Episode Transcript
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>0:06</time>
<p>Welcome to 90834. It's the weekly podcast where guests share the biggest lessons they've learned in therapy. In each episode, i'll pose two questions What were you looking to resolve by going to therapy, and what did you really end up getting out of therapy? I'm Shannon Miller, a licensed clinical social worker and private practice who has the privilege of spending every day watching the therapeutic process lead to unexpected and beautiful places. This week, i have the pleasure of speaking with Ashley. She's a 37-year-old woman living in the coastal region of Virginia. She's been in and out of therapy for about five years. However, she's been most consistent within the last year. Ashley went into therapy wanting to know why she was willingly staying in an abusive relationship, and it was in therapy that she learned how childhood trauma was making her do just that. Ashley, can you tell me why you went to therapy? What was the thing you were looking to solve by going to therapy? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>1:04</time>
<p>When I started therapy, i was looking to understand a problem with the behavior I was having with myself, where I was tolerating some things in my marriage that, superficially, no one would ever expect from me, and I wanted to understand why I could know something was wrong and not take action about it. What was it that held me in action? </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>1:34</time>
<p>Okay, so then you start the therapeutic process and start walking me through. What did you start discovering? What was going on sort of beneath the surface that was keeping you from taking action? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>1:46</time>
<p>I'll say that the first therapist I had wasn't. We didn't work well together, and so that caused me to kind of muddle back into just accepting what the situation was, because I already knew what the actionable steps were and they weren't what I wanted to do, can I? </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>2:10</time>
<p>stop you for a second. Can you tell me how the first therapist wasn't good for you and how you knew that Sure, or how you figured? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>2:19</time>
<p>that out. So I started at a time about a year. I'm just going to have to share a tiny bit of like life with it, please. I had started a year before my husband. We found out that he had a CSI injury And during this time I mean, he was frankly quite awful, and so I went to therapy saying my husband is being terrible, but this isn't him. I know that everything I'm saying sounds very abused, battered woman. I've recognized this. However, i can see his confusion. I can see that this is not necessary. This isn't his core. What was extenuated by his neck injury, his brain injury, was his childhood trauma. It was like a pressure valve went off, and so while I went there, wondering why I was taller, why I was excusing all of this behavior, i didn't want to blame him and leave him. I wanted to understand why I wasn't standing a little bit more square shoulder, why I wouldn't holler back at him, why I thought it was being a good wife to just sit there and let him use me as a door mat or a pressure valve. For a long time I thought he just needs the space and I can be the space. But his injury was over the course of several years And as such the impact of his messaging center deteriorated more and more And so the aggression and the distortion, the delusion also increased. So it wasn't a good fit with my first therapist, because she just wanted me to abandon my abuser And while it was abusive, at this point I didn't even realize I had childhood abuse going on. You know, i was really caught me by surprise there. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>4:25</time>
<p>Okay. So she was like you got to get out. You're like wait, wait, wait, it's not that simple. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>4:31</time>
<p>Well, yes, of course, and I think it's not that simple for anybody. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>4:35</time>
<p>So you recognize that therapist wasn't what you needed. What did you do? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>4:40</time>
<p>I stopped going. I took a few months off and then I started going to see a woman I found on Psychology Today who said that she focused on childhood trauma. There had been a magnificent shift in my ideas of my root origin family at the same time And I saw this lady on Psychology Today and she looks stern and stoic and I thought I need her tough. She's not going to let me bullshit her. I need her toughness and she'll help me. Well, it was the opposite. We did hypnotherapy and it was really bad. In what way It cracked open Things I just didn't know were there. She and I also started on the same route where my husband was The topic that I didn't by this point he had had his surgery and it is an 18 month rehabilitation. With the surgery that he had and the emotional and psychological effects of that on someone who doesn't have the bandwidth of trauma that he has were a lot. But he was the focal point and because I presented well, she didn't want to do as much historical data collection and that ended up being really bad for us when we got down to the hypnotherapy portion of it, because I didn't know that I'd blocked out as much as I had. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>6:11</time>
<p>So it sounds like it went too deep, too fast. Yes, and that wasn't. You weren't ready for it. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>6:18</time>
<p>No, i was pathologically oblivious to my own patterns of behavior and or reasons. I had never been really in a different intersection where I had to evaluate my choices as questionable or not. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>6:36</time>
<p>So what happened in that therapeutic relationship? Did you keep going? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>6:40</time>
<p>I went to her for about six months COVID happened and took some time off and really enjoyed that time at home with my kids and my husband. Then I decided we would. My husband and I started doing EMDR therapy and that has been the therapy that gave me the why and it's helped me see where patterns I didn't realize I had were really bad for me. When I'm placating somebody to please them, the ricochet from that placation that affects everybody, not just me. In this one moment where I want to feel better or feel safe and okay, the ricochet from that placation just keeps it on the same cycle spin. I didn't see myself as placating anybody before. I thought I was genuinely just being this person because at my core I am very service oriented and caring. But there's a difference in what is helpful service and heartful service. For me, if I'm doing it to regulate your mood, it's not heart. I think I have to be helpful to be useful. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>7:52</time>
<p>What was that like for you in that EMDR process to start seeing these things? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>7:58</time>
<p>Really dumbfounding because where the family I come from, the war stories are all the stories all the time and it is always sounding cool. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>8:11</time>
<p>Your family always gave the newspaper version of it. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>8:15</time>
<p>We are a generationalist family. What does that mean? It means that there's my biological mom and her set, and then my sister. the grandparents raised everybody, and then the great grandparents raised. There's a lot of interception In 2018, i think that I'm breaking. I know I did, but I think I break generational trauma just because I'm raising my daughters. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>8:43</time>
<p>You are. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>8:44</time>
<p>Right, but it's so tip of the iceberg for what was to come and what I realized I had been instilling, or not instilling the way I thought that I was. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>8:56</time>
<p>You got to tell me more of what that means. Why was just breaking that intergenerational trauma only the tip of the iceberg? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>9:05</time>
<p>I was with my biological mother, and then she left me in the care of at least two other homes, and then my grandparents finally found me in the ghetto, a couple of towns away at a heroin dealer's house. Thank God they were so nice to me. I'm so appreciative. Did it never occur to me that? like how bizarre it is and how terrifying it would have been for a two-year-old So? </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>9:37</time>
<p>you were two when your grandparents finally found you. I was two and a half, oh boy. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>9:45</time>
<p>I had grown up with all the facts very stoic, feet in front of the other. These are not your faults, but your biological mother is a heroin addict. She's no good. You know. I was a kind of parade pony for my grandmother to say look, all these other kids are really messed up, but this one, she's special Right. Oh that's a lot of pressure In 2017. Maybe I made a Instagram post of like fitted sheets. I swear to God, right. This like post haunts me because I'm off social media And I've been off. I got off social media the day after the insurrection But I made an Instagram post about like my fitted sheets and I was. I've been kissing my mom's ass and she died, and Parading her is like this. I became the matriarch of my family. I did everything at 13. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>10:40</time>
<p>I still can't fold a fitted sheet to save my life. But this actually raises a really interesting thing. Are there other behaviors that you've done that you now recognize are more reflective of a coping mechanism from a long time ago, rather than what's happening in the present? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>10:56</time>
<p>I've mentioned a plan. We have a large bridge and When I was a teenager, my sister moved out of state and to get to where she lived There was a two-lane bridge that went up and down like a felt like a roller coaster when I was learning to drive And she had several friends and people I knew that went off the bridge and died on motorcycles or driving drunk And I'm all. I'm obviously like 15, 16. I'm like they should know better. Like this is a terrible bridge, what do you mean? Like I feel bad, you're dead, but you knew better too. Like one of those. Like angry, yeah. Like, yeah, they're dead doesn't mean you're not an idiot, right? exactly? So for me, now I have kids and I have no idea that I have anxiety like none, right? I just think everybody is, yeah, everybody. This is this is what I watched on 7th heaven, and I learned how to mom really well from Pinterest. When my kids were small, i made my husband mount a tool in my car and it is a Seatbelt cutter and window smasher. The plan was that I would have grace on here and Caroline, who's five months old, you know she's here. I know enough about the windows breaking, making sure that there's a water seal, so you can't. At some point he gets bigger. He's a such a strong swimmer. Grace goes on his back, because now carolines too, he's ten, you know, like the plan. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>12:25</time>
<p>So you have this whole plan of how to get everybody out of the car when you go over the bridge. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>12:30</time>
<p>When we go over the bridge, we know that we can't, you know. And when the plan starts, the baby is five months old. Like I'm not really gonna get out of the fucking car with my kid And I decide I know that we're gonna make it because I've got this tool and the plan has evolved. Grace is now 11. She swims by herself. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>12:50</time>
<p>The baby can swim, so the plan always updates as the kids age. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>12:54</time>
<p>Yes, as they get it, updates with where they sit in the car, what type of car seat they're in, and I don't even know. This is weird. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>13:06</time>
<p>You had to learn that that, like, not everybody has this kind of plans. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>13:11</time>
<p>Right, I'm like well, you guys must stress it out other things. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>13:14</time>
<p>That's a really colorful but accurate example of how anxiety can creep into your life And we don't even recognize when it makes that turn into being dysfunctional. If we look back over sort of the arc of your therapeutic process and where you are today, you've been talking around it but not kind of specifically address it. How has therapy impacted your relationships? Like, how are your relationships today different than when they were, when you started? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>13:39</time>
<p>They're evolving and Evolutionary, i think, just like everything else when you're in therapeutic healing. I have been really lucky to have a group of girlfriends since kindergarten And, as I kind of created space with my family, they've allowed me to put some of that space there with them, because these these girls know all of the characters here. I find that I enjoy my time, my relationship with myself, more now than I ever have, because if I'm not, when I'm alone, and I can manage my own feelings and I'm in control of myself, then I can charge enough to not let other people's narrative dictate My narrative or my behavior. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>14:27</time>
<p>This is an incredible story of, i mean, many things healing, stopping intergenerational trauma, finding the authentic self, living that truth, i mean. the list goes on and on of the work you've been able to do. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>14:43</time>
<p>I really thought that I was living my authentic self and I and I am very proud of myself. But I was ego driven proud Before, and now I'm self driven. I'm my daughter's inspiration again. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>15:03</time>
<p>What's the difference between ego driven and self driven for you? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>15:08</time>
<p>So I recognize that I Something I've recognized in myself as I would pick up people. I'd pick up nouns To be helpful to them And mostly for no recognition other than like I did something that helped them you know it was. But at this point in my life around COVID there was some things that just everything collided and I Collapsed a little bit and I collapsed into my ego of I Needed athletes. I needed people to tell me I was doing a great job. I needed to be seen for so much more. Then I felt I was being seen for And So for me that's fake help. You know that was not. That was me seeing somebody that I had a motive, and even if the motive is to feel good for myself They're not in negatively inflicted by it It's still not the type of wholehearted Motive that I would like to see myself have behind my interaction. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>16:21</time>
<p>So, looking back on it now, what is the answer? Why were you immobile in your marriage and very aware of what was going on, but unable to take action? What's the answer to that? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>16:31</time>
<p>I was using outdated narratives that I'd learned when I was a kid to dictate my behavior. I had really painted a beautiful Instagram picture and all You know, i live in the coastal Virginia But in a rule, just happens to have a rule pocket right here. So I look out my window and I'm looking at botanicals and chickens and farmland, and I can surf Five minutes from my house. You know like here I am spending all this time Making everything look pretty. You know everything's in a pretty little box, but on the inside All of the ribbons were just starting to thread at the same time. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>17:18</time>
<p>And final question Was there ever a moment in therapy that was a particularly powerful question for you, that unlocked something? </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>17:27</time>
<p>It was when we were doing marriage counseling and He sees a great. He still currently sees her. She's Wonderful, wonderful woman. I had created a timeline of our marriage, right and on like old school printer paper that like folds out from each other. So we've been married over a decade and here You hold up a banner They took the whole length of our runner in our bedroom right, and I have watercolor color pencils and Wow, right, the it's real. It's real over here, for it's a rabbit hole that I can and Be creative in and I was able to Timeline when the injury happened, when the surgery was, and everything that life occurred in between all of these Intersections. And how could we ever heal this if we didn't know? Right, because really, without this brain injury, your day I was sitting, she was sitting in her chair and I would happen to be sitting on the floor and we have this laid out and James, he had walked out to something outside and I looked up at her and she was looking at me and The conversation ends with the sentence his wounds are so deep. But she said it in this very caring, very genuine way and it wasn't until Weeks, maybe a week or two later, did I realize it was my wounds that were really deep. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>19:05</time>
<p>Yeah. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>19:07</time>
<p>That was the sentence it was. I think I had a, had a EMDR with her Twice after that. You know, i only started for a six or seven week period But yeah, that was the sentence. You know. Yeah, his wounds are so deep. But she's looking down at me, i'm looking and she's got a real ethereal Feel about her. She's. She had to know Frenchman. She was saying to me when she said it, because a Year later, yeah, a year later It makes me tear up to think about how important That sentence was. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>19:48</time>
<p>This is a very beautiful story, thank you. Yeah for sharing. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>19:54</time>
<p>Yeah, i, i'm glad that it's mine, i'm glad that first, bad as it's felt at certain pieces of it, i feel so thankful that I Don't consistently feel like that. You know, i am Grateful for even the therapy that was really bad for me because I had to have taken something from that and You know now I think that nobody should be allowed to be a therapist if you don't have, like I don't know, two semesters of trauma, something. </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>20:32</time>
<p>There's lots of bad therapists out there, but it is priceless when you find one that you really resonate with, and it sounds like you have found at least two Yeah, an instrumental for you. </p>
<cite>Speaker 2:</cite>
<time>20:43</time>
<p>Yep, both are level-two trauma therapists That have been doing it, respectively and differently, forever 20 years. That's what I thought. The other therapist didn't care, they just wouldn't. They didn't have the skills you needed. They wanted to take their line of questioning, but I was. I inherently already know the answers To those questions. I'm I had to care. I had to copy out of the book of stoicism. I know That I'm stubborn. I know that these are things I could do, but if my environment isn't this, i don't need them. Why won't I change the environment? Why am I stuck? Why am I trapped in my trauma? Why am I holding on to my trauma and making it impossible to live an easy life? </p>
<cite>Speaker 1:</cite>
<time>21:34</time>
<p>That's it. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, absolutely. And tour listeners. If you have a story about intergenerational trauma And you'd like to share it with the rest of our listeners, please contact me at Shannon at 90834 podcast comm. Wherever you go, there you are. That confused me when I was younger. Now I get it. You take your problems with you wherever you go And, as many of you might already know, a new location doesn't make things like depression and anxiety go away. If you're an expat that's ready to set down your emotional load and unpack what's going on, opricity expat therapy is here for you. Our therapists offer a compassionate healing space for you to explore, grow to understand and heal emotional wounds. Connect with us today to schedule your free initial consultation. </p>
