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The Myth of "I'm Fine" with Andrea Leeb · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Favers podcast. My name is Gimferson
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Speaker 1: and I interview incredible people who share the story of
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Speaker 1: how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big thank
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Speaker 1: you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest and
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Speaker 1: our sponsors SO five four three two and what our folks.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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Speaker 1: my guest today. Andrea Leib Andrea, welcome.
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Speaker 2: Hi, thank you, Thank you guys for having me.
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Speaker 1: You are welcome. So Andrea is the author of Such
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Speaker 1: a Pretty Picture, a debut memoir about Charlie to trauma
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Speaker 1: association and the long road to healing. Abused before the
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Speaker 1: age of five and raised in a home of denial
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Speaker 1: and silence, Andrea grew up to look quote unquote fine,
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Speaker 1: successful attorney, wife and high functioning perfectionists. But when she
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Speaker 1: was assaulted in her thirties, the facade cracked and repressed
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Speaker 1: memories panic PTSD service, forcing her into a profound journey
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Speaker 1: of recovery. We're going to talk about her healing and
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Speaker 1: the myth of quote I'm fine, and why healing through
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Speaker 1: nonlinear is always possible. All right, Andrea, a little bit
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Speaker 1: about you before we get going share with the listeners.
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Speaker 1: Where you're from originally and currently?
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Speaker 2: Okay, I was born in Queens, New York, Queens. I'm
1:25
Speaker 2: from Queens, Yes, from Flushing, so awesome. And I was
1:32
Speaker 2: kind of raised all over the place. We'll get you know.
1:35
Speaker 2: That's that. I document that in the book. But I
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Speaker 2: was raised in New York, Florida, Long Island, Pennsylvania. We
1:43
Speaker 2: moved a lot as when I was a kid.
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Speaker 1: Very similar to myself. Oh you really born in born
1:50
Speaker 1: in Manhattans, but lived in Queens Manhattan Tri state area. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: very cool, the Bronx.
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Speaker 2: Anyway. Now I live in Venice Beach, California. So and
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Speaker 2: I've been in Venice for about twenty nine years.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. All right, let's go, let's get into this. How
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Speaker 1: the heck did all this start for you? Well?
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Speaker 2: I was really young, as you said, I was four
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Speaker 2: and a half, and this is actually probably my clearest
2:21
Speaker 2: earliest memory. I was My parents were quite young when
2:26
Speaker 2: they had me. My mom was only twenty and my
2:29
Speaker 2: dad was twenty four. So they were going out. We
2:34
Speaker 2: lived in a two bedroom apartment. I had a sister,
2:37
Speaker 2: and they were going out for the evening and my
2:38
Speaker 2: mother asked my father to give me a bath. My
2:41
Speaker 2: father never gave me baths, and he did. And while
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Speaker 2: he was bathing me, he said, but I'll never forget this.
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Speaker 2: Let Daddy wash you with his hand. I can hear
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Speaker 2: it today. It's funny how these memories just get so
3:00
Speaker 2: carved into your brain. And as he started to bathe me,
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Speaker 2: as young as I was, I knew there was something wrong.
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Speaker 2: His breathing got heavy, and you know, later, of course,
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Speaker 2: I realized he was masturbating while he touched me everywhere.
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Speaker 2: And my mother walked in. She saw him, screamed and
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Speaker 2: fell to the floor, and she when she woke, he
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Speaker 2: caught her. And when she woke she was blind. She
3:27
Speaker 2: it was hysterical blindness. And she stayed blind for a
3:32
Speaker 2: month and she stayed emotionally unwilling to see for decades.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, let me pause you right there. First of all,
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Speaker 1: thank you for sharing this. I want you to know
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Speaker 1: you don't have to share anything you're not comfortable sharing.
3:49
Speaker 1: That's not the expectation here, okay, for you to divulge everything.
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Speaker 1: But wow, I mean Jesus intense, so young, I mean, god.
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Speaker 2: It was very young, and you know, I honestly don't
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Speaker 2: know exactly what my childhood was like before that, because
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Speaker 2: it's hard to recall because this abuse went on for
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Speaker 2: a long time and my mother's unwillingness am I. You know,
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Speaker 2: I as a little kid, my father told me it
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Speaker 2: was my fault, and of course I believed him, and
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Speaker 2: I really was so afraid that what I did caused
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Speaker 2: my mother to go blind, that I would do something
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Speaker 2: wrong again and cause her to go blind again or worse.
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Speaker 2: And I, you know, it's I don't know what my
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Speaker 2: childhood was like before, but I kind of feel like,
4:47
Speaker 2: because I have such a deep love from my mother
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Speaker 2: despite everything that, I feel like there might have been
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Speaker 2: some early, real love that created whatever resilience I have.
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Speaker 2: I've read a lot, I'm a psycho. I'm not a psychoanalysts,
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Speaker 2: but I've had a lot of therapy and so. But
5:06
Speaker 2: that that is the beginning. And it went on until
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Speaker 2: I was thirteen, almost thirteen, a month with dad with
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Speaker 2: my dad, a month before my thirteenth birthday had stopped.
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Speaker 1: How did it stop?
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Speaker 2: Well? And this is kind of I of course, as
5:26
Speaker 2: you know, as kid was I was on mass I
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Speaker 2: had you know, I chewed my hair until it was
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Speaker 2: white at the ends. I picked at myself, and I
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Speaker 2: actually had already started with self harm by the age
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Speaker 2: of ten. I was I was ritualistically poking myself with
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Speaker 2: the head's little pins every night on my legs because
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Speaker 2: I wanted to feel better. And he had taken me
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Speaker 2: shopping after one of the times he was in and
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Speaker 2: after one of the times he molested me, and he
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Speaker 2: bought me a dress. And after that dress purchase, I
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Speaker 2: started having nightmares. I started walking in my sleep, and
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Speaker 2: I started screaming at night and waking the family up.
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Speaker 2: And I write about this because it's I still can't
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Speaker 2: figure out exactly why they would take this chance, but
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Speaker 2: my parents sent me to a child psychiatrist. And I
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Speaker 2: kind of have two theories on this I never confirmed
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Speaker 2: because my mother stayed very shut until she died. She
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Speaker 2: really wouldn't talk about this. And one theory was that
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Speaker 2: my mother wanted this to stop and was looking for
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Speaker 2: someone to help her make this stop who wasn't her.
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Speaker 2: And the other is Mormachavelli. And if you know, my
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Speaker 2: father knew my father, and you know, really pus that
7:01
Speaker 2: he was smart enough, he was a professor, that he
7:04
Speaker 2: was you know, kind of papering the file as it
7:07
Speaker 2: were in my legals, creating a trail of documents that
7:12
Speaker 2: if in the event that I ever told as I
7:14
Speaker 2: got older, because I was getting older, that he would
7:19
Speaker 2: be able to point to something and say, see, this
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Speaker 2: child's been really and I'll put it into quotation marks
7:26
Speaker 2: because I hate it the word but crazy, hysterical all
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Speaker 2: of her life. So I don't know why, but I
7:32
Speaker 2: went to see this child psychiatrist and I actually finally
7:36
Speaker 2: reached a point where so this is my father never
7:41
Speaker 2: penetrated me with his penis. He touched me with his
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Speaker 2: hand and taught me how to touch him. But I was
7:48
Speaker 2: getting scared that he was. I was getting older and
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Speaker 2: I knew more about Seck started hearing more. You know,
7:54
Speaker 2: I didn't know a lot, but I read a lot precociously,
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Speaker 2: and I was afraid he was going to take it
8:01
Speaker 2: to the next step. And one night he tried to
8:03
Speaker 2: kiss me. And after that I kind of set the
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Speaker 2: psychiatrist up and told him what I thought was enough
8:10
Speaker 2: to make him suspicious, but not so much that I
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Speaker 2: was telling. And at that point he called my parents
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Speaker 2: in and I never went back to him after that.
8:21
Speaker 2: I had seen him for a bit like almost a year,
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Speaker 2: and never went back to him. He didn't there was
8:29
Speaker 2: probably not required reporting, and I don't know if I
8:31
Speaker 2: gave him enough to report. But my father came home
8:36
Speaker 2: told me that I, I, you know, had something called
8:41
Speaker 2: an edible complex, and that I was in love with
8:44
Speaker 2: him and I had to spend less time with him,
8:47
Speaker 2: and he left me a copy of the book The
8:49
Speaker 2: Scarlet Letter on my bed from have I come from
8:53
Speaker 2: a family of readers. My father was a professor. I
8:55
Speaker 2: was a precocious reader from a young young age. And
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Speaker 2: in The Scarlet Letter, if you recall, the young woman
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Speaker 2: hester Primee has an affair with an older married man
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Speaker 2: and she ends up having to sew a letter. It's
9:11
Speaker 2: written in the around, you know, in the eighteen hundreds,
9:15
Speaker 2: but it takes place in early colonialism and she has
9:18
Speaker 2: to sew a letter an a on her chest. And
9:22
Speaker 2: that was my message, just that you tell and you
9:25
Speaker 2: will be branded for life and no one is going
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Speaker 2: to believe you. So kept my mouth shut, but he stopped.
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Speaker 2: So in a way, I thought I had a small victory.
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Speaker 2: It was my first taking some control over my life.
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Speaker 1: How I mean, you talked about self harm, talked about
9:47
Speaker 1: certain ways of coping, But how did you did you
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Speaker 1: have siblings, how did you manage? How did you get
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Speaker 1: through the day.
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Speaker 2: Jesus So I do have a younger sister. She was
10:00
Speaker 2: not abused by my father in that way. My father
10:02
Speaker 2: was also very violent. I mean, it was a crazy life.
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Speaker 2: You know, he was a person if you talked during
10:09
Speaker 2: dinner when he was trying to watch the TV news,
10:12
Speaker 2: a table would get tipped and yeah, completely tipped over
10:15
Speaker 2: all the dishes flying. And so we grew up with
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Speaker 2: a lot of fear in my family. But I had
10:22
Speaker 2: a younger sister that I was very close to. I
10:24
Speaker 2: didn't talk to her about this, but you know, I
10:28
Speaker 2: was really scared it was going it was happening to her,
10:32
Speaker 2: but it didn't. I kind of write my mother favored her.
10:36
Speaker 2: I think she she reacted against me, and I write that.
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Speaker 2: I have a lot of literary references in my life
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Speaker 2: because I read so much, and in the in the
10:49
Speaker 2: Greek tragedies, there's a tale of Demitra and Perciphony, and
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Speaker 2: Hades comes and takes Percifhony away and Dimitra. You know,
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Speaker 2: the reason we have spring in the Greek Greek legends
11:00
Speaker 2: is spring and summer. They make a deal and Hades
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Speaker 2: will only have her daughter half a year, so that's
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Speaker 2: when we get winter and fall and spring and summer
11:09
Speaker 2: is when Hades gives her back. So I write, you know,
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Speaker 2: I thought of it as if Demitra had two daughters
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Speaker 2: and she just surrendered one to Hades permanently and kept
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Speaker 2: the other. And so getting through it was good at school,
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Speaker 2: really good at school, and that helped. And I was
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Speaker 2: really I read, I wrote, but I wrote lots and
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Speaker 2: lots of stories. I wrote a diary every night, which
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Speaker 2: I called my Emily Diary, about a girl named Emily
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Speaker 2: and Emily's family. That was what I put in my diary.
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Speaker 2: I made up a fake family and wrote about to
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Speaker 2: my diary every night as my life is Emily, and
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Speaker 2: I I kept going. I I just was. I was really.
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Speaker 2: I look at myself now and you know today as
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Speaker 2: a as a survivor advocate, you know, I work with
12:12
Speaker 2: I work. I'm on a board of UCLA Rate Treatment Center,
12:17
Speaker 2: and I speak publicly about incest and I also volunteer
12:21
Speaker 2: at a place called Stewart House where young survivors come.
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Speaker 2: It's a really amazing place, because they do everything in
12:29
Speaker 2: one place. The police are there, the social workers, so
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Speaker 2: these little kids don't have to be go through this,
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Speaker 2: be re traumatized over and over. And I'm the play lady.
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Speaker 2: I play with the kids when they come in between
12:41
Speaker 2: between their appointments. It's really a great it's a volunteer,
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Speaker 2: best job I ever had. Play lady. Should have should
12:47
Speaker 2: have found it later, but I I, you know, I
12:51
Speaker 2: really realize how I'm so lucky to be here and
12:57
Speaker 2: to have the life that I have today. And so
13:01
Speaker 2: somewhere inside of me there was something that was just
13:04
Speaker 2: going to keep going. But I had a lot of
13:07
Speaker 2: bad coping mechanisms. The self harm was a big one.
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Speaker 2: I went from my cut later.
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Speaker 1: Let's jump a little too like your twenties. I'm assuming
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Speaker 1: you went to college.
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Speaker 2: I went to college. I was the nurse.
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Speaker 1: First Jesus okay, and I.
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Speaker 2: Went to I got a scholarship to go to school
13:30
Speaker 2: for nursing, so I took it and went to school
13:32
Speaker 2: for nursing because I didn't have to be supported by
13:35
Speaker 2: my parents. And I actually left high school young and
13:39
Speaker 2: went to community college first and then to Georgetown, which
13:44
Speaker 2: where I went to school, and I had you know
13:49
Speaker 2: before that, like when I was fourteen or fifteen, I
13:54
Speaker 2: didn't have good my boundaries with young men and boys
13:58
Speaker 2: was I didn't. I had no agency, you know, if
14:02
Speaker 2: somebody went to touch me, I just I would disassociate
14:05
Speaker 2: and they would touch me. So of course there was
14:08
Speaker 2: a time where there was some slut shaming as a result,
14:11
Speaker 2: I was assaulted by three boys. I really had no
14:15
Speaker 2: agency at all in my you know, early teen years.
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Speaker 1: And did you excuse me for interrupting? Did you tell
14:23
Speaker 1: anyone were were you mentioned the psychiatrist after that? Had
14:31
Speaker 1: you ever seen any therapist or not?
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Speaker 2: Until I was when I was in my twenties, I went,
14:38
Speaker 2: I had a came back from a year abroad in England,
14:42
Speaker 2: and it was I did at my senior year and
14:45
Speaker 2: I had a breakdown right before graduation. I kept I
14:48
Speaker 2: wanted to actually jump off Key Bridge in Washington, and
14:54
Speaker 2: I completely went into a deep depression. And my friends
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Speaker 2: called my parents and they were worried I was going
15:02
Speaker 2: to try to commit suicide. And my mother came and
15:04
Speaker 2: I did go back there to their house for the
15:06
Speaker 2: first time and stayed there, and my mother got me
15:10
Speaker 2: an appointment with a psychiatrist for medication. So I went
15:14
Speaker 2: to see him. I went on what was like an
15:17
Speaker 2: early precursor to prozac, and I tried to tell him,
15:21
Speaker 2: but he when I started to broach the conversation, he
15:26
Speaker 2: was like, well, I met your parents. I think you're confused.
15:29
Speaker 2: I you know, so I stopped when I kept it inside.
15:34
Speaker 2: I didn't tell anybody till I was in my I
15:37
Speaker 2: was thirty three when I finally.
15:40
Speaker 1: Told me story what happened.
15:43
Speaker 2: At thirty three, I was honest. I okay, so I
15:46
Speaker 2: had had I was a wife, but I was a
15:49
Speaker 2: wife several times. I had been married a few times
15:52
Speaker 2: at a young age, and wasn't a wife that I
15:55
Speaker 2: was living with somebody at that point. But I you know,
15:58
Speaker 2: I couldn't stay with anybody to Missy wise, from more
16:01
Speaker 2: than like eighteen months or a year to eighteen months.
16:04
Speaker 2: I just was like, no, can't be close to anyone.
16:07
Speaker 2: So I was riding the subway. I was a lawyer
16:10
Speaker 2: by then, and I was riding the subway home. I
16:13
Speaker 2: was living in New York, working in Manhattan, and somebody
16:16
Speaker 2: subway kind of jolted went dark. This was before nine
16:20
Speaker 2: to eleven, so people didn't panic the way they would now.
16:23
Speaker 2: But and somebody I was wearing a loose fitting blouse
16:28
Speaker 2: that somebody grabbed my breast on the subway. It was
16:31
Speaker 2: a subway grope. If you've ridden the subways enough, A
16:35
Speaker 2: lot of the young women I knew had been groped
16:38
Speaker 2: on the subway. But I broke down. I had to
16:40
Speaker 2: complete another breakdown, and I finally at that point realized
16:46
Speaker 2: that I was going to if I didn't get some
16:50
Speaker 2: help and I was old enough, and if I didn't
16:53
Speaker 2: finally start telling this secret to somebody that I was going,
16:59
Speaker 2: you know, I would. I was thinking about jumping off
17:02
Speaker 2: buildings and I didn't want to die. I didn't want
17:05
Speaker 2: to die. So I went and I found a therapist,
17:09
Speaker 2: and then I did an impatient program for twelve days
17:12
Speaker 2: at a It was more like a program for adult
17:16
Speaker 2: trauma survivors. It was the Aco Wade Adult Children of
17:20
Speaker 2: Alcoholics based My father was an alcoholic on top of
17:23
Speaker 2: everything else. And I finally, first I told the therapist
17:29
Speaker 2: that I was seeing before I went in patient, and
17:32
Speaker 2: then I told the group, and that was my journey
17:35
Speaker 2: to healing. That was when the door opened. So my
17:38
Speaker 2: door opened at thirty three because I admitted what happened
17:42
Speaker 2: to other people and to myself. Now I had confronted
17:45
Speaker 2: my parents and they denied it. My mother came up
17:49
Speaker 2: with a story that was a friend of my father's.
17:52
Speaker 2: She hadn't What does.
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Speaker 1: That do to you? I mean, how much? How could
17:57
Speaker 1: I not my fuck with your head? Yeah?
18:01
Speaker 2: It was. You know, it's interesting because I kept my
18:03
Speaker 2: parents in my life, I kept my mother in my life.
18:08
Speaker 2: By then, I had given up on my mother. Honestly,
18:12
Speaker 2: what I had come to realize is that, you know,
18:15
Speaker 2: my mother saw the world the way she needed to
18:18
Speaker 2: see it to survive. I don't. It's really hard to
18:23
Speaker 2: know what her backstory is because she wouldn't talk, but
18:27
Speaker 2: I have to. I can only think as somebody who
18:31
Speaker 2: would go blind like that, and you know, just the
18:35
Speaker 2: way she went through life, she had a lot of ulcers.
18:38
Speaker 2: She was I think she could only see the world
18:41
Speaker 2: a certain way, and she really taught me. I mean,
18:45
Speaker 2: that was what had happened between the ages of twenty
18:47
Speaker 2: and thirty three. I really bought into this notion. If
18:50
Speaker 2: I'm pretty enough, educated enough and perfect enough, I can
18:54
Speaker 2: pretend the abuse away. I didn't have. You know, some
18:58
Speaker 2: people have recovered memory syndrome. I never ever forgot. And
19:03
Speaker 2: what happened was the grope on the subway just made it.
19:07
Speaker 2: It was. I couldn't even forget about it. For my
19:09
Speaker 2: I'd be writing a brief at work and suddenly I
19:12
Speaker 2: would be thinking about it and crying, and I knew
19:16
Speaker 2: that I couldn't manage my life anymore. It hurts. I mean,
19:19
Speaker 2: that's what really drove me into therapy too, was when
19:22
Speaker 2: I mean into impatience. Was when I confronted my parents.
19:26
Speaker 2: I just and I you know, I gave up on
19:31
Speaker 2: them as parents, which but I kept my mother in
19:34
Speaker 2: my life because I just, I don't know, she's my mother.
19:38
Speaker 2: She was my mother, it was, and I was so afraid.
19:43
Speaker 2: Still even then, it took me a long time to truly,
19:48
Speaker 2: truly understand that I was not responsible for my mother,
19:53
Speaker 2: that my job in life was not to protect her.
19:57
Speaker 1: Let's talk about okay, so bring us up to present speed.
20:03
Speaker 1: You said you've been living in Venice. Are you? Are
20:07
Speaker 1: you a lawyer? There?
20:09
Speaker 2: I was up until just I'm retired. Now allegedly you're retired.
20:14
Speaker 2: I wrote my book, I'm writing full time. So what
20:17
Speaker 2: I like to say is this is my third act.
20:19
Speaker 2: My first act was nurse. My second act was lawyer.
20:22
Speaker 2: And I was a lawyer for thirty five years. So good,
20:25
Speaker 2: good chunk of time. I'm sixty seven now, so I
20:28
Speaker 2: get to have a third act. And so my third
20:33
Speaker 2: act is I am dedicating myself fully to writing this book.
20:42
Speaker 2: I thought I was just going to write a book.
20:43
Speaker 2: I have a degree in creative writing, an MFA, and
20:46
Speaker 2: I'd always wanted to write something.
20:48
Speaker 1: I know, hold on, hold on, I.
20:51
Speaker 2: Told you, I like school.
20:53
Speaker 1: I gotta say it. I just get amazing, nurse lawyer,
21:02
Speaker 1: write a book.
21:03
Speaker 2: I like school. You know, it's what helps me. You
21:07
Speaker 2: know these so we have bad code. We have you know, survive.
21:12
Speaker 2: I survived. I kind of felt like I was doggy
21:15
Speaker 2: paddling through life a little bit, but I had these
21:17
Speaker 2: other tools that helped me. And school saved me. Books
21:21
Speaker 2: saved me. All right, let's let's let's talk.
21:23
Speaker 1: Let me just remind everyone here. Uh, I'm speaking with
21:30
Speaker 1: Andrea Lee. But the book is called such a pretty Picture.
21:35
Speaker 1: How did the book come about? Why did you write it?
21:38
Speaker 1: Who's it for? So?
21:40
Speaker 2: It's for it's for it's for a lot of people.
21:43
Speaker 2: It's for survivors. So the two things I started. I
21:47
Speaker 2: had written a lot of short stories in fiction and
21:50
Speaker 2: didn't think I was going to ever write a memoir.
21:52
Speaker 2: And then when the Me Too movement. The confluence of
21:55
Speaker 2: the me too movement, my father died at the same
21:58
Speaker 2: time and I at the time, I was listening and
22:03
Speaker 2: reading other people's stories, and I was watching how the
22:06
Speaker 2: sharing of these stories was helping people, and I started
22:11
Speaker 2: thinking I should write this story. The time is come,
22:14
Speaker 2: and he had died, I was getting closer to being
22:20
Speaker 2: able to dedicate more time to writing. I ended up
22:24
Speaker 2: leaving work the next year and starting writing full time.
22:27
Speaker 2: But I was so I started writing the book and
22:32
Speaker 2: I said, well, we'll see where it goes. And the
22:34
Speaker 2: more that I wrote, the more that I became aware
22:37
Speaker 2: that I actually had a story that could help someone there.
22:42
Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, what was that story in your mind?
22:45
Speaker 2: The story of the story is the story of what
22:48
Speaker 2: happened to me, the story of the fact that I
22:52
Speaker 2: hit it for so long, and the story that I
22:57
Speaker 2: told that telling and getting therapy is the key for me.
23:02
Speaker 2: I believe this one hundred percent for the beginning of
23:06
Speaker 2: the healing journey. And the story is that what happens
23:10
Speaker 2: to you doesn't have to define you, and healing is possible.
23:15
Speaker 2: But healing is not possible if you don't tell your secret.
23:21
Speaker 2: Did you can't cure yourself from this one. I really
23:25
Speaker 2: believe that maybe AES therapist would disagree, But I think
23:29
Speaker 2: you need to get some help and talk to people
23:32
Speaker 2: because inside the secret will eat you it a lot alive.
23:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think most people would probably agree
23:38
Speaker 1: with that. Up to that point. I mean, were you
23:46
Speaker 1: living your life thinking that healing wasn't possible. Oh?
23:50
Speaker 2: No, I knew it was possible. I had a good life.
23:52
Speaker 2: I had, you know, I was still I had had
23:55
Speaker 2: many years of good therapy. I had told my husband
24:00
Speaker 2: was well aware of what happened. I've been married for
24:03
Speaker 2: on Monday twenty four years, so I'm with my husband
24:08
Speaker 2: for longer than that. So I have a longstanding relationship
24:12
Speaker 2: that I like to think of as healthy. You can
24:15
Speaker 2: ask him no anyway. And I had been, you know,
24:23
Speaker 2: living my life. I have no longer been defined by this,
24:27
Speaker 2: but I was aware of it.
24:29
Speaker 1: Now.
24:29
Speaker 2: What I didn't do is I told close friends. Of course,
24:33
Speaker 2: my sister I talked about it with, but I really
24:37
Speaker 2: didn't advertise it to the world. Now I'm actually walking around.
24:42
Speaker 2: I go to parties and I tell people I'm an
24:44
Speaker 2: ancest survivor.
24:45
Speaker 1: No, I don't.
24:46
Speaker 2: It's not quite that, but it's pretty bold. I am
24:49
Speaker 2: in the world. I talk about my story, and I
24:53
Speaker 2: talk about it publicly. But I was I was living
24:56
Speaker 2: a good life, and my life was okay. But what
24:59
Speaker 2: I learned from writing my book was another layer of healing,
25:02
Speaker 2: you know, healings not linear, and and and as I
25:06
Speaker 2: started to excavate the memories, I realized that there was
25:12
Speaker 2: still more healing that I could do.
25:15
Speaker 1: Was it beyond or in addition to the actual sharing
25:19
Speaker 1: of your story? What else did you find healing? Were
25:23
Speaker 1: there some redalities or was it something your therapist might
25:27
Speaker 1: have done?
25:28
Speaker 2: So my original therapy was mostly talk therapy because that's
25:32
Speaker 2: kind of when I came of age, and that seemed
25:35
Speaker 2: and I'm a talker anyway, For me, there were other
25:39
Speaker 2: things that helped me. I meditate, I do a lot
25:43
Speaker 2: of yoga. I need Yoga's taught me how to be
25:47
Speaker 2: present in my body because I was a person who
25:50
Speaker 2: hated my body. My body I thought was responsible for
25:53
Speaker 2: all of this trouble. And so I learned how to
25:57
Speaker 2: how to be in my body and be present with
26:00
Speaker 2: my body. I've later I did E M d R,
26:07
Speaker 2: which I found was very helpful, and I went back.
26:11
Speaker 2: I went back into therapy when I was writing the book.
26:13
Speaker 2: I had been out for a couple of years. I've
26:15
Speaker 2: been I am not afraid to like when I see
26:19
Speaker 2: that I'm struggling with anything to find a therapist. If
26:23
Speaker 2: the one I was working with is no longer available,
26:25
Speaker 2: then I understand that I may need some help. I
26:32
Speaker 2: think I'm human and I don't have to be perfect.
26:35
Speaker 2: And so those were the things that helped me the most,
26:41
Speaker 2: I mean for me. And I also have always put
26:47
Speaker 2: for I've written my whole life, so I have always
26:50
Speaker 2: put my emotions onto the page, you know, I've always journaled,
26:54
Speaker 2: and I so those those types of things were were
27:00
Speaker 2: the things that have helped me to heal and still
27:02
Speaker 2: help me to heal. Help because this process hasn't been
27:06
Speaker 2: so easy either. I'm now a very public person on
27:10
Speaker 2: my you know, on the you know, I talk publicly
27:13
Speaker 2: about the worst things that ever happened to me, and
27:16
Speaker 2: so I know that I need need these things like
27:19
Speaker 2: my yoga, my therapy. Right now my meditation. I take
27:24
Speaker 2: care of myself and I've learned how to be nice
27:26
Speaker 2: to myself, forgiving of myself. I have learned how to
27:31
Speaker 2: forgive myself.
27:32
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. The book is called such a pretty picture
27:37
Speaker 1: debut memoir about childhood, Trauma's association and the Long Road
27:41
Speaker 1: to Healing by my guest Andrea Lieb. How do people
27:45
Speaker 1: learn more about you, Andrea and learn more about the book?
27:48
Speaker 2: So I have a website that has quite a bit
27:52
Speaker 2: about the book, and one thing, can I just add
27:54
Speaker 2: one little thing? Of course, my proceeds from the book
27:59
Speaker 2: are my my my author. Proceeds. The publisher, of course
28:04
Speaker 2: takes some proceeds are going to be donated to RAIN
28:08
Speaker 2: at twenty five percent to RAIN, which is the Rape
28:11
Speaker 2: and Incest National Network, and the rest to local rape
28:15
Speaker 2: treatment centers. This for me, this is a mission, It's
28:20
Speaker 2: for me. You can find more about me at my
28:23
Speaker 2: website which is Andrea Liebauthor dot com and also my
28:28
Speaker 2: Instagram at Andrea Lisa liib okay.
28:33
Speaker 1: And well again we'll have that link up here at
28:35
Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist Podcast dot com. Andrea,
28:39
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. Really appreciate you sharing your
28:44
Speaker 1: story and my god, you're you're, you're an inspiration.
28:49
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me and for saying
28:52
Speaker 2: that it means a lot to me.
28:53
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll be in touch, take care, Thank you bye.
29:00
Speaker 1: That the my composiple f