Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 814: Speaking Truth To Power with Rosie McMahan

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Episode 814: Speaking Truth To Power with Rosie McMahan · The Trauma Therapist

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Trauma Therapist Podcast. Plus listeners can listen to episodes early and ad free right
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now. Become a Plus listener by going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma
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Therapist Podcast and signing up today a right. Welcome back to the Trauma Theapist
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Podcast. My name is Gamiferson. My mission is to help trauma therapist be
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their incredible selves, to be human, to be real, not just a
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clinician. I'm a big believer in who we are is more important than what
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we know, and this requires cultivating authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and
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that requires intention. Can learn more about my courses and workshops by going to
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the Trauma Therapist project dot com. That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com.
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Let's get started, all right, here we go, So five or three
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two one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
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have as my guest. Rosie McMahon, Rosie welcome, Thank you, glad
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to be here. So. Rosie currently works at Mass Mentoring Partnership as a
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training and special projects manager, and she also owns and operates Optimistic Options,
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a private practice rooted in trauma informed care and restorative justice principles. Her book
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Fortunate Daughter, a Memoir of Reconciliation, was published in twenty twenty one and
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was awarded first place in the Chanticleer International Book Awards in twenty twenty three.
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Not too shabby, Rosie. In this story, Rosie offers the reader a
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portrait of childhood sexual abuse followed by the difficult and painful task of healing,
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a journey that in the end reveals a complicated and rare experience of repair,
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reconciliation and the freedom that comes along with it. Rosie participates in community based
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activities and attempting to eradicate iniquities, and she brings personal experience and a solid
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and understanding of the current research and findings to support and promote healing and all
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the work she does. Rosie, welcome, Thank you. So before we
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going share with our listeners, please where you're from originally and where you are
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currently? I love that question. You ask everybody that question, and I
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think we are always a little bit where we're from, right, if not
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a lot. So. I was born and raised just outside of Boston,
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Massachusetts, Somerville, and at the time that I was brought up there,
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the community was almost entirely Catholic, and you were either Irish Catholic or Italian
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Catholic, and it was, you know, blue collar, working class.
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I emphasized this because it's true, but also because it's not like that anymore.
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And I know that, and I think these things have bearing, you
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know, in terms of not only your identity, but your access to things
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like support and resources. And now I lived just you know, two hours
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west in the western part of the state of Massachusetts. Thank you for sharing
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that. So let's dive in here. How the heck did all that start?
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So I a long time ago started writing, and I think I did
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that for a few reasons. But one of the reasons is that it allowed
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me to reflect, and I think reflection is part of healing for anybody.
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And I did that for a while, and then I became more and more
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aware that I wanted to write about the experience that I had of trauma,
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of healing and reconciliation. But I had to get sort of kind of on
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the other side of it, if you will, to have what I think
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is needed as far as perspective goes. And it took me many years,
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but I wrote it. I wrote it a lot. I wrote it over
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and over again. I wrote it you wrote it, meaning your experience,
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Yeah, the experience of and it's sort of you know, And I didn't
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know if I was going to write a novel or if I was going to
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write a memoir, but it sort of became obvious that it needed to be
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a memoir. And then after finishing it, I still had to make the
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choice to publish it. And I'm not the only one deciding, right,
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So I pursued that and that happened, and here we are, it's twenty
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twenty four and the book came out. You know, hang on, let
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me interrupt you if I may, because how did you get to the point
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where and when you realized you had been traumatized, you had been abused?
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Well, so that's an interesting question. I think I always knew that that
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I that I was being raised in a family that had many events, if
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you will, and a lot of them falling into the category of trauma and
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abuse. And I and I actually think, I think we're born sort of
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intact and whole, and when we're not being treated, well, we know
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it. We may deny it, but but we know it. And and
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I knew it, and uh that then was confirmed in efforts that I made
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to to heal from the abuse. And and one thing that may not be
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clear because I don't name the helpers in my story is and I'm saying this
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to you because it's true. And also because you interviewed this therapist, doctor
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Judith Hermann and her colleague Emily Shatzel, they were the therapists who intervened in
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my families. Oh wow, yeah, so that's a big deal, right,
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And they were significant in regards to my healing journey. So when did
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I know? I always knew. And sometimes you know, when you're in
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a difficult situation and you're trying to make sense of it, if you're not
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able to get out of it, which most children in most families are not,
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or the rescue doesn't really succeed in removing you from harm because then there
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are other things that happen when you get removed from a family. But you
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know, when you can't get out, it can be hard to reconcile your
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knowledge of being wronged by the harmdoers and not being able to leave that situation.
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And I sort of try remember that, or I do remember that in
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my own life as well as in the work that I've done. You know,
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my question, when did you know? In your response, you know,
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you kind of always know. I think is to the point in our
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bodies, right, we always know, in our in our heart of hearts,
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we always know. Was there a point? I mean, as a
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young kid, were you going about your life, uh with cognitively, intellectually
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with this knowledge? Yeah? Yeah, I would say so. And I
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asked that if I asked that, because a lot of people or many people
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don't write, They just go about their lives, and yet they fall into
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a depression or they become addicted and they kind of don't cognitively it hasn't registered
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yet. Maybe somatically it's interesting. I mean, I think maybe there's a
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distinction here between sort of what we know conscious in what we sort of discover
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in our pursuit of becoming sort of who we are meant to be. And
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you know, injury and repeated injury and lack of access to help to cope
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with that injury compounds all those difficulties. But I am somebody, generally speaking,
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who thinks that no matter your response to the harm, you're always you're
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always aware on some level, and maybe you hide that from yourself. Again,
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it's hard again, if you can't get out, or you know,
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if you distract yourself with other things, or life just happens. Right.
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You have to go to school, you have to work, you partner with
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somebody, you have children. I mean, all these things that can contribute
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both to the increased awareness but also the increased likelihood that you can ignore something.
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But you know, what you don't deal with in my belief, doesn't
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just, you know, magically go away. Yeah, it needs to be
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addressed. I don't know if everybody will know what I'm doing when I do
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that, But that's speaking to my age here. You did the what was
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it, the genie? The genie? Right, the idream of genie you
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kind of wink and full ding. It just doesn't work like that, right,
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So all right, you're fifteen, sixteen years old? How are you
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managing? How are you dealing with this? Well, at that point in
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time, I think I did what a lot of young adults do. And
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I always was mature for my age. I don't know if I was born
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like that or if I if I sort of decided, Okay, that's going
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to be a good way to be. But during my adolescence and into my
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early twenties, I think I acted out a lot with drug use, with
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sexual behaviors. I was vulnerable to being injured by another harm doer, this
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guy who was directing the youth program that I was a part of, and
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I went in and out of therapy. I've been in therapy a lot.
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I'm not currently in therapy, but I did a lot of things. I
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mean, I had a lot of fun, but I took a lot of
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chances, and I did things that put me in harm's way. And I
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think this is not like unique to my perspective. I think when we're doing
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that, I think often we are, as they say, recreating in a
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sense, the stakes, if you will, and trying to have a different
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outcome. And it was sort of in my early twenties that I returned to
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therapy and enlisted my parents in that pursuit and was able to participate in this
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thing that at the time was called a conferenceation, but that I define really
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as a reconciliation. And you brought your parents into this therapy specifically to deal
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with what had been going on, the abuse that had been going on.
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Oh yeah, totally, because you know, it was kind of a shit
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show. I mean in terms of, like you know, when you are
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in a family where there is abuse of any kind. But let's talk specifically
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about childhood sexual abuse. My father was an active alcoholic. He was emotionally
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abusive, physically abusive, and sexually abusive towards me, and that affected me
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and it affected everybody else in the family. But you often are met with
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kind of two choices. You either stay in your family and pretend nothing happened
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and sort of leave the holiday gatherings kind of sick to your stomach, or
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you leave that family. But that leaving, even if it is a completely
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legitimate choice, comes at a great cost. You know, to give up
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one's family is like a hard choice to make, one that many people do
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make and that I support. But there was this other road I was being
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offered by the insight of doctor Judith Herman and Emily Shatzow, and that was,
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can we get your parents to participate in this formal confrontation process? And
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I didn't know, but when I asked them, they agreed, And then
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we were both prepared, at least as much as one can for what that
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would actually be like. And you know, it's interesting, Judy Judy Herman.
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Dr Judith Herman, she was always sort of I would say, mostly
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concerned her and Emily both with making sure that I wasn't going to do this
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with any certainty about what might happen. So all of the work that I
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was doing to prepare for it was centered around my speaking truth to power,
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just me speaking truth to power, in this case, the power being my
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parents. And I wasn't a child anymore, I wasn't living at home.
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I mean, how much power did they really have? Well, my parents,
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you know, they're significant people in our lives. So I did that
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and then they responded. And I'm going to say this because I as far
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as I know, I mean, I've spent almost my whole life looking for
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somebody else who's had the experience I've had, and lots of people have trauma
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and difficulty and abuse, and lots of people heal, but I haven't met
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anybody who had an experience of reconciliation. I had the confrontation that I did,
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and by that, I'm referring to the genuine remorse that my parents communicated
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to me. And this is equal in significance and amendmaking, and even Judy
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and Emily were I think I don't know if surprised is the right word.
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But they were also aware that the response my parents gave my father being the
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person who was the harm doers as far as the actual abuse, and my
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mother for not intervening to protect right. But it was sort of a showstopper
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in all of our lives, I think, in the lives of the professionals
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who were helping us, in the lives of my parents, in my life,
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and the lives of my siblings. And it was a real turning point.
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So one second, so this this conference, quote unquote, it's the
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five of you, Judith, and no it's well, yes, okay.
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So in the confrontation, it's actually Judith Hermann prepared my parents after they agreed
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to participate, and Emily Shatsow prepared me, and then in the confrontation it's
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myself with Emily, my therapist, and my parents without any support. I
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mean they got support before and after, but they were just there as the
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people who were my parents, and we all sort of went through the whole
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process together. And was this the first time you had said anything about this
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to your parents? I mean I would say no, not the first time,
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but the first time that I was doing it in this constructed and constructed.
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Got it? Got it? No, it was a gift, it
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was It sounds very intense. Yeah, confrontation is an interesting title. One
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could say it's it's uh, it's extreme, it's harsh. But you could
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also say, well, yeah, exactly, Yeah, so it's more it's
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more adversarial. Let's use that word. Then. I think a lot of
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people who participate in restorative justice. But bear in mind that jud determin Emily
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chatso the practice they belonged to. They were also feminists, and they recognized
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that there was not only this power imbalance that had been abused, there was
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a need to balance out the scales. So is it, you know,
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guaranteed that out of a confrontation you're going to get a reconciliation. No.
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No, And what I was trying to say about like looking for this story
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somewhere else, which I think is part of the reason that I wrote and
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published it. I'm still looking for that story somewhere else, and I'm still
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offering this story, you know, to the world if you will. But
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I think that and I'm not even yet talking about like the forgiveness that can
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happen, because that's a separate thing. Also not guaranteed or even essential,
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but I think that the reconciliation part of it, well, it just can't
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be underestimated in the value that it has had in my life and is really
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the main reason that I publish the story. Like sometimes people will hear,
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like briefly what my story is about, and the first thing they'll say is
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I'm so sorry, and I receive the apology, and I think somebody who
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says it to me many people have, And then I say, but to
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be clear, my story is not a tragedy. And I think we have
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this attachment two stories about trauma and abuse as a culture that they're tragedies,
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you know, and that even if you figure out a way to sort of
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survive and get through it, that it's really too bad. And of course
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it's horrible to be injured, and it's horrible to be in a family as
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a child, but that doesn't really capture the story that I have to tell
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and that I would like to be more available to other people. Okay,
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so how old were you when that confrontation went down? You know, I
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don't know the exact age. It's so funny. I just turned sixty a
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couple of weeks ago. So it's like, okay, okay, in your
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whole life to this point, but I was in my early twenties. Okay,
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So jump to the book Fortunate Daughter, A Memoir of Reconciliation. Why
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did you write the book? What was the impetus for that? Inspiration for
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that, I mean, aside from my own healing and the value that writing
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and reflection has in a healing journey, I wanted to insert the story into
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the dialogue of restorative relationships, restorative justice because it's the truth. The truth
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is this happened. I was hurt, I healed, and as part of
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my healing, I was able to reconcile. And let's fold into this that
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I also, maybe not coincidentally, went into a field where, like my
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whole adult life, I've been working with young people and their families in all
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these different capacities educator, counselor trainer. But I've always held the view that
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whatever is going on for young people, whatever their struggles might be, that
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they can that they can get through it. And I actually believe that even
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if you don't have willing cooperation on the part of your harmdoers, you can
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have an imagined confrontation and reconciliation and that too. I mean having my own
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father and mother be sorry and then make amends. I mean, my goodness,
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what's better than that? But you can also create that and that can
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become part of you talk about the cells in our body and our mind and
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in our heart, like that too contributes to genuine healing, healing that doesn't
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sort of involve permanent scarring, if you will, to stay with the metaphor,
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right, yeah, I mean what you're saying I think comes at the
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typical response in a kind of ninety degree angle way. Many people like you
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said, culturally, yes, we hear these stories and we're like, holy
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crap, that is tragic and awful. And you're saying you're not denying that,
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of course, but you're saying, well, hang on, there's another
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option here, there's another way of doing this. Are you suggesting that in
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many ways people aren't looking at this option of healing that therapeutically, this option
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isn't being taken into consideration, or or what I great question? I think
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that we dramatically underestimate ourselves and we also don't consider what ways the story can
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have a different ending. And I know this because like for a long time,
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Like when I was starting my work, you know, it's more popular
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now popular, I don't know if that's the right word, but you know,
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to have lived experience, you know, it's now okay to include that.
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I was thinking about you, you know, on your website talking about
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the brother who you know, came back as a survivor himself of another kind
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of trauma. But like when I entered the field, like I had to
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never tell the story about my personal experience. In fact, if I did,
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it would be viewed as clinically inappropriate. Right, So then time goes
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by, things change, and all of a sudden, it's now sort of
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more okay for people to say, actually, to be authentically me doing the
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job that I'm doing, helping people heal, it would be kind of ludicrous
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to not point to this dramatic experience of healing that I had and not admit
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or point to the fact that that has greatly influenced my belief in healing.
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That said, when people find out about my abuse, I'm never I haven't
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encountered in anybody really disbelieving that, not in my adult life and certainly not
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in my professional life. But there is something that gets called into question about
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my credibility, and people really want to sort of look at whether or not
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I'm telling the truth about what happened in my own healing experience with my parents,
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albeit orchestrated by these phenomenal therapists. That is this thing that people really
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have some skepticism about about the healing process, about the healing. Yeah,
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yeah, yeah, so that's this thing. I hope I'm answering your question,
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But something about the way you asked it made me realize, this is
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how I know that it's not available enough, because I think we still want
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our victims to be victims and we still want our perpetrators to be perpetrated.
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I mean, the other thing that happens is people really ask me a lot
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and when I do book reading events, like you know, how do you
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know that your father was sorry? How do you know? And you know,
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I mean, I wrote a book, you can read it, I
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can tell you about it. You know, you can believe me or not.
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But like you know, the harmdoers are also denied a lot of what
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should be offered to them as well, on both sides of the equation.
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Not everybody, of course, but a lot of people who've been injured don't
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want to have. Like I used to talk about myself as a trauma survivor.
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Okay, yes, I'm a trauma survivor, but I'm also a healing
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activist. In fact, I would say I'm more identified as a healing activist
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now than I am as a trumpa. I've they connected, sure, but
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you know, my parents they also wanted to heal. That's in large part
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what drove their own bravery. I mean, I think the bravery they had
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to have for participating in this reconciliation. Wow, maybe greater than my own.
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You know, they didn't know that what they were getting into, right,
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I think you know this used the word skepticism. I could understand that,
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I mean, and I think because the majority of people who've experienced abuse
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don't experience that type of healing, that type, let alone that type of
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confrontation. Right. I don't know if I've ever had anyone else on the
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podcast, certainly who's been helped by Judith Hermann in that way, you know,
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but it's not in the common parlance of treatment. It certainly isn't.
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You know. Oftentimes the majority of people don't even say anything for years and
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years and years are rarely even consciously aware of it, let alone get to
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the point where they're able to constructively begin the healing process. So what's your
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talking about? Is unusual? Amazing that you've been able to have that experience.
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How did you first get in contact with Judith Hermann? How did that
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come about? I know, this is like talk about like I'm assuming something
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here about our age demographics. But you know, the early seventies, mid
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seventies, late seventies, what a time, you know, because there was
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like the whole sort of obvious nineteen sixties black power, civil rights feminism.
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But in the wake of that, including where I was born and raised,
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there were all these there were all these radical hippie healer people that just entering
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my life. And still, you know, choices were made, you know.
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But my sister ended up talking to an adult at an al teen meeting
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who said, oh, there's this mental health practice that you might want to
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check out. My mom would take us to these appointments. Little did we
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know, you know, it was like one thing leading to another. But
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I think it was the context of a time when you know, and I
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was thinking about jud Deitermine, you know, besel like these you know,
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these people that are I really believe are geniuses in regards to what they know
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and what they do and how committed they are to helping people. So there's
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you know, you the individual, but we're always in a circumstance, and
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that circumstance is always going to have more or less options, resources, supports,
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and it's never just you know, like, if my story is rare,
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and I believe that it is, I don't want it to be.
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I want more people to have this option and I don't want it to be
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just random, and I don't want it to just be like, you know,
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elusive. I want it to be more common that people have the opportunity
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to get the kind of support I received, which then allowed me and my
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parents and my family to move through. And you know, another thing,
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just in regards to childhood sexual abuse, which you might know, I'm guessing
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you might, is there's a legacy, you know, and I grew up
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knowing, oh shit, like, am I going to grow up and am
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I going to become you know, prostitute? Am I? You know?
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There are all these you know, ideas of myself that I had. And
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I'm saying that because I don't think you necessarily get a choice in what you're
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handed, but you do get a choice in what you do with what you've
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been handed. But you can't do that alone. You have to do that
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with skilled people, with people who really know how to help you. And
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Judy and Emily are not the only people who helped, but they were.
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They were very prominent in my healing. So Legacy, you know just what
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ways we feel like we can become who we want to be. That is
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not just this. You know, you come from this family. You know
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my ACE score, my adverse childhood Experience score. I remember the first time
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I did it. I was at a training learning about it, and I
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did it, and I was like, oh my god, I've got a
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seven out of ten. I'm doomed, you know, right right, But
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I'm not. I haven't been you know. So you talked about this other
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option. And when you say that, are you specifically referring to this confrontation?
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Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, let me ask you something as
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we kind of get ready to close down here again. The book is called
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Fortunate Daughter, a Memoir a Reconciliation. I was published in twenty twenty one
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and was awarded first place in that Chanticleer International Book Awards of twenty twenty three,
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Rosie, you know, in the wake of everything you've shared here,
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or what do you feel, what do you believe? What do you know
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to be? What you want to give and get out? What's your mission?
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In a sense in the work you're doing well. I think that I
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am, in all my work, which now is forty plus years, when
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I encounter a young person, when I encounter their family, I have a
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basic assumption that I am I am meeting somebody who is not permanently injured,
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That whatever they might have gone through, whatever they might be recreating, there
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is a way in which I can hold this idea of them as being not
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just capable of healing, but of wanting wanting to heal. And if in
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any of the counseling I've done, or the train or the teaching, if
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I can make it more clear to people that that this is the truth,
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I think. I think that's doing something pretty large and and the book is
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part of that. And the book is definitely part of that. For me,
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it's a big part of it, frankly, because in writing the story
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and publishing it, and in and in going out doing podcasts and doing readings.
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I am. I am sharing the truth of what I experienced and and
31:37
then the impact that it's had on the work that I've been able to do.
31:40
Awesome. What's the best way for people to contact you? So?
31:45
I work at an organization called Massachusetts Mentoring Partnership, But I also have a
31:53
website that includes a podcast, and you can go to Optimistic Options and there's
32:02
a link for that, which maybe can be included in whatever you share with
32:07
folks about me and my story. And yeah, Optimistic Options, fortunate Daughter.
32:15
The book is selling and I can be contacted through my email and that's
32:21
available at my website as well. Okay, we'll have those linked up at
32:24
the show notes page at the Trauma dis podcast dot com. Your podcast,
32:30
what's what's the name of it? Heart to Heart Heart to Heart Okay,
32:35
And I'm prible at doing marketing, so I have to get better at it,
32:38
but it is. Yeah, it's a great podcast with over a dozen
32:42
interviews. Awesome. Yeah, we'll have that link. We'll have that link
32:46
up here too. Very cool. You've had Judith on Emily Chats on,
32:52
Donna Jensen on She's Amazing. Yeah, you know Donna Jensen too, Right,
32:58
yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool. We'll have that linked up
33:00
here. So awesome meeting you and talking to you. Damn you're inspiring.
33:07
Thank you, love to have you back. Yeah, it was great talking
33:10
with you. All right. We'll be in touch, all right. Thank
33:14
you to you