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The Quiet Defiance of Speaking Up with Shigeko Ito · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two and one. All right, folks,
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have us
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Speaker 1: my guest today. She get Go Ito, She get Go.
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you for having me awesome.
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Speaker 1: She get Go is a Japanese born educator and mental
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Speaker 1: health advocate with a PhD in education from Stanford University.
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Speaker 1: She's the author of The Pond Beyond the Forest and
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Speaker 1: memoir exploring childhood emotional neglect, intergenerational trauma, and the long
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Speaker 1: Path toward healing. Drawing on lived experience and cross cultural insight,
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Speaker 1: She Got Go offers a deeply honest and moving story
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Speaker 1: of zilience, punctuated by moments of levity and hope. All right,
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Speaker 1: She get Go. Before we Get Going, share with our
0:58
Speaker 1: listeners we're from original and where you are currently? Okay.
1:03
Speaker 2: I was born and grew up in Japan, but I
1:07
Speaker 2: moved to the States when I was twenty two and
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Speaker 2: I've lived here in the States for over forty years
1:14
Speaker 2: and I'm currently in Seattle.
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Speaker 1: Okay, she got go. How does all this start?
1:22
Speaker 2: Oh? Okay, So it's a long story. It took me
1:26
Speaker 2: a very long time to complete this manuscript. But it
1:28
Speaker 2: all started dates back two when I became a mother.
1:35
Speaker 2: I became a mother when I was thirty six, and
1:38
Speaker 2: you know, I studied Trailford Development and I consider myself
1:43
Speaker 2: very nurturing and maternal, and so I saw I was
1:46
Speaker 2: well prepared and I was really looking forward to becoming
1:50
Speaker 2: a mother. It turned out I had a lot of
1:53
Speaker 2: challenges from the get go, and because I knew what
2:00
Speaker 2: the neglect has done to me as a child, I
2:04
Speaker 2: but I didn't have any blueprint as to what is
2:08
Speaker 2: good enough to be, uh you know, what is good
2:11
Speaker 2: enough to provide parenting and all that stuff. So I
2:17
Speaker 2: just devoted my whole self to caring for him, and
2:23
Speaker 2: I was just so wiped out, you know. I I
2:27
Speaker 2: kind of kept hanging on until he was like five,
2:30
Speaker 2: but then I was just so depleted, MM, because I
2:35
Speaker 2: didn't know how to care for myself.
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Speaker 1: And uh, excuse me one second. So you said you
2:42
Speaker 1: were aware of the neglect when did you be of
2:46
Speaker 1: your own neglect? When were you aware of that? When
2:49
Speaker 1: did you become aware of that?
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Speaker 2: Well? Well, I grew up in the family of five
2:55
Speaker 2: and uh my father was uh gun host surgeon who
3:04
Speaker 2: founded his own hospital and it was very big hospital
3:08
Speaker 2: for individual hospital, and he was very loving, but he
3:14
Speaker 2: was a wlcaholic and I hardly ever saw him. And
3:18
Speaker 2: then my mother was a socialite who didn't want to
3:23
Speaker 2: stay at a home. And luckily there are plenty of caregivers,
3:31
Speaker 2: I mean people working at my father's hospital who were
3:34
Speaker 2: willing to pitch in. So I had this revolving cast
3:38
Speaker 2: of caregivers who were very attentive and caring and loving,
3:45
Speaker 2: but they were always changing, so I didn't have any
3:49
Speaker 2: particular attachment figure that I could So that created a
3:52
Speaker 2: lot of instability and feel of abandonment.
3:57
Speaker 1: And so when you were so this was happening when
4:04
Speaker 1: you were.
4:06
Speaker 2: A toddler, yeah, even yeah, infant, Yeah, okay, I think.
4:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when you were like preteen and teen, how
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Speaker 1: what was it like for you? How was this manifesting?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually one of the cornerstone of my story.
4:25
Speaker 2: So anyway, I had a lot of trauma because on
4:28
Speaker 2: top of that unstable family environment, I had to go
4:33
Speaker 2: to school far away and it was a very competitive
4:38
Speaker 2: I got a good competitive school in Tokyo, and I
4:41
Speaker 2: have to commute for one and a half hour each way,
4:46
Speaker 2: and so I was always sort of a survival mode.
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Speaker 1: You know.
4:51
Speaker 2: I didn't feel safe at home or school, and then
4:54
Speaker 2: I absolutely hated the commute. It was just terrifying. But
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Speaker 2: you know, I just hang on. You know, in Japan
5:01
Speaker 2: we say gamma fis just to endure or persevere without complaining.
5:07
Speaker 2: So and then you know, after a while, you accept it.
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Speaker 2: It's a norm. So I and then when I was sixteen,
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Speaker 2: I attended well I participated in a home state program
5:22
Speaker 2: and so I stayed with an American family in Napa, California,
5:28
Speaker 2: and the family was such a warm, caring, loving family
5:34
Speaker 2: who embraced me as if I was one of their owned.
5:38
Speaker 2: So it was by far the best summer I've ever had,
5:44
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to go back to Japan. But
5:46
Speaker 2: at the end of the summer, I had to go back,
5:48
Speaker 2: and that's when things start to unravel for me. And
5:53
Speaker 2: that kind of led me to some kind of soul searching,
5:57
Speaker 2: you know, like I didn't want to. I was very unhappy.
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Speaker 2: I was actually quite volatile when I was sixteen seventeen,
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Speaker 2: you know, like a teenage vollatility combined. And so at
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Speaker 2: some point I did, I guess so absorbed in like
6:17
Speaker 2: a soul searching mission, and I wanted to find out
6:23
Speaker 2: the meaning of life and you know, why am I
6:26
Speaker 2: here and all this stuff, and that kind of led
6:30
Speaker 2: me to some kind of a manic episode. I for
6:35
Speaker 2: about a week, I kept reading the Bible and the
6:38
Speaker 2: Buddhist books, philosophy books, and I wasn't sleeping much for
6:43
Speaker 2: about a week. And then so my family had no
6:51
Speaker 2: idea what was going on because we were not communicating.
6:54
Speaker 2: We didn't really talk to each other much to begin with,
6:57
Speaker 2: not nothing like checking in on each other, and so
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Speaker 2: they freaked out. They thought that I was losing my mind,
7:07
Speaker 2: even though at the end of the soul search, I
7:11
Speaker 2: thought I was enlightened and I thought I found the answer, like, oh,
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Speaker 2: I have to just follow the spiritual guy guidance and
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Speaker 2: God and all this stuff. But because my parents had
7:23
Speaker 2: no idea, one time, my brother, who was also a doctor,
7:27
Speaker 2: came with a syringe and it turned out to be
7:33
Speaker 2: a tranquilizer and I told him that I don't want that,
7:40
Speaker 2: but I didn't know what he was, but he gave
7:44
Speaker 2: me a shot anyway. And then several days later, I
7:46
Speaker 2: woke up in a strange mental hospital room and that's
7:52
Speaker 2: when you know, they didn't know what was going on,
7:55
Speaker 2: but they just threw me like I was schizophrenia patient.
7:59
Speaker 2: So I was bombarded with antipsychotic So it was, Yeah,
8:06
Speaker 2: it was very traumatic experience. So that was very difficult experience.
8:13
Speaker 2: But at the same time, there was a silver lining
8:16
Speaker 2: during the hospital because all the doctors just pointed to
8:21
Speaker 2: my family dysfunction and disconnection of the family as the
8:25
Speaker 2: source of my problem. And they did not use the
8:30
Speaker 2: word emotional neglect, but I kind of knew. I feel
8:35
Speaker 2: kind of validated that I was. It was like a
8:39
Speaker 2: normal reaction to abnormal circumstance kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: How did they know about that? Did you share that
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Speaker 1: with them? No?
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Speaker 2: I was just storting, knocked down with all the sedatives.
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Speaker 2: But they interviewed all the people that came to visit,
8:55
Speaker 2: and they were doing a little soothing into my body
9:00
Speaker 2: ground and that's how they came up with So I
9:03
Speaker 2: felt like I had a understanding group of doctors who
9:08
Speaker 2: are rooting for me. You know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, So what happens when you get released?
9:14
Speaker 2: So it took me a while to feel back to normal,
9:17
Speaker 2: you know, maybe several years. And then at that time,
9:20
Speaker 2: you know, I felt that was kind of for me,
9:22
Speaker 2: betrayal kind of thing, and I really couldn't trust in
9:25
Speaker 2: my family. So I wanted to be with the American family.
9:31
Speaker 2: So I said, like, I wanted to study in America,
9:35
Speaker 2: and I left when I was twenty two. And then
9:40
Speaker 2: I thrived in a healthier environment for like fourteen years.
9:47
Speaker 2: But then when I became a mother, all this you know,
9:52
Speaker 2: troublesome symptom came back.
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Speaker 1: So hang on, so let's jump to that. So you
9:57
Speaker 1: become a mother. Are you married at this point?
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Speaker 2: A yeah, yeah, no, I was married.
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Speaker 1: So you and your partner, you have a child, walk
10:08
Speaker 1: us through what happens.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So we moved to Seattle from Rochester, Minnesota after
10:17
Speaker 2: my husband finished medical training. But then his medical residency
10:24
Speaker 2: was starting right around the time that my son was born,
10:29
Speaker 2: and so we moved here like a few months, only
10:31
Speaker 2: a couple months before my son was born. So I
10:33
Speaker 2: had no support in it. It was total new environment,
10:37
Speaker 2: and then he was so busy with his residency was
10:41
Speaker 2: a very brutal residency program. So yeah, that's what What
10:50
Speaker 2: was a Christian? Again? I'm sorry?
10:54
Speaker 1: What was it like when you had your child? You
10:56
Speaker 1: said you became aware of the new glad? You thought
10:59
Speaker 1: you thought you had studied development, and I thought I
11:03
Speaker 1: got this parenting wired in a sense.
11:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I loved him so daily. I you know,
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Speaker 2: I just wanted everything in my power to give him
11:15
Speaker 2: a stable foundation and everything. But when you don't have
11:20
Speaker 2: the blueprint and you don't know how much is good enough,
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Speaker 2: you can actually go either way. I think you can
11:27
Speaker 2: even repeat the same mistake that my mother had made,
11:30
Speaker 2: or you can go to the other extreme. And I overcompensated,
11:35
Speaker 2: and I just pour my heart and soul to caring
11:39
Speaker 2: for him, so I ended up neglecting my self. So
11:43
Speaker 2: I was just so burned out. And I kept going
11:48
Speaker 2: until he was five or something, but I was just
11:52
Speaker 2: so exhausted. I didn't even know that I had this
11:56
Speaker 2: postpartum depression because I was just so busy caring for him.
12:02
Speaker 2: But it was because I didn't know how to take
12:04
Speaker 2: care of myself to begin with. You know, when you
12:07
Speaker 2: grew up with the tough and emotional neglect. I mean sorry.
12:11
Speaker 2: When I was writing this book, I didn't know the
12:15
Speaker 2: concept of framework and the language of attachment trauma or
12:20
Speaker 2: complex trauma. It was after I finished my manuscript and
12:24
Speaker 2: over the last several years I discovered this trauma and
12:28
Speaker 2: I found it so validating that something that I struggle
12:33
Speaker 2: all my life had a term and explanation for what
12:38
Speaker 2: I had gone through. So but I wanted to write
12:43
Speaker 2: about this because it was just difficult to articulate something
12:48
Speaker 2: that you didn't receive like you know, emotional achievement, you know,
12:56
Speaker 2: understanding and support and care. And but I wanted to somehow,
13:06
Speaker 2: you know, in my in my best h possible way
13:10
Speaker 2: to give language to that experience. And so over time
13:16
Speaker 2: I just so my at its core, my memoir is
13:24
Speaker 2: a long journey of self understanding and make make meaning
13:31
Speaker 2: of a lived the experience and reclaiming my voice after
13:35
Speaker 2: early trauma. And so I realized that there are a
13:40
Speaker 2: lot of other people who may have this experience because
13:44
Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about it. But then it totally
13:49
Speaker 2: made a sense that when you have this early trauma,
13:52
Speaker 2: it actually wires our brain and nervous system in a
13:56
Speaker 2: way that is very succept The book becomes susceptible to
14:01
Speaker 2: hypervigilance and all kinds of other adaptive strategies that let.
14:07
Speaker 1: Me let me interject here for a second. So you
14:09
Speaker 1: talked about when you had your child, and I thought
14:14
Speaker 1: this was very well put. Sometimes you can go either
14:18
Speaker 1: way when you come from a childhood of neglect. Sometimes
14:21
Speaker 1: you can go either way of kind of replicating what
14:25
Speaker 1: was done to you or neglecting yourself which kind of
14:29
Speaker 1: happened to you. At what point she get go, Did
14:36
Speaker 1: you start to think I want to write this manuscript?
14:38
Speaker 1: And what were you doing? Were you working professionally during
14:41
Speaker 1: this time? Uh?
14:44
Speaker 2: Off and on. I was helping out another Japanese woman
14:48
Speaker 2: who was a a nurse and catering and she opened
14:52
Speaker 2: her own clinic to cater to a Japanese mother's and
14:56
Speaker 2: so I was helping out as I form secretary what
15:02
Speaker 2: type of thing. But I really didn't know how to
15:08
Speaker 2: deal with this tremendous inner critic that was just kept
15:12
Speaker 2: telling me, like, you know, I was not good enough
15:15
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, and it was just became very powerful.
15:20
Speaker 2: So and I started journaling because I wanted to make
15:26
Speaker 2: sense of why it was so difficult for me, so challenging,
15:29
Speaker 2: and because I know other people who have multiple children
15:34
Speaker 2: and they seems to be like, you know, they're enjoying
15:38
Speaker 2: why I was just managing to just survive. And then
15:42
Speaker 2: when my son was about ten, I attended a week
15:47
Speaker 2: long writing retreat in British Columbia and it was called
15:54
Speaker 2: Free for All Writing, which teaches you to write from
15:58
Speaker 2: the large yourself, beyond the reach of ego. And it
16:04
Speaker 2: took me a while to get the hang of it,
16:06
Speaker 2: but once I learned how to write from the larger self,
16:09
Speaker 2: it was so fering. And because and I have an
16:13
Speaker 2: academic writing background, so because of my you know, childhood trauma,
16:19
Speaker 2: and also the training and also Japanese cultural I have
16:24
Speaker 2: triple wheming with in a critic, it just became so
16:29
Speaker 2: powerful and so it did kind of help me bypass
16:34
Speaker 2: that voice to help me write. And then when I
16:40
Speaker 2: share my childhood stories, I saw people just genuinely moved
16:47
Speaker 2: and some of them reaching out, reaching for kreen X
16:50
Speaker 2: and and that energy of the group was just so
16:54
Speaker 2: nurturing and loving and caring. I felt like I was
16:58
Speaker 2: being mothered by that energy and I also discovered the
17:04
Speaker 2: heating power storytelling in that kind of reciprocity and how
17:11
Speaker 2: powerfully healing it is to be witnessed. And so that's
17:16
Speaker 2: so I kept going back to the retreat several more times,
17:20
Speaker 2: and I started writing bits and pieces, and then eventually
17:23
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, I wanted to write this story to.
17:28
Speaker 1: Me, Okay, hold on, hold on, I want to I
17:31
Speaker 1: want to expand on that once you expand on that.
17:33
Speaker 1: But so I was kind of surprised when you said
17:36
Speaker 1: you went to this writing workshop because previously you were
17:39
Speaker 1: talking about just neglecting yourself and here you are, like,
17:43
Speaker 1: what seems like finally doing something for yourself. How did
17:46
Speaker 1: you get to the point where like I got to
17:48
Speaker 1: do this workshop.
17:49
Speaker 2: Well, I was seeing a therapist and she attended the
17:54
Speaker 2: retreat and she recommended it. She said, oh, you're gonna
17:58
Speaker 2: love this, and wow. So yeah, I had no idea
18:03
Speaker 2: what it's going to be, but it was just it
18:05
Speaker 2: took me some courage to do that, and I was
18:08
Speaker 2: just so happy. And after that, I was kind of euphoric,
18:12
Speaker 2: you know, I felt so I felt so seen and
18:16
Speaker 2: validated and valued really for the first time for who
18:21
Speaker 2: I was and what I had gone through and that
18:24
Speaker 2: was empowering and healing.
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Speaker 1: So that that sounds incredible. So again, the book is
18:32
Speaker 1: called The Pond Beyond the Forest, So obviously this workshop
18:36
Speaker 1: kind of lit the flame inspired you to begin to
18:38
Speaker 1: write this. When did you decide, like walk us through specifically,
18:46
Speaker 1: when you how you thought about, Okay, I want to
18:48
Speaker 1: write this book. What did you want to say?
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Speaker 2: Well, let's see. Well, so the writing retreat, the first
18:58
Speaker 2: writing retreat was Bagging two thousand and seven, and I
19:02
Speaker 2: really didn't think of turning this into a book leans
19:06
Speaker 2: project until two seven eleven or twelve or something like that.
19:13
Speaker 2: But I didn't have any framework, like you know, some
19:19
Speaker 2: writers have this outline right, which is like you can
19:25
Speaker 2: write more persumoniously, But for me, it was largely exploratory.
19:30
Speaker 2: So it was like a huge marble and I was
19:33
Speaker 2: shipping here and there, and it kept evolving in a
19:37
Speaker 2: kind of organic way. And when I started to see
19:44
Speaker 2: the relationship of certain experience, you know, from a childhood
19:50
Speaker 2: of teenage years, and how that connected to my present
19:54
Speaker 2: in terms of how my survival strategies manifested very stressful circumstances,
20:05
Speaker 2: I thought I got to so I use this non
20:09
Speaker 2: linear structure to sort of demonstrate causal relationship between the past,
20:19
Speaker 2: especially like a childhood trauma, and the current life and
20:25
Speaker 2: the way we So when when you're a little child
20:30
Speaker 2: and where you don't have this sturdy scaffolding that you
20:34
Speaker 2: received you're supposed to receive from your caregiver, you was
20:38
Speaker 2: kind of forced to survive on your own, and as
20:42
Speaker 2: a child, you really don't have the resources and experience,
20:45
Speaker 2: so it often manifests in certain survival adaptations like you know, dissociating, numbing,
20:56
Speaker 2: checking out, zoning out, and for me, the emotional distancing. Well,
21:04
Speaker 2: it's quite detrimental to my relationship with my husband's son.
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Speaker 2: So it was like I wanted to share this experience
21:16
Speaker 2: to help other people with similar experiences, because even though
21:22
Speaker 2: chielf neglect is something invisible and it's often overlooked and
21:27
Speaker 2: dismissed even by people who carry like myself, but it
21:33
Speaker 2: has a serious consequences. Just like other type of child
21:37
Speaker 2: abuse child neglect, I mean physical or sexual abuse, it
21:44
Speaker 2: can leave a very strong ruprint of how you your
21:51
Speaker 2: life is going to be. Like trajectory, let.
21:56
Speaker 1: Me ask you a question, I mean, as you're you're
21:58
Speaker 1: sitting here sharing your story. I mean, you're undoubtedly a
22:06
Speaker 1: very kind of empowered. I would even use that word.
22:09
Speaker 1: You're very courageous and empowered. And you're super inspiring. You know,
22:14
Speaker 1: your journey from what seems like a Uh. Can I
22:21
Speaker 1: use the word privileged upbringing to a certain degree? Uh?
22:27
Speaker 1: And and help help me out here, correct me if
22:30
Speaker 1: I if I'm if I'm getting this wrong. But here
22:33
Speaker 1: in America, we have this idea of Japanese women typically
22:39
Speaker 1: kind of taking the back seat. Uh, kind of Japanese
22:45
Speaker 1: women are what quiet, and you're passive. But to step
22:51
Speaker 1: out of that which you obviously, I mean you left
22:54
Speaker 1: Japan like I'm out, I'm done, I want to go
22:58
Speaker 1: to America. I want something else. How much of a
23:03
Speaker 1: struggle was that for you?
23:05
Speaker 2: Well, coming to the States was so liberating for me,
23:08
Speaker 2: and especially because I was so attached to the American
23:12
Speaker 2: closet family, so I had this like a secure base,
23:17
Speaker 2: right right. So, and I think that was the best
23:21
Speaker 2: decision I've ever made to leave my family because my
23:25
Speaker 2: friendly was just so disconnected, you know, and it was
23:29
Speaker 2: very difficult for me.
23:31
Speaker 1: But was it difficult to leave? Were not? Were? You know?
23:36
Speaker 1: From your from your parents' perspective, Was it difficult for
23:39
Speaker 1: you to leave? Do they want you to leave? Well?
23:42
Speaker 2: They they probably didn't think I would leave forever. You know,
23:45
Speaker 2: It's like they thought I would eventually come back. But
23:50
Speaker 2: I you know, I really don't want to mask my culture.
23:54
Speaker 2: But the way I experienced Japanese culture, for me, it
24:01
Speaker 2: was very stifling because you know, there's this pressure to
24:07
Speaker 2: conform and you know, if you're so from outside, my
24:12
Speaker 2: family may have looked perfect, but inside it was like
24:17
Speaker 2: five separate individuals just happened to be sharing the same house,
24:21
Speaker 2: but they had nothing to do with each other and
24:24
Speaker 2: when so I but I was not really allowed to
24:31
Speaker 2: complain about that. People would just dismiss it. Like and
24:37
Speaker 2: also that Japanese culture of they stress the importance of
24:42
Speaker 2: persevere and endure, right, so we're not allowed to really
24:49
Speaker 2: openly discuss emotional struggles or whatever. And so it was like,
24:57
Speaker 2: you know, it was very difficult in a way that
25:00
Speaker 2: I was like, I hate to use this metaphor because
25:04
Speaker 2: every used it, but it was like a I was
25:06
Speaker 2: a square peg, you know, forced to get into the
25:09
Speaker 2: round hole. So for me, it was very but you know, yeah,
25:14
Speaker 2: you're supposed to be quiet the mirror and not so
25:17
Speaker 2: outspoken about joe Own struggles. But for me, that was
25:23
Speaker 2: the suppressing kind of environment was unhealthy for me. And
25:30
Speaker 2: maybe because I was just always very honest, I don't
25:35
Speaker 2: know how to do the front and back that Japanese
25:38
Speaker 2: you know, my parents very didn't teach me. But you're
25:41
Speaker 2: supposed to be able to move smoothly between the front,
25:47
Speaker 2: the facade and nothing. But I never really developed that,
25:51
Speaker 2: so that got me into trouble. Also, But because I
25:56
Speaker 2: became emotionally so independent early on, it was not difficult
26:02
Speaker 2: for me to leave my family. And also the culture
26:06
Speaker 2: that was just like, you know, it's like I sometimes
26:11
Speaker 2: joke that, you know, the Stokes dropped me off on
26:14
Speaker 2: the wrong island, because I think I never really felt
26:19
Speaker 2: I always felt like I was just not quite belong.
26:24
Speaker 1: But here, I'm sorry to interrupt you. You talked about
26:31
Speaker 1: having written your memoir and then discovering the learning about
26:40
Speaker 1: trauma and complex trauma. So when you started learning about
26:46
Speaker 1: complex trauma and neglect, what did you do? Did you
26:49
Speaker 1: start like, oh my gosh, I need to fill in
26:51
Speaker 1: these pieces and have this for my word.
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Speaker 2: No, I didn't change my manuscript at all.
26:57
Speaker 1: Oh you did.
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Speaker 2: I included it in my preface that you know, it
27:02
Speaker 2: was after I reflected on what I had written. Helped
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Speaker 2: my you know, origin of that, you know, origin, definition,
27:11
Speaker 2: and the symptoms perfectly much to mine. But I did
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Speaker 2: not change anything because I saw you that experience yourself
27:21
Speaker 2: to speak for that. And so in a way, it's
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Speaker 2: like a longitudinal case study of self with most neglect
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Speaker 2: because it's it runs across my lifespan because of the
27:39
Speaker 2: theme that I chose.
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Speaker 1: And so, yeah, how has you talked a little bit
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Speaker 1: about your relationship with your husband? And I'm not to
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Speaker 1: get too personal, but I'm just curious about the strength
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Speaker 1: it takes to do the self reflection in a work
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Speaker 1: and to be able to look back and realize that
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Speaker 1: what you experiences you went through and then to summon
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Speaker 1: the courage to make changes in your present day life.
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Speaker 1: What was that like for you?
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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was particularly brutally honest about myself, so
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Speaker 2: there are a lot of not so nice qualities about myself.
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Speaker 2: But I realized the kind of a reflection really helped
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Speaker 2: me create some kind of distance from my reaction and
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Speaker 2: that experience and a reaction and help me see things
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Speaker 2: from a larger perspective. So instead of seeing challenges as
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Speaker 2: something that I want to just decided not to see,
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Speaker 2: I started to see that as an opportunity for personal growth.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, I almost lost my relationship with my husband.
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Speaker 2: My husband and I were separated for nine months and
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Speaker 2: during her time, but I'd already doing a lot of
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Speaker 2: inner work, it was just not manifesting externally. So that
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Speaker 2: over the nine months, that was a chance to show
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Speaker 2: him how much I have grown from doing all this
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Speaker 2: reflection and so and then I became much more observant
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Speaker 2: of my strategies like survival strategy under stress to emotional
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Speaker 2: numbing and distancing, and that creates distance. And that's how
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Speaker 2: I kind of survived my childhood by just putting a
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Speaker 2: war on me.
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Speaker 1: And I'm curious, what if you've had any experiences with
30:09
Speaker 1: are the women from.
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Speaker 2: From Japan oh with a similar experience or yeah, well maybe,
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Speaker 2: but they really haven't taken the action to actually write
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Speaker 2: a book. But I think there are a lot of
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Speaker 2: uh and I don't know. I think it's in it's
30:31
Speaker 2: still a Japanese thing that we tend to see those
30:35
Speaker 2: struggles as a weakness and a little shame and stigma
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Speaker 2: attached to it. So yeah, they're not as open as
30:45
Speaker 2: I am to discuss that that in some way, I'm
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Speaker 2: kind of a rebel or it's kind of quiet defiance
30:54
Speaker 2: to challenge the kind of a culture that shames and
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Speaker 2: stigmatize the emotional struggle, which is a very human And
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Speaker 2: I have no problem with being very open about my struggles,
31:12
Speaker 2: and I think that's how we get really make the
31:16
Speaker 2: genuine connection. I listened to your five and fifty six episode,
31:22
Speaker 2: but you're talking about your vulnerability, and I really appreciate
31:27
Speaker 2: your honesty and openness to share your vulnerabilities. But I
31:33
Speaker 2: think that's how we really could create this more genuine connection,
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Speaker 2: rather than making ourselves look like we're strong and nothing bothers.
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Speaker 2: Us and I also attended Boston International Trauma Conference at
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Speaker 2: the end of May, and I was so touched by
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Speaker 2: the tenderness and kindness and shared understanding in that community.
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Speaker 2: And it felt like I found a tribe that spoke
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Speaker 2: my language, and I wanted to, in my small way,
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Speaker 2: I wanted to somehow contribute to this collective healing. And so, yeah,
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Speaker 2: I don't know, someday I would like to translate into
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Speaker 2: Japanese if they're ready. But but I think we have
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Speaker 2: so much mental health issues in Japan and so.
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean I'm probably speaking out of turn here,
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Speaker 1: but they probably aren't ready. But maybe that's why you
32:48
Speaker 1: need to translate it.
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Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah.
32:52
Speaker 1: Get go.
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Speaker 3: You're amazing. You're so inspiring. Look at I mean, it's
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Speaker 3: like it's amazing coming out of that culture and doing
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Speaker 3: what you did, you know, and standing up for yourself
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Speaker 3: and you and your child too.
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Speaker 2: M yeah, yeah, really inspiring. Well, you know, my mother
33:16
Speaker 2: is still alive, so she's ninety four, and I haven't
33:21
Speaker 2: told her that I wrote this book because she's not
33:24
Speaker 2: particularly you know, written in a positibilite. So but but
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Speaker 2: I also have forgiven her. You know, I'm still in
33:36
Speaker 2: touch with her and I occasionally chat with her and
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Speaker 2: also helping her financially. But for me, it was very
33:45
Speaker 2: important to have this certain boundary. Otherwise, you know, there's
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Speaker 2: a chapter in the book that I went back and
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Speaker 2: then I was just sucked into this old dynamics and
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Speaker 2: so yeah, I yeah, eventually I would like to do that.
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Speaker 2: And my audio book is coming out, by the way,
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Speaker 2: in a few few weeks.
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Speaker 1: Are you doing it.
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Speaker 2: Well, I started to do that, but I just don't
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Speaker 2: have any acting experience, so it was so flat. It
34:24
Speaker 2: didn't work. So I looked for somebody who would become
34:29
Speaker 2: a great fit. And she's also Japanese American and she
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Speaker 2: knows how to speak Japanese. So hopefully it's going to
34:37
Speaker 2: be very engaging. So but the Japanese version would be
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Speaker 2: it would be a while. I think I just wanted
34:47
Speaker 2: to see how it does here first.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome, I'm looking forward to that. So again, the
34:52
Speaker 1: book is called The Pond Beyond the Forest? How do
34:54
Speaker 1: people learn more about you? Shi? Got go and learn
34:58
Speaker 1: more about the book? What's the best?
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Speaker 2: Okay? So the book can be You can't find the
35:03
Speaker 2: book anywhere the books are sold, but my website you
35:06
Speaker 2: can learn more about the backstory and well everything behind
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Speaker 2: on there my website w w W chiccko ito dot com,
35:18
Speaker 2: s h I G E K O I t O
35:21
Speaker 2: dot com. Okay, and uh yep we.
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Speaker 1: Go from all right, and we'll have all that linked
35:27
Speaker 1: up here at the show notes page at the Trauma
35:29
Speaker 1: Therapist podcast dot com. Uh she goto pleasure having you
35:35
Speaker 1: joined me, pleasure speaking with you and meeting with you
35:37
Speaker 1: and just like I said, so inspiring, you know, really
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Speaker 1: and excited, excited to help you get this book out
35:47
Speaker 1: there again. It's called The Pond Beyond the Forest by
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Speaker 1: chicato Eta. Thank you for me. We'll be in touch.
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Speaker 2: Thank you, all right, thank you, Okay, bye,