Speaker 1: The past is always here, haunting our homes, standing over
Speaker 1: us at night. They say, you don't get rid of
Speaker 1: a ghost by pretending it isn't there. The legends tell
Speaker 1: us to address the ghosts directly, so, writes author and
Speaker 1: producer Stephanie fo, a gifted author, journalist, an Emmy Award
Speaker 1: winning producer who has worked on shows like This, American
Speaker 1: Life and Snap Judgment. Her journey through complex post traumatic
Speaker 1: stress disorder, originating from significant childhood abuse and culminating with
Speaker 1: both of her parents abandoning her before the age of eighteen,
Speaker 1: is a poetic masterclass on complex trauma and the ongoing
Speaker 1: journey of feeling whole after these kinds of experiences. Stephanie's book,
Speaker 1: What My Bones Know has been called one of the
Speaker 1: best non fiction books of two twenty two, and having
Speaker 1: read it, I cannot agree more. This podcast should not
Speaker 1: be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice.
Speaker 1: Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and
Speaker 1: or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any
Speaker 1: medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters
Speaker 1: discussed on this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may
Speaker 1: be triggering to some people. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
Speaker 1: in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. Stephanie Fou,
Speaker 1: I am fangirling for a minute, and I read your book.
Speaker 1: And when I read your book, I was actually on
Speaker 1: an airplane, and there's something about an airplane. It's a
Speaker 1: night flight, it's dark, you're alone. That's the wishing sound
Speaker 1: of the airplane's almost womb like. And I cried so
Speaker 1: much that the flight attendant actually had to check on
Speaker 1: how I was doing. And I wasn't crying from a
Speaker 1: place of sadness. And I'm actually getting tious. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it now. There is such a recognition in your book.
Speaker 1: Decades of working with clients who have had experiences like yours.
Speaker 1: People who are close to me, we've had experiences like
Speaker 1: what you detailed. You hit it in such a special way,
Speaker 1: and then you took it to that journey of healing.
Speaker 1: So not only did I feel like you were able
Speaker 1: to use language, You're an amazing writer. You were able
Speaker 1: to use language to capture something that I feel and
Speaker 1: this is what's so unique about complex trauma, that's so uncapturable.
Speaker 1: You also left us with a story of hope. So
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for that, because even if
Speaker 1: all I get to say to you today is thank
Speaker 1: you for the ift you've given not only to survivors,
Speaker 1: but frankly to clinicians, I think that complex trauma is
Speaker 1: still a very misunderstood phenomenon in mental health, and more
Speaker 1: than any textbook, I actually think your book should be
Speaker 1: in the hands of every trainee, every graduate student, and frankly,
Speaker 1: every therapist in America for what you've captured, not only
Speaker 1: about complex trauma, but about the cultural frameworks which often
Speaker 1: gets missed in this conversation. So again for me to
Speaker 1: you start, we can't even end here, and I say
Speaker 1: thank you, but we're not going to end here. Wow,
Speaker 1: where I'd like to begin. Actually, I want to get
Speaker 1: to your story. But because we keep using this term
Speaker 1: complex trauma, for you, as a survivor, I would love
Speaker 1: for you to lay out for anyone listening today what
Speaker 1: it means and what complex trauma has meant to you.
Speaker 1: But more than anything, from your perspective as a survivor,
Speaker 1: what is complex trauma. You know, you can get traditional
Speaker 1: PTSD from a single traumatic event. So let's say you're
Speaker 1: in a car crash, you can get trauma from that.
Speaker 1: I think complex trauma occurs when the trauma happens over
Speaker 1: and over and over again, and so it's kind of
Speaker 1: like if you were in a car crash every week
Speaker 1: for three years. You know, but of course, unless you
Speaker 1: are tremendously tremendously unlucky, that's not going to happen to
Speaker 1: you unless somebody in your life or people in your
Speaker 1: life are really letting you down. So complex trauma happens
Speaker 1: the most in cases of child abuse, having an abusive partner,
Speaker 1: living in a war zone. So it sort of does
Speaker 1: really deteriorate your trust in relationships and other people because
Speaker 1: it means that you have been let down hundreds, if
Speaker 1: not thousands and thousands of times by very often people
Speaker 1: who are supposed to love you and take care of you.
Speaker 1: And that is a deeper wound I think, and trauma
Speaker 1: from a singular event h and so of course it
Speaker 1: becomes more complex to heal. How old were you when
Speaker 1: that model, that framework of complex trauma was given to
Speaker 1: you for the first time. I was thirty. Okay, thirty. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm asking that is obviously you were a child,
Speaker 1: so you were in a different space, but that meant
Speaker 1: for your late adolescence into your adulthood, you must have
Speaker 1: been walking around in an experience that didn't make sense
Speaker 1: to you. I knew I was depressed. I knew that
Speaker 1: I was anxious. I had self harming thoughts from when
Speaker 1: I was twelve years old, and I suspected that it
Speaker 1: had something to do with my very unstable childhood. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that I quite understood the gravitas of
Speaker 1: how my childhood was affecting all of my day to
Speaker 1: day interactions until I finally got the diagnosis of complex PTSD.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to go backwards now and again. You
Speaker 1: talk about it in the book, but not everyone listening
Speaker 1: has read your book yet, though after this interview, I
Speaker 1: hope all of them do go out to get the
Speaker 1: richness of all that is in your book. Can you
Speaker 1: take us back and lay out for our listeners what
Speaker 1: this childhood looked like. I grew up in San Jose, California,
Speaker 1: in a immigrant community. My family was comfortably middle class.
Speaker 1: When I was thirteen, my mom left and when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, my dad left for another family and he
Speaker 1: left me the house. So I spent the last year
Speaker 1: of high school or so a year and a half
Speaker 1: sort of raising myself. First of all, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing that. How did you make sense of this as
Speaker 1: a child? It was all my fault? My parents said
Speaker 1: it was all my fault, and so I internalized that.
Speaker 1: And I think if it's the parents' fault that they
Speaker 1: are chaotic. A child cannot deal with how painful that is.
Speaker 1: And if a child thinks it's my fault, then they
Speaker 1: have some element of control over it, and they still
Speaker 1: have some figures that they can idealize. And so that
Speaker 1: was very classic in my case. Your case is interesting, though, Stephanie,
Speaker 1: because JU determines work in saying that the child takes
Speaker 1: responsibility for it. That's going to be normative across the
Speaker 1: spectrum of abuse a child can experience. It's a survival behavior, right.
Speaker 1: It facilitates attachment if they're the good ones, and I
Speaker 1: can still be safe. Right. In your situation, though, it
Speaker 1: was leveled up because your parents literally articulated that their
Speaker 1: abuse of you was your fault. They were hating you
Speaker 1: because it was your fault. They were saying these things
Speaker 1: because it was your fault. There was no interpretive moment here.
Speaker 1: They were actually handing you that script. That's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was all the more striking to me because
Speaker 1: as I was reading that as a therapist, the idea
Speaker 1: of how do you undo this when this is not
Speaker 1: a little sort of survival the child was engaged in.
Speaker 1: This is literally what you were being told. I internalized that,
Speaker 1: and I think even now, probably my whole life, the
Speaker 1: battle will be to challenge the voice in the back
Speaker 1: of my head that is constantly this is all your fault,
Speaker 1: even despite how lyrically you've laid your story out, how
Speaker 1: successful your life has become, that that voice has sort
Speaker 1: of taken up permanent residency. I do want us to
Speaker 1: come back to that because I think it's important for
Speaker 1: survivors to hear when your mother left when you were thirteen.
Speaker 1: Now you're thirteen, you're not young young, five or six.
Speaker 1: What was that emotionally like for you when somebody who
Speaker 1: was such a severe abuser disappeared from your life. You know,
Speaker 1: it was really complicated because there was an element of
Speaker 1: obviously abandonment, of sadness, of feeling like Why wasn't I
Speaker 1: enough for you to stay? Why couldn't you have tried harder?
Speaker 1: Because I had tried so hard for my parents to
Speaker 1: maintain their marriage into maintain a family unit. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, there was a lot of relief because
Speaker 1: I wasn't being beaten every day. You know, that's kind
Speaker 1: of nice. It was a great reprieve, And it was
Speaker 1: a very complicated time emotionally for me because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom was very strict, very obsessive about
Speaker 1: grades and performance, and so I think when she left,
Speaker 1: I kind of went buck wild in terms of having
Speaker 1: total freedom. Nobody was watching over me. My dad was
Speaker 1: sort of like very absentee parent, and so there were
Speaker 1: times when I was like, why isn't anybody parenting me?
Speaker 1: And I almost missed some form of that guidance. But overall,
Speaker 1: I think it was mostly relief. And when you said
Speaker 1: you I'm buck wild, How did that affect you in
Speaker 1: terms of school, pure relationships, any of it. What does
Speaker 1: that look like? Yeah? I think just like demolishing relationships
Speaker 1: left and right, being very very angry. I for a
Speaker 1: couple of years failed every class and just stopped doing
Speaker 1: any of my extracurriculars and just kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: watched TV and sort of the Internet and ate Cereal
Speaker 1: all day long. Then it's just you and dad, Okay.
Speaker 1: For a few years, what was that? Like, my dad
Speaker 1: needed to be parented. It became a very parentified relationship
Speaker 1: where I was taking care of him because he was
Speaker 1: very emotionally unwell after the divorce. He had a lot
Speaker 1: of feelings of abandonment, of loneliness, of hopelessness, and so
Speaker 1: I sort of had to take care of him and
Speaker 1: we sort of became best friends in a weird way,
Speaker 1: partners in crime, where he really relied on me, but
Speaker 1: he would also let me do whatever I wanted. And
Speaker 1: after a couple of years that he did leave too
Speaker 1: because he got a girlfriend. So then I was just
Speaker 1: totally on my own. Stephanie talks about her father needing
Speaker 1: to be parented. That right, there is a signature of
Speaker 1: any antagonistic parenting relationship. The child has to step in
Speaker 1: and take care of the parent, which effectively means that
Speaker 1: the child's needs have no place in the relationship. This
Speaker 1: caregiving reversal may not happen in as extreme a manner
Speaker 1: as it did for Stephanie. But many people with egocentric
Speaker 1: parents will recall that it was about meeting the parents
Speaker 1: needs and wants. Children's needs and children's wants were at
Speaker 1: best secondary, and that set up a precedent going into
Speaker 1: adulthood of not having learned how to express your needs
Speaker 1: if you came from this kind of family or parental relationship.
Speaker 1: That part of your story, Stephanie, was really striking to me, right,
Speaker 1: So what was stunning was that there was literally no
Speaker 1: recognition in your environment that a child has been abandoned once. Okay,
Speaker 1: thirteen is a child because child had been abandoned once
Speaker 1: and the only remaining adult was so focused on his needs.
Speaker 1: I think that it's actually a really compassionate take that
Speaker 1: he needed to be parented. But in essence, though, still
Speaker 1: you as the child, was the vessel of addressing your parents'
Speaker 1: needs and being the tool they used to regulate. As
Speaker 1: a reader, you'reel like, all I want to do is
Speaker 1: protect Stephanie. I wanted to let her know she's gonna
Speaker 1: be safe forever. But in fact, your father immediately pivoted
Speaker 1: into his own needs and then cultivated a new relationship
Speaker 1: and got up and left. How does one make sense
Speaker 1: of a second abandonment prior to the age of eighteen.
Speaker 1: I think at that age it was a combination of
Speaker 1: rage and self loathing, because there was this part of
Speaker 1: me that understood that this was how do you leave
Speaker 1: a child who's already been left? How you have to
Speaker 1: be a patently selfish person to do something that you're responsible,
Speaker 1: that cool, that heartless. On the other hand, maybe that
Speaker 1: everyone leaves because you are the problem. Maybe everyone has
Speaker 1: left me because I am unlovable, And so that is
Speaker 1: where this deep set belief really sank in. I think
Speaker 1: is my senior year of high school, that like, if
Speaker 1: even my parents cannot love me, then who can? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think that anyone hearing this would completely resonate
Speaker 1: with that, because again it's meaning making right you as
Speaker 1: an adolescent, and it's a child we're left trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of something that made no sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's really the core of complex drama in many ways,
Speaker 1: making sense of the brutal and that which is not
Speaker 1: to happen in essence, And so the stories that you
Speaker 1: make out of that are ultimately ones where you can
Speaker 1: control the narrative, and the way to control the narrative
Speaker 1: to say is that it's got to be me. I'm unlovable,
Speaker 1: and so people are going to leave, and it almost
Speaker 1: becomes a very easy and accessible kind of a factoid,
Speaker 1: I'm unlovable. People self fulfilling prophecy exactly. So talk to
Speaker 1: us about that. Talk to us about the self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: Then how did that unfold for you? I think that
Speaker 1: if you believe inherently that you're unlovable, that all of
Speaker 1: your relationships going forward are therefore going to be based
Speaker 1: on intense fear. Right again, this is the root of
Speaker 1: complex PTSD. You don't trust anyone right because how could
Speaker 1: you when you have no model for being loved appropriately?
Speaker 1: And so I think anytime somebody tried to give me love,
Speaker 1: I was very skeptical. I was always looking through the out.
Speaker 1: I was like looking for the reason why they were
Speaker 1: going to leave, and so they built this paranoia. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants to constantly be assuring their partner, Yes, I do
Speaker 1: love of you. You know that's kind of old and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would absolutely pick fights, blow things up
Speaker 1: because I saw something on the horizon that perhaps was
Speaker 1: not there, but then manifested it. And yet, as you know,
Speaker 1: as you say that again from my shrink seat, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that absolutely makes sense, because then you
Speaker 1: were going to be safe, right, all trauma behaviors or
Speaker 1: safety behaviors, and that's what you were doing. But for
Speaker 1: you was basically it's not tactical, right, It's just it's happening.
Speaker 1: And no one around you is a trauma therapist. They're
Speaker 1: your friends, and so that only is then going to
Speaker 1: add to that sense of loneliness, but it also fortifies
Speaker 1: the hypothesis everyone leaves when your father left, So now
Speaker 1: you're going through it sounds like part of your junior
Speaker 1: and all of your senior year alone. What's this known
Speaker 1: to the other people around you, to your peers, to
Speaker 1: your teachers, to any other adults in your environment. This
Speaker 1: was not known to my teachers. It was known as
Speaker 1: some of my peers, but not all of them. My
Speaker 1: boyfriend knew. Funny, I thought I was just telling everyone.
Speaker 1: I thought everybody knew this, But subconsciously I must have known.
Speaker 1: You know, that's illegal, so don't go around telling everybody
Speaker 1: what happened to you. Yeah, and so I you know,
Speaker 1: it was only after the book came out that I
Speaker 1: realized this. The book came out. Everybody I knew read
Speaker 1: it and everybody was like, I did not know, And
Speaker 1: I was like, how could you not know? But yeah,
Speaker 1: one of my very very good friends, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I went over to your house senior year and I
Speaker 1: opened your refrigerator and there was nothing in it. There
Speaker 1: were no condiments, nothing. There was a horta filter and
Speaker 1: there was a couple of slices of pizza. And I
Speaker 1: was like, where's all your food? And you said, oh,
Speaker 1: my dad bought me a pizza last week. And she
Speaker 1: remembers at the time thinking like that is not how
Speaker 1: you take care of a child. I think the only
Speaker 1: people who knew were children. They didn't have the power
Speaker 1: to do anything. Now, was there an intentionality and you
Speaker 1: not sharing it? Were you were very aware because the
Speaker 1: way you just put it, if people knew, there might
Speaker 1: have been its own destabilization that came from that, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, even as a child, my parents were always like,
Speaker 1: don't say what happens, because then you'll get put in
Speaker 1: foster care. And that in and of itself is really terrifying.
Speaker 1: And I at that point, I was like, there's the
Speaker 1: devil that I do know, and there's the devil that
Speaker 1: I don't, and what I know is that I can
Speaker 1: take care of myself. And I had this very strongly
Speaker 1: independent streak that, of course, lots of CPTSC survivors been
Speaker 1: maintained that all we need is ourselves because we're the
Speaker 1: only ones who can trust. And I thought I would
Speaker 1: rather do this than be put into a home with
Speaker 1: potentially more abusive parents. There was a particularly poignant scene
Speaker 1: in your book, Stephanie, when a neighbor got involved. The
Speaker 1: neighbor had been hearing things and it was almost like
Speaker 1: she couldn't take it anymore, and she came across the street.
Speaker 1: She came over to the house. And now how that
Speaker 1: entire scene unfolded with you ultimately saying, nothing's happening. Nothing's happening.
Speaker 1: If you feel comfortable talking about that scene, we can.
Speaker 1: If you don't, I understand. It was an absolute, profound
Speaker 1: example of the double bind a child is in any
Speaker 1: situations when somebody actually can come along with safety, the
Speaker 1: chronically abused child has to deny that safety. The neighbor
Speaker 1: was trying to protect me, and I see that now,
Speaker 1: but at the time, here was this person coming in
Speaker 1: doing their best to try to help me. But this
Speaker 1: seemed dangerous because this person was like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: call the cops, and you don't want your mom to
Speaker 1: go to jail. You don't want your parents to go
Speaker 1: to jail. My mom was, you know, obviously scared, but
Speaker 1: very much denying anything happened. And so the safest option
Speaker 1: for me was to deny. And so I got on
Speaker 1: my knees at my neighbor's feet, begging her, please don't
Speaker 1: call the cops. And I still knowing what I know
Speaker 1: about the foster care system, correct, Yeah, still not sure
Speaker 1: that wasn't the correct answer. I don't disagree, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I felt when I read that part of
Speaker 1: your book. So anyone hearing this conversation as it read
Speaker 1: the book, their question may very well be, well, didn't
Speaker 1: Stephanie have extended family? And you did, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them were in Malaysia. Yeah, they were when you
Speaker 1: would visit Malaysia. They were also attempting to make sense
Speaker 1: of this. How were they making sense of this experience
Speaker 1: you were going through or were they completely unaware of
Speaker 1: what was happening. They were not aware of a lot.
Speaker 1: They were not aware when my dad left because we
Speaker 1: were mostly in touch with my father's family. Oh, I see,
Speaker 1: my mom wasn't very close with her family generally, so
Speaker 1: they all knew how bad my mother was. They understood
Speaker 1: the abuse in that sense because they had seen it,
Speaker 1: because my mom would be me when you went back
Speaker 1: to Malaysia. You know, my mom would scream at me
Speaker 1: in front of my whole family, and so they thought
Speaker 1: that she was quite monstrous, and so they would try
Speaker 1: to spoil me when I was there. They would all
Speaker 1: try and constantly say, what a good girl, what a
Speaker 1: good well behaved girl. Hope, why, hope, why, you know,
Speaker 1: to try to convince her and me maybe that I
Speaker 1: was not the devil child my mom made me out
Speaker 1: to be. That dynamic Stephanie of You're the favorite. You're
Speaker 1: such a good girl. You know, we like you so much.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because in a way, and you actually
Speaker 1: talk about Pete Walker in your book, who is a
Speaker 1: renowned trauma and attachment therapist whose work I really really
Speaker 1: admire in respect, but it's as though your entire family
Speaker 1: was engaging in what we call a fawn response, as
Speaker 1: though they were almost trying to win over your mother,
Speaker 1: but not to protect themselves. It was like fawn response
Speaker 1: by proxy. It was as though that if they could
Speaker 1: somehow win her over and convince her of your goodness,
Speaker 1: that you could be safe. But the thing that they
Speaker 1: couldn't do was confront her directly about her behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and that to me, they were all too
Speaker 1: afraid of that. Since they were afraid, and in a
Speaker 1: way it had to be all the more confusing for
Speaker 1: you as a child. How much of that was cultural?
Speaker 1: Their unwillingness, I mean, was that cultural? Do you think
Speaker 1: that would have happened in any culture in the world
Speaker 1: that family members wouldn't be able to address how your
Speaker 1: mother was coming at you. You know, after I did
Speaker 1: my story, lots of Malaysian Chinese people did reach out
Speaker 1: and they were like, this resonated with me. But lots
Speaker 1: of white people did too, Yeah, Americans. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I don't think it's purely cultural. I think that lots
Speaker 1: of people want to maintain the status quo and are
Speaker 1: really terrified. And I think in our culture it's very
Speaker 1: much stigmatized to criticize other people's relationships. You know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like, oh, clearly your partner is not the best,
Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna keep quiet about it, because that's
Speaker 1: your life, your thing that you need to figure out.
Speaker 1: Nobody in our family had ever gotten divorced. Nobody and
Speaker 1: our family had ever gotten counseling. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: and even in America, this is the nineties, that wasn't
Speaker 1: made very accessible to us. It wasn't quite as mainstream
Speaker 1: as it is now seeking therapy when you were young, okay,
Speaker 1: so before the age of twenty, did anyone ever take
Speaker 1: you aside and said, Stephanie, what's happening here is not
Speaker 1: okay in your family and your extended family. No, no,
Speaker 1: you know again that often is enough. Even if the
Speaker 1: abuse doesn't stop, that moment of validation of what you're
Speaker 1: enduring is absolutely wrong. I'm not saying it would end
Speaker 1: the cycle, but for a moment, it would take the
Speaker 1: person surviving at saying okay, I'm not crazy, this is
Speaker 1: not okay, it's the crazy making thing. Yes. Yes, So
Speaker 1: now I want to shift a little because now you
Speaker 1: go into adulthood and you know, you get involved in
Speaker 1: journalism and what was so I mean compelling about your
Speaker 1: story was you're like, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 1: You really kind of got your eyes Ultimately Raizor focused
Speaker 1: on the position you wanted, and you put your head down.
Speaker 1: You got a college degree, you did well in school,
Speaker 1: You had a clear goal, and you went for it.
Speaker 1: I think that many people who hear a story like yours,
Speaker 1: we'll think, well, a person after this is going to
Speaker 1: be completely addled and scattered and doesn't know up from
Speaker 1: down and right from left. You instead became ridiculously focused
Speaker 1: and had a extraordinary work ethic and ambition. Can you
Speaker 1: link these two processes because in a way they almost
Speaker 1: feel disconnected when we think of how we're told stories
Speaker 1: of trauma. I think lots of people dissociate when they
Speaker 1: go through trauma. And my favorite form of dissociation was work.
Speaker 1: When you have a fancy job, like working at this
Speaker 1: American life, people look at you in a way they
Speaker 1: want to be friends with you, They want to be
Speaker 1: near you to soak up your power. They think you're interesting.
Speaker 1: And so the cachet that I got through success was
Speaker 1: a great substitute for real love. I think not to mention,
Speaker 1: like you know lots of Twitter comments being like like
Speaker 1: like like like you're so cool, love your story. That's
Speaker 1: also like a very surface level form of love and
Speaker 1: appreciation obviously, so it doesn't feel as good, but it
Speaker 1: also doesn't have as much weight and fear associated with
Speaker 1: it because I don't have to do anything to maintain
Speaker 1: this relationship except keep being successful. You raise something so interesting,
Speaker 1: which is this idea of achievement and attainment as a
Speaker 1: trauma protective behavior, because what it did was, like you said,
Speaker 1: it would foster people coming into your life, but it
Speaker 1: was protective because it was in a strange way. And
Speaker 1: I never thought of this until you were just talking
Speaker 1: your achievement and the cache. As you put it, people
Speaker 1: could then love the cache and you wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about them having to love Stephanie and you know,
Speaker 1: and I think about people who get advanced degrees and
Speaker 1: all of that like that. To be very transparent with you,
Speaker 1: I was very much told that, Like I thought, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I get a doctorate, at least I'll feel legitimate,
Speaker 1: because I didn't feel legitimate as a human being, but
Speaker 1: the PhD would legitimize me, which is actually quite horrifying
Speaker 1: because it's actually a devaluation of the self. You were
Speaker 1: saying something very similar with this idea of I get
Speaker 1: the job, I have the title, I get the traction
Speaker 1: on social media, but even more important the issue you
Speaker 1: brought up as this idea of work as dissociation. We
Speaker 1: don't think about it that way, you know, least of
Speaker 1: all in a capitalist society, right, you know, But that
Speaker 1: this idea that we actually fetishize people who work around
Speaker 1: the clock and get up at five am and did
Speaker 1: an eighteen hour work day, that in fact, many many times,
Speaker 1: that is a dissociative experience. It dissociates from feeling. And
Speaker 1: another important point is I think when we talk about
Speaker 1: dissociation the error people make as they go right to
Speaker 1: Sybil and a person who has multiple personalities, and it's
Speaker 1: not that at all. It's a real numbing and a
Speaker 1: distancing and detaching from feeling. And so the fact that
Speaker 1: you're bringing in work to be in that space is
Speaker 1: really quite significant, and so I thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: that point of view. My session with Stephanie will continue
Speaker 1: after this break. This idea of work is dissociation and
Speaker 1: pick up on that, because I think that was a
Speaker 1: really important point you're making here. You made in the book.
Speaker 1: Work is something that is so hypervalue that we are
Speaker 1: thinking if somebody works all the time and succeeds at work, well,
Speaker 1: then nothing could be going wrong for them. There was
Speaker 1: this one moment who would always give this talk at
Speaker 1: this fancy college, and this guy would always make some
Speaker 1: comment about like how amazing it was that I was
Speaker 1: like whatever, twenty seven and that I was where I was,
Speaker 1: and how it was so astronomical. And I think the
Speaker 1: last year I did the talk, I never got invited
Speaker 1: back after this, or maybe I shouldn't have said it,
Speaker 1: but I was like, you know, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I recommend having such an astronomical right, because I think
Speaker 1: that working this hard is not sustainable, and I think
Speaker 1: I would have had a longer career in radio if
Speaker 1: I had not burned myself out to that degree. But yeah,
Speaker 1: all people see is wow, that's so shiny and perfect,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it also reinforced this idea of Stephanie so strong,
Speaker 1: Stephanie hasn't eat the help. Correct, And I think that
Speaker 1: what ends up happening is we kind of get into
Speaker 1: this sort of resilience porn kind of place, which is
Speaker 1: she's so resilient. Resilience is great, but resilience is anonymous
Speaker 1: only with success, so correct correct, and that it is yes,
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of resilience that you'd gone through
Speaker 1: all of this and we're able to show up in
Speaker 1: the way of being productive, which is again also an
Speaker 1: overvaluation of productivity as sort of like this measure of
Speaker 1: a person. But what we don't tend to do with
Speaker 1: friends or family or anyone colleagues, so we don't tend
Speaker 1: to want to look under the hood like are they
Speaker 1: okay just because they're productive, just because they're working hard,
Speaker 1: like to punch out what some of these definitions of
Speaker 1: resilience are rather than just this kind of hard working,
Speaker 1: productive piece. Because I thought that was a really fascinating
Speaker 1: part of your story, and yet you were also in
Speaker 1: your book you detailed that it wasn't all rainbows and
Speaker 1: sunshine at work. You actually were working with a really,
Speaker 1: really difficult colleague and that was a very defining experience
Speaker 1: for you professionally. It was interesting because outside of my
Speaker 1: office everyone was like Stephanie's at the top of the world,
Speaker 1: and inside the office, I felt like the weakest link
Speaker 1: because I had a very abusive boss who was constantly
Speaker 1: demeaning me and making me feel stupid and small and
Speaker 1: crazy all the time. Because like I would do a
Speaker 1: story that everybody would love in terms of the world
Speaker 1: and other co workers, and he'd be like that was
Speaker 1: that I didn't like that at all. That was like
Speaker 1: embarrassing to our show. So it meant that I was
Speaker 1: constantly in my coworkers offices on their floors, like crying
Speaker 1: and asking for their validation. And that was I think
Speaker 1: kind of what snapped me into realizing, like, I'm not strong.
Speaker 1: I need help because right now I'm seeking help from
Speaker 1: the floor of my coworkers office who is so over
Speaker 1: it right now, and I have to have something better
Speaker 1: than this. Okay, So I'm going to say two things
Speaker 1: to that, because it's actually hit me in an interesting place.
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree, I understood your decision making process of
Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the floor of a colleague's office. I'm
Speaker 1: going through this terrible stressful thing and it's really taking
Speaker 1: a toll on me. I need to seek out professional help.
Speaker 1: I disagree with the I'm not strong, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that that's the piece i'd take some umbradge at
Speaker 1: You're right, right, because for two reasons, anyone dealing with
Speaker 1: a toxic boss, I don't care if you don't have
Speaker 1: a history of complex trauma from childhood. That's actually a
Speaker 1: really noxious process that can take a toll on anyone,
Speaker 1: and I think it's something we don't talk about how
Speaker 1: impactful that can be. Number one, but number two, you
Speaker 1: had been through complex trauma, and what this boss was
Speaker 1: doing to you was invalidating you and telling you you
Speaker 1: were no good. Was literally literally a recapitulation of what
Speaker 1: happened in your childhood. In this boss was channeling your
Speaker 1: mother and father. I had told him stories from my childhood.
Speaker 1: He knew all about my childhood, and I told him
Speaker 1: stories about how like when I had written a diary entries,
Speaker 1: my mom forced me to write diary entries and then
Speaker 1: afterward I would bring them to her and she would
Speaker 1: sit there and force me to stand behind her and
Speaker 1: she would just rip me a new one, go through
Speaker 1: my diary entreen to say like, this is anspelled. You
Speaker 1: use them too much, You're terrible writer. And he would
Speaker 1: do the exact same thing to me. He had me
Speaker 1: stand behind him as he went through my work and
Speaker 1: he would play it over and over as he just
Speaker 1: told me, like, why can't you get this right? What's
Speaker 1: wrong with you? What's wrong with you? I was literally
Speaker 1: standing in the same position that I would have to
Speaker 1: be with my mother. I mean, there's a certain sadism
Speaker 1: in the boss, but beyond that, sitting on the floor
Speaker 1: of the colleague and venting, I actually think that was
Speaker 1: a really good choice because you actually had the wherewithal
Speaker 1: to seek out another human being to talk about it,
Speaker 1: to vent about it. And while I understand that may
Speaker 1: not have been appropriate, and it certainly wasn't sustainable, right,
Speaker 1: I can get all of that, Yeah, at a brass
Speaker 1: tap their strength and vulnerability. Beyond even vulnerability, it's the
Speaker 1: fact that you still actually kept getting up in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it was taking a terrible toll on you.
Speaker 1: The one thing to remember, and I see this time
Speaker 1: and time again when I'm working with complex trauma survivors,
Speaker 1: is there's a self judgment. Right Again, too many workplaces
Speaker 1: are basically hazing rituals anyhow, But when they're in those
Speaker 1: situations dealing with the angry, sadistic boss, the entitled rant
Speaker 1: from a client, the entitled rant from a boss, whomever,
Speaker 1: and that person with the history of complex trauma almost
Speaker 1: feels themselves crumbling underneath that. They'll say, see, I'm not
Speaker 1: that strong, I can't hang in the workplace, and it
Speaker 1: is that like helping them connect the dots and saying
Speaker 1: you're not made for this. Something happened to you. It's
Speaker 1: almost like if you were born with a bomb leg,
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, yeah, maybe the job going up and
Speaker 1: down the stairs a lot's probably not it's going to
Speaker 1: hurt you. Doesn't mean you can't do it, but I
Speaker 1: think that there's an activation. So then the person who's
Speaker 1: gone through complex trauma SS, well, there's something wrong with me.
Speaker 1: I can't put up with a toxic boss. There's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with you. Something happened to you. And I think
Speaker 1: that languaging becomes a really important thing to give survivors
Speaker 1: and for people to hold within them from a letting
Speaker 1: go of self judgment that oh, this is supposed to
Speaker 1: be a problem for me more than it might be
Speaker 1: for somebody who didn't have this backstory. Yeah. Absolutely. Then
Speaker 1: you get into therapy. What is so compelling about your story?
Speaker 1: And it's really it's a real master class in sort
Speaker 1: of trauma therapy. Was your personal journey if you could
Speaker 1: walk us, so some of how you started this journey
Speaker 1: and where, because I have some questions about that but
Speaker 1: how you started therapy, how that worked out for you,
Speaker 1: and how that all unfolded for you. Started therapy actually
Speaker 1: when I was like nineteen and I just went to
Speaker 1: like a sliding scale local therapist in San Francisco. Well,
Speaker 1: I'd actually seen a couple of therapists before then, but
Speaker 1: she was the one that helped the most. I saw
Speaker 1: her for years, and she was really great in teaching
Speaker 1: me very basic things like learning how to use eye
Speaker 1: statements and helping me navigate through a lot of relationships,
Speaker 1: and how to assert my needs and how to be
Speaker 1: less negative in the way that I talked about myself,
Speaker 1: all valid things. But after I got my CPTSD diagnosis,
Speaker 1: I really knew that I needed somebody who was specialized
Speaker 1: in trauma work, and so I just went full court
Speaker 1: press on it, and I quit my job and I
Speaker 1: did every single thing I could. I was doing restorative yoga,
Speaker 1: I was doing em DR, I was doing mushrooms. I
Speaker 1: went to breathwork classes and all of that, and I
Speaker 1: think it all helped a little bit. I think there
Speaker 1: was sort of like a three pronged necessary approach. Number one,
Speaker 1: the most important thing was sort of getting a sort
Speaker 1: of mind body stability, being able to calm down when
Speaker 1: I was triggered, and I think resortive yoga really helped
Speaker 1: for that. Meditation really helped for that, and so just
Speaker 1: being able to sort of breathe and take a minute
Speaker 1: when I was in a really, really triggered position. The
Speaker 1: second thing I think was changing the narrative that I
Speaker 1: had about myself, changing this narrative of shame, recognizing how
Speaker 1: horrible the things that happened to me were instead of
Speaker 1: minimizing them constantly. I think MDR was really helpful for that.
Speaker 1: It sort of helped me see with a very objective
Speaker 1: clarity the brutality of my abuse. And lastly, I think,
Speaker 1: and this is something that we don't really talk enough
Speaker 1: about in the therapy sphere, was relational therapy sort of
Speaker 1: building up my ability to trust other people. Learning how
Speaker 1: to carry on a conversation kind of from scratch with people,
Speaker 1: Learning how to be curious about their cues instead of
Speaker 1: sort of constantly jumping to fear whenever they might have
Speaker 1: a frown or change of tone and their voice or whatever.
Speaker 1: Learning how to listen, learning how my trauma and all
Speaker 1: of that fear got in the way of me being
Speaker 1: a good friend. Yeah, sort of relearning all of that
Speaker 1: with the therapist was very important. Did you do all
Speaker 1: of this with one therapist or did you do it
Speaker 1: with different therapists. I think the journey began with many therapists,
Speaker 1: and I think they really set like a very good
Speaker 1: foundation to do more work. But I think kind of
Speaker 1: the revolutionary work came with doctor Jacob Houm. And the
Speaker 1: therapy that we did do was also really unique because
Speaker 1: we recorded all of our conversations, all of our therapy sessions.
Speaker 1: Then immediately after I would go and I would transcribe
Speaker 1: our entire therapy session put into Google Docs, and then
Speaker 1: he and I would go through all of the minutia
Speaker 1: of that session in Google Docs and make comments about
Speaker 1: like here Stephanie wasn't listening, here, Jacob wasn't attuning to her. Here,
Speaker 1: Stephanie wasn't attuning to him. They're sort of pointing out
Speaker 1: all of breaking down what it is to trust a person.
Speaker 1: I think it was a great exercise in trusting somebody else,
Speaker 1: because what a vulnerable thing to do with somebody for
Speaker 1: both people. He's obviously as a therapist, being very vulnerable
Speaker 1: in this position. Yeah, like I've talked to many therapists before,
Speaker 1: and maybe you can talk about this about how that's
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying to them, because that's like opening up a
Speaker 1: can of worms for their supervisors, I think. And like,
Speaker 1: what if somebody then files a complaint saying, oh, my
Speaker 1: therapist said this to me in session, and here's the
Speaker 1: exact here is the evidence. But I think that was
Speaker 1: something that was really helpful for me, was he was
Speaker 1: leveling the complicated power structures around therapist and client. I
Speaker 1: thought that the work you did with doctor hamas revolutionary
Speaker 1: because even in real time, it's really hard to pay
Speaker 1: attention to what you're calling as the attunement, the listening,
Speaker 1: the attunement, sales as it were, the misinterpretations, all of that.
Speaker 1: That kind of line by line analysis, interactional analysis in
Speaker 1: essence you were doing is the sort of stuff we
Speaker 1: tend to see in research, definitely not in clinical practice.
Speaker 1: It's not even so much the worry that a therapist
Speaker 1: would be worried about what we said. I mean a
Speaker 1: short of us saying something really deeply inappropriate. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's the dance of therapy. It's imperfect, but
Speaker 1: that the two of you put in that time to
Speaker 1: do that kind of line by line analysis. It really
Speaker 1: then speaks to the power of even a single part
Speaker 1: of one conversation with one person. Right, so even in
Speaker 1: a ten minute conversation, there can just be one thing
Speaker 1: that the whole thing hinges on, which would lead to
Speaker 1: a moment of really you feeling unsafe, the other person
Speaker 1: feeling disconnected, that loss of attunement, and the whole thing
Speaker 1: goes off the rails, and that right there for you
Speaker 1: to understand that and to recognize it's not random, and
Speaker 1: it's not scary, and it's not out of control, but
Speaker 1: there's actually a rhythm that there was signal in the
Speaker 1: noise as it were. I have to say as a
Speaker 1: therapist it was really really eye opening some of my
Speaker 1: clients to record their sessions and I say, you can
Speaker 1: do with them as you wish, and we can go
Speaker 1: back and break things down. So that has always been
Speaker 1: something I have said to my clients. This is your time,
Speaker 1: and this is your voice, and this is your story,
Speaker 1: so it belongs to you. You've invited me into your space,
Speaker 1: I haven't invited you into mine. So that's very much
Speaker 1: how I view the therapeutic frame. But it was really
Speaker 1: quite amazing because some people listening to this and we
Speaker 1: haven't actually talked with anyone who's talked about their experience
Speaker 1: of EMDR. Can you talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: your experience was of being a client who's experiencing trauma
Speaker 1: and who's gone through EMDR, because it could actually be
Speaker 1: really useful to get that first person perspective. Yeah, MDR
Speaker 1: is the process of going through your trauma or recollecting it,
Speaker 1: and there's different ways you can do it. A lot
Speaker 1: of people sort of follow a finger, yeah, left and right.
Speaker 1: Their therapist moves this left and right. I did. I
Speaker 1: wanted to keep my eyes closed, and so I had
Speaker 1: two buzzers in my hands and I would have a
Speaker 1: buzz in one ear and a buzz on my hand
Speaker 1: and then the buzz on the other side. And I
Speaker 1: think something about it was like it kept me grounded
Speaker 1: enough to sort of go through this, yeah, process of
Speaker 1: looking at my trauma without getting too triggered, without seeing
Speaker 1: it from like an overly emotional standpoint, seeing it in again,
Speaker 1: a very factual standpoint, like a very real standpoint, almost
Speaker 1: like I was watching it happened to somebody else, I
Speaker 1: would say, and having a strange out of body experience.
Speaker 1: Let's take a moment to learn more about this term
Speaker 1: she just mentioned. E M d R stands for eye movement,
Speaker 1: desensitization and reprocessing and is a therapy meant to help
Speaker 1: a person who is experienced trauma to access and work
Speaker 1: through traumatic memories. It's meant to foster healing from the
Speaker 1: distress people experience after having had any kind of traumatic experience.
Speaker 1: When I talk about a couple of other things, one
Speaker 1: is that you went back to your high school. And
Speaker 1: this was a really important part of the book to me,
Speaker 1: because you talked to a teacher, okay, and you were
Speaker 1: actually saying, like, were you so, what was your take
Speaker 1: on what was happening to my peers back when I
Speaker 1: was in high school in terms of abuse and trauma?
Speaker 1: What was his response to that? Because this is a
Speaker 1: really important part of your story, I thought. I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I minimized my trauma so
Speaker 1: much growing up is because it was so common in
Speaker 1: my community. Like all of my best friends, we're going
Speaker 1: through what I went through, or sometimes much worse than
Speaker 1: when I went through. So I thought, certainly all the
Speaker 1: adults must have seen some percentage of this at the
Speaker 1: very least, and he was like, no, you're a very
Speaker 1: privileged Asian children whose parents BUYUMAC books, and so there's
Speaker 1: no abuse here, and there's just pressure, and that's what
Speaker 1: it was. He framed the entire story, and what I
Speaker 1: felt was a trope and a stereotype of Asian kids
Speaker 1: tiger parenting. Everyone wants to go to Harvard, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was so neat and tidy and unseeing that
Speaker 1: this could be happening, and that what was stunning was
Speaker 1: what happened when you went to go talk to the
Speaker 1: school psychologists who said, who said that hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of her students were still being physically exactly exactly. And
Speaker 1: I thought that juxtaposition that the teacher almost was sort
Speaker 1: of wedded to, like, well, this is what happens here,
Speaker 1: and everyone's under pressure to get good grades, and the
Speaker 1: reality of that this isn't just about Okay, these are
Speaker 1: Asian kids, so this isn't happening was not only a
Speaker 1: disconnect between what was happening in the adults in that environment,
Speaker 1: it actually meant that there were fewer eyes fully sort
Speaker 1: of appreciating what was happening. And I thought that that
Speaker 1: difference in falling into that sort of stereotype mode meant
Speaker 1: that mental health services and that kind of outreach wasn't
Speaker 1: going to happen. It was just not even the awareness.
Speaker 1: So these are not only model kids, their families must
Speaker 1: be model families too. And what's a little pressure because
Speaker 1: they all want to go to the best schools. And
Speaker 1: you must see this with your Asian and South Asian clients, right, like, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely, I knew this was a problem. I
Speaker 1: knew this was a problem after I spoke to school psychologists.
Speaker 1: Since my book has come out, you wouldn't believe the
Speaker 1: number of messages I get, thousands of messages Asian Americans
Speaker 1: and from people from San Jose, from my own community
Speaker 1: saying like, yes, the abuse is prevalent, and yet somehow
Speaker 1: this model minority myth persists. And when you go to
Speaker 1: any school, like I just went to my school district
Speaker 1: to give a talk on this last summer, again, all
Speaker 1: of the teachers are like completely clueless about it and
Speaker 1: completely like, I think you might be making way too
Speaker 1: big of a deal about this. Wow, my conversation will
Speaker 1: continue after this break. I have very good students. My
Speaker 1: students are very good. They have all a's, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's not the point. But let's see there it is,
Speaker 1: though they're good and they're getting you these a's because
Speaker 1: they're afraid, because this is their way of placating the
Speaker 1: world around. This is the way of that they build
Speaker 1: their safety, correct, like the way that I built mine.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that there isn't horrible stuff happening at
Speaker 1: home for them, right, necessitating them to build that safety. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think that that idea is that this is
Speaker 1: being done for safety. And have the experience gaslighted, you
Speaker 1: know that, Oh they're getting a's, It's fine, that is
Speaker 1: a gaslight. One of the people you interviged in your
Speaker 1: book was an expert in estrangement, and I found that
Speaker 1: section of your book to be really powerful. Yourself or
Speaker 1: from a Malaysian Chinese family, where family family values sort
Speaker 1: of the collective protection of the family unit are really foremost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but again this is where I'm saying, this is transcultural.
Speaker 1: Family estrangement is a taboo. It's not supposed to happen.
Speaker 1: My understanding is you really don't have much to do
Speaker 1: with your parents anymore. Am I correct about them? I
Speaker 1: do not speak with either Okay, so that falls under estrangement,
Speaker 1: which does I've worked with a lot of clients who
Speaker 1: are estranged for a range of reasons, mostly due to
Speaker 1: this kind of abusive and antagonistic behavior. Your expert said
Speaker 1: something so brilliant, and it was this idea that nobody
Speaker 1: wants estrangement. Nobody wakes up in the morning saying I'm
Speaker 1: going to figure out a way to get a strange
Speaker 1: from my family, and that once people are estranged, it's
Speaker 1: not like they're walking around saying woohoo, I got rid
Speaker 1: of my family, but that they actually live in a
Speaker 1: state of grief and sadness over what never was, over
Speaker 1: what was lost, over what happened. But your expert was saying,
Speaker 1: this isn't about estrangement good, this is about estrangement necessary
Speaker 1: and the grief that goes along with it. So can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about why you even talk
Speaker 1: to an estrangement expert and how that's played out for you. Well,
Speaker 1: I cited Christina Sharp's work, and then I spoke to
Speaker 1: Katherine Saint Louis, who did just tons of reporting on estrangement.
Speaker 1: And because I was at the time trying to decide
Speaker 1: whether I should be estrange for my father or not.
Speaker 1: And Catherine told me, I can't tell you whether you
Speaker 1: should or you shouldn't. I can only tell you that
Speaker 1: if you do, lots of other people have done it,
Speaker 1: and they've done it because it's necessary, and I had
Speaker 1: to determine if it was necessary. And I think there's
Speaker 1: lots of times when I wonder if it was necessary
Speaker 1: less now it's been a few years, but I think
Speaker 1: it was necessary for my mental health. It was necessary
Speaker 1: to protect myself and I have relationships with tricky people.
Speaker 1: But I think ground for what I think is appropriate
Speaker 1: whether I should keep you in my life or not,
Speaker 1: is whether you're going to try. Are you going to
Speaker 1: hear me, Are you going to give a shit? Are
Speaker 1: you going to really like put in the effort to
Speaker 1: try and make this work between the two of us,
Speaker 1: or is it just going to be me give and giving, giving,
Speaker 1: trying to make you listen to me, never getting any
Speaker 1: of that back in return. And I think with my parents,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to try. They have not prioritized me
Speaker 1: in twenty years basically in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: And so just having a relationship like that, anyone knows
Speaker 1: it's totally draining and totally, as we were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: crazy making. And to those who in the mental health
Speaker 1: establishment who are like fixed the relationship at all costs, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am not against reconciliation. I'm not against reconciliation with
Speaker 1: my parents, but you have to reck ignize that, Like,
Speaker 1: for reconciliation to happen, you need more than just the
Speaker 1: person who has been abused, right, and often especially in
Speaker 1: terms of people of color, in terms of immigrants, you
Speaker 1: need a whole community. Yes, Like the person who is
Speaker 1: being abusive often is not being abusive out of just
Speaker 1: total like carelessness. They often have deep, deep wounds themselves.
Speaker 1: They often have like deep mental health crises. And it
Speaker 1: was kind of like what I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: There's all this stigma culturally that's preventing them from getting help.
Speaker 1: They don't have their resources, Like the mental health establishment
Speaker 1: in the United States is geared mostly to help intellectual
Speaker 1: white people. There aren't enough culturally trained therapists who can
Speaker 1: support them, who can sort of help them in a
Speaker 1: way that brings in community, that brings in their religion,
Speaker 1: that provides them therapy in a destigmatized way. And so
Speaker 1: in some ways I do I mean, I blame my parents,
Speaker 1: they have real accountability here, but in some ways I
Speaker 1: blame the entire system as well. And I am so
Speaker 1: glad you put it in that framework, because when people
Speaker 1: have gone through these paths, even when estrangement becomes necessary,
Speaker 1: they're carrying the burden of ancestors of intergenerational trauma, awareness
Speaker 1: of the political systems, of the colonizing processes that got
Speaker 1: their generations before to this point, and that really complicated
Speaker 1: balancing act of having to save yourself, but to do
Speaker 1: so knowing that history is actually the legacy of every
Speaker 1: community of color in this country, frankly, and any marginalized
Speaker 1: group in this world. So it is something that is
Speaker 1: such a painful part of this journey, and I think
Speaker 1: it results in a persistent grief that we don't ever
Speaker 1: fully move past. So I really thank you for putting
Speaker 1: that so clearly, because I think that that is the
Speaker 1: call to arms for this mental health around the world,
Speaker 1: is that we can support survivors, give them contexts, support
Speaker 1: people who engage in this behavior, and move from there.
Speaker 1: But I want to as we come to our end,
Speaker 1: what is so beautiful about your story is that it
Speaker 1: has I consider a happy ending, And I think that
Speaker 1: one that survivors really really need to hear is talk
Speaker 1: to us about where you're at now. And you're very young,
Speaker 1: so it's a lot of story, a lot of story left.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the ending being sort of where we're beginning
Speaker 1: it with you right now catching it now. It's actually
Speaker 1: a really beautiful story. Can you share that? Because I
Speaker 1: think it's a really beacon of hope. I think that
Speaker 1: I have more hope than I ever have right now
Speaker 1: in the future. I found a wonderful family to sort
Speaker 1: of provide me with some of that support and acknowledgement
Speaker 1: and who seeing me and who show up the ways
Speaker 1: that I ask them to show up through my husband's family.
Speaker 1: I have a really tremendously supportive partner who gets triggered
Speaker 1: himself and you know, has his own traumas, but like
Speaker 1: is really intent on working together on them. How are
Speaker 1: you able to trust a man enough to fall in love?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's completely seriously talk about lack
Speaker 1: of trust. How did you trust him and then give
Speaker 1: yourself permission to fall in love? I don't every day,
Speaker 1: Thank you me, I don't trust him. Thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing that. Yeah, And I'm like you're shady. There's plenty
Speaker 1: of still like you don't care about me? But then
Speaker 1: he shows up. Yeah, and then I say you don't
Speaker 1: care about me and he's like, I don't and he
Speaker 1: so that a thousand thousand times now, And there's days
Speaker 1: where he's like, you don't care about me, and I'm
Speaker 1: like I do, and how do you? How dare you
Speaker 1: not see that already? But he just kept showing up.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, I don't know that I'll
Speaker 1: ever feel totally safe in this world, but I know
Speaker 1: that like, I have to jump, I have to take chances.
Speaker 1: I have to grab happiness where I can and try
Speaker 1: and let the people who want to love me love me,
Speaker 1: or else I'm just going to have a very empty life.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I keep trying to be brave. Well, it's
Speaker 1: incredibly brave because the very things that keep you safe,
Speaker 1: that sort of voice in the back of your head
Speaker 1: that's always telling you it's all danger and it's all bad,
Speaker 1: that voice is actually sort of strangely designed to keep
Speaker 1: you safe too. And the courage is actually getting out
Speaker 1: of bed in the morning and saying, okay, voice, the
Speaker 1: voice is not moving. I always imagine that voice the
Speaker 1: trauma voice sits in a little chair in like a dark,
Speaker 1: dusty corner of your brain, and it's just, oh kay,
Speaker 1: you're not leaving, so you just stay there. I got you.
Speaker 1: I understand you're trying to keep me safe. I understand that.
Speaker 1: But the real courage in the post complex trauma landscape
Speaker 1: is to get up in the morning and I tell
Speaker 1: everyone I work with, you got up this morning. We're good,
Speaker 1: all right, now, just keep going. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's what you've done. And I think more than anything,
Speaker 1: I think love is an incredibly healing force. But what
Speaker 1: I really am full as that you're willing to talk
Speaker 1: about how it's complicated love, that there's still struggles with
Speaker 1: trust is the doubt, it's the self doubt, and that
Speaker 1: you're able to talk about that, that people will find
Speaker 1: their love stories, and that it is about patients, that
Speaker 1: it's about being recognized real quick. Just to just to
Speaker 1: close that out. It doesn't need to be romantic love.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you. Some of the most like healing
Speaker 1: love in my life is my friend's love. I'm really
Speaker 1: glad you brought that up too, because I think then
Speaker 1: it's about love, right, whether it's it's friends, love, partner love.
Speaker 1: It's about love, and it sounds in these friendships you
Speaker 1: are able to be seen, but when you are having
Speaker 1: a difficult moment, they can still stand strong in the
Speaker 1: face of that. And I think for many trauma survivors,
Speaker 1: the conviction as people are going to run away when
Speaker 1: they see my stuff come out, and that no love
Speaker 1: is that you hang out when the stuff comes out,
Speaker 1: and there are people who can do that. It may
Speaker 1: not have happened once before, but it can happen. So
Speaker 1: I think that that's thank you so much that love
Speaker 1: in its many forms. I want to make a last
Speaker 1: point here as we come to our end. Here. The
Speaker 1: show is called Navigating Narcissism, and that was not your framework,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a tricky word. That's why we
Speaker 1: take it on in this podcast. And when I use
Speaker 1: that word, I care less about the personality style because
Speaker 1: it's not a disorder, it's a style. But it's the
Speaker 1: behaviors that hang out with it, right. The behaviors that
Speaker 1: come from that are invalidation and minimization and manipulation and
Speaker 1: devaluation and dehumanization and betrayal. All of that stuff is
Speaker 1: what sort of sits under that kind of larger umbrella.
Speaker 1: And while that was not how you ever framed your story,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it is your frame. I think
Speaker 1: your frame is very focused on you in your story
Speaker 1: of complex trauma, and that's where it shall remain. It's
Speaker 1: on this podcast because being exposed to those interpersonal patterns,
Speaker 1: when one is chronically invalidated and not seen and having
Speaker 1: reality distorted harms us. And we've talked with other guests
Speaker 1: on our podcast. We've literally said I have complex trauma
Speaker 1: as a byproduct of narcissistic abuse. In your case, it
Speaker 1: was these dynamics but very complicatedly housed in parents that
Speaker 1: came from very complicated cultural backgrounds who likely brought in
Speaker 1: their trauma too, And we've talked with other survivors who
Speaker 1: had parents who had gone through trauma as well, that
Speaker 1: this isn't about labeling someone as narcissistic, but that this
Speaker 1: is about understanding that there are interpersonal patterns that hurt
Speaker 1: us and that we carry within us, and that we
Speaker 1: can then move beyond. And yeah, at some level we're
Speaker 1: carrying a little of that weight on our back always,
Speaker 1: but that there is a path forward and it doesn't
Speaker 1: define us, and that we can enter into meaningful, purposeful lives, work,
Speaker 1: and above all, loving relationships. And so I just wanted
Speaker 1: to give that context for why your story was so
Speaker 1: important to us here on this podcast. And I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, in terms of my parents,
Speaker 1: I think the term narcissistic is a little bit limiting
Speaker 1: for them. Agree. I think that they exhibit narcissistic behaviors absolutely,
Speaker 1: like no question. But I think narcissism for them is
Speaker 1: complicated because and not because they're good people, because I
Speaker 1: think their history and potential abuse whatever is tricky. And
Speaker 1: I think that I've seen this most in my reporting
Speaker 1: with like survivors of the Khmer Rouge, in that you
Speaker 1: have these people who are so so trauma having survived
Speaker 1: to genocide, and they're so focused on survival that all
Speaker 1: they see is themselves in survival and they wind up
Speaker 1: kind of being abusive to their children. I've seen in
Speaker 1: other communities that not being true when the person is
Speaker 1: getting the full support of their community, When the abuser
Speaker 1: is getting the full support of their community, of their religion,
Speaker 1: of getting the right therapy that they need, I think
Speaker 1: there is hope. I think that that is not accessible
Speaker 1: enough in this country right now, enough for the vast,
Speaker 1: vast majority of us to make those repairs. I absolutely agree.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that framing, and I think it's about
Speaker 1: the behavior. To me, the label, the framing, it's all
Speaker 1: about the behavior, and then it's taking that behavior, framing
Speaker 1: it in a context, and then looking for Like you said,
Speaker 1: these contexts can vary by culture, by history, by story,
Speaker 1: and then access and sadly mental health treatment has really
Speaker 1: become who has the privilege to actually be able to
Speaker 1: get the help? And that to me, it's a real
Speaker 1: problem in the world. But thank you again. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you, Stephanie? Because your story is something and
Speaker 1: I think something that many many people need to hear.
Speaker 1: And I have your book right here. I kind of
Speaker 1: carry it around. It's completely dog here. It is a
Speaker 1: little sort of bible. But where can people find you?
Speaker 1: My paperback comes out great, You're Worried twenty first awesome,
Speaker 1: so it'll be affordable. I also have a audiobook on
Speaker 1: Audible that is available that includes recordings of the sessions
Speaker 1: with doctor Ham, So lots of people like that. And
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter and I'm on the radio,
Speaker 1: but I'm most President on Instagram in my handle is
Speaker 1: fo foo foo. Great. All right, great, Well everyone finds
Speaker 1: Stephanie because it's an amazing conversation. Thank you for the
Speaker 1: gift of your time, of your story and your journey.
Speaker 1: It was a game changer for me, and I really
Speaker 1: feel honored that I got to meet you and talk
Speaker 1: with you. So thank you again, Stephanie. Well, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for being vulnerable in this interview as well.
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate you having me and having this
Speaker 1: nuanced conversation. Thank you. Well. I hope our paths cross again.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Stephanie. And here are my takeaways from
Speaker 1: my conversation with Stephanie. First, one of the most painful
Speaker 1: full legacies of childhood abuse is the child's takeaway that
Speaker 1: maybe I am unlovable, And as Stephanie says, if my
Speaker 1: parents cannot love me, then who can. Children experiencing trauma
Speaker 1: make meaning of their situation by blaming themselves as a
Speaker 1: way to keep themselves safe. But these inner narratives can
Speaker 1: persist throughout adulthood. These beliefs can drive decisions throughout life
Speaker 1: that support that unlovability, and therapy is essential to address
Speaker 1: these deeply held beliefs for this next takeaway, Seeking safety
Speaker 1: is a primary motivation of a trauma survivor, and that
Speaker 1: sometimes can get distorted. For example, when Stephanie's neighbor try
Speaker 1: to intervene when she was a child, Stephanie felt she
Speaker 1: had to protect her mother. When these cycles show up
Speaker 1: in adulthood, it can mean that turning away from genuinely
Speaker 1: helpful people and then justifying the harmful behavior of others.
Speaker 1: And these safety behaviors may also involve doing well, doing
Speaker 1: well at work or at school, and because doing well
Speaker 1: is valued, these behaviors are often missed. For any survivor,
Speaker 1: it means taking a hard look at your life and
Speaker 1: questioning how you may use practices like working hard and
Speaker 1: succeeding as a way of distancing from your pain and
Speaker 1: feeling safe. In our next takeaway, when Stephanie talked about
Speaker 1: what worked to help her work through her trauma, she
Speaker 1: listed multiple approaches, including psychotherapy, emdr psychedelics, and relational therapy.
Speaker 1: What she found most useful was learning, at an almost
Speaker 1: microscopic level, learning how to relate again, learning to trust, converse,
Speaker 1: be curious, and not to go right to fear from
Speaker 1: interpersonal cues like a frown. Complex trauma steals this basic skill,
Speaker 1: but it can be life changing, and the way she
Speaker 1: did it was inspired and unique. In this next takeaway,
Speaker 1: when Stephanie places her parents' behavior within the framework of culture,
Speaker 1: intergenerational trauma, and historical oppression, she isn't rationalizing, but instead
Speaker 1: she is contextualizing, and that's an important distinction. Remember, Stephanie
Speaker 1: still ended contact with her parents and built up a
Speaker 1: new world of family with her friends, her husband, and
Speaker 1: her in laws. Contextualizing doesn't mean that you are excusing
Speaker 1: the abusive behavior, but it is possible to simultaneously set
Speaker 1: a firm and permanent boundary but also recognize the complex
Speaker 1: and historic origin of the abusive behavior. To do so
Speaker 1: can actually really foster healing. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: either or or black or white. Healing is all about
Speaker 1: the gray. And for our final takeaway, Stephanie doesn't portray
Speaker 1: her healing as an easy path. She certainly doesn't say
Speaker 1: I'm at someone, I have wonderful friends, and now we
Speaker 1: walk into the sunset. She acknowledges that on many days
Speaker 1: there our challenges and a need for reassurance and safety.
Speaker 1: Healing is absolutely possible, and you can find a love story.
Speaker 1: It's not always an easy love story, but the hope
Speaker 1: is for a patient love story and for someone who
Speaker 1: sees you, sees all of you, and can be that
Speaker 1: place of safety