A Trauma Survivor's Search for Validation

Let's begin by having you share a little of your story.

Absolutely. It's a long one that I have written out into three books. One of them has been published already. I was born to a teenage mother who didn't want me. Immediately after giving birth to me, she had her tubes tied. She didn't want children, and grandma and great-grandma decided that they weren't going to have their only grand and great-grandchild raised by other people, so I was not given up for adoption. I was kept, which turned out unfortunate for me.

My mother married an abusive narcissist. I went through the whole gamut of physical abuse, verbal, emotional—the whole thing. I thank God every day. I was never sexually abused, but my goodness, words are enough. I would take the words over the physical abuse any day, and I don't mean any disrespect to anybody else who has been physically abused because that was awful too. And I had to learn at a very young age.

I had a friend that said narcissists and abusers, in general, wear masks. They put on this facade out in public, but we as victims also wear a mask. I had to learn at a very young age. But to go through that as a little girl and, on top of that, have added verbal abuse, which is psychological, emotional, and every way of being told every day that nobody wanted you, you're a burden, your mother doesn't even love you, nobody's ever going to love you. I shouldn't have to pay for another man's child—all these things.

I was a little girl, and I always tell people it sounds awful, but think of a four, five, six-year-old child that you know, picture them, and picture saying that to them every day and every hour, as long as they live under your roof. That's disgusting! But unfortunately, when you're older, people say, "Oh, just leave the relationship, walk away."

Why did you stay?

You don't have a choice when you're a kid. You don't have that power. No, you don't, and it's unfortunate. I mean, my experience is mostly with narcissists, so I am speaking from that end, but I feel like a lot of abusers also discredit their victims, whether they are children, as was my case, or whether they are grown. They kind of set a rhetoric and a narrative among family and among people that, "Oh, she's difficult" or "Oh, you know, we think she has mental problems because she's accusing us of this and that." They kind of set the stage so that if you're brave enough to say something, people don't believe you anyway, and then you're that much more discouraged to open your mouth again. So, it took until I was 16 years old for something awful to happen in the house.

I was strangled, and thrown down half a flight of stairs. I thought I was going to die that night if I hadn't. And it was my mother this time, which was sad. She was participating in this instead of just gaslighting me, trying to force me to submit to him; she put her hands around my neck this particular night. And I kicked her.

When I got to the point where I was blacking out and could not breathe and thought I was going to die, I thought I couldn't get her hands off my neck, but I could kick her. I kicked her in the stomach, and you know, to this day, I have to hear about how she had just had—honestly, I don't remember, but she had some kind of surgery on her stomach or some gynaecological procedure done.

So, of course, she let go of me, and I was able to escape the house. But, you know, the next day at school, here, I should back up that night. I was running through the streets crying at night, you know, randomly not even knowing where to go or what to do. A classmate of mine who I knew was driving by and saw me and ended up taking me to a friend's house where

I spent the night, and I was thankful, no questions were asked.

It was late. I was distraught. They took me in. I'd known this family since very early childhood. So, they took me in, but the next day at school, here I was, you know, with hand marks on my neck and scratches and bruises all over my body wearing the same clothes I'd worn the day before and everything; obviously, it alerted people who are concerned in the school, staff members, teachers, counsellors, police were called, child services were called, and it ended up not doing any good.

I thought it was ironic that child services and the police had to contact my parents, as opposed to my parents having called me in as a runaway, or never called around asking where I was the night before; they didn't care.

I thought that spoke for itself, but unfortunately, child services and the police, after questioning me, and I told them the truth of what had happened said, "Well, unfortunately, you know, we've interviewed neighbours, we've interviewed the people who work for your parents, we've interviewed all these people, and they all just think your parents are these wonderful people.

They're charitable, generous, and they're upstanding members of society," and it was frustrating. I get taken to the police station, and there's my mother and stepfather sitting there looking sorrowful, like you know, putting on the show, and I knew it was baloney, but everybody was eating it up that they just didn't know what to do with me.

They were so sad, and I just shut down; there was nothing to say; I didn't say a word; what else was I going to say? I was given two options: to go back home with them, which there was no way in hell I was going to do, or I had to do what they wanted me to do, which my mother and stepfather decided I needed help. So I needed to go to a mental facility for children, for juveniles. And I said, "Well, then I guess that's where I'm going," and that's what happened.

It was strange being there because, for many reasons, I didn't belong there; I felt like people there were listening to me, but at the same time, I felt like it was a relief for them to have me there because they were dealing with you. It's just like you see in the movies where there's just a big open room that you eat in that room, you know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner; you socialize in that room.

Everything is just like you're sitting in this big room with nothing and nobody. You're just alone; it's enough to make you go crazy, though. When, you know, the one gals over there, banging a chair against the unbreakable windows repeatedly and somebody's over in that corner, rocking and trying to soothe themselves and all these things that are going on and on.

You're like, "I don't belong here; I'm going to go nuts if I stay here," but the staff was good to me because they could talk to me and I could talk to them, and they were so gracious, but the irony of it all was they had the psychiatrists come in, and I was talked to by therapists.

Nobody gave me any medication. I was not diagnosed with any mental health conditions. I was. Sad and upset and frustrated and all these things, and certainly I had triggers. It's hard not to when you grow up in a home like that. I learned how to walk on eggshells and I knew what would make them upset or not make them upset and learned how to people please and don't do this and all the rules, you know, to keep whatever peace I could, but I still had triggers, like the sound of footsteps.

There was a certain intonation of a footstep that I knew was male, and it was my stepfather coming for me, so to speak, and certain things would just make me like a cat like all my hair would stand up, and I would brace myself. But aside from that, I was in this place that I didn't need to be, but because I had been signed in there by my mother and stepfather, the only way out was for them to sign me out.

I was fortunate; if this is a good thing that my stepfather's a narcissist and narcissists don't like to spend money on anybody but themselves, and he certainly did not approve of doctor's visits or anything for my mother, so he certainly wasn't going to pay for me to be there. As soon as the insurance ran out a month later, I was released, but it was a terrifying experience to think that they could not only abuse me and get away with it but put me in a situation like that, where I was sharing a room for a month with a girl who had stabbed her friend to death and where, I mean, it's like the terror, I wasn't being helped there; it was just adding to it, you know, and it was frustrating, but as it turned out, I had to go back home.

There was no other way out because nobody would listen. Nobody would believe me. So you'd think I would leave their house at 18 and go out into the world with a little more caution, which I thought I did, but then I ended up 19 years old in a very fast-paced and quick-moving relationship with this guy I met. He walked into my office one day, and I honestly thought he was an entitled jerk. He reminded me very much of my stepfather. So I was like, "Oh, screw him. You know, I'm not going this man." Yeah, well, 25 years later, It turns out he was a covert narcissist, and that's why I didn't see him coming.

There were red flags right away, but he was also promising me everything and coming out of the childhood home I came out of, I just wanted somebody to love me. After being told I was unlovable and unworthy and insignificant and everything else, I just wanted somebody to love me. Simple human necessity.

I wanted that connection. I wanted a person to love me. Just the first few interactions, I didn't even like him, not in the least, I thought maybe I was being too judgmental. Maybe I'm not being open. Maybe I don't want to be one of those people who shut down a possibility and I had nothing else, no other options.

So I gave it a shot. And, you know, within six weeks, he had me move in with him. I mean, he told me he loved me within a couple of days of us hanging out for the first time it was the two of us against the world, everything I told him about my family, growing up in my family, he mirrored that, but I didn't see it as that back then, I thought, “Oh my God, he gets me.”

“He understands me like this is my guy. He's the one." And he made me believe it, even though there were all these angry outbursts, violent outbursts, unreasonable, like really unreasonable reactions to simple, minor things, I just excused it. "Oh, he's having a bad day," and, you know, or we all have bad days, or maybe he just woke up on the wrong side of the bed we all do that too, but it was this constant push and pull that never ended; I mean, it was the epitome of a love-hate relationship. When he loved me, oh my God, he loved me. I mean, he would caress my cheek, and he would hold me very affectionately and Just say the sweetest things to me, but when he hated me, it was bad.

It was really bad. We had a child together; he didn't want children, and honestly, I was never one of those little girls who wanted to play house and have lots of kids. I liked the idea of motherhood but I think it scared me because my mother had been so emotionally detached from me and they always say you turn into your parent or parents, and thought that even though there's no way that I could do that, I didn't want to, I didn't want to take that chance.

So I thought that's fine because I have no business having a kid. I am so ill-equipped to have a child. There is no way that I don't know how to be a good mom because I hate saying those words out loud, but I didn't have a good mom, though. We got married; I was 25 when we got married and somewhere around 26, 27 everyone else was all the bridal shower and baby showers I was going to and holding everyone else's babies.

I started feeling that thing that we feel as women sometimes that you just get that itch. Like I want one; I had this, I mean, I've been judged for it, but I'm just going to say it because it is what it is, I have this idea that if I had a baby and I loved, I would never treat it like my mother and stepfather treated me.

I would love my baby more than any other baby was ever loved in this entire world. Like no child would ever be loved more, but I would love it as its mother. And I thought if I gave it to a baby, all of my love and all of my devotion and everything in my soul, that would be the one person in this world in my life that would love me back that much.

And, you know, it's for somebody again, that all I wanted was love and I didn't feel like I was getting it from the person that had promised it to me. I thought we should have a baby. I couldn't convince him. It took me a little while, but eventually, he agreed, and it was not a romantic or exciting process by any means.

It was me figuring out when I had some miscarriages. We had some misses there but you know, going through checking my ovulation cycle and when is the timing right and all this stuff, I mean, when it came down to it, our relationship, I don't think it had ever really been in a good place.

It was what it was, and it was more of a business transaction. The way my son was created, which is an awful thing, but it was effective, and I got pregnant; it was a rough pregnancy, but I carried him full term. When I gave birth to him, he was beautiful and healthy; it was amazing.

Even my ex was there, and we were a family. I saw something in his eyes and that gentleness again that he had shown me every now and then that I thought maybe this is what's going to fix everything. We certainly didn't have our son to do that, but I thought I had this hope. Unfortunately, what I had done was I had brought a baby into a situation that was never going to change.

My son was born in 2003, and he was 17 when I finally divorced his father. But for those 17 years, I mean, my biggest regret is that I didn't take him and get out of it. On the few little chances I had before he could really remember anything because I feel like it almost got worse after we had our son, our son was very clingy and very colicky.

He only wanted me, but at the same time, as I mentioned, you know, we live in kind of rural neighbourhoods; you can see neighbours and stuff, but everybody has acreage or farmland and whatever. So it was kind of isolating. I worked from home, so I was alone a lot. I think while my son was in my womb, he didn't really know anybody's voice, but mine and my husband had travelled for work.

He was only home a couple of days a week or not even sometimes a couple of days a month now that I think about it. So he wasn't around much. I think that's why my son was so clingy. I was what was familiar, I was what comforted him, and he only wanted me. My ex-husband was just ridiculously jealous of this baby.

When he carries our new baby and he starts crying, he would start just screaming at me. "It's you two against me!" Like he created this division right from the get-go. And I try to explain that he's a baby, he's crying for me to hold me. I explain these reasonable, logical things, you know - like he's only ever heard my voice.

Of course, he only wants me. That's why he screams when you carry him or whatever, but just be gentle with him. But he continues screaming, slamming doors, and doing all these things. In the book that I've published, there's a specific focus on the 25 years I spent with my ex, and there's a lot in there. There was a suicide as well; I don't know if it was so much an attempt as a threat on his part, that put me in a really bad position to have to worry about. Do I take my son and run and prevent him from being exposed to this or hearing this?

Looking back, would he have remembered anything he had heard or seen?

Probably not. But when you're in that situation, all you can think about is protecting your kid, or do I put my kid down and go and tend to this man who has a gun and is threatening suicide? Do I leave the baby, like put him in the car, and go make sure somebody, you know, my ex isn't going to commit suicide and then hope I can come back to the car? These things put me in tight situations. I already had been through childhood abuse and all that trauma.

So now here, I am in more traumatic situations. There was another night that my ex liked to drink a lot, so there was that added on top of everything else. That night, he swung a crowbar at my head; I ducked, and my son's right there, and he was screaming at me, calling me all kinds of vulgar names. When my son was six years old, right there in the car with all three of us, he was screaming at me, using profanity and derogatory terms in front of our son.

There was a lot. He even attempted to kidnap our son in the middle of the night one night. I literally let him drag me across the ground because I didn't know what to do to stop him. He had our son in his arms and said I was never going to see them again. I threw myself down and around his legs, thinking if I held his feet together, his ankles, anything to prevent him from taking my kid. Horrific things happened in our house, but the rest of the world, couldn't see it. It's like my stepfather; he's funny, charming, and kind. This is what we were going through in our house.

So at one point when my son was 13 to 14 years old, we were driving home from a Thanksgiving at my aunt's house. My ex-husband didn't like to join us on holidays most of the time, so we were in the car alone, just driving, and my son out of nowhere said, "I need you to promise me something." I asked, "What's that?" He says, "Well, I know you're going to divorce Dad eventually. I don't blame you, but please don't do it while I'm still around. Can you wait until I leave for college or wherever I'm going to go? Because I don't want to be through the hell he's going to put us through."

I thought about it and said, "Well, I've made it this far, so I'll stick it out a few more years. I mean, what's a few more years?" But we didn't make it quite there. I eventually got sick, and this was one of the reasons that I wrote the book. People need to know that all of this trauma, all of the abuse, whatever kind of abuse it is, can have very serious effects on your health.

I knew something was wrong with me. I think everybody knows when something's wrong. I'd go to the regular doctor, and he would say, "Well, I think you just have anxiety," and yeah, of course, I have some. I live every day with anxiety. I'm a little tense all the time and worried cautious and hyper-vigilant about everything. I can't even sleep at night because I'm afraid something's going to happen.

But there were still so many things wrong with me. I went to another doctor who said I was hypersensitive, and yeah, I might be experiencing things, but it's psychosomatic and all this stuff. People are starting to make me feel like I'm not; it's just like my ex tells me, you know, he was telling me, of course, that I'm crazy. That's their MO. So I made a spreadsheet because I'm a type-A personality. I like facts. I made a spreadsheet in Excel with all my symptoms on the column side, I marked 1 through 30 or 31 for the days of the month. For each date, I put a checkmark and sometimes put a number if I could remember the count for how many times I experienced each symptom on each given day. I also monitored my stress levels about my ex. If we had a day that there was an event, something happened that wasn't nice, I was noticing my symptoms flare up all across the board.

I'm talking about headaches, stomach aches, blurred vision, my right arm going completely dead numb, and a lot of tingling. I wasn't sure if it was related, but like constipation versus diarrhea, irregular heartbeats, arrhythmia, fevers, and stiffness in my muscles. I felt like a hundred-year-old person. I was a runner; I coached cross country for nine years at the grade school during this time. I walked or ran five miles every single day; I was a healthy person. There are so many more symptoms, but blacking out was the other one. I would get dizzy and blackout a lot, very lightheaded.

But anyway, long and short of that, it took me going to another doctor and another doctor, then started seeing specialists. Finally got in front of the right neurologist and a functional medicine doctor who put it all together. They're like, "You've been living in fight-or-flight mode for a long time, four decades. That's releasing a lot of cortisol and we think, because you're having autoimmune issues, you're having all this other stuff." I was also very short of breath, I felt like I had a sore throat for like three years straight, and I couldn't figure that out either. They ended up having me tested by the Mayo Clinic.

Mayo Clinic had a cortisol test, testing me at five different times of the day around the 24-hour clock. Your levels should be somewhere between 100 and 6 or 700, depending on the time of day, including when you're sleeping. I did have to wake up in the middle of the night to do one of these swaps for the test. Mayo Clinic came back and said, "We must have compromised this test because there's no way that the results are this high. They are astronomically high." So they had me retest, and the results were high again.

Your levels should be between 1 and 6 or 700. Mine were consistently around 2,500 and higher, 24/7, even when I was sleeping. Cortisol is a stress hormone; it's a sister hormone to adrenaline. It's not like when you get in that fight or when you're afraid. That gives you an idea of the level of fear that I was living in. My body had decided that it must be fighting something, like cancer or something. It was depleting my white blood cells, which is why I was having all these autoimmune issues. Eventually, I was diagnosed with Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome [UARS], classified as a sleep disorder and a lung disease. The neurologist said it's like having COPD and fibromyalgia all at the same time because I had tons of fibromyalgia symptoms. They even tested me for MS. I want people to understand the level of what my body was going through.

And it was from stress?

Yes

 Have you connected the infertility and the miscarriages to your cortisol issue? I experienced this as well.

Yes, I had no idea because I had a few miscarriages before my son, and actually, we had a few after, and I never knew. That was something that we did discover. They said it's very common for people with autoimmune issues to have infertility issues as well. So yes, they related that to the cortisol, which I feel like, I mean, forgive me for saying it, but sometimes I feel like nature knows better. Maybe that's nature's way of saying it, saying this is not a situation you want to bring a child into. We're making that decision for you, but I did, and you know, it turned out okay for my son. Thank God as okay as it can be. I think he's still affected in ways that he won't talk about, but yes, I wholeheartedly need people to understand that, even if it's just the verbal abuse, the verbal abuse is enough to affect you to the point that it feels stressful enough for your body to react. It doesn't matter that it's only words. It doesn't. The words hurt more than the physical. I hate to say it, but that’s from my experience; other people can disagree, but it's awful.

It still affects every aspect of who you are. It doesn't matter if there's not a bruise. It doesn't matter if you don't need stitches. It doesn't matter if there were no broken bones. It still affects every part of who you are as an individual. But unfortunately, the world doesn't understand that because the world wants to see your black eyes. Even bruises on your leg or your arm aren't effective enough. They want to see you beaten to a pulp and hospitalized before they will believe you and take your story seriously. They don't understand the internal effects of abuse. And that is, I think what angers me most about all of this, and my mission is to create this awareness that something has got to change, and I don't have the answers.

I'm not a legal professional or in any capacity part of the judicial system. But the fact that these people can walk around freely after what they have done, there has to be a way to make them pay some consequences for what they did. Words can kill people. You can kill somebody without putting your hands on them. And we need to do something different about this. But in the meantime, I just hope, as idealistic as it sounds, that people will stop and think before they speak and stop, you know, think about how they're treating other people and see that they can have a very real impact on somebody’s mental state because you don't know what that person is going through.

People even still today say, "Oh, but you don't look sick." Oh, well, this is makeup. This is a curling iron and makeup. Yes, I do this now because when I didn't, when I walked around, like I usually did, hair up in a ponytail, and no makeup, people would tell me how pale I looked and how sick I looked. "You look like you’ve been hit, but you've been hit by a truck."

So now I do this, and people say, "Well, you don't look sick." I'm remarried; I’ve had somebody call my husband and say, "Do you believe her?" Because part of that illness, when I took it seriously, I had dropped 15 pounds in two weeks for no reason, but it came immediately after an awful event with my ex, and that's when I knew something was wrong with me.

I was 93 pounds. I was skeletal. I'm good now, but yes, I still struggle with stuff. As you can even hear my voice is raspy. That's my airway; I get low on oxygen. I have an oxygen machine that thank God I don't use anywhere near what I used to, but this is something that I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life. You know, you can't just let it go and that's the other aspect of any mental health that comes from abuse, and trauma. I hate when people say that, just let it go, get past it. I don't just move. I always picture Hercules with the weight of the world on him.

You think I don't want to put that down and be free and just skip and jump rope and sunshine and rainbows? I would love that, but it's not realistic because other people have put the burden on me and now I have to deal with it. I hope that those of us who have been through it need to be ready to take on healing because it's not easy. It's not for the faint of heart. No, healing, I think, is almost worse than the original trauma because the original trauma, even if you were like me, if you experienced it over a long term or any, you know, you do become hypervigilant and you know the signs, you know when it's coming, but you still don't know when it happens; it's involuntary and expected in some aspect.

But when you are healing, you are literally walking straight into it because you have to face it head-on and look it dead in the eyes and say, "I know who you are," and I'm getting chills, "I know what you've done to me and now we're going to deal with this and you're not going to control me." But it's scary and awful. I think people have this idea that you're just going to go to sleep, wake up one day and like a magic wand, you're just suddenly healed. Like the skies open up, and the sunshine and, you know, your hair is blowing in the wind and everything's just perfect.

It's awful, you are dealing with it, you're ruminating about all the things that you're learning about yourself and remembering things and all those triggers are coming back, but you're trying to subdue them because you have to go to work and you want to seem normal to your kid and have a little class party at your kid's school and all these things. So, not to mention, if you are with somebody, any partner or spouse or your children, your coworkers, neighbour, I mean, anybody you come across, your family, your friends, and they're going through that healing journey with you, whether they know it or not, you have decided to heal, but it is affecting you to the point where it is affecting your behaviour. It's affecting your thoughts.

It affected me some days…my functionality and there were times when I would have a depressive episode. Like, I know I need to get out of bed, but like, nobody needs me right now, or at least for a few hours. And I read somewhere that depression means that your body needs deep rest. And I think that's why. People who are depressed or going through some healing trauma and all that we do. Sometimes we just need to rest our minds because it's a lot, it's a lot, but I think if you can make some sense of where you were and, and where you are now and how it happened and what happened and how you feel and just really acknowledge and validate yourself, which I think is important and respect yourself enough to know how you're going to change things going forward.

Then, you know, it will always still be there, but you'll be better, you know, and you'll have in a way resolved it so that it doesn't affect you. Like it did before you were on this healing journey. Maybe you can add to that. It's very much like walking into a dark closet where a big scary monster is living and confronting that monster head-on. But you don't know where it is and you're reaching out and you're feeling things that are familiar and that you don't want to, but I always tell people it's kind of like sticking your whole arm into a lion's mouth, that thing's going to bite you and you know, it's going to hurt bad, it's going to tear your arm off, but you have to do it. That's what it was like for me writing my book because I was not healed.

I was just starting. It was at the beginning of when I was safe. But my book came from a journal that I kept, and it wasn't even a real journal. Like, we all have our kids come home from school at the end of the school year with notebooks that are half full, and it was so cheap that I would tear out the used pages and keep the remaining unused pages for whatever. You never know if you need scrap paper or whatever. But I had taken one of those because I thought it was an inconspicuous way for me to keep a record because I kept getting told that this didn't happen, I never said that you're crazy.

I started keeping in one of these used notebooks, the date, the time, what he said, what he did, whatever, just a summary. And I hid it under my basement couch cushion. When we went into the shelter place during COVID, I took it out because honestly, I was scared at that point. I mean, I was done. I had talked to an attorney, but now we're in a shelter in a place and I'm locked in this house with this guy. And he was violent. He was an alcoholic, even though I'd never say that he was abusive. So, I was worried and I thought there needed to be a record of things in case something happened to me. But then I started typing out the stories from my journal, you know, elaborating. It made me feel better. I'm not crazy, I'm not seeing this. In any weird way, like he made me feel delusional. Like I was psychotic and I'm self-aware enough. I want to know if I need that kind of help. If I am not seeing my reality the way it is.

I need to know this is the responsible thing to do. But as I'm writing this all out, I realized, I mean, people can argue with me about religious beliefs, but I am a Christian and I just had this. Just feel like people say when God speaks to them, I don't know if that's what it was, but I just suddenly had this thought out of nowhere. "You have a degree in journalism; you know how to write. You're doing these elaborate stories. You need to put this out there. You need to write this book and make sure other people know that they're not alone because I thought I was so isolated—narcissist thing."

Didn't they isolate you? I didn't see any of my family or friends.

Yes, most of them had given up even trying to have a relationship with me. I thought it was important to share the story, but, you know, it adds a whole level. I didn't want to involve my son too much in the story, but that is a huge part. When you're a mother, your instinct is to protect your child from all this harm. And here I had a child inserting him into a situation that only got worse. Because he was inclined to me and we had developed very early on this. He must have been probably five, six, seven years old around that time when he would start giving me looks like…without having to say anything, he could give me a look across the room like I know to tread lightly, like dad's in a mood right now, we had this like unspoken nonverbal communication and we would protect each other or text each other as he got older, he'd be like, just be where it's going to be one of those nights.

That was one of our codes or we're in for it tonight. It's one of those nights. So, you know, it was a rough patch, but again, I just want people to understand that healing is really important when you're ready because you're not always ready and you're not always in the best position, but when you feel like you're ready and you can take it on, do it however you can.

Traditional therapy did not work for me with my lung issues and that's a whole thing, but like, Back to writing the book, and keeping the journal. I tell people that writing is better for you, and that's also good for people who don't have the insurance or the financial resources available to be able to pay for help, writing it out.

You would be surprised how much I learned about my ex and myself and our relationship by going back and re-reading it or having to delve into like, you know, my publisher would ask me questions after reading things and say, but what about this? And, you know, can you tell me more, but elaborate more on this and that going deep into some of these situations made me see things a whole different way and that was a huge part of the healing process, but, um, we all have our differences, everybody's got something they're going through, but I just think it's really important that if people can and are willing to delve into their past, you certainly can have a beautiful life. You don't have to be a victim of your past or a victim of what people have done to you.

You can get to a point where you're living a good life, your best life, as they say. Yeah, just going back really quickly to journaling. If you grew up in a situation where it wasn't safe for you to vocalize how you were feeling. If you've dealt with a lot of gaslighting or a lot of people making you second guess your experience, or your feelings, or your thoughts, or whatever. Journaling, for me, has been immensely healing because when I put that pen to paper, and I write, things come out, that I could never in a million years say out loud. And I think the important thing, and this is what I advise people to do.

I have had people approach me asking more about that. You know, and I do want to say, I am not a therapist, a doctor, whatever. I only have lifelong experience as a victim and what has worked for me. But when you write, if you are going to take on the journaling, I think it's important not to monitor yourself because then you can get to where you, like you said, where everything just doesn't even stop, even if it's babbling and it makes no sense.

So many people, when they start writing, they are thinking, and I say, don't think just write so no judgmental thought comes out. Just write it down because it's okay. It's okay to feel how you feel. And that's what people I think are responding to so well with my book because I am saying things in my book that are uncomfortable.

I am admitting thoughts that I don't feel comfortable having, but you know what? That's part of living this life, you're going to think things that aren't polite, and you're going to feel things that you wish you didn't feel, but if you don't get it out and validate your feelings and release those feelings, you're just going to suffer inside.

It's important and I also want to make a point. I appreciate you saying that when you're in an abusive situation where you can't speak up, which in my childhood, was the big thing because I was one of these, I was always very strong-willed as a little girl.

I'd stand up for myself, but I would pay the consequences. So I learned to shut my mouth. I did write back then, I loved writing but music was huge for me because I couldn't get in trouble for singing a song that I'd heard on the radio or that I'd heard, you know, on the record player I'm from that era, so there were songs that just resonated with me that hit my soul.

I felt like somebody somewhere understood, or maybe it was just the melody matched my melancholy or whatever it was. In my book, that's one thing I had to explain in the forward, I guess, all my chapter titles or song titles, because I played this little game as a little girl that I would associate certain songs with certain people or certain situations that happens and I mean still to this day I can hear a song and just be like, that's it right there. Like this moment with this person, if I could express it in this way, that's how I would express it. So even if you're not a writer, you have no interest in writing, listening to music and not just the popular stuff or whatever, like expose yourself to different types because you'd be surprised what you will find in those lyrics, it's amazing, but there are ways that you can find that validation that you need, even if you can't express it yourself.

So what has been your biggest takeaway from your healing journey?

I think well that's a loaded question. It is. The biggest takeaway is just something I've only recently learned, I've said it a million times - validating myself.

I struggled my whole childhood for approval from my mom and approval from her husband and nothing I ever did was good enough.

And even now that I'm in my latter forties, there are still times that come up and I can't even like, acknowledge my accomplishments, sometimes like how far I've come and big things. I mean, I've published a book I should be thrilled and excited and screaming from the rooftops and we go.

Well, you know anybody can do that. I think that I've learned in the sense I've been healing to validate myself and to say it's okay. It's okay for me to love myself enough to say no to somebody. I don't have to People-Please. I don't, people who love me will understand and respect that I have boundaries and it's okay to have those boundaries.

It's okay to put myself first, It's not conceited. I can love myself without being conceited and by still considering other people and doing for other people. That's something that I never really understood or was able to enforce comfortably. So that's what I would say. I mean, that's a lot.

That's kind of like self-love, self-respect boundaries, and validation. You do have to find that within yourself to get to a place where you're okay going into the world. Like, you know what? So I don't have a mother. That sucks, but I'm okay. I have other people who love me and they're not obligated to and yes, I felt like an orphan my whole life and I was very alone and nobody understood me, but my goodness, since I've been speaking out about abuse, it's amazing how many people understand me and get me and have been there and there's other ways to find validation.

We just have to find it within ourselves first and then we will attract everything else. Amen.

Where can our audience connect with you further if they would like to?

I would say start with my website, https://danasdiaz.com/. There, you can find the link to buy my book. You can also find all the other podcasts that I've been on including this one, when it's released on my press page.

There's also a quiz on there to see if you are potentially being a victim or were a victim of narcissistic abuse.

I'm also on Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK, and I do always encourage people to reach out. I love hearing happy stories and I've had people reach out with not-so-happy stories but if I can provide encouragement or even just send you a heart or a hug, I'm more than happy to do that.