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The Incredibly Resilience of Two Sisters with Kathleen Harnish McKune & Karen Dickson · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: So five four three to any one our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
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Speaker 1: guest today. Sisters Kathleen HARNESSH McCune and Karen Dixon. Ladies, welcome,
0:26
Speaker 1: Thank you, You're welcome.
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Speaker 2: So.
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Speaker 1: Kathleen is an author, speaker, and co founder of the
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Speaker 1: nonprofit Remarkably Resilient, Incorporated. Drawing on our lived experience as
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Speaker 1: a surviver of childhood incests and trauma, she helps translate
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Speaker 1: the neuroscience of trauma into practical tools for healing and resilience.
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Speaker 1: She's the co author of Remarkably Resilient Community Matters and
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Speaker 1: works to support individuals and communities in building emotional regulation
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Speaker 1: and recovery skills. Karen is an author, speaker, and co
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Speaker 1: founder of the nonprofit Remarkable Resilient as well. Also a
1:02
Speaker 1: survivor of childhood incests and trauma, she works alongside her
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Speaker 1: sister to help individuals communities understand the impact of trauma
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Speaker 1: and develop practical resilience skills. All right, ladies, Obviously, just
1:13
Speaker 1: a little bit about you before we get going. Share
1:16
Speaker 1: with the listeners where you're from originally and where you
1:19
Speaker 1: are currently. Karen, let's start with you.
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Speaker 2: Originally from Denver, Colorado, and then moved to a small
1:24
Speaker 2: little town called Kinsley, Kansas, where we spent I spent
1:29
Speaker 2: from age eleven on until I went to college, and
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Speaker 2: currently I'm in two places, Arizona primarily, and in the
1:38
Speaker 2: summers i am up in Wisconsin visiting my children and grandchildren.
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Speaker 3: Okay, awesome and similar for me. Born in Denver, moved
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Speaker 3: to Kinsley, Kansas, Western Kansas when I was not quite thirteen.
1:53
Speaker 3: I now reside in the Kansas City metro area, but
1:56
Speaker 3: also have a home in Tucsons, so Karen and I
1:59
Speaker 3: and Sharon, our other sister, can live near each other
2:02
Speaker 3: and then spend a couple months in a camper in
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Speaker 3: Wisconsin near Karen. So it's great to be near my sisters.
2:07
Speaker 1: Finally, awesome, all right, ladies, how did this start?
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Speaker 3: Got to take you to April of twenty seventeen For
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Speaker 3: the starting point in my professional world and my for
2:22
Speaker 3: profit entity I facilitate, and I was facilitating the bringing
2:25
Speaker 3: together of the Trauma Informed Movement in Kansas City with
2:29
Speaker 3: the Trauma and Form Movement Saint Louis, and normally as
2:31
Speaker 3: a facilitator or just worried about process. That particular day,
2:36
Speaker 3: the folks from Saint Louis said, Kathleen, you can go
2:38
Speaker 3: to the back of the room. We're going to do
2:39
Speaker 3: our trauma one oh one training and then when it's finished,
2:43
Speaker 3: come up and do the reflection. They were just a
2:47
Speaker 3: little bit into the training they introduced the concept of ACES,
2:50
Speaker 3: adverse childhood experiences. I was fifty six years old and
2:54
Speaker 3: I'd never heard of ACES, so I quickly paid attention.
2:58
Speaker 3: They put up the list of ten aces. I'm a
3:01
Speaker 3: math brain, I said, okay, zero to ten. Most people
3:04
Speaker 3: have a five or six. I know I have a nine.
3:07
Speaker 3: I'm going to write an eight, so I'm not quite
3:09
Speaker 3: out of the norm. They put up the data for
3:12
Speaker 3: the class and literally, guy, most people in class had zero,
3:17
Speaker 3: one or two, and I said, to myself, not out loud,
3:20
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, like these people they really lied. I
3:23
Speaker 3: should have lied more. And so they then put up
3:27
Speaker 3: the data for the state of Kansas and state of Missouri.
3:30
Speaker 3: And I know enough about stats that when I saw
3:33
Speaker 3: that chart, very much skewed again to the left. Most
3:37
Speaker 3: people have zero, one or two, and only two and
3:39
Speaker 3: a half percent of the population in Kansas and Missouri
3:42
Speaker 3: had reported an eight, nine or ten. I knew at
3:46
Speaker 3: that moment first time in my life that the childhood
3:49
Speaker 3: we had was in fact quite different from what other
3:52
Speaker 3: people experienced, and I needed to pay attention to what
3:56
Speaker 3: this aces meant. And on my way home then called
4:00
Speaker 3: my sister Karen and said, Karen, I know the answers
4:03
Speaker 3: now to our two questions why do we have so
4:06
Speaker 3: many chronic health conditions? And I want to get more
4:09
Speaker 3: insights on how we broke the multi generational cycle of incest,
4:13
Speaker 3: abuse and neglect in our paternal family. So Karen, over
4:16
Speaker 3: to you. That was kind of a life changing moment
4:19
Speaker 3: for me, and then I passed it on to my sister.
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Speaker 2: She did, and I got very quiet and listened to her,
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Speaker 2: and then I remember I said to her, is there
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Speaker 2: a twenty? Is there a score of twenty? And she said,
4:33
Speaker 2: are you kidding me? And I said no, We've not
4:36
Speaker 2: ever talked about the things that happened in our family before.
4:40
Speaker 2: But I would say that if there are more things
4:43
Speaker 2: that we could add to that, I would have a
4:44
Speaker 2: much higher score. So she said, well, we need to talk,
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Speaker 2: and that honestly started the conversations about the chronic health conditions.
4:56
Speaker 2: Katherine and I did a deep dive into the neuroscience
4:58
Speaker 2: of trauma and started learning about that and realizing that
5:04
Speaker 2: all along we had had carried these issues with us.
5:09
Speaker 2: I had sought therapy in my early twenties for about
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Speaker 2: four years. Helped me tremendously. It helped me talked to
5:17
Speaker 2: both of my parents and confront them, But I did
5:21
Speaker 2: not get any of the information back then that I
5:25
Speaker 2: have now that's been very helpful in terms of the
5:29
Speaker 2: journey along the way. So I was the first sister
5:32
Speaker 2: that actually named it and left the family when I
5:36
Speaker 2: was eighteen and just disappeared for about six years to try.
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Speaker 1: All right, let me pause you right there. So you
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Speaker 1: were the first sister that named it, named.
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Speaker 2: What named incest? And actually to my then husband and
5:55
Speaker 2: to a couple of friends and therapists.
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Speaker 1: You did, yes. Okay, When did it start for me?
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Speaker 2: My earliest memory would be around probably four. I'm thinking
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Speaker 2: that it started before then, but definitely around the age four.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So okay, let's just take a step back here.
6:22
Speaker 1: You have three sisters. Are there any other siblings? A
6:24
Speaker 1: brother that we have a brother, a brother, both parents
6:29
Speaker 1: are around you're growing up? Were and who were the
6:37
Speaker 1: victims or survivors whichever term you want to use here?
6:41
Speaker 1: Who who were they? All sisters? Both? All three sisters? Yes? Yes, okay.
6:46
Speaker 1: Was this something you talked about amongst yourselves?
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Speaker 2: No, we did not. We For me, I thought that
6:53
Speaker 2: I was saving my sisters by putting up with the abuse,
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Speaker 2: and so that was my I was quiet, I was reserved,
7:05
Speaker 2: I was very withdrawn and so picked on the most
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Speaker 2: and I just thought, well, that's you know, that saves
7:15
Speaker 2: my sisters. So in my mind, that's what I that's
7:19
Speaker 2: what I did. Was just I never fought it, you know.
7:22
Speaker 1: I just And the perpetrator was your father.
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Speaker 2: And my grandfather, paternal father, paternal grandmother.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, paternal grandfather. So this is going on for years,
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Speaker 1: and as is common, you're not talking about it. But Karen,
7:41
Speaker 1: at eighteen you said you were the first one to
7:44
Speaker 1: share it with a therapist.
7:46
Speaker 2: With no at eighteen, my father asked me to come
7:49
Speaker 2: home for the summer and leave college and leave my boyfriend,
7:56
Speaker 2: my then boyfriend, because he always broke up every relationship
7:59
Speaker 2: that we had. And on the way back to college
8:03
Speaker 2: for spring break, I knew that I wasn't coming home.
8:06
Speaker 2: I pacified my parents and said I would come home,
8:10
Speaker 2: but I knew very clearly on the drive back that
8:13
Speaker 2: I was not going to return home, and so I
8:17
Speaker 2: then broke the news to my boyfriend about what had
8:19
Speaker 2: been happening to me, and I literally said, you know,
8:23
Speaker 2: you don't have to stay with me, but I'm going
8:26
Speaker 2: to leave college and either disappear entirely from everyone. I'm
8:32
Speaker 2: going to commit suicide, was my second option. Or maybe
8:38
Speaker 2: you and I can figure out how to be together.
8:41
Speaker 2: And if I'm with someone and he knows he can't
8:44
Speaker 2: break us up, he'll leave me alone. So those, in
8:48
Speaker 2: my mind were my three options. He chose to marry me,
8:53
Speaker 2: and it was a very difficult situation where my father did.
9:00
Speaker 2: The night before we got married, I broke down and
9:03
Speaker 2: decided to call my mom and tell her I was
9:05
Speaker 2: getting married, and then all hell broke loose and he
9:09
Speaker 2: came to try to abduct me, and we had to
9:14
Speaker 2: leave the state and then come back later on and
9:18
Speaker 2: get married, and then again leave the state because we
9:22
Speaker 2: weren't going to be safe from him. So that was
9:26
Speaker 2: the way that I started out my married life, and
9:30
Speaker 2: then decided to get therapy after my son was born
9:34
Speaker 2: because I literally realized that I didn't know how to
9:39
Speaker 2: parent and I did not know how to play. As
9:44
Speaker 2: he got a little older, I couldn't figure out how
9:47
Speaker 2: to play because I couldn't remember ever playing. So I
9:51
Speaker 2: thought I'd better get some help here if I was
9:54
Speaker 2: going to be the mother that I wanted to be,
9:57
Speaker 2: and went into therapy. So I had a great therapist.
10:00
Speaker 2: She helped me a lot.
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Speaker 1: Let me bring Kathleen in here. At what point did
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Speaker 1: you both talk to each other about this.
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Speaker 3: When when we were when I was what fifty six
10:14
Speaker 3: April of twenty seventeen. We had never talked about it
10:18
Speaker 3: up until that time.
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Speaker 2: And.
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Speaker 3: I had really very little idea of just how much
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Speaker 3: Sharon and Karen the what the predator does is they
10:30
Speaker 3: isolate you. They made us competitors. We were ranked and
10:35
Speaker 3: rated at Sunday evening dinners, and whoever was on the
10:37
Speaker 3: bottom of the total pole got the wrath and what
10:40
Speaker 3: we saw was more the emotional and physical abuse. We
10:44
Speaker 3: did not see each other sexual abuse. And then our
10:47
Speaker 3: father made us each fill like we were the only ones.
10:52
Speaker 3: So I, from age five that I can recall, was
10:56
Speaker 3: considered the mother of the family and the second wife,
11:00
Speaker 3: and I was special and I was loved, and my
11:03
Speaker 3: sexual abuse was not violent, unlike the twins, which again
11:07
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I thought it was just me because
11:09
Speaker 3: I was the second wife. An honestly, guy, it's kind
11:12
Speaker 3: of embarrassing because I'm relatively bright human. I did not
11:16
Speaker 3: realize until my middle of my high school year high
11:20
Speaker 3: school years that what was happening was not normal. It's
11:24
Speaker 3: all I had known for my and I remember age five,
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Speaker 3: It's really all I had known, and it had been normalized,
11:34
Speaker 3: and I had been put in a role that I
11:37
Speaker 3: thought was okay, you know, the mom of the family,
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Speaker 3: the one that needed to make sure that we had
11:43
Speaker 3: the meals and that there was order to the family
11:45
Speaker 3: and that we were getting the things done that we
11:47
Speaker 3: needed to do. I just kind of ran the family,
11:49
Speaker 3: and then the second wife role was part of that,
11:51
Speaker 3: and I did not see that as unusual until I
11:55
Speaker 3: was about sixteen.
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Speaker 1: As you were growing up thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, how
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Speaker 1: are you managing each of you?
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Speaker 2: For me?
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Speaker 3: And I'll let Karen shef for her. We talk about
12:14
Speaker 3: what we call turning point moments. Every survivor of what
12:19
Speaker 3: we've been through has a moment in which they decide
12:24
Speaker 3: that they're going to stand in what's happening and they're
12:27
Speaker 3: going to endure. And mine happened at age five. I
12:30
Speaker 3: had just finished a screaming match with my father where
12:33
Speaker 3: he called me every awful name you could call a
12:35
Speaker 3: little girl. And I was pretty resilient, I was pretty stubborn,
12:38
Speaker 3: and I would scream back at him, no I'm not, daddy,
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Speaker 3: No I'm not, and my little fist clench and tears
12:44
Speaker 3: in my eyes. And that day, when we finished screaming,
12:47
Speaker 3: I always got the last work, because very quietly I
12:49
Speaker 3: would say, I am not. Under my breath, a voice
12:54
Speaker 3: came to me, and it came from the very depths
12:57
Speaker 3: of my soul. I will never forget it, and I
12:59
Speaker 3: will never or not hear it again. And it said
13:02
Speaker 3: to me, you will be different. You are to make
13:06
Speaker 3: a difference. And in that very moment, guy I changed,
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Speaker 3: and I recall thinking, okay, I'm to make a difference.
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Speaker 3: That's my purpose, my memory eraser. I got a memory eraser.
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Speaker 3: I believe that's when it turned on and I was
13:21
Speaker 3: able to erase anything that didn't fit inside of this
13:24
Speaker 3: little world I created. And then steel walls came up.
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Speaker 3: I called her stealed Up Kathleen. Now I didn't then,
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Speaker 3: I didn't know all that, but I remember. It's just
13:34
Speaker 3: I became very focused, head down ice for were driven
13:37
Speaker 3: to make a difference, get through, get out, get on,
13:40
Speaker 3: And that was really what drove me from age five
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Speaker 3: and five and on. And it's taken me a long
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Speaker 3: time to recognize stealed Up Kathleen, to recognize memory raser
13:50
Speaker 3: as trauma responses. I'm grateful for them, but I continue
13:54
Speaker 3: to have to try to figure out how to and
13:58
Speaker 3: when to allow them to manage me.
14:01
Speaker 1: How about peas turn well?
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Speaker 2: For me? It was when I was about twelve and
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Speaker 2: a half. I had endured a lot, and I had
14:11
Speaker 2: been raped by my grandfather earlier that year and had
14:16
Speaker 2: funded my own back alley abortion, of which I nearly
14:20
Speaker 2: died from. I didn't realize that I was depressed. I
14:24
Speaker 2: do now, and so on a Sunday afternoon, I went
14:30
Speaker 2: upstairs to read a book and I overheard my father
14:34
Speaker 2: with Kathleen, my older sister, and I knew exactly what
14:39
Speaker 2: was happening, and I don't remember snapping, but I do
14:45
Speaker 2: remember just being mortified that it wasn't just me, and
14:51
Speaker 2: that all of this saving everybody hadn't saved anyone. So
14:58
Speaker 2: I decided to make a plan to end their lives,
15:03
Speaker 2: my parents' lives and mine. And luckily that summer I
15:09
Speaker 2: had adopted a dog that I named Boy, and he
15:12
Speaker 2: was my savior and he uh he went everywhere with me.
15:15
Speaker 2: I told him all my secrets. But so that day
15:20
Speaker 2: I just felt very calm. I remember feeling calm, feeling
15:25
Speaker 2: kind of sad that I would have to be leaving
15:27
Speaker 2: all of this, but also kind of glad. And I
15:32
Speaker 2: memorized their room so I could go in there at
15:34
Speaker 2: nighttime and do what.
15:36
Speaker 1: I how are you gonna how are you gonna do it?
15:38
Speaker 1: How are you gonna?
15:38
Speaker 2: Found a knife? And I figured that's what I would do.
15:42
Speaker 2: So I remember that night, after Dad was drunk and
15:46
Speaker 2: Mom was asleep, I went in the room and decided
15:50
Speaker 2: Dad would have to be first, and as I raised
15:53
Speaker 2: the knife up my dog took my arm and whoah,
15:59
Speaker 2: I remember, are just standing there like, wait a minute, now,
16:02
Speaker 2: I can't do this, And he just took me right
16:06
Speaker 2: downstairs and opened up the screen door and right across
16:12
Speaker 2: the highway to the river where I used to sit
16:14
Speaker 2: with him. And I sat there all night and cried
16:18
Speaker 2: and cried and cried on him. But similarly, as Kathleen said,
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Speaker 2: I heard a voice, and the voice to me said, Karen,
16:30
Speaker 2: you are loved, and you will spread love the rest
16:34
Speaker 2: of your life, and you will endure whatever you need
16:37
Speaker 2: to endure, and you must believe this. So the word
16:42
Speaker 2: belief has always been my favorite word since then. And
16:45
Speaker 2: I made the decision that I would try to understand
16:51
Speaker 2: what was happening to me and why they were doing
16:54
Speaker 2: what they were doing, and why Mom wasn't helping me,
16:58
Speaker 2: and that I would go on to help others and
17:02
Speaker 2: I would just spread love as much as I could.
17:05
Speaker 2: So that helped me endure years ahead of which I
17:10
Speaker 2: was trafficked and some horrible things. But I went on
17:14
Speaker 2: to go to nursing school and study a lot of
17:17
Speaker 2: psychology and really try and understand what had happened to Dad,
17:25
Speaker 2: what had possibly happened to my grandfather why mom was
17:29
Speaker 2: the way she was, And that was my way of coping.
17:33
Speaker 2: That was my way of saying, you know, this is
17:37
Speaker 2: a cycle, this is something that needs to be broken.
17:44
Speaker 2: Not that I wasn't affected. I was greatly affected. And
17:48
Speaker 2: what I had to learn didn't even learn it until
17:51
Speaker 2: later on in life, were boundaries, not always saying yes,
17:58
Speaker 2: realizing it was okay to have my own voice, all
18:02
Speaker 2: of those types of things. But I'm not like Kathleen.
18:08
Speaker 2: I feel like I've done my duty, my purpose. I've
18:12
Speaker 2: spread love in many ways, and I also feel like
18:16
Speaker 2: I'm a strong person and I understand a lot of
18:21
Speaker 2: situations that I may not have before, because, as you know,
18:26
Speaker 2: when children are put in a situation like this, they
18:29
Speaker 2: learned to read the room. And I was always very
18:33
Speaker 2: good at reading the room and understanding where people were
18:37
Speaker 2: at any given time in terms of were they someone
18:40
Speaker 2: safe for me or not? And so I don't know
18:44
Speaker 2: over the lifetime. That's that's how I've dealt with it.
18:50
Speaker 1: Let me just introject you. First of all, I just
18:52
Speaker 1: want to thank you both for coming on here and
18:56
Speaker 1: sharing what you're sharing. You're both incredible, incredibly strong, women
19:02
Speaker 1: and inspiring women. I mean, come on, what was it
19:10
Speaker 1: like when you both spoke for the first time about
19:14
Speaker 1: what had been going on?
19:16
Speaker 2: For me, it was very difficult to admit that twelve
19:19
Speaker 2: year old girl, and it was hard for me to
19:23
Speaker 2: say what I might have done. But then the other
19:29
Speaker 2: hard part was to Kathleen was my mother, and to
19:35
Speaker 2: to have to say to her the things. Some of
19:38
Speaker 2: the things that I went through were very It was very,
19:41
Speaker 2: very difficult. And then my twin sister and I. She
19:47
Speaker 2: was actually really angry with me, and luckily got that
19:51
Speaker 2: out because she wanted me to fight and I never would.
19:55
Speaker 2: And she carried that anger all those years because she
20:00
Speaker 2: did witness the abuse unknownst to me sometimes and she
20:06
Speaker 2: just was very angry at me. So we had to
20:09
Speaker 2: get through that and have a lot of difficult conversations.
20:13
Speaker 2: And you know, it was hard for me to hurt
20:16
Speaker 2: my mother and tell her these things. You know, it's
20:20
Speaker 2: when you're talking about Kathleen my mother.
20:23
Speaker 1: Okay, Kathleen, how about for you when you first talked
20:26
Speaker 1: to Karen.
20:27
Speaker 3: About this, you know, I knew again the emotional abuse
20:30
Speaker 3: and the physical abuse. As the mom of the family,
20:34
Speaker 3: anyone that is a parent can understand the feelings that
20:38
Speaker 3: you have for your quote children, which they weren't my children,
20:42
Speaker 3: but I raised them and tried to take care of
20:45
Speaker 3: them in that way. It was devastating. I remember when
20:50
Speaker 3: A dog named Boys story came in. I read just
20:54
Speaker 3: a couple of paragraphs and collapsed in my office sobbing,
20:57
Speaker 3: and my husband came in and said, are you okay,
20:59
Speaker 3: and I'm like, no, I'm not okay. And so finding
21:03
Speaker 3: out those things and knowing that I hadn't been able
21:06
Speaker 3: to protect them but I didn't know, so I there
21:10
Speaker 3: is that guilt, that shame that comes back, but I
21:12
Speaker 3: also there was this beautiful grace that comes through understanding.
21:18
Speaker 3: And so what I used to interpret as a weakness
21:23
Speaker 3: in my sisters, things that I saw them not respond to,
21:27
Speaker 3: as you know Karen shared, I now saw its incredible strength.
21:31
Speaker 3: And I think they saw that with me in terms
21:34
Speaker 3: of my ability not to remember. They would say, well
21:37
Speaker 3: this happened, and I'm like it did, and they're like
21:40
Speaker 3: you were right there and I'm like, I don't remember.
21:43
Speaker 3: And that's when I kind of uncovered the memory eraser.
21:46
Speaker 3: So I think, guy, this has been this incredible understanding
21:50
Speaker 3: of learning together about trauma, its impacts, it's what it
21:55
Speaker 3: does to your mind, your body, your coping mechanisms or trauma.
21:58
Speaker 3: All of that has been so formative. And then my
22:02
Speaker 3: role as the second mom of the family was to
22:06
Speaker 3: hold accountability. And so for me, it was very important
22:10
Speaker 3: that I hold both of my parents accountable, that they
22:14
Speaker 3: understood that we knew, we understood the full impact. They
22:17
Speaker 3: needed to understand the.
22:18
Speaker 1: Full When did that happen? How did that happen? You know?
22:26
Speaker 3: From my father was face to face and he apologized
22:31
Speaker 3: to me for what had happened. And oh gosh, it
22:37
Speaker 3: was about when did Dad pass? It's probably right before
22:41
Speaker 3: he passed. It was right after this discovery, and I
22:45
Speaker 3: think it was just a couple months and I had
22:48
Speaker 3: done enough reading that I began to understand.
22:51
Speaker 2: And when I.
22:53
Speaker 3: Told him he needed to apologize to the twins, he
22:56
Speaker 3: looked at me and he said they deserved what they got.
23:00
Speaker 3: And that was the last conversation that I had with
23:03
Speaker 3: my father. I couldn't. I had to separate from him
23:06
Speaker 3: very quickly. It was just too much. And then Mom,
23:11
Speaker 3: it was after we wrote the book and we told
23:14
Speaker 3: her and I started to have conversations, probably in about
23:18
Speaker 3: twenty twenty is when I said to her, because she
23:22
Speaker 3: kept saying, well, I didn't know, and she denied everything,
23:25
Speaker 3: and I said, you didn't know, and I don't know
23:26
Speaker 3: how much you knew, but you knew some of it
23:28
Speaker 3: because you were there and you participated. And she hung
23:31
Speaker 3: up yelling at me, and then she called me back
23:34
Speaker 3: and she said, you're right, I didn't know. And I said,
23:38
Speaker 3: why didn't you do anything? And she said, well, I
23:40
Speaker 3: did reach out to the priest in the Kinsley area
23:45
Speaker 3: and I let him know that I was being hurt
23:47
Speaker 3: and the children were being hurt. And the priest told
23:51
Speaker 3: her at the time we were probably I don't know,
23:55
Speaker 3: she couldn't remember the age exactly, but we were in
23:57
Speaker 3: our teenage years. That well, you know, Jan, we don't
24:00
Speaker 3: believe in divorce, so you need to stay. She was
24:03
Speaker 3: going to take us to our aunt and uncles in
24:05
Speaker 3: Great Ben, which is exactly what should have happened. And
24:08
Speaker 3: I thanked her for being strong to tell him. I
24:12
Speaker 3: cursed the priest and I do and I never met him.
24:16
Speaker 3: I don't know who he was, but I know that
24:18
Speaker 3: he existed. And I told my mom, you should have
24:22
Speaker 3: taken us to our aunt and uncle to help mitigate
24:26
Speaker 3: so much of what we went through. So that was
24:28
Speaker 3: important for me to hold accountability and it was part
24:31
Speaker 3: of my healing. I do not need to forgive them,
24:34
Speaker 3: I will never forgive them, but I did hold accountability,
24:38
Speaker 3: and for my healing, that was critical.
24:42
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how things shifted such that you got
24:48
Speaker 1: together and started to write this book. How did that
24:52
Speaker 1: come about? How did you form remarkably resilient Why excuse me,
24:58
Speaker 1: why did you do that? What was the purpose?
25:03
Speaker 3: The book came out of that conversation with Karen, and
25:06
Speaker 3: I did a two year deep dive. I read everything
25:08
Speaker 3: I could. My favorite book, doctor Nadine Berkheris. I love
25:12
Speaker 3: her Ted Talks, I love her writing the deepest. Well, yes,
25:18
Speaker 3: and I just really said, okay. I think after a
25:21
Speaker 3: couple of years, I presented a paper at a local
25:24
Speaker 3: county conference here and I started talking to Karen about
25:29
Speaker 3: I think that this happened to us because we are successful,
25:34
Speaker 3: articulate women that are old enough now and far enough
25:38
Speaker 3: away from this that we're supposed to help other survivors.
25:42
Speaker 3: And so, bless Karen's heart, she said she would go
25:45
Speaker 3: on the journey with me to write the book. Sharon
25:47
Speaker 3: said no, which is her prerogative, but eventually she came
25:51
Speaker 3: along and said no, I'd like to participate, And so
25:53
Speaker 3: we published Remarkably Resilient Community Matters in twenty nineteen, and
25:58
Speaker 3: we've been speaking in prison sense and Karen, I can
26:02
Speaker 3: let you share a little bit of how Remarkably Resilient INC.
26:04
Speaker 3: Came together and our RT happened.
26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. So from that we wrote our rs of resilience,
26:12
Speaker 2: which were regulation, response, relationship, reflection, and recovery, and we
26:22
Speaker 2: dove into those in the book, along with the neuroscience
26:24
Speaker 2: of trauma. And then thought that we had done enough
26:29
Speaker 2: I guess in that sense. And Kathleen and I kept
26:32
Speaker 2: saying to each other, well, somebody is going to decide
26:37
Speaker 2: that it's important to teach regulation to everyone, and somebody
26:41
Speaker 2: is going to do this, and somebody's going to do that.
26:43
Speaker 2: Well we weren't seeing it happen locally, or so she
26:48
Speaker 2: called me one day and said, well, I think that
26:50
Speaker 2: somebody's us again, So we need to roll out what
26:55
Speaker 2: we think is the most important R to begin with,
26:58
Speaker 2: which was to teach regulation to everyone. Anyone can learn it.
27:04
Speaker 2: We all are better human beings when we know that
27:07
Speaker 2: we are regulated. We personally know we were disregulated mothers.
27:12
Speaker 2: At times I wish I had learned it in my
27:16
Speaker 2: early twenties when I was in therapy. So that's what
27:20
Speaker 2: that's where RTEA came out, is we decided to teach
27:24
Speaker 2: regulation to everyone and also self care because we thought
27:29
Speaker 2: that together those were important aspects.
27:34
Speaker 1: Just taking a side step here, Kathleen, was your point
27:40
Speaker 1: at which you sought therapy or help, professional help, and
27:44
Speaker 1: if so, for what?
27:46
Speaker 3: When I was forty, I was left in fertile for
27:49
Speaker 3: my abuse. So at age forty, we decided to adopt.
27:53
Speaker 3: And when we brought our son home, I knew something
27:57
Speaker 3: was off. I couldn't actually put words to it, but
28:01
Speaker 3: I knew I needed therapy and help because I didn't
28:03
Speaker 3: want to raise my son the way I had been raised.
28:05
Speaker 3: But honestly, I didn't know what else to do. So
28:09
Speaker 3: I started therapy at forty and continued on and off,
28:14
Speaker 3: and then really took a break and went back into therapy,
28:17
Speaker 3: then on and off. As I started this discovery, and
28:22
Speaker 3: I kind of one of our other themes in the
28:25
Speaker 3: work that we do is let's help empower everyone to
28:29
Speaker 3: heal themselves. Until they can't. And so we hope to
28:34
Speaker 3: unlock some of those tools that have been caught in
28:37
Speaker 3: the behavioral health system, not because anybody's bad, but just
28:40
Speaker 3: because it's the way the system is. But in my
28:43
Speaker 3: journey with my son, who has severe and persistent mental
28:46
Speaker 3: illness and other complications from that co occurring diagnoses, it
28:50
Speaker 3: was very hard for me at times to get services
28:53
Speaker 3: and interact with the systems, and in that process recognized
28:57
Speaker 3: that there were skills and tools that we could give
29:01
Speaker 3: to the world and empower individuals to again heal themselves
29:06
Speaker 3: until they can't. And so I find I have to
29:09
Speaker 3: go back and touch the behavioral health system. I've had
29:12
Speaker 3: the same counselor since age forty, and she helps me
29:17
Speaker 3: kind of get through a barrier that I can't get
29:20
Speaker 3: through myself.
29:23
Speaker 1: The title of the book remarkably Resilient, Community matters. Community
29:30
Speaker 1: would talk to us about that well.
29:33
Speaker 2: We had that our community of Kinsy, Kansas literally helped
29:38
Speaker 2: save our lives because it was a small community where
29:41
Speaker 2: everyone cared about each other. For the most part, we
29:46
Speaker 2: could be employed when we were young. I was eleven
29:49
Speaker 2: when I started working. We had a great school system
29:54
Speaker 2: where it was so small, you had to participate in everything.
29:58
Speaker 2: You got to participate in every thing, and so we
30:01
Speaker 2: were able to stay very busy in school in every activity,
30:06
Speaker 2: therefore not having to be home. We also had employers
30:10
Speaker 2: that employed us, and so we learned other how to
30:14
Speaker 2: be around other adults who weren't abusive, and honestly, we
30:20
Speaker 2: were very protected that way. We didn't have a lot
30:24
Speaker 2: of violence around us in our community. People were very
30:29
Speaker 2: shocked when our book came out in our community because
30:33
Speaker 2: we were all straight A students and thought highly of
30:36
Speaker 2: in terms of students and employees, but just unknowingly, there
30:42
Speaker 2: were very many beautiful people that kind of took us
30:47
Speaker 2: in and didn't ask a lot of questions, but kind
30:50
Speaker 2: of took care of us. So we were lucky. Community
30:55
Speaker 2: did matter.
30:58
Speaker 1: With the with the book, kind of want to get
31:00
Speaker 1: a little more specific what was important for you to
31:06
Speaker 1: get out to the audience.
31:11
Speaker 3: For me, I wanted to translate the neuroscience and neurobiology
31:16
Speaker 3: of trauma in a way that would be accessible to everyone,
31:19
Speaker 3: because there is such a weight guy that you carry
31:23
Speaker 3: as a survivor and understanding that it's what happened to you,
31:29
Speaker 3: not what's.
31:30
Speaker 2: Wrong with you.
31:31
Speaker 3: There are no words to describe the lifting of that weight.
31:36
Speaker 3: And then we wanted to share what we found out
31:41
Speaker 3: through the neuroscience and our biology of trauma and our
31:44
Speaker 3: lived experience, what we saw, as Karen said, those hours
31:47
Speaker 3: of resilience and hope of helping other families break those
31:53
Speaker 3: multi generational cycles that occur in family generation after generation
31:58
Speaker 3: after generation. And we are so proud, honestly, of all
32:02
Speaker 3: my achievements in my lifetime, I am most proud of
32:05
Speaker 3: that achievement. We were dysregulated moms. As Karen said, that
32:09
Speaker 3: is a fact wish I would have known better. But
32:11
Speaker 3: my son and I learned regulation together again right after
32:16
Speaker 3: my moment there, and he was sixteen seventeen, and we
32:19
Speaker 3: have been practicing that now for eight years, and I
32:21
Speaker 3: must tell you it has changed our relationship markedly. So
32:26
Speaker 3: that was what I had hoped to convey. And Karen,
32:28
Speaker 3: I don't know what you would add to that.
32:30
Speaker 2: I would say the same thing is that you can
32:32
Speaker 2: go through something horrific and not have it define you
32:38
Speaker 2: for the rest of your life and be very successful.
32:42
Speaker 2: And you know, but also understand very clearly that it's
32:47
Speaker 2: a journey, not a destination.
32:50
Speaker 1: Well, let me pause right there. So that's huge to
32:54
Speaker 1: go through something horrific and not have it define you.
32:57
Speaker 1: How the heck do you do that? Well, how do
33:01
Speaker 1: you do that? How could it? And people listening to this,
33:05
Speaker 1: no one could blame either of you for, you know,
33:09
Speaker 1: not allowing it to define you. How do you not
33:11
Speaker 1: allow it to define you? Or for how long did
33:14
Speaker 1: it define you? Did it define you?
33:16
Speaker 2: I think in ways it did define me when I
33:21
Speaker 2: was younger, and I had to learn to get beyond that.
33:27
Speaker 2: But then again, I just had a different side of
33:29
Speaker 2: me that always saw love. I was blessed with that,
33:35
Speaker 2: I guess, and I always saw love and I always
33:39
Speaker 2: tried to understand so. And actually, at the end of
33:42
Speaker 2: their lives, I took care of both my parents because
33:46
Speaker 2: I saw them as frail, elderly individuals who had made
33:50
Speaker 2: mistakes and it had been shaped in different ways as well.
33:54
Speaker 2: And for me, I needed to have that closure. I
33:59
Speaker 2: needed to teach my mom how to be a mother,
34:02
Speaker 2: and I did that. I would say things to her like,
34:06
Speaker 2: oh good night, Mom, I love you, and then she
34:08
Speaker 2: would say good night, and I'd say you also meant
34:11
Speaker 2: to say I love you too, and she'd say, oh, yeah,
34:14
Speaker 2: I love you too, And you know, I just taught
34:17
Speaker 2: her how to be a mother because I wanted to
34:20
Speaker 2: miss my mother when she was gone, and I do
34:22
Speaker 2: miss my mother. And we had a lot of conversations
34:27
Speaker 2: about life. And then I had the opportunity to be
34:31
Speaker 2: with my father and unfortunately hear the horrible things that
34:35
Speaker 2: had happened to him at the hands of his father
34:39
Speaker 2: and the kind of PTSD that he carried, so I
34:44
Speaker 2: understood him more. And my father was the worst person
34:49
Speaker 2: in my life and sometimes the best person in my life,
34:53
Speaker 2: and people don't understand that. But he taught me some
34:57
Speaker 2: very valuable lessons that were very human. So that was
35:03
Speaker 2: my journey. That was my journey with them.
35:06
Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, Karen and Kathleen,
35:12
Speaker 1: you know, people listening to this therapist, mental health practitioners
35:16
Speaker 1: of all kinds, survivors themselves. What is important for them
35:23
Speaker 1: to hear Kathleen start with.
35:25
Speaker 3: You, Please don't let your trauma responses and your coping
35:31
Speaker 3: mechanisms define who you are, because I did. Unlike Karen,
35:35
Speaker 3: it did define me for oh gosh, fifty five to
35:39
Speaker 3: sixty years. I'm just now starting to separate those understand
35:42
Speaker 3: that it's what happened to you, not what's wrong with you.
35:47
Speaker 3: Please take time to learn about the human stress response,
35:50
Speaker 3: about regulation, about the importance of self care, again, trauma responses,
35:54
Speaker 3: coping mechanisms as best you can, and through helping yourself
35:59
Speaker 3: and leaning on others, separate, do your best to separate
36:04
Speaker 3: your authentic self. And I'm going to leave with the
36:06
Speaker 3: definition of healing that Karen and I are now writing
36:09
Speaker 3: about in our next remarkably resulting together materials. Healing is
36:14
Speaker 3: allowing your authentic self to come through untangled from your
36:20
Speaker 3: trauma responses and unhealthy coping mechanisms. And there are a
36:24
Speaker 3: lot of pieces in there that you start to look
36:27
Speaker 3: at and pull aside to allow who you were supposed
36:31
Speaker 3: to be that it didn't get to be. And there
36:33
Speaker 3: are pieces of me that I didn't get to be
36:35
Speaker 3: that I am now embracing and I'm being. And my
36:39
Speaker 3: number one one is joyous dancer. So if you see
36:42
Speaker 3: me on the dance floor, that's her. I'm joyous.
36:45
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love all right, Karen.
36:49
Speaker 2: If you see me riding a horse, I am joyous.
36:53
Speaker 2: So but for me, what I do also want to
36:55
Speaker 2: say is I was sixty three years old, before I
37:00
Speaker 2: had a medical professional actually write down in my chart
37:05
Speaker 2: that I was a survivor of childhood trauma and incest
37:11
Speaker 2: and sexual abuse. And I had told every one of
37:15
Speaker 2: them that that's what happened to me. And so I
37:21
Speaker 2: would like to touch the medical community and have them
37:23
Speaker 2: not shame someone because they're obese, or shame someone for
37:29
Speaker 2: all of their It feels like shame when someone you
37:34
Speaker 2: know tells you, well, you should just lose weight, you
37:36
Speaker 2: should just this, when you've had a lifetime of cortisol
37:40
Speaker 2: dump And I would like to have them understand that that,
37:44
Speaker 2: you know, everyone goes through something and sometimes I ended
37:48
Speaker 2: up with twenty three abdominal surgeries and I have to
37:54
Speaker 2: be fat in my abdomen. That is my abdomen, and
37:57
Speaker 2: so I can't do anything about it, but I constantly
38:00
Speaker 2: get the lecture, and that's hard. That part's hard. Also
38:06
Speaker 2: we were left with I was left with her bees,
38:10
Speaker 2: and you know, I had physicians that would not give
38:13
Speaker 2: me medication until I had an outbreak. And finally the
38:17
Speaker 2: one who understood said, why are you having to come
38:20
Speaker 2: constantly being re traumatized by this. We'll just give you
38:24
Speaker 2: a daily dose. And so there's just a lot of
38:27
Speaker 2: education that needs to happen out there. I think.
38:32
Speaker 1: As we close down here, you know, I hope you
38:40
Speaker 1: realize how incredibly inspiring both of you are and incredibly
38:46
Speaker 1: resilient you are. And come on, I mean, you're amazing
38:52
Speaker 1: really to come on here and share this story and
38:55
Speaker 1: to go through the journey you've gone through to write
39:01
Speaker 1: the book and you're writing a second book, and to
39:03
Speaker 1: create remarkably resilient and to help educate and inspire other people.
39:09
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what we need in this world.
39:12
Speaker 1: So it's an honor to have both of you on here,
39:15
Speaker 1: it really is. I mean, this is what I hope
39:17
Speaker 1: this podcast is about. So you both are welcome back
39:22
Speaker 1: at a later time. And I love what you're doing.
39:25
Speaker 2: Thank you.
39:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be in touch.
39:28
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. All right, thank you, Bye bye,