for you.

Welcome to W.A.R.
We’re All Recovering.

🎙️ W.A.R. Network
Hosted by Stryker

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https://warnetwork.org

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#MentalHealth #Trauma #Healing #Depression #PTSD #SuicideAwareness #Anxiety #SelfHealing #WARNetwork #WereAllRecovering #Podcast #Psychology #TraumaHealing #EmotionalHealing #MentalHealthPodcast #SurvivalMode #Identity #CaralynDreyer #Stryker #WAR

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, I need you to hear first of all to not give up. Please don't give up. Second of all, the process of moving forward in healing is overwhelming. But if you break it down into smaller parts, it makes the whole process so much easier. And the smallest steps matter. Just you could simply write on a piece of paper, I'm having a bad day. That's a step, that's an acknowledgement that things aren't okay. You don't have to take a giant leap to get started. And please don't feel ashamed of the things that you've been through or the things that you feel, the things that you think. There are so many people out here who relate to you who understand what you're going through, and you see all the time you're not alone.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

At least 50,000 Iraqi civilians have died.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

Seriously. In today's conversation, this one is gonna hit hard. You know, we're talking about mental health in a way most people avoid. Not the motivational quote version, not the drink water and journal version. You know, I mean the real version. Trauma, depression, identity collapse, emotional numbness, survival mode, the moments where your own mind starts feeling unsafe. Today I'm joined by Carolyn Dreyer, mental health writer, bogger, podcast host, advocate for honest conversations and trauma and recovery. But more importantly, someone who lived experienced survival, sexual violence, domestic violence, suicide attempt, depression, anxiety, and the brutal process of rebuilding afterward. Honestly, Carolyn, what stood out to me about your message is you didn't try to sound polished, you know, when I seen you on IG on Instagram. You sounded real, you know, and I think people are starving for real right now. So I'm honored to have you on the show. Carolyn, welcome to war.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Thank you for having me. That was like the best introduction ever. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 2:55

Thank you. Thank you so much. That's from the heart, for real. And I want to start here because something feels off in society right now, Carolyn. You know, psychologically. People are more connected than ever, but mentally they seem more alone than ever, you know? Everybody's online, you know, you see it, everybody's posting, everybody's, you know, healing, but eternally, people seem exhausted. Why do you think so many people are quietly falling apart right now?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

You know what? I think a huge one is that people are afraid to be themselves. And that is like when you spend your entire life or even a fragment of your life pretending to be someone you're not, it's extremely exhausting, like mentally and emotionally. And I think that the more we promote like authenticity, like true authenticity, I think that a lot of people will stop being so exhausted. I know for me, I'm like a recovering people pleaser, a recovering perfectionist, all the things that we use to run away from ourselves. And now that I'm working on those things and just like showing up as myself, I know my mental exhaust my mental exhaustion is like so much better because I just wake up in the morning and I just come as I am. Obviously, I'm not doing that all the time. Like I'm not cussing people out or, you know, like acting crazy. But I'm being myself in terms of like, if someone doesn't like me, okay, that's okay. I don't have to be liked by everyone. But I think a lot of it, yeah, I think just everyone's just trying to run away from themselves and be performative. Like it's you gotta be real and like stop the performing. Like if you are having a bad day, granted, you shouldn't be treating people like crap all day long, but don't try to hide it. Have your bad day so that way you can get it out of your system and continue on with your day.

SPEAKER_06 5:04

Perfect, perfectly said, man. Perfectly said, because honestly, you know, I call them per uh professional distractors, you know. I think, you know, we became, you know, as a people, professional distractors. You know, we got the phones, you know, addiction to the to the web, you know, to IG, TikTok, or what's that other one? Um, what's that other one called? It's the one where you could uh put all the faces and all that stuff on there. Anyway, it'll come back to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:36

The phones, the content, scrolling, noise, constant, you know, stimulation, but very few people actually sit alone with themselves anymore, you know?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:47

Do you think emotional avoidance has become normalized?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, I do, I do think so. And it's interesting because it social media has like a lot of benefits and positivity to it. But yeah, it's like the number one go-to if you want to avoid anything. Emotions, your day, your neighbors, whatever it is, you can just scroll on social media. So I think we're not, it's interesting because I feel like as a society, we're telling like our kids, you know, let's make sure they don't have a lot of screen time and this and this. But yet we're also there's all these trends and stuff on social media that would indicate we should be on social media scrolling.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I what I'm learning, especially with like trauma and mental health recovery, it's all about balance. Like, I think social media is not terrible. Like, I go on there and scroll through like positive quotes or like nature videos or whatever, but I shouldn't be doing that 24-7. I shouldn't be doing it necessarily to avoid major life issues. But I think if you have like a balance of things that can kind of alleviate the avoidance, it's it's weird because you want to avoid things, but yet you also want to be connected and have support. So I think it's just all kind of like a fine line between the two.

SPEAKER_06 7:16

It is, it is. And we were just talking about it. Matter of fact, on the Rolling Bowls, Roller Bones, when I did that uh live with Roller Bones, that you know, social media is filled with thousands of likes for negative content. So I love that you scroll for positive content because that's you know, I love I like it, I like IG mostly for the uh funny content, you know, to, you know, kind of lift me up and you know, better my day. Like, so I look as soon as I get on there, you know, I look, I check for you, of course, you know, and then I look for the uh all the funny stuff that's going on in. Yeah. My Knicks is kicking ass right now. So I'm looking at all the New York stuff, you know. I'm originally from New York, so you know, social media ain't bad, but it is a thin line. And it creates that, you know, this weird pressure where people feel like they have to perform wellness instead of actually experience healing, you know?

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

So I feel you 100%. So do you think that people are becoming disconnected from their real identity?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yes, and social media I think plays a huge part in that because we're not remembering that behind the aesthetics are real people and going through real things. And I think that a lot of us are guilty of striving for what we see on social media and making comparisons.

SPEAKER_06 8:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I'll be honest with you, when I first started telling my story, and I didn't really know much about being like a content creator, so I was like, okay, whose profiles can I scroll through to kind of get some ideas? And I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna do that. I don't want to now look, you should be inspired and have like role models and things that motivate you and drive you. But I was like, if I'm gonna do this, let me just come up with my own thing. That's kind of like how my content creation started. I was like, well, people seem to like videos of me talking, so let me work with that. And I think a lot of people would find that they would be a lot more accepted than what they would think if they strive for their own identity. Yes, you should, I don't know, have people around you who help cultivate certain traits that you have, but at the end of the day, it should be your identity, your image, your beliefs, your perspectives. And I think we wouldn't be so tired. We're all just chasing after such unattainable things because next week, you know, this fashion trend isn't trendy. I don't follow fashion trends or you can't wear a side part anymore. I like to do whatever I want. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm gonna always be maybe the most old-fashioned dressed person out there, but I don't care. I want to wear what I want to wear. I want to wear my hair how I think I should. The gray hair is coming in, you know, fashion experts. Oh, you should, you know, dye your hair so you look younger. But why? That's like a waste of time and money. And I just I just want to I want to have my gray hair because that's what makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 10:31

I thought the grays was in. I thought the grays was in there.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Well, yeah, I think it is now, but you know what? Next week it might change, and then we're all gonna be like, dang, you know, let me switch it up. So I just think if we just use those things as like guideposts and inspiration, but don't use it and take that stuff on because again, while my videos are authentic, a little bit of it is performative every morning. Am I waking up smiling the way I do in my videos? Absolutely not. Hell no. I have to put on a little bit of a performance because I want to use my lived experience, but I don't want to be like a Debbie Downer or you know, take on any type of like victim mentality. So again, it's all about balance, especially as a content creator. Y'all wouldn't maybe want to see me when I first wake up in the morning. So I'm not maybe showing up authentically in that way, but I think it's just a balance. But just do you be you. It'll just, I just feel like it's better all the way around. And it's easier said than done. It really is.

SPEAKER_06 11:40

Right, right. And that's why I that's how I got started actually looking at, you know, other people's, you know, thing, you know, content and everything and kind of kind of comparing, or I was like, you know, what is in right now?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:54

Or whatever, you know, I was looking at Joe Rogan's and stuff like that. It was hard to find what I my my vision actually was with Warwick all recovering. But then when I luckily, you know, I bumped into RTB, you know, that's my boy over there. Shout out. But, you know, you know, without them, I wanna, you know, connect it with you. Like you, when I look at your videos in the morning, it's like a bright light, like a sun, you know, like it's real positive and it's good energy, and it makes me feel and your voice and you know, so soft spoken and your message and everything is perfect, you know. So keep doing you, you know what I'm saying? You doing perfect. A plus from the War Network, Carolyn. A plus.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 12:44

Yes, and I and I and I want to say this. I think people, hey, stop it over there. Sorry, so he bite, he's biting on the wires. Stop it. That's my dog Ted, folks. Um, sorry, uh, he's a terrorist. I want to say this. I think people are carrying trauma while simultaneously trying to maintain that public image, you know, like kind of like what you say. And that says, you know, I'm good, I'm thriving, I'm fine. And eventually the disconnect catches up psychologically.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

You know?

SPEAKER_06 13:14

So then it's like, bam, reality.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:18

So you know, perfect said, You right on. I think, you know, society still misunderstands trauma badly, you know. People think trauma only means catastrophic events.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:31

It don't, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:34

Of the most emotionally damaged people I've met never physically went to war or nothing like that. You know, they just grew up emotionally unsafe. Yeah, so do you think trauma changes people permanently or do you think people can't fully reclaim themselves?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

You know, I was asked this question on another podcast, and I told the host that I think I think in a lot of ways we do change permanently, but I think once we get to a certain level of healing, we'll notice that parts of ourselves pre-trauma are still there. Like for example, I've always been sarcastic, I've always been a caring person, whatever. You can list a bunch of things, but a lot of those things, I still am those things. So I think I think it just depends on the individual, but I would say generally we become a new person, but parts of our former selves still stay there. Now the challenge is determining which parts should stay. For example, I used to be a social drinker. I almost died of alcohol poisoning actually from binge drinking. And I, in doing that, it just, you know, I was that's something I obviously don't want to carry on into my new self. So I think we have to recognize the things that should stay and the things that shouldn't. For example, there's certain coping mechanisms. That's what I was trying to get at with the drinking example. There's certain cop coping mechanisms that we don't necessarily want to carry on pre-trauma. You know what I'm saying? Like I used to, what is something? I've never been good at expressing my emotions. Is that something that I want to carry on from my past self? No, I want to kind of refine that a little bit. So I think, but I think it just depends. You know what I mean? Because I can't speak for somebody who's maybe been through you don't like to compare traumas, but certainly there's individuals out there that had more of a negative experience maybe that than I did, and the impact was greater. So maybe for somebody like that, they would have a different answer. I also didn't necessarily have a horrible childhood. So I think somebody who maybe had trauma in childhood, teenage, adulthood would probably have a different answer, I think. So it probably just depends.

SPEAKER_06 16:15

I'm just sitting here blown away because I knew there was a reason, something that pulled me, I gravitated towards your messages and towards you. Um I too almost died from alcohol poisoning. And I went through rehabs and PTSD treatment programs. I mean, for almost a year. And the recovery from that was insane. You know, like just binge drinking and just because from my accident, I went on Adavan, which is uh Benzo, and you know, that was medically prescribed. And then when I moved from Florida to New York, they couldn't transfer my prescriptions. I could I, you know, wait waiting for a doctor, so I just started drinking my ass off to deal with the injuries. And so now I'm withdrawing from benzo and you know, alcohol, dealing with the alcohol. And we have so much to talk about, Carolyn. Oh my god, we might have to a part two to this. And I must say, a trauma, you know, you know, to that question. It changed my trust, my say, you know, safety, my self-worth, my relationships, the way I interpreted the world, you know. Yeah, it changed my survival instincts, you know, it changed all that. We would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I at that's it's kind of a confusing question for me because I think even as early as childhood, I was already starting survival mode. I was bullied because of my skin color. I developed an eating disorder. There was like a lot of things that adoption adopted. So that was like a huge thing that I had to navigate on my own. Like I had to get myself up every morning and figure out how do I face the world. I really didn't have like any guidance or anything with how you face your day living with a family that you know is not your biological family, but yet still having to act like they are. And the more I think about it, I think that it's hard for me to answer that question because I was never really trusting of people growing up. Whenever someone would say something to me, I would automatically be like, well, they're just saying that to be nice. Or if my parents said something, well, they're just saying that because they're my mom and dad. So I think very early on, I kind of looked at people not being genuine with me, or I questioned it. And who knows, maybe they were. But the stuff that I was going through with my identity and not fitting in and not being accepted, I'm biracial. So there was a point where white people kind of accept me. I'm not even white, I'm Korean and black. But then when I went to college, like the black community wasn't like too excited about my membership there.

SPEAKER_06 19:19

Your membership.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

So I think for me, maybe a lot of things got worse and got heightened by trauma. So yeah, for sure, I would agree with everything that you listed off, is definitely stuff that changes for sure. The degree of it probably varies.

SPEAKER_06 19:37

Yeah, and you were dealing with your poor little mind, you know, like was dealing with it from an early, early age, you know. Yes, and it makes me think of all the little little kids out there that that's dealing with that now, you know. And it's sad. This is a sad, sad world we're living in.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

It is, it's terrible, terrible.

SPEAKER_06 19:58

And I don't think it was meant to be like this, but um that's that's a whole yeah, it's a whole nother discussion. Right. You know, I don't want to get to the Bible and everything, but um yeah, it's oh man, Carolyn. Oh, this is yeah, this I'm gonna remember this. Uh something else I've noticed. A lot of trauma survivors. I I noticed this when I went to the PTSD program for six months. And that that program, by the way, saved my life. So shout out to Aspire San Diego. The PTSD program saved my life. Thank you guys, love you guys. But um, when I was in there, I noticed, you know, we was all hyper aware of people emotionally, you know? Like just, you know, almost almost like we learned to scan rooms psychologically just to survive.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:46

You know, did you experience anything like that? Oh gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

And I can say pretty much my entire life, I always, like I just mentioned, was always trying to measure, is this person really for me, or are they just acting like it? And it just got worse and worse as I got older. I mean, to the point where if there's a change in someone's tone of voice, of facial expression, any type of body language, like I will notice that instantly. Like with my boyfriend, like if he's having a bad day, he'll try to act like he's not, but I pick up on it immediately. And sure enough, within like a few minutes or so, it'll come out like, yeah, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever the reason was. But I was like, why don't you just tell me? Like, I know, like you can't. And it's a gift and it's a curse because if you're also dealing with like anxious, anxious attachment, oh my gosh, that is like it's it's a nightmare when you have like anxious attachments and you also are hyper vigilant to people's changes and moods and stuff like that, it's like a disaster. It's it's a huge disaster. I I can rem I can remember like past dating relationships. Like if I thought somebody was like mad at me and they just they they kept saying, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, but I noticed like their actions or like their tone of voice didn't match, I'd be calm for a minute and then I'd start like blowing up their phone. Are you sure? Are you sure you're not mad at me? Are you sure this? Because then you internalize it and you start to think it's just it's a crazy mess. It's hard to get out of. I applaud you for going to treatment and therapy and stuff. I never did. I went to therapists like a handful of times, but I never I should have gone to treatment for drinking, I should have gone to counseling after my sexual assault, never went to counseling after my domestic violence. And certainly, this is not me bragging about this by any stretch of the imagination. The point of me saying that is it all stacked up. I'm 44. And so if you think from childhood, and let's say maybe in the past five years, I've really been engaging in the healing process, that is a long time of like self-healing, which I'm an advocate for self-healing. However, I'm a very logical, practical person and recognize that probably 80% of the stuff that I went through should have been dealt with in therapy or some kind of counseling. My eating disorder. I never went to treatment for that. And praise Jesus, I'm physically pretty healthy. I I had anorexia, but I also would purge, I would throw up after I would eat. Now that started late middle school, early high school, and I've been in recovery from that since then. Would I advocate people self-healing from an eating disorder or body image? Absolutely not. I was really playing with my life. I think my lowest weight, I was like a size zero. I'm 4'11, was probably like 100 pounds. I saw a picture of myself and I was like, girl, what the heck? Like, I was like skin and bones. It was crazy. Wow. But when you struggle with body image, like I'll look in the mirror and see that I'm probably 10 pounds heavier than what I actually am. So the whole point of that whole tangent is just that I applaud you for facing your fears and facing your challenges and like seeking help and support.

SPEAKER_05 24:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

It's yeah, like it's hard. I mean, I know you have to really humble yourself and get off your high horse and be like, look, I don't have this figured out. I unfortunately, by the grace of God, made it through all that stuff without having professional help. But I if I could go back and do it again, I would have gotten help way back in high school. And I think that that would have changed the course of my life tremendously.

SPEAKER_06 24:58

Well, I believe and and I applaud you and kudos. You are a very strong woman, you know, to deal with all that without professional help and, you know, you know, doing self-healing. But I believe, you know, when you have faith in God, I I believe God has a plan and he directs our movements and our path that we take. I really believe that. I'm not gonna get into that, but I believe that was the path you were supposed to take. Yeah. And you was on that path set by him and you made it through, and you're here, he knew you were strong enough to deal with it.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:37

Um you know, when Sal wasn't strong enough, but I was at the point where, you know, I felt like he was directing me there and I wasn't gonna fight it. Like, cause I when I first went to rehab for the addiction, you know, I started out, it was a 28-day program. I went for about a week and then I left. And then a couple of months later, you know, I was back in the same predicament. So I went back and I left again. You know, then it was to the point where every, you know, I was catching court cases. I like, I was like, look, I never healed. I had this traumatic event, this motorcycle accident. After the motorcycle accident, everything I've been through in war started flooding, like it rewired my brain. Everything that I've been through in Iraq, you know, that I've never, you know, processed was hitting me all at once. I'm talking to dead people now, the my dead friends that I love. I'm talking, like I'm losing my shit. Like I'm seeing people figures change to demons in front of me, literally. You know, I'm crying when I'm seeing homeless people on the streets. So I'm like, look, I need, I need something. So I went back to the 28-day program, completed that. Then from there, they sent me to uh another kind of like a mental health uh drug uh program combined for three months, and I wasn't done yet. I was like, I need more focus, like, where's this coming from? So then I went to the PTSD program for six months, and that's when, you know, everything opened up. They tackled everything. And yeah, so in defense to your husband, I do it too. You know, when I'm having a bad day, I don't want to put that on my wife. You know, I try to I try to block her and shield her from that and try to deal with it on my own. So I can understand, you know, why he don't tell you when you say, you know, why don't you just tell me? I can understand why he doesn't tell you, you know, like we don't like to put that on you guys. But um I'm real proud of you. Good job. Good job. Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Uh I, you know what, and of course I'm not gonna get into a whole religious spiel, but I do share the same belief that this was the path that I was meant to take. And I believe that, you know, there's good and evil, dark and light. And I know the dark side has been trying to come at me since I was born. You know, I don't know my birth mother's story, but she obviously wanted me to grow up somewhere else. And I think that that was the first step of, you know, the dark side not getting their claws into me because my mom wanted better for me. And I was adopted by a Christian family, actually. So I I agree with what you're saying. And I have to look at it that way in order to keep having a bright light, in order to keep being compassionate and kind. Because trust me, some of the stuff I've gone through, I could just walk around and be pissed off at the world every day. And to be honest with you, if people were to ask me why it was like that, they would probably understand and I would maybe get a free pass most of the time. But I don't, I don't want to live in that anger and that resentment. So I have to reframe my struggles and surviving that trauma as this, it was in the cards for you. It's part of your purpose. And, you know, reframing is just such it's such a huge thing. And to speak about what we were saying about my boyfriend, I he's African American also. And I think that speaks to a cultural perspective on mental health in the black community, specifically among black men, that it's hard for y'all to say you need help, to say you're having a bad day or whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_05 29:33

Definitely is.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

You know, not have to feel like he has to hide it. I think it's just like a lot of these things are cultural for sure and gender-based. Right. For sure.

SPEAKER_06 30:08

Right, definitely, definitely. We have a problem with vulnerability, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:16

We are gonna take a little walk on that dark side, but before we do, can you break down anxious attachment first?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

You mentioned I will do my best. I will do my best. An anxious attachment is basically well, codependency is definitely involved in that, in that, like, I've had that in relationships where if my boyfriend had a bad day and I was having the best day ever, automatically I'm taking on that other person's bad day. You just you need constant validation, confirmations. Like I would I can remember guys that I dated, they would be out with their friends, whatever. They wouldn't answer my call right away. For me, I need confirmation that you're still there. And so I would like, I'm not lying to you. If you were to talk to some of these exes, like I would blow their stuff up, like back to back to back to back. Filling up the voicemail box, like voicemail box full with the text messages. You better hope I didn't know where you were at, because that might roll by.

SPEAKER_06 31:22

No, you know, they just put a case. They said I don't know if it's true, they just put a case on a woman for that.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Right. So for the humorous explanation, that's kind of what it entailed. It just comes, you just you need you just need that external validation from that other person. And I'm pretty sure that it even showed up in friendships. Like, I just was questioning, like, are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Like my poor sixth grade teacher, like we had her in the hallway, like every other day with some girl fight that was going on. And it's just it's hard until you get that validation or you get the confirmation that you think you need, you're just an anxious mess. You start the overthinking. For me, one thing leads to another. If I don't hear from you within 20 minutes, all of a sudden I think you're in a car accident, or you know, somebody has you held at gunpoint. My mind just always goes to the worst. So I didn't give you a very good clinical explanation of anxious attachment.

SPEAKER_05 32:27

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

I just last year, two years ago, I recognized that that was something I was overcoming. I didn't actually realize that till I looked it up. And was like, oh yeah, I definitely was experiencing that probably since childhood. And I think it also stems from a fear of abandonment, which is huge in adoptees. Because however you come to be adopted, we technically were abandoned by our biological parents. And I can remember as a kid thinking, like, you know, I knew my parents wouldn't get rid of me. But in the back of your mind, as a kid, you think, well, you don't think of adoption as what it is as an adult. You think of it as like, oh my gosh, well, my mom gave me away. I didn't know why. So then as a child, you think like, oh my gosh, like if I don't act right in this family, like, are they gonna give me back or are they gonna give me away? So I think that fear of abandonment, when it goes unrecognized, can definitely turn into anxious attachment for sure. So it's interesting, but a lot of my adult challenges really do stem from childhood.

SPEAKER_06 33:42

Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:44

I appreciate that. I know that people appreciate that too.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Um and don't come for me, therapist. Don't come for me out there. I did my best.

SPEAKER_06 33:53

I love it. I love it. I completely understand. I mean, because I I actually know people like that. So now I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna tell them to to look into that. So thank you. Um I want to transition to that dark side that we were talking about for a little bit. This is, you know, the conversation becomes a little bit uncomfortable. Um, apologize in advance. You openly talk about surviving a suicide attempt.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:20

And honestly, I respect that level of honesty because most people hide that forever.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:28

What do people fundamentally misunderstand about depression?

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Oh man, I think one of the biggest well, there's two. The first is that depression is not always somebody sitting in a dark room with the blinds drawn, you know, like laundry and dirty dishes everywhere, and sleeping all day. Now, that is an aspect of depression. However, I think generally speaking, there are a lot of people out here who are high functioning with depression, including myself. I've been there before. So depression can be look like your friend who's the funniest person that you know and always has a smile on their face. That is also depression. So I think that there's just now, like I said, the sleeping and the crying and the sadness, that is an aspect of depression, absolutely. But depression is you can get physical symptoms. I mean, you can be running around happy and all that type of stuff. So I think depression doesn't always look like what people might imagine. And I think that's with most mental illnesses. It's not always what people would imagine. My anxiety, I could be the biggest ball of nerves, my armpits dripping with sweat. And unless you knew those things were happening, like you would never know if I was on the borderline of like an anxiety attack. So I think a lot of a lot of the visibility of mental illness goes undetected because again, we're striving for performance. So we want to act act like everything's okay. Because who wants to hear, you know, your laundry list of problems that you got going on? I do. There's a lot of people out there who do, but generally, you know, we think like, oh, we gotta have it together. If you're a parent, you know, you have children, or if you're married, or whatever, there's always a motivating factor to be that high functioning person.

SPEAKER_06 36:31

Right. You know, you hit it on the head, you know. It's not always dramatic looking, you know. And sometimes the most depressed person in the room is laughing, like you said, you know, functioning, posting online, still showing up. You'll never know. Meanwhile, internally, they feel completely disconnected from themselves, you know?

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 36:51

So uh, you know, I'm with you on that. I'm curious though, about this psychologically. What's scarier? Emotional pain or emotional numbness?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Oh, that's a good one. Gosh. You know what? My five-year-ago self would say emotional pain, but me today, I would say emotional numbness because, and again, speaking for myself, when I get to that place of being emotionally numb, that means like my glass is full. It's probably overflowing. I've become emotionally numb because I have no capacity or energy to feel anything.

SPEAKER_06 37:31

And when I get to the psychopath, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

And you want to know something. I was on Prozac and I did experience emotional numbness. Now, granted, they had my little self on like this extreme high dosage, but emotional numbness. You want to talk about that? I when I was on that medication, I probably could have watched somebody chop their arm off and be totally just unaffected and just numb to the whole situation. So I would rather face emotional pain because I know I can work through it, I can process it, and I can possibly eliminate it or I can heal it. But that emotional numbness for me leads to a spiral to the bottom of like nothing good. And I would say that's probably standard for most people that emotional numbness is a huge indicator that you gotta look into some things.

SPEAKER_06 38:29

Yeah, that's scary. I couldn't imagine not feeling joy at all. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Can you imagine that?

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Like, I can. I've I've lit Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:40

I was about to say that. Like, I've been there before, but you know, like um it scares me, you know? Yeah. To just constantly be like that, like psychopaths or whatever. They just don't have any. Uh it's funny because I call my son, I told my son this morning, I think he might be a psychopath. But he gets he gets pleasure out of pinching me. Um he's uh 13, about to be 14. He's autistic, you know, whatever makes it. So I let I'll let my son pinch me. If that makes him happy, you know, go for it, you know? Right. But he'll go, I'll try to get him to target the areas of my body that I know won't hurt the most, but he'll he'll move around until he finds the area that he knows is gonna hurt, you know, and wait for me to scream and then he'll just crack up when I do it. So yeah, but I mean, whatever floats your boat, son. So um yeah, but uh yeah, when you stop feeling purpose and you know connected to life, you know, that's dangerous territory mentally, you know.

SPEAKER_05 39:45

Yep, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 39:47

Me and you are head to head, head to head. Yeah, yeah, eye to eye. So was there ever a moment, Carolyn, you know, where you realize if something doesn't change internally, I'm not gonna survive this version of me.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah, I I faced that several times, specifically after my son was born. He had to have been like one or two. And I was having a really hard time, like with my depression and anxiety, because I was experiencing like post-separation abuse from his father. And I was laying on the couch crying, and I remember looking at my son and sitting there thinking, like, when he's older, he's gonna remember me. Like, he might possibly remember this specific image of me being like down and out. And granted, look, I want my son to see like those sides of me too, so he knows it's okay to feel that way. But I remember thinking, if I don't get a hold of this, his only memories of me are gonna be of me being unhealed and me not being able to cope with life. And I was like, I don't, I don't have memories like that of my parents. So I was like, I don't want my son to grow up telling his friends or telling some therapist, like, yeah, my mom didn't really play with me a lot. She was always laying around and she was always sad. And look, this is not in any way, shape, or form speaking against people who have that as a reality. It's just for me, in that moment, I recognize how much we we write our children's stories until they go off on their own. And I can't write the first 18 years or chapters of my son's life being that he remembered his mom being depressed. I just couldn't, I couldn't do that. Now I want him to see that mom has hard days, but while I have those hard days, I still do my best to push through or do X, Y, and Z. But one of those moments where I was like, I've got to do something was definitely when I became a mom. Because, you know, before you know it, they're 10 years old and you've lost all that time, and you can't go back and change those memories.

SPEAKER_06 42:07

So So your son is what saved you, what kept you here. Yeah. I love that. Yes, ma'am, I love that. That's that's your purpose right there. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:18

Excuse me. One thing you say, uh that really uh stood out to me, healing doesn't have to look perfect to be real. You know, honestly, that's that's a hundred right there. I think that sentence alone will free a lot of people psychologically, you know. Um, because people think healing means no anxiety, no triggers, yeah, no bad days, no setbacks. You know. But real healing seems way messier than that, you know. What does nonlinear healing actually look like in reality?

SPEAKER_00 42:51

In reality, it's exactly just what you said. Like there's setbacks, there's triggers, there's ups, there's downs, there's cycles. I think I've been like a healing cycler. Like I've gone through stretches of like years where, you know, everything seemed to be going well, and I naively was like, I'm healed, like I'm better. And then next thing you know, a few years later, something triggers me. And then, you know, I have to take a couple steps back. And taking steps back does not equal a lack of progress or a loss of progress. It just means you had a setback. I mean, that's the same thing with a physical injury. I think when we can compare mental health to physical health, it makes it a little easier to like digest and understand. But let's say you're rehabbing like an ankle injury. Just because you have a couple bad physical therapy sessions doesn't mean all the strength that you've built up until that point just automatically disappears. It's still there, like the progress is still there. You just had a little bit of a setback, you got to maybe take A couple days off, let your muscles rest and recover, and then you pick back up where you left off. It's the same thing with mental health and with the healing process. You take a couple steps back. That doesn't mean that the years of therapy or the years of self-healing just get tossed out the window. And I think that's where a lot of people get discouraged and hit a wall. I've been there. I've been there. Like I've hit a wall, like, well, shoot, I'm crying again. I'm depressed. I'm hyper-vigilant every single day, all of a sudden again. So I guess, you know, the last 10 years doesn't mean anything. I have to start over. And it's not really, it's not really starting over. I like to think of it as you pick up where you left off.

SPEAKER_06 44:45

Man, you you are hitting it right, like right all over the place, everywhere. Bing, bing, bing. Yes, because it's work, you know, it is work, constant work. You know, but do you think people become frustrated because they expected it, you know, healing the field better, faster?

SPEAKER_05 45:02

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Yeah. That's what it is, right? It is. And yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:08

Yeah, because I mean, I'm not gonna lie. After I finished the uh PTSD program, the six-month program, all the tools that they gave me went out the window.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:18

And because I thought I was good. I thought I was healed.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:22

I thought I was healed. Then I had to revisit. I had I got a big ass three-ring binder full of papers, and I had to revisit all them tools again and apply all them tools in my everyday life. Like it's constant work. I'm still doing it, you know? Mess around and just, you know, relapse. Just be right back at square one.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yep. It's hard too.

SPEAKER_06 45:44

It's hard work.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

It is hard work. It it really is. And I think we just need to cut ourselves some slack. And again, to bring up social media, this is where social media can be a little bit dangerous. And I try my best to not be a Debbie Downer, but I also try my best to not make things seem so sunny and rosy. And look, people choose to share their perspective on mental health and healing in whichever way they think is best. And there there are wrong ways, but I'm not saying that that is a wrong way. But what I am saying is that if we can show the realistic side of things, I think people can manage their expectations. Expectation management is huge in any recovery process. If you expect for there to be no more setbacks after you've like healed from something, I'm sorry, my friend, you're probably gonna be disappointed unless I do believe there are people out there who can 100% heal from things. I do believe that. Tend to believe there's more of a majority who don't have that experience. But I think if we manage our expectations with the healing process and have that gritty realness to it in conjunction with some of the more sunnier parts, I think people will get a more real picture of any type of recovery process.

SPEAKER_06 47:14

Okay, okay, okay. So uh we'll touch bases on that another time. Another time. I was I was thinking something else, but we'll talk about that later offline. Let's talk about rebuilding a little bit. I think one of the hardest things after trauma is figuring out who you are afterwards, right?

SPEAKER_02 47:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:33

Because trauma can become identity if people stay trapped in survival mode long enough.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 47:40

I want to ask you, how did you start rebuilding your identity after everything you survived?

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Self-awareness. Self-awareness is key. You know, the saying goes, you can't change what you don't acknowledge. And acknowledgement means you gotta be self-aware, you gotta have some introspection. But it's more than that. I was guilty of staying in a state of self-awareness for literally years. And what I mean by that, I was aware of what challenges I had and what things needed to be healed, but that's as far as it went. I thought like the healing process is admitting I need to work on this, and then you just don't work on it. I don't know why I thought that you don't have to work on it, but naively, that's what I thought. And that's can't be further from the truth. You have to be honest, also. Honesty, you can't sugarcoat the things you need to change. You can't. I could have told myself, well, Carolyn, we're gonna just try to people please, you know, maybe just a couple times a week, because we're not really doing it that much. People pleasing was a huge part of my identity. So if I would have been lying to myself and acting like it wasn't a big deal and it was just something that occurred every once in a while, I wouldn't really be truly begin the blah blah blah. I would not really truly be beginning the process of healing. So you have to have brutal honesty. Now, certainly you shouldn't be dogging yourself out too bad, like you stupid idiot, why did you do that? You shouldn't be doing that. Now, sometimes we should come at ourselves like that for sure. But generally speaking, you need to come at yourself with honesty and a little bit of compassion. Then you can become self-aware, like this is what I need to work on. But then you have to be willing to take the next step. And in reference to you saying how you had to like revisit, you know, the coping skills got thrown out the window, it's because it's something new. It's just like my son. It's a silly example, but I'm trying to have him remember to put his shoes in a particular place now. When for the last year, he was always putting in them in this specific spot. So it's gonna take time and reminders and support and encouragement for him to eventually remember to put his shoes where I asked him. So the same thing with the healing process, it's gonna take trial and error. It's gonna take some gentle reminders either from your friends or yourself, but you can't expect to just automatically start doing that stuff if you've never done it before. You know what I mean? The same thing with like weight gain. If it took you 10 years to gain that weight, you're not gonna lose it in like two weeks.

SPEAKER_06 50:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Yeah, it's gonna take 10 years, if not longer, perhaps, to get that weight off. So again, expectation management, you know, expecting that things might not always go the way that you planned.

SPEAKER_06 50:45

Ma'am, you are you have found your purpose.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Um I just got it from my little cup full of knowledge here. Been drinking on.

SPEAKER_06 50:53

Okay. What's that? Dark or light? What is it?

SPEAKER_00 50:57

It's medium roast.

SPEAKER_06 50:59

Medium, medium, okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yeah, I can't do dark roast, man. That dark roast, that caffeine level is a little bit too too much.

SPEAKER_06 51:08

That's all, that's all my wife drinks. If I go get her the wrong roast, she'll lose her shit. It's gotta be dark roast. Dark all the time.

SPEAKER_03 51:17

That's funny.

SPEAKER_06 51:18

So, like, was there ever a moment where you realize I don't actually want to survive anymore. I want to actually live. Or is there like a difference between surviving and actually living in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 51:31

There is a difference. However, I didn't know. Like, I thought survival mode was living because I've been living that way pretty much my entire life. So for me, there wasn't a distinction between the two. Now, the more I educated myself about mental health, and I have my master's degree in forensic psychology, so I have like a lot of clinical knowledge about, you know, mental illness. So I think just by educating myself and researching and looking things up and learning, I was able to kind of understand some of these things a little bit more, and that made it a lot easier. Now, I'm not telling people go to college and get your degree to figure this stuff out. That's not what I'm saying. But there is a level of educating yourself or whether you get educated through a therapist. But when you learn how these things are like affecting you, I don't know, it makes it makes the process like a little bit easier. And once you learn, once I learned what survival mode was, I recognized that no, that's not living. Now I had to live that way because I had to at the time, but now it's pretty much smooth sailing for the most part. So it's time to start living. And living, I'm still figuring that out because I mean, I've like I said, like the hypervigilance, a lot of these things they've been around for decades. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yes. I think I have to look at it as living in moments or frames of time.

SPEAKER_06 53:09

Can't get out of my head, Carolyn. Get out of my head.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

I I can't I can't necessarily commit myself to actually living through an entire day, as weird as that sounds, because I'm still healing from so many things that living, little things trigger me, the doorbell triggers me. So if someone rings a doorbell, well, living is out the window. I'm back in survival mode. Right. Right. I think it depends on the individual. Because you gotta choose to live moments. You I wish I could say for the next 50 years, I'm gonna just be living life, but for me, it's gonna be moments, maybe a month I'll be able to live. But I just have to be realistic, you know?

SPEAKER_06 53:52

Wow, you took my reply out of my reply to you away. Thanks for that. I have nothing left to say about that, but um, I was gonna say, you gotta live in the moment. I can't, you know, because like you said, somebody walk behind me.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 54:09

I'm back in survival mode. You cannot walk behind me for nothing. So, well said, madam. Well said. I'm thankful that you're on here. I got a couple of episodes before you that I'm supposed to drop, but you're going to the front. So I gotta drop this amazingly. I drop every Thursday. And what else I want to say is we've been experiencing, you know, survival mode for so long, we forget we allowed to have some peace, you know? Yeah. So that's what I think living is all about. Some peace.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 54:45

You know. And you know, you you you're using your your voice publicly through writing, podcasting, blogging, advocacy work, you know. What made you stop hiding and start speaking openly?

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Honestly, it was just as simple as like, I'm gonna just go out here and do this. And it's funny because a part, a part of it was okay, so this is weird. So I'm on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is a different platform. I used to be so intimidated by LinkedIn because it's very like professional and like business oriented and stuff. And so I'm like, my little videos about, you know, meant I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear about that. But I'm also I don't have time to make a different video for each platform. So I was like, you know what? Either people are gonna like it here or they're not, but I'm gonna just be me all the time, everywhere I am, and let's see how that goes. And honestly, because I got such a good response from LinkedIn, my little like fear land where I was afraid to like post on there, that really fueled me. Like, look, girl, you can be yourself wherever you want. And people, they're gonna gravitate towards it. And if they don't, that's okay too. But I think it was just like this whole content creation thing. For me, I will overthink myself out of bad decisions, but also good ones. So I will overthink my way out of, well, let's maybe not do it this way. But I was like, nope, we're gonna just dive out there. And at this stage in life, I don't have the energy to be anybody else. So let's wing it and we're gonna see how it goes. And to be truthful with you, if my followers didn't grow, but I had a few more followers, like that's enough for me. You know, I was reading an article about why people stop podcasting, and I was thinking, like, I don't think I'll ever stop. Like, even if only one person is listening every month, like that's good enough for me. If that's all I go through, I'm not in it for like the numbers necessarily. I want people to hear my message, but I just I'm like, so to answer your question, I just kind of dove into it. It I really I've spent my whole life not being myself. So I figured, well, we see how that kind of worked out. So it can't be any worse if I'm actually myself. So let's just go for it.

SPEAKER_06 57:10

Right, right. And I want to go ahead and um talk about LinkedIn. I'm still intimidated by LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Um don't be. Don't be.

SPEAKER_06 57:19

For some reason, I don't think I'm qualified enough to be on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

No, you you are.

SPEAKER_06 57:26

I started, I started several times to put a LinkedIn up, but then I just stopped. So I got like three different LinkedIns under three different emails, but that I started that I never finished. So um I'll finish it one day though.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

You should, you should. I'm telling you, to it takes a minute now to break in there. It takes a minute, but don't you would do well on LinkedIn. You would do just fine. You really would. There's a crowd for there's literally a crowd for everyone on there. And surprisingly, the people who you wouldn't think would like follow or be interested, they are. And there's a huge following for like substance abuse and like PTSD and mental health, like all that stuff. So think about it. I'm gonna ask you about it later.

SPEAKER_06 58:14

I will, I will, I'll try to get there. Let's end it here. I don't want I know you're a very busy woman. Somebody listening. There's people right now listening to this and exhausted mentally, just out of it. They feel disconnected from themselves, they feel emotionally overwhelmed, maybe numb, maybe anxious, maybe ashamed of what's happening in their own mind, you know? And honestly, they probably think nobody understands them. So I want you to speak directly to that person. What do you what do you need them to hear tonight?

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Well, I need you to hear, first of all, to not give up. Please don't give up. Second of all, the process of moving forward in healing is overwhelming. But if you break it down into smaller parts, it makes the whole process so much easier. And the smallest steps matter. Just you could simply write on a piece of paper, I'm having a bad day. That's a step, that's an acknowledgement that things aren't okay. You don't have to take a giant leap to get started. And please don't feel ashamed of the things that you've been through or the things that you feel, the things that you think. There are so many people out here who relate to you who understand what you're going through and you see all the time you're not alone. Well, people say that all the time because it's true. I'm a stranger out here who's telling you that if you're in your hardest moment and for some strange reason you remember my name, you'll remember in that moment. Just like Carolyn said, I'm not alone. I know at least Carolyn Dreyer is out here supporting me and is here for me. So, and look, that sounded like a little, I don't mean to sound like egotistical or like arrogant, but the point being is that when people say you're not alone, you really are not alone. And finally, please have hope. I have been in so many spots in life where I didn't think I could go on. I didn't think I was gonna make it, I was so ashamed of what I was thinking and feeling, but I had hope that I could have a better life and that I could find happiness. And again, just like we spoke, it might not be happiness every single day, but glimmers of happiness are definitely something to strive towards.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:47

Well said, well said. Thank you. What I appreciate about this conversation is that it wasn't performative, you know, it was human, it was one honey. That's what I love to bring to this show, Carolyn. And I think people need more human conversations right now. And you hit it on the head, you know, not perfection, not fake positivity, not emotional performance, just honesty, you know? Because what I need people to understand is hailing is messy, you know. Recovery is uncomfortable, growth is painful, you know. But struggling does not mean you're broken. And surviving trauma does not disqualify you from building a meaningful life. Carolyn, thank you. It was an honor. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for coming on wall and telling the truth. Thank you so much, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I had such a great time. I was so excited for this interview, and it was awesome. And I learned stuff from you. I learned a lot from you as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:50

Well, that's that goes both ways. What you were doing? Yes. That's what you were doing. It goes both ways. And everybody listening, you are not weak because healing takes time. You are human, so welcome home. It's war, each one reach one. We're all recovering.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:14

So I I want her, when the day comes that she finds her peace. I hope that she can really find it before she passes on. You know, that she can say, Yeah, you know what? And I said to her, you know what? Were you the perfect mother? Absolutely not. Was I the perfect mother? Hell no. But you know what? Now we know better. Now we can do better. We can break that generation, we can break that freaking barrier to all the walls that surround all of us for so many years. Generations, okay? And so there has to come a time when somebody has to stand all and take the bullet. And I'm I'm okay being that person because it's setting a lot of people free.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:13

At least 50,000 Iraqi civilians have died.