S1 | E10 | Still Here. Still Healing.

After a period of silence, I’m returning to Dissociated with honesty about why I disappeared… and where we’re going next.

In this episode, I reflect on the emotional impact of sharing my story publicly after receiving painful backlash from my mother, who called me a liar after listening to Season 1. I talk about what that did to my nervous system, the fear many trauma survivors carry about finally speaking the truth, and the reality that healing is not always linear.

I also revisit the core themes of Season 1, including dissociation, childhood trauma, emotional survival, identity, relationships, and the long-term effects of living in survival mode.

Then, we step into what comes next.

Season 2 of Dissociated will expand beyond my own story through conversations with therapists, trauma professionals, and fellow survivors to better understand how childhood trauma shows up in adulthood. Together, we’ll explore the ways trauma can impact relationships, communication, boundaries, coping mechanisms, emotional regulation, self-worth, and more.

This episode also introduces our first professional interview of the season with Amanda Deverich, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in infidelity and relationship trauma.

If you’ve ever struggled to understand why trauma continues to affect your adult life… this season is for you.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl. 

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN):  1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line:  Text HOME to 741741  Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You're listening to Dissociated, Breaking Silence, Building Joy. I'm your host, Cheryl Brown, and I'm glad you found me. This podcast explores what happens when we find our voices after years of silence and how joy can exist, even after the unthinkable. Before we begin, I want to share a quick content note. Throughout this episode and throughout this next season, we'll be talking about childhood trauma and how it can show up in adulthood. That may include conversations about relationships, emotional experiences, coping mechanisms, identity, triggers, boundaries, and other topics that could feel personal or triggering. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Pause if you need to. Come back when you're ready. And know that you're always in control of how you engage with these conversations. Welcome back to Dissociated, a space where we're breaking silence and building understanding. I owe you, my listeners, an explanation for my recent hiatus. I disappeared for a little while. I had every intention of recording this episode much sooner. But the truth is, towards the end of season one, I received a message from my mother that deeply affected me. She called me a liar, among other things. And even though part of me expected her to reach out with that kind of response to my podcast that really speaks my truth, it still hit harder than I was prepared for. Because no matter how old you are, there is something incredibly painful about not being believed by your mother. Especially when you spent years trying to survive things you never should have had to survive in the first place in order to hold that relationship and keep those people in your life. I think people sometimes underestimate how much courage it takes to speak publicly about trauma. Not just because of the memories themselves, but because somewhere deep inside, many survivors are still carrying the fear that if they finally tell the truth, they'll be abandoned for it. They'll be rejected for it, called dramatic, called broken, called a liar. From the people that are supposed to love them the most. And when those fears get confirmed by someone you hoped would protect you, it does something to your nervous system. It shakes you. For a little while, it shook me too. I found myself emotionally exhausted. I even questioned whether I could keep going or not. I wanted to disappear again. And that's hard for me to admit, because what I really want is for this podcast to be a place of hope and healing. But healing isn't clean and it isn't linear. Sometimes healing looks brave and powerful. And sometimes healing looks like sitting in your car trying to convince yourself to hit record again. Sometimes it's someone reaching out and thanking you for helping them find their own voice. This podcast means everything to me because I know I'm not the only person carrying these kinds of wounds. And if I'm asking other people to stop hiding, then I need to be honest when I struggle too. So instead of pretending the silence never happened, I wanted to tell you the truth that I was hurt. I'm still hurt, but I am healing, and I am still here, and I will not allow my abuser, even in his death, or those that support him, to slow me down. If you've been here through season one, you've walked with me through some deeply personal parts of my story. And if you're new here, I'm really glad you found your way to this space. This episode is a little different. This is both a closing and a beginning. A moment to gently wrap what we've uncovered so far and step into what comes next. Because while season one was about me finding my words, season two is about helping others find theirs, while also understanding what those words mean and how the experiences behind them continue to shape our lives. So as we close season one, I've been reflecting on everything we've uncovered. Not just the facts of what happened to me, but the impact of it. Because for so long, so much of my life existed in fragments, pieces, reactions, survival patterns I didn't fully understand until I started speaking them out loud. Even though I thought season one was just going to be my story, I was finally going to have my voice, and everyone was going to know what happened to me. It wasn't just storytelling. It was me slowly walking back through the rooms of my own life, turning the lights on one by one. In the beginning, I shared what dissociation actually felt like for me. Not just the textbook definition, but the lived experience of moving through life, feeling disconnected from myself. Feeling emotionally numb in moments that should have mattered, that should have been so important to me, that should have overwhelmed me with emotion. Feeling like I was surviving my own life instead of fully living it. And that became the foundation for everything else. As the season continued, I began unpacking the reality of growing up in an environment where fear, silence, and confusion became normal, where survival often meant disconnecting emotionally because fully feeling what was happening would have been way too overwhelming for a child to carry. I talked about the complexity of family dynamics and how trauma doesn't always come wrapped in obvious language. Sometimes it lives in what wasn't said, in what wasn't protected, in the things that everyone quietly learns not to acknowledge. I shared the experience of carrying those survival patterns into adulthood without realizing it. How disassociation affected my relationships, my sense of identity, my ability to connect emotionally, even my ability to understand myself. There were moments where I realized I had spent years functioning more like a shell of myself, doing what life required of me. While internally, I was disconnected from my own emotions, my own needs, my own experiences. And it still shows up even today. We talked about what happens when trauma gets buried instead of processed. How the nervous system stays on alert. How the body remembers things the mind tries to suppress. At least for me, I do realize that that doesn't happen for everyone. Not everyone has that ability to suppress. How coping mechanisms that once helped me survive can quietly begin to shape the entire adult life. I also shared the grief that comes with awareness. Because healing isn't just relief. Sometimes healing is mourning the years you spent disconnected from yourself. Mourning relationships you couldn't fully show up in. Mourning a version of you that you never got the chance to feel safe enough to simply be a child. And somewhere throughout all of these conversations, something started happening to me. And probably not just for me. In fact, I know not just for me. Because it's happened for so many people that are listening. Messages have started coming in to me from people saying, I thought I was the only one. Or I never had the words for this before. Or I finally understand myself a little better. And friends of mine who have known me since I was little are also reaching out with the realization that now they understand where my position was and what I was going through in particular moments that they recall that they couldn't understand, but now ring clear as a bell. And I think that's when I realized this podcast had become something bigger than my own story. Because while the details may differ, the impact of trauma echoes through so many lives. And as I've been sitting with all of this, one thing keeps coming back to me. Breaking silence is powerful. But eventually, another question starts to emerge. Now what? What do I do with all these things we've said out loud finally? What do I do with them? How do I begin to understand the ways those experiences have shaped me? Not just then, but now. Because trauma doesn't stay in the past, just because we've named it, just because we want it to stay back there. It follows us, sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly. It shows up in relationships, in our sense of identity, in our boundaries, or lack of them, in the ways we communicate, or avoid communication altogether. It shows up in perfectionism, people pleasing, anxiety, emotional shutdown, fear of abandonment, hyperindependence, difficulty trusting ourselves or other people. It shows up sporadically when we least expect it because of a scent, a touch, a feeling, a word, a tone. You name it, it shows up over and over and over again. And I realized I don't want to just tell my story anymore. I want to understand it. I want to understand how trauma continues to live in the body, in relationships, in behaviors, in coping mechanisms, and in the lives we build around our survival. And I have a feeling I'm not the only one. So, as we move into season two, this journey is going to expand beyond just my voice. This second season, we'll be speaking with therapists, specialists, and professionals who can help us understand the why behind what we experience. Not in a cold or clinical way, but in a way that connects the dots between what we've lived through and how it's still showing up in adulthood. You'll also hear from other survivors. Some stories I'll share on behalf of people who aren't ready to speak publicly. But they know that their voices still matter, even in silence. And some conversations will be with people directly through interviews with survivors that are willing to share their story in their own words and voice. Because healing doesn't happen in isolation, it happens in connection. In those moments where someone says something and suddenly you realize that makes sense. That's me too. Hence the me too movement. Or I'm not alone in this. Thank God I'm not alone in this. And there's no perfect order for the conversations that we're going to have. This season is going to unfold based on the stories that find their way here and the professionals I can convince to spend time with me on these topics. Whatever order that comes is what it is. But every conversation, no matter the topic, is going to connect back to the same thread. Understanding how childhood trauma continues to shape our adult lives and how we begin to heal from it. And that brings me to the first conversation you're going to hear this next season. It's with Amanda Deverich. Amanda is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She's an author, and she's the founder of Williamsburg Counseling. She specialized in many things over the years, but her current specialization is in working with couples that are navigating infidelity. In this conversation, we're going to explore how childhood trauma can show up in adult relationships, and sometimes even in marriages, in ways people fully don't understand. And that just happens to be where Amanda is in her area of expertise. But again, this conversation is only one piece of a much bigger exploration that we're going to be having together this season. So wherever this topic lands for you, I invite you to listen through the lens of understanding. No judgment in this space. Because if there's one thing I've learned in my life, it is that you never say you'll never do something. This is just the beginning. Thank you so much for being here with me, for listening, for holding space, for walking through these conversations with honesty and compassion. If you feel ready to share your story, or even just a small piece of it, you can always reach me at info at dissociatedpod.com. You don't have to have perfect words. You don't have to have everything figured out. You just have to start. Because there's something incredibly powerful about realizing you don't have to carry it alone anymore. Until next time, take care of yourself. And I'll see you in season two. Thank you. Dissociated. Breaking silence, building joy. Hosted by me, Cheryl Brown. Because healing isn't the end of the story. It's where the joy begins.