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It’s Okay To Need People with Alisa Zipursky · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist podcast. Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
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Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Theverist podcast
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Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers Podcast,
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Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson, and my
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Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. You ready
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Speaker 1: for ready, all right, let's do it? All right? So five, four, three,
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Speaker 1: two and one are folks. Welcome back, super excited to
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Speaker 1: have back. Alisa Siperski.
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Speaker 2: Alisa, welcome back, Thank you, thrilled to be back with you.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. So. Lisa is a storyteller, writer, facilitator, and childhood
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Speaker 1: sexual abuse survivor, also an author. Her work focuses on
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Speaker 1: offering emotional support to other young survivors healing from sexual
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Speaker 1: trauma at Lisa's book recently out is titled Healing Honestly,
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Speaker 1: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming self blame and
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Speaker 1: self shame. Your website, Alisa, I just want to point
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Speaker 1: out which is healing honestly dot com is I love it.
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Speaker 1: And there's one point. There's one part I was just
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Speaker 1: looking over and it says, oh, I kind't even know
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Speaker 1: if I can find it now, but it says, uh,
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Speaker 1: something about healing.
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Speaker 2: Oh.
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Speaker 1: I think it's in your in your about section where
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Speaker 1: you have something about you talk about yourself and you
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Speaker 1: say the story of your experience is more funny than
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Speaker 1: you will.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I own that. I always say it's funnier
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Speaker 2: than you think.
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Speaker 1: God, yeah, people are.
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Speaker 2: Always I always feel like I have to put that
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Speaker 2: out there. And even with the book, I'm like, it's
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Speaker 2: funnier than you think. I have to tell you. Like,
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Speaker 2: the publishing world did not know how to respond to
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Speaker 2: us directing them to like sell and talk about this
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Speaker 2: book as being funny, and they're like, how can a
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Speaker 2: book that's helping you know, people healing them childlood sexual
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Speaker 2: abuse be funny? I can't say that in a meeting
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Speaker 2: with you know, Amazon executives, and we're like, you sure,
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Speaker 2: and shit can and you better.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 2: Humor is a critical part of my healing process and
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Speaker 2: of so many other people's too.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well we're going to get into the
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Speaker 1: book But before we get into all of that, reminder listeners,
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Speaker 1: or tell our listeners where you're from originally and where
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Speaker 1: you are currently.
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Speaker 2: So I'm originally from Washington, DC, and in the past
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Speaker 2: year was sort of a banner year for me. The
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Speaker 2: book came out, I got pregnant, and then moved across
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Speaker 2: the country with my dog and my husband at twenty
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Speaker 2: weeks pregnant. Too beautiful, amazing California. I'm in San Jose,
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Speaker 2: uh sitting outside my uh my window, here is a
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Speaker 2: fig tree where I get to watch the high drama
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Speaker 2: of the squirrels and the birds fight for the best figs.
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Speaker 2: So I'm still in very much like romantic honeymoon in
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Speaker 2: love with California.
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean I for me, it lasted a long time,
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Speaker 1: so hopefully it will for you too. It's it's amazing place.
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Speaker 1: So you know this, you're uh, I guess the value
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Speaker 1: that humor holds for you. You know, when you put
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Speaker 1: humor and drama or human humor and abuse in the
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Speaker 1: same sentence, I think a lot of people might not
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Speaker 1: know what to do with that, But you wear that,
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Speaker 1: you honor that, and it shows up a lot in
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Speaker 1: what you do, and certainly even your website and throughout
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Speaker 1: your book too. How did all this start for you?
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Speaker 1: Give us, I hate to use the word thumbnail, but
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Speaker 1: give us a glimpse of how all this began for you?
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Speaker 2: How all this began for me was almost ten years ago,
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Speaker 2: being twenty seven years old, really processing my childhood sexual
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Speaker 2: abuse in a way that I had been for several
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Speaker 2: years in adulthood. But at twenty seven.
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Speaker 1: I really.
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Speaker 2: Was ready to stop in my feelings, feeling like people
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Speaker 2: were sort of forcing me to hide this part of myself,
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Speaker 2: and I wanted to just be all of me, and
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Speaker 2: all of me meant being funny and being ambitious and
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Speaker 2: wanting to have a good time with my friends and
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Speaker 2: being really into my boyfriend, and also not wanting to
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Speaker 2: hide that the trauma that I experienced to know faut
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Speaker 2: of my own was still impacting every aspect of my being.
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Speaker 2: And so I felt really alone in that I felt
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Speaker 2: like what was out there was either written in a
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Speaker 2: clinical aspect or written in like a memoir, and I
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Speaker 2: felt so isolated because memoir for me felt really re traumatizing,
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Speaker 2: and the clinical stuff just sort of made me feel heaviness,
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Speaker 2: like there was something like fundamentally wrong with me.
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Speaker 1: And when you say clinical stuff, you refer to like
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Speaker 1: popular psychological books on trauma.
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Speaker 2: Okay, books written by therapists, even like websites just being
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Speaker 2: like here's what to expect when you're living with PTSD
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Speaker 2: or you know, and it's like photos of like veterans
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Speaker 2: and like, which is understandable but not at all reflective
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Speaker 2: of my experience. Books written by doctors, you know, for
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Speaker 2: certainly reading The Body Keeps the Score, these really popular
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Speaker 2: readings that offer something in a clinical perspective, but that
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Speaker 2: actually doesn't for me connect me to my humanity. And
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Speaker 2: I wanted to feel like a whole human being. And
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Speaker 2: I assumed and hope that there were other people out
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Speaker 2: there that felt the same way, who had been through
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Speaker 2: what I had been through, And so I launched my
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Speaker 2: website in this hope and a prayer that there were
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Speaker 2: other young people out there who were all of these things,
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Speaker 2: who thought, you know, just of perks and recreation was
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Speaker 2: funny and you know, references to golden girls, and also
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Speaker 2: needed to support dealing with the complex nature of like
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Speaker 2: the way trauma impacts memory and things like that. And
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Speaker 2: it really took off from there. Healing honestly, as a
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Speaker 2: website has sat over half a million readership, which is amazing,
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Speaker 2: and evolved into healing our to lead the book, and
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Speaker 2: you know, lots of works, you know, doing speaking and
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Speaker 2: engagements both on college campuses and with advocacy organizations and
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Speaker 2: working with therapists, and you know, really, for me, I
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Speaker 2: am obsessed not with the what happened, but with the
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Speaker 2: what now? Like what do we do now? And how
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Speaker 2: do we find ways to live full and vibrant lives
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Speaker 2: that we so richly deserve.
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Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot there work, you're working with a therapist,
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Speaker 1: working on college campuses and so forth. But what did
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Speaker 1: you want to say? First of all, did you feel
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Speaker 1: you know, you're saying something really important in that, and
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Speaker 1: a lot of people I talked to you come at
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Speaker 1: this from a very unique perspective. You do. Not everyone's
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Speaker 1: coming with humor in the conversation, let alone at maybe
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Speaker 1: even at the front of it, honoring that you know,
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Speaker 1: but you're saying I wanted to be who I was.
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Speaker 1: Did you was when you were I'm assuming at some
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Speaker 1: point you did read those books, those books maybe that.
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Speaker 2: Oh, I've read a lot of us, And what is.
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Speaker 1: The feeling are you when you're reading these maybe you're
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Speaker 1: getting some information, but are you not seeing yourself in it?
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Speaker 1: Are you feeling.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely it felt. There's a mix of things.
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Speaker 2: I think in memoir that's written by other survivors, I
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Speaker 2: think for me, what I felt is this feeling of
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Speaker 2: in reading somebody else's experience, the bias in my mind
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Speaker 2: due to rape culture and the way that survivors are
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Speaker 2: treated in this world by the people around them and
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Speaker 2: society writ large, was that like, what happened to me
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Speaker 2: doesn't count and isn't real. So I would read other
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Speaker 2: survivors' experiences and be like, oh that trauma, that's real,
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Speaker 2: capital t trauma, what happened to me, And then I
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Speaker 2: would find a way to minimize my own pain because
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Speaker 2: that's what had been done to me by the people
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Speaker 2: around me, by the world at large, you know, at nauseum,
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Speaker 2: and so I couldn't even take in the sense of connectedness,
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Speaker 2: you know that you would I deally get from reading
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Speaker 2: a memoir, because all I could feel was my own
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Speaker 2: internalized minimization of what I had been through. And that's
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Speaker 2: why the first chapter in my book is called you
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Speaker 2: know It's surrounding the debunking this myth that there's some
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Speaker 2: quote unquote real survivor out there, and for X y
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Speaker 2: Z reason, I'm.
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Speaker 3: Not it because I know what it's like to pick
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Speaker 3: up these books that are probably filled with a lot
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Speaker 3: of really helpful stuff, but you can't even get to
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Speaker 3: that useful stuff because you're so you've been programmed by
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Speaker 3: everyone around you to think like, oh.
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Speaker 2: No, that person who's writing that their shit is real,
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Speaker 2: but mine doesn't count and isn't as real as there is,
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Speaker 2: And so that sort of seeks The memoir and then
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Speaker 2: the the you know stuff written by you know, psychiatrists
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Speaker 2: and doctors and things like that kind of just made
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Speaker 2: me feel like I was like a traumatized labrat, like
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Speaker 2: I don't need to read about the health outcomes that
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Speaker 2: I am likely, you know, you subjected to you because
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Speaker 2: of something that happened to me as a child that
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Speaker 2: I had no control over that wasn't my fault, you
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Speaker 2: know it. On one hand, it's like I need to
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Speaker 2: know some of that because I need to be able
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Speaker 2: to educate my doctors and advocate for myself to say like, hey,
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Speaker 2: I am much more likely to have you know, risks
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Speaker 2: of cancer and risks of heart disease and this, that
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Speaker 2: and the other because of my trauma. And at the
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Speaker 2: same time, a lot of it makes me feel like
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Speaker 2: I'm doomed. But I don't want to feel like that either,
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Speaker 2: you know. And so I think, you know, there's a
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Speaker 2: real mix and not say, you know, like you know,
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Speaker 2: really call people in on this work, but you know,
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Speaker 2: I think we can all be honest here. The most
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Speaker 2: impactful book written about trauma that you know has been
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Speaker 2: on the bestseller list for literally years is Bussell vander
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Speaker 2: Kulk's The Body Keeps the Score. And for many, many survivors,
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Speaker 2: we cannot even get through the introduction because it opens
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Speaker 2: with a story about a man in Vietnam who sexually
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Speaker 2: assaults a Vietnamese woman and then murders a man. And
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Speaker 2: we are supposed to identify with the American soldier, not
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Speaker 2: with the woman who was sexually assaulted or the man
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Speaker 2: who is murdered. And it opens with this casual reference
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Speaker 2: of sexual violence. And you know, to me, I'm like, Okay, well,
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Speaker 2: maybe this book wasn't written for us, right, you know,
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Speaker 2: And maybe it was survivors like like me, you know,
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Speaker 2: we weren't supposed to find ourselves in these books. That's
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Speaker 2: not what they were written for.
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Speaker 1: So at what point did you say I want or
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Speaker 1: I need to write my own book.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't my idea. It was my editor and
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Speaker 2: my agent are both open about this. They are both survivors,
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Speaker 2: and they both came to my work through my website
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Speaker 2: for personal reasons and saw the work and saw that
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Speaker 2: there is so little out there for us, and each
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Speaker 2: independently approached me about working together on this book. And we,
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Speaker 2: the three of us, became this little powerhouse triangle of
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Speaker 2: survivorship and support and badassory, and together we did this.
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Speaker 2: You know, when you're writing a book proposal, one of
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Speaker 2: the key complients of any book proposal is you write
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Speaker 2: a list of comparable titles. So you're writing what is
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Speaker 2: out there and what is out there for this audience,
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Speaker 2: and what's out there for this audience from you know,
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Speaker 2: this general perspective. And it was like so minimal a
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Speaker 2: self help book for childhood, sexual abuse or virus store,
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Speaker 2: which there are millions of us, that was not written
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Speaker 2: by a doctor or therapist.
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Speaker 1: And you know, what did you want to do differently?
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Speaker 2: I wanted it to feel like a conversation between friends,
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Speaker 2: and I wanted it to feel like, Okay, I know
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Speaker 2: this shit is so scary. I know for those of
13:46
Speaker 2: us who have been on our healing journeys, we usually
13:48
Speaker 2: have a stack of books that we have read like
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Speaker 2: a couple of pages of and then put down, or
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Speaker 2: like just for whatever reason cannot bring ourselves to read.
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Speaker 2: And I wanted to say, I no, diving into this
14:01
Speaker 2: stuff is hard, and I want to make it as
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Speaker 2: approachable and accessible and unscarable and not so damn scary
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Speaker 2: to be able to get the support we all deserve.
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Speaker 2: And so you know the cover of my book is
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Speaker 2: like vibrant and orange and beautiful and welcoming, because I
14:19
Speaker 2: wanted it to be like, even if it sits on
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Speaker 2: your night stand for a year, let it look fucking gorgeous.
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Speaker 2: So let it be a vibe. And I wanted it
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Speaker 2: to use real language language we use with our friends, cursing, jokes, talking,
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Speaker 2: because we should be able to use the language that
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Speaker 2: we used to talk about any other aspect of our lives,
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Speaker 2: to talk about our trauma and to talk about healing,
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Speaker 2: and because that's to me, in my opinion, how we
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Speaker 2: become integrated. So it's not this like dark scary thing
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Speaker 2: that lives all the way over here. It's all you know,
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Speaker 2: we get to be a whole ass person in our healing,
14:56
Speaker 2: and so I wanted it to feel like a friend
14:58
Speaker 2: who felt approached and conversational. And that is honestly, what
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Speaker 2: I hear from so many therapists who recommend this book
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Speaker 2: to their clients and their patients is they're like, you know,
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Speaker 2: I can say this stuff as a therapist until I
15:11
Speaker 2: am blue in the face, but until they hear it
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Speaker 2: from another survivor, it hits differently. And so this book
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Speaker 2: is not to replace therapy, to replace therapy and medalities,
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Speaker 2: not to be a substitute, but in addition, because there
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Speaker 2: is something that can come from hearing from other people
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Speaker 2: who are like, I see you, I have these same
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Speaker 2: scary ass voices in my head, and you are not alone,
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Speaker 2: and we can figure this out together.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing since the book has come out and it
15:49
Speaker 1: has been out what a year?
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Speaker 2: A year now? Yeah, like almost exactly.
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Speaker 1: Okay, what's it been like for you? What have you
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Speaker 1: heard from readers? What has been your experience?
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Speaker 2: Well, it's been really beautiful to hear from people. I
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Speaker 2: think the thing that I didn't expect. That has been
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Speaker 2: really overwhelming is not just hearing from people who have
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Speaker 2: read the book themselves, but all the people who gift
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Speaker 2: it to each other. So somebody reaching out to me
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Speaker 2: being like my bestie, you know meb I was struggling
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Speaker 2: and gave me this book. My therapist recommended this book.
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Speaker 2: My sibling is also reading this book, so now we
16:33
Speaker 2: can talk together and understand each other. For me, what
16:36
Speaker 2: has been so beautiful and exciting and emotional is to
16:40
Speaker 2: see that this book has afforded people sort of like
16:44
Speaker 2: a shared language, a shared approach, so that you know,
16:48
Speaker 2: ean if you're struggling within like your family unit, your
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Speaker 2: chosen you know, like your friendships, your relationships, your partners,
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Speaker 2: somebody else can read this book and be like I
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Speaker 2: get you now, like get I get what you've been
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Speaker 2: trying to communicate to me. So for me, it's been
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Speaker 2: really beautiful to see it used as this tool to
17:05
Speaker 2: have deeper conversations because and that's like so beautiful to me,
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Speaker 2: because you know, this book is obsessed with the relationship,
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Speaker 2: it's obsessed with your friends. You know, there's whole chapter
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Speaker 2: on friendships, there's a whole chapter on dating, there's a
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Speaker 2: whole chapter on sex, there's a whole chapter on family.
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Speaker 2: Like being in relationship, in my opinion, is like what
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Speaker 2: makes us feel alive, you know, and it's like what
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Speaker 2: life is about. And so hearing that this book is
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Speaker 2: a tool to help people be in relationship with each
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Speaker 2: other is like really profoundly moving to me.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting to hear you talk about this, Elisa.
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Speaker 1: I'm wondering if there was a distance, there was a
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Speaker 1: kind of a chasm, or there was a distance that
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Speaker 1: you had to cross to to this point because when
18:02
Speaker 1: you first were or when you were and I'm sure
18:05
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, you're still dealing yeah, of course,
18:10
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, working with that and dealing with the
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Speaker 1: trauma and how you were moving through life. Were you
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Speaker 1: similarly as in touch with yourself, with your humor, with
18:25
Speaker 1: your love of relationship or was that something that you
18:28
Speaker 1: needed to find again and now that you found that, okay,
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Speaker 1: I can write about that and share that importance of that.
18:36
Speaker 2: I think I've always been obsessed with feelings. I was
18:38
Speaker 2: like the kid, you know, in third grade on the
18:40
Speaker 2: playground being told I should be a therapist. I was
18:43
Speaker 2: always obsessed with feelings and always obsessed with hearing people's
18:46
Speaker 2: stories and being in relationship to people. But I think
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Speaker 2: what changed for me was the compartmentalization. And I used
18:54
Speaker 2: to just put the whole ass part of myself just
18:57
Speaker 2: on the shelf. And I was like, this is too
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Speaker 2: dark and scary to share with people. This is too
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Speaker 2: dark and scary. I isolated a lot in earlier stages
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Speaker 2: of my life. I desperately needed people and didn't know
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Speaker 2: how to need them, and didn't know it was okay
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Speaker 2: to need people, and didn't know how to navigate conflict
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Speaker 2: and boundaries. And and so I think for me, like
19:23
Speaker 2: what has changed is like a A is addressing my
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Speaker 2: own internalized shame and learning how to just show up
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Speaker 2: and be honest with people.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 2: In the in the back of the book, I shout
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Speaker 2: out my bestie Sarah and and and say, you know,
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Speaker 2: thank you for letting me show up at your house
19:38
Speaker 2: crying all the time, you know, And I was like,
19:41
Speaker 2: we didn't have to talk about it. You know, old me,
19:44
Speaker 2: if I was, you know, going through a difficult trigger
19:47
Speaker 2: would have isolated and shut down or maybe sought help
19:51
Speaker 2: in a way that wasn't healthy, like mashed out at
19:54
Speaker 2: somebody for not reading my mind and knowing what I needed.
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Speaker 2: And and now I'm like, you know, I text my
20:01
Speaker 2: bestie and I'm like, I am a fucking disaster. I'm
20:04
Speaker 2: going through a trigger. She knows what that means now,
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Speaker 2: And I was like, can I just come sit on
20:09
Speaker 2: your couch so I'm not alone? And I got out
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Speaker 2: of the house and she's like, yeah, sure, and I
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Speaker 2: can show up and be a wreck and be loved
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Speaker 2: and be seen and also like acknowledge that whatever her
20:19
Speaker 2: needs might be in that moment too, you know. And
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Speaker 2: so I think like that has definitely shifted in time
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Speaker 2: of like I don't have to be ashamed of what
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Speaker 2: I'm going through. I don't have to hide, and in fact,
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Speaker 2: when I'm more honest about those things, it actually I
20:35
Speaker 2: think it helps my friends and the people around me.
20:38
Speaker 2: I try to model that kind of honesty because I
20:43
Speaker 2: think it then helps I've noticed over many years like
20:47
Speaker 2: then when she hits the fan for them, they can
20:50
Speaker 2: use that kind of language to reach out and be
20:53
Speaker 2: connected even though they're struggling.
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Speaker 1: You mentioned your best tee, Sarah. There are other people
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Speaker 1: or resources that you had with their therapists who helped you.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I had three amazing therapists throughout
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Speaker 2: the time this book was written. And now I have
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Speaker 2: a new one who's also amazing, and she's the first
21:13
Speaker 2: one since I moved to California. She's the first therapist
21:15
Speaker 2: I've ever had who's like explicitly the trauma therapist and
21:18
Speaker 2: it is Dova's hell. And I've never had to explain
21:20
Speaker 2: myself less. It's amazing. Shout out Amy and and so now,
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Speaker 2: so this is now my fourth therapist I've worked really
21:31
Speaker 2: meaningfully with. So I've always had incredible therapists. My best
21:35
Speaker 2: friend Kate, and I'm lucky to call a lot of
21:38
Speaker 2: people my besties. She I call her my professional bestie.
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Speaker 2: She worked in sexual violence field, starting when she was
21:47
Speaker 2: in high school and then in college, and then it
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Speaker 2: has been uh now with the organization Futures Without Violence,
21:54
Speaker 2: doing anti violence work and violence prevention work for over
21:58
Speaker 2: a decade. And so she was really critical in my
22:05
Speaker 2: early stages of accessing my trauma because she knew and
22:09
Speaker 2: understood what was happening to me when I didn't understand.
22:12
Speaker 2: So she could say things like, it's totally normal to
22:14
Speaker 2: feel guilty, it's totally normal to feel like this shame
22:19
Speaker 2: and it's not your fault and just because you feel
22:21
Speaker 2: that way doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. And you know,
22:24
Speaker 2: like it's normal to not remember things. And she was
22:28
Speaker 2: able to again like that in the most extraordinary way,
22:32
Speaker 2: like have that clinical, like a literal expertise to be
22:36
Speaker 2: able to show up for me. And she'll tell you,
22:39
Speaker 2: she's like, yeah, I had all this training, but showing
22:41
Speaker 2: up for her a friend like that is different, you
22:43
Speaker 2: know when you love somebody like that. But she became
22:46
Speaker 2: really a huge inspiration for healing, honestly, because I was like,
22:49
Speaker 2: how many other people have a best friend who has
22:52
Speaker 2: had decades of trauma informed work supporting survivors. So she
23:00
Speaker 2: has been a real north start for me of like,
23:02
Speaker 2: how can I be somebody else's Kate.
23:05
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the work you've done with in colleges.
23:12
Speaker 1: What is that like?
23:14
Speaker 2: So a lot of the work I've done in universities
23:19
Speaker 2: is really to support I always say that support survivors
23:21
Speaker 2: and people who love us on campus, that there's actually
23:25
Speaker 2: also a lot of attention, not enough, but a fair
23:29
Speaker 2: amount of attention paid towards sexual violence and harm that
23:32
Speaker 2: happens while you're on campus, and it's a really yes,
23:37
Speaker 2: and because yes, that matters, And we're really missing the
23:40
Speaker 2: boat because so many students are showing up with sexual
23:44
Speaker 2: violence already in their lives right, we know anywhere from
23:47
Speaker 2: one and four girls and one and six boys or
23:49
Speaker 2: before their eighteenthirthday or experiencing sexual violence. So for us
23:54
Speaker 2: to really be centering campus based violence and not paying
24:00
Speaker 2: attention to childhood based traumas is really us not meeting
24:04
Speaker 2: people at some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
24:08
Speaker 2: And so a lot of the work I do on
24:10
Speaker 2: campus is integrating, that is making connections between things we
24:14
Speaker 2: might have experienced in childhood and thinks we might be
24:16
Speaker 2: experiencing now in young adulthood, and helping people feel less
24:22
Speaker 2: alone and less stigmatized by what they've been through. And
24:25
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, you know, I work with adults, I
24:27
Speaker 2: work with people in their sixties. I work with people
24:29
Speaker 2: who are eighteen years old and just showing up on campus,
24:32
Speaker 2: and everybody is more or less worried about the same thing,
24:35
Speaker 2: which is am I crazy? I feel all this guilt,
24:41
Speaker 2: you know, and I don't know what to do with it.
24:43
Speaker 2: And that's you know, working through the shame, and I
24:46
Speaker 2: really want meaningful relationships and I don't know how to
24:49
Speaker 2: do it. While I'm going through this, you know, somebody
24:53
Speaker 2: who is you know, established in their lives is very
24:57
Speaker 2: concerned about having meaningful relationship. Somebody who is really young
25:01
Speaker 2: in their lives is also really concerned with having meaningful relationships.
25:06
Speaker 2: And so you know, it's really connecting people where they
25:11
Speaker 2: are and being like, Okay, you're eighteen years old. I
25:13
Speaker 2: wish somebody told me when I was eighteen years old,
25:15
Speaker 2: how did to have a gig conflict, how to like
25:17
Speaker 2: talk about having boundaries, how to in real time, like
25:20
Speaker 2: real talk, real examples, talk about what it's like to
25:23
Speaker 2: reach out for help. You know, this next generation they're
25:26
Speaker 2: fucking amazing, Like they are. They have like all the language,
25:31
Speaker 2: they have so much more of a deeper understanding of
25:34
Speaker 2: mental health, of like healthy relationships. They're so fucking cool,
25:38
Speaker 2: and being on campus is amazing with them and like
25:41
Speaker 2: always deeply humbling, and also they complement my outfits. And
25:46
Speaker 2: then I linke dine on on that for like six months.
25:50
Speaker 1: Talking with Elsa Zabirsky. The book is called Healing Honestly
25:54
Speaker 1: the messy and magnificent past, overcoming self blame and self
25:59
Speaker 1: shame imagining. Just writing the book in and of itself
26:03
Speaker 1: was a process and a journey. Bits stories you want
26:09
Speaker 1: to share that.
26:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, so something really wild has happened, which is that
26:17
Speaker 2: the passage that most people I see like either call
26:21
Speaker 2: out and emails me or they post it on social media.
26:24
Speaker 2: It's this passage in the very beginning of the introduction
26:27
Speaker 2: of the book that almost did not make the book,
26:31
Speaker 2: and was not in the original manuscript and wasn't even
26:34
Speaker 2: through all the edits. It was something that came because
26:38
Speaker 2: we had somebody who was on the team peripherally on
26:42
Speaker 2: the sort of team of creating this book, and she
26:48
Speaker 2: put all of these notes in like the final manuscript,
26:52
Speaker 2: basically saying not basically saying, actually saying, you need to
26:56
Speaker 2: share more about your trauma. Your timeline does an add up?
27:01
Speaker 2: Your abuser is he alive here? Oh my gosh, he's
27:04
Speaker 2: still alive. You didn't make that clear. What ages were
27:07
Speaker 2: you when this happened? This guy and the other these
27:10
Speaker 2: really really retraumatizing questions of needing thinking that they're entitled
27:17
Speaker 2: to my story. This is not a memoir, right, I
27:20
Speaker 2: use my story as an example and as a storytelling advice,
27:24
Speaker 2: but it's not a memoir, but that they thought that
27:27
Speaker 2: they and therefore readers were entitled for me to share
27:30
Speaker 2: more than I was comfortable with. And it also harped
27:34
Speaker 2: on these what I think is a very outdated approach
27:37
Speaker 2: to understanding survivor's stories, which is like, we don't need
27:41
Speaker 2: to bleed for you to feel connection to us, right Like,
27:47
Speaker 2: if us sharing our stories and just telling our trauma
27:50
Speaker 2: ended sexual violence, we would have been done a long
27:53
Speaker 2: time ago. This shit was in the Bible.
27:55
Speaker 1: You know.
27:57
Speaker 2: So we added me and my incredible Aigegnelle. We added
28:01
Speaker 2: this language at the very beginning of the book that
28:03
Speaker 2: I'd love to share, if that's okay.
28:05
Speaker 1: Of course, that now is like the most.
28:08
Speaker 2: Highlighted thing, and it was so close to not making
28:10
Speaker 2: it at all, And this was directly a response to
28:13
Speaker 2: this woman. Okay, As we go on this journey, you
28:16
Speaker 2: may notice that I'm not sharing every detail of my
28:18
Speaker 2: story with you. You may have questions about the who, what, when,
28:21
Speaker 2: where and why of my timeline. But I invite you
28:23
Speaker 2: to let go of those questions for now, because the
28:26
Speaker 2: point of this book is not what happened to me.
28:28
Speaker 2: Then it's about what's happening to us now, It's about
28:31
Speaker 2: the questions we can explore together, the wisdom we can
28:34
Speaker 2: share with one another, and the community we can cultivate
28:37
Speaker 2: right here. Trauma is messy and nonlinear. We do not
28:40
Speaker 2: need to recount, nor maybe be able to recount, all
28:43
Speaker 2: the details of our abuse in order to share our
28:46
Speaker 2: stories with each other. And so I'm here to remind
28:50
Speaker 2: you as often as you need, that our stories are
28:52
Speaker 2: our own to tell, however the hell we please. I
28:56
Speaker 2: hope that by sharing this with you and may encourage
28:58
Speaker 2: you to see that your truth does not need to
29:00
Speaker 2: have be wrapped up in a neat little boat for
29:02
Speaker 2: it to matter. Our stories do not have to be
29:04
Speaker 2: nice and tidy for other survivors to find support and
29:07
Speaker 2: healing in them. My story is messy and incomplete, but
29:10
Speaker 2: it is aline, and I'm grateful to get to share
29:12
Speaker 2: it with you.
29:15
Speaker 1: I love that, Thank you. It feels like it gives
29:19
Speaker 1: a lot of people permission to finally share without having
29:26
Speaker 1: to do it so that that person or everyone else
29:30
Speaker 1: can understand it.
29:32
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I've heard it even has helped people share
29:35
Speaker 2: with their therapists about their own trauma, because people carry
29:40
Speaker 2: that in all of their relationships, including their therapeutic ones.
29:43
Speaker 2: For you and I know, you know, a therapist is
29:47
Speaker 2: there to validate and to help reduce shame. That the
29:52
Speaker 2: shame that we've been conditioned by the world to feel
29:55
Speaker 2: can be such a barrier that we might not even
29:59
Speaker 2: be able to able to tell our therapist because we're like,
30:01
Speaker 2: oh my god, you don't have all the answers. What
30:05
Speaker 2: if they think I need all the answers, or else
30:07
Speaker 2: they're going to think that what happened to me doesn't isn't.
30:09
Speaker 1: Real, right, And that sad sad to say, is a
30:15
Speaker 1: predominant sentiment in our culture right now. What you can't
30:19
Speaker 1: you can't remember what happened?
30:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And we could go on all. You know,
30:24
Speaker 2: I have a whole other world, and a lot of
30:28
Speaker 2: the work I do with with therapists, with clinicians, with
30:33
Speaker 2: advocates is around trauma and memory and sort of reframing
30:39
Speaker 2: the way we think about traumatic memory because there is
30:43
Speaker 2: so much harmful, so many harmful societal pressures out there
30:49
Speaker 2: communicating into survivors that what happened to us isn't quote
30:53
Speaker 2: nquote real and valid if we don't recall everything that happened.
30:57
Speaker 2: And so this book and there's a whole talked about
31:00
Speaker 2: memory in this book. It's the second one because I'm like,
31:03
Speaker 2: I want anybody to know who picks this up, you know,
31:06
Speaker 2: if they have the same questions I had, which is like,
31:08
Speaker 2: if I don't remember, is it real? I want them
31:10
Speaker 2: to know, like, yes, everybody deserves healing and care and
31:15
Speaker 2: support and can find that for themselves in these pages.
31:21
Speaker 2: We all deserve it. It shouldn't require us to have
31:25
Speaker 2: to tell our stories. And I really, you know, I'm
31:29
Speaker 2: glad that people can find it in the privacy of
31:32
Speaker 2: these pages for themselves, at their own pace, whenever it
31:35
Speaker 2: feels right to them.
31:37
Speaker 1: So as we kind of wind down, here are you
31:41
Speaker 1: You mentioned you're working with therapists in what context? Are
31:45
Speaker 1: you working with them? What capacity? Rather, are you working
31:47
Speaker 1: with them?
31:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one is getting to talk with a lot
31:53
Speaker 2: of therapists like this in public facing conversations, which I'm
31:56
Speaker 2: so thrilled to do, in doing some trainings with or
32:00
Speaker 2: organizations around questions of traumatic memory, around questions of sort
32:06
Speaker 2: of what CSC survivors really want, you know, therapists and
32:10
Speaker 2: clinicians and social workers to know and understand about them.
32:15
Speaker 2: And then I'm also working with statewide coalitions against sexual
32:22
Speaker 2: violence who aren't made up of lots of different legal, medical,
32:28
Speaker 2: social clinicians and workers and advocates who do this work.
32:37
Speaker 2: I next week will be giving an opening keynote at
32:40
Speaker 2: the Ohio UH Alliance to End Sexual Violence, and then
32:44
Speaker 2: we'll be doing the same in Nevada in the upcoming months.
32:48
Speaker 2: And so I really am thrilled and honored to get
32:52
Speaker 2: to talk with people who work with survivors in these
32:56
Speaker 2: ways and to help support them do this work and
33:00
Speaker 2: to help them feel also well resourced, you know, because
33:06
Speaker 2: even though so many of them are survivors themselves, and
33:09
Speaker 2: I hear that it takes all of us. It takes
33:12
Speaker 2: all of us from different perspectives, supporting somebody through their.
33:15
Speaker 1: Healing awesome exciting. How do people reach you? What's the
33:20
Speaker 1: best way?
33:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can reach me through Healing Honestly dot com
33:25
Speaker 2: and Alisa at Healing Honestly dot com, a l I
33:28
Speaker 2: s a at Healing honestly dot com. You can shoot
33:30
Speaker 2: me an email or follow me on social media as well.
33:35
Speaker 1: All right, we'll have those links up here at the
33:36
Speaker 1: showut page at the Trauma diaperspodcast dot com. A, Lisa,
33:40
Speaker 1: come on, you are freaking amazing, seriously so inspiring. That's
33:45
Speaker 1: why I love having you here. You're doing it. You know,
33:49
Speaker 1: you're just like you're you. You exude compassion and authenticity
33:58
Speaker 1: and I hope that's what you know. My my podcast
34:02
Speaker 1: is about, so welcome back anytime.
34:05
Speaker 2: You always hype me up. So well guy, I'm always
34:08
Speaker 2: felt to be in conversation with you.
34:10
Speaker 1: It's a truth man, so I love it. Take care,
34:14
Speaker 1: thank you all right, bye bye