Latest / Latinx Therapy / Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez: Her Story on Religion and Sexual Liberation

Transcript

Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez: Her Story on Religion and Sexual Liberation · Latinx Therapy

• 0:03
  All right, and let's welcome Prisca.
• 0:06
  Hello, thank you for having me.
• 0:09
  Hi, thank you so much for being here.
• 0:11
  I'm super excited.
• 0:13
  It's been a long time since I've seen you even though I see you often on social media.
• 0:18
  Yes, yes, yes.
• 0:19
  I think the last time we hung out was my previous book.
• 0:25
  Riverside.
• 0:26
  Yeah, yeah.
• 0:27
  Yes, the good old days.
• 0:30
  But today we're going to be talking about a topic that I've admired you talking about over multiple years.
• 0:39
  Even before your book came out, I learned a little bit more about it.
• 0:43
  And I found your story very fascinating, your history.
• 0:47
  And as you all know, because it's in the title, we're going to be talking about religious trauma specifically.
• 0:52
  Prisca's personal experience with religion and trauma.
• 0:57
  So Priska, how has your mental health been impacted throughout your years throughout your journey over time due to religion?
• 1:09
  I think it's like so profound that I haven't even fully gotten to all of the depth of it all.
• 1:17
  But I know that when your entire system of knowledge is attached to like, I grew up Christian, and so there's evil and there's good.
• 1:31
  When everything you understand is in that binary.
• 1:36
  You don't have room for nuances.
• 1:38
  You don't have room for like normal human mistakes, hormones even as you're growing up.
• 1:47
  I, hormones are a real thing when you become a teenager and my parents, the way that the purity culture specifically impacted the way they raised me was it didn't matter that I
• 2:00
  had hormones.
• 2:01
  It didn't matter that I had crushes.
• 2:03
  A good Christian.
• 2:05
  girl can only behave in very specific rudimentary ways.
• 2:11
  So like I wasn't allowed to leave my house.
• 2:13
  I was a house person.
• 2:17
  wasn't allowed to have call anybody who wasn't Christian a friend.
• 2:22
  So if I would be talking to me mommy about my school, I'd be like, give me a media, maybe it'll be like, no, no, it's not.
• 2:28
  So it was that it was just like this constant policing that nothing I thought was my reality.
• 2:34
  If it didn't reflect the church's teachings and it wasn't very Christian centric, then it was bad.
• 2:41
  And so I remember even sitting when I finally had a boyfriend that I brought home.
• 2:48
  He wasn't a boyfriend.
• 2:49
  He was a friend.
• 2:51
  And we only went on chaperone dates.
• 2:55
  We weren't allowed to talk late on the phone.
• 2:58
  And every I remember just sitting on the couch and we were watching movie with my family and we had a blanket on us and my dad just yanked it randomly.
• 3:06
  No warning.
• 3:07
  He just yanked it because he thought we were holding hands under it.
• 3:10
  So it was like this extreme policing that I still operate with a lot of paranoia.
• 3:16
  Like, I doing things right?
• 3:18
  Am I if things aren't perfect?
• 3:20
  I I'm not OK.
• 3:22
  So it comes from like.
• 3:24
  this specific rearing of what a good girl is, what a good woman is, and it's very much nothing's ever good enough.
• 3:31
  So you just kind of operate with a lot of paranoia.
• 3:35
  Even now as an adult, I'm not even attached to the church, but I still operate with a lot of like, what am I doing wrong?
• 3:42
  Before I even celebrate, what have I done well?
• 3:46
  What should I be proud of?
• 3:47
  I'm like, no, I did something wrong.
• 3:49
  Something must have gone wrong.
• 3:50
  I didn't anticipate something.
• 3:53
  So everything was controlled, essentially.
• 3:57
  Tell us a little bit about, you know, in adolescence, and I know you're so into fashion, your purses, your shoes, and all that.
• 4:05
  I see you girl.
• 4:06
  But growing up for you as an adolescent, what was dressing up like for you and living, you know, in a very religious household?
• 4:17
  I remember I wasn't allowed to wear makeup until I was 13.
• 4:25
  And then when I did get to wear makeup, it had to be like nude colors.
• 4:31
  And there was this like very much a fixation on like, not being vanidosa.
• 4:38
  Like if God is in your heart, then you don't need validation from anyone but God.
• 4:43
  And so to try to look pretty, the assumption was always
• 4:47
  that if you make yourself up, you're seeking validation from men specifically, or you're making men sin.
• 4:54
  So was like this, I mean, I feel like my infatuation with fashion has come from me leaving those thought processes and being like, no, I get to like this stuff.
• 5:05
  In fact, I get to be bold.
• 5:07
  I get to show my nipples.
• 5:09
  I like pushing the envelope because I've discovered that it gets to be mine and it gets to be...
• 5:17
  It was never for anyone else's pleasure, even though they were telling me that it was.
• 5:22
  But I remember being warned against la vanidad by other women in the church as they're talking to my mom being like, Cuidado con eso.
• 5:32
  It was extreme patrolling around, not standing out.
• 5:41
  Yeah.
• 5:41
  And when was it that you decided to leave religion, leave the church?
• 5:46
  Like, what happened there?
• 5:49
  I think because the church that I grew up in was really conservative, really fundamentalist.
• 5:57
  So what that means is that like what the Bible says is law.
• 6:01
  Like there is no, but it's weird too.
• 6:06
  women have to, there's very specific rules about being like a Yudhidonia of your husband.
• 6:14
  Women have to marry men.
• 6:16
  It was very specific around gender.
• 6:19
  But like you couldn't have tattoos because the Bible said so.
• 6:22
  But also in that same scripture, the Bible says like men can't shave their beards.
• 6:27
  So it was like very cherry picking on what the what patrolled the men and very loose on their regulations, but not on us.
• 6:37
  On women, it was very strict.
• 6:39
  Like we couldn't even stand up in front of the church and pray, give a prayer for the congregation.
• 6:45
  Like women weren't allowed to do that.
• 6:47
  And so
• 6:48
  When the gender binaries are so enforced, it's very much women have all vaginas, right?
• 6:57
  And those vaginas are to give birth.
• 7:02
  We're not given this idea that sex is to be enjoyed.
• 7:05
  It's something you save till marriage.
• 7:07
  It's something that produces children, that fails pews at the church.
• 7:12
  It's our responsibility.
• 7:14
  And so I
• 7:17
  got married really young.
• 7:18
  was 21 my first marriage and I realized really quickly that I couldn't carry pregnancies.
• 7:26
  had a, I mean, I stopped counting to be honest, but I had five miscarriages and it was sort of really devastating.
• 7:34
  And my mom had zero ability in comforting me or walking with me in any of that grief because
• 7:46
  theologically, if things go wrong, even mental health things, if things are going badly, it's because you haven't prayed enough, it's because you're not on God's track.
• 7:55
  And so when she's watching me have these miscarriages, I remember her just being like, you must have done something wrong.
• 8:03
  Algo hiciste, es raro.
• 8:05
  Like that didn't happen to me.
• 8:07
  And that, mean, that was really the beginning of the erosion for me.
• 8:12
  was like,
• 8:14
  You have told me my whole life, my purpose was to make babies, but my body's not capable of doing that.
• 8:22
  So then what is my purpose?
• 8:25
  Like, am I just a waste of space?
• 8:28
  Like, cause that's what your theology is telling me.
• 8:30
  If I can't produce, if I can't reproduce naturally, I'm wasting space.
• 8:36
  And I just, I refuse to accept that reality, but it took me about three years to sort of grieve.
• 8:44
  I sort of lost it for a little bit.
• 8:46
  I do call it losing it because I shaved my head.
• 8:49
  ran like I left my Miami.
• 8:52
  I moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
• 8:54
  I went to study theology because I was like, I want purpose.
• 8:58
  Like if y 'all's theological understanding of things, is it fitting?
• 9:01
  Maybe I could find something else because I need answers.
• 9:04
  So I've got a master's in theology.
• 9:07
  It's a master's of divinity.
• 9:08
  And in that, I discovered feminist theologies, queer theologies.
• 9:13
  I just discovered so many things that I was like, this is so much more complicated and it's so much more dense.
• 9:24
  the church I grew up in was never gonna be a place for me to thrive in.
• 9:29
  The church I grew up in was never gonna love me as somebody whose body is broken now, whose body is ruined now, whose body has no purpose.
• 9:38
  So it really started with my own infertility that I sort of, I had to sort of decide, am I gonna advocate for myself or am I gonna accept y 'all's reality?
• 9:52
  Yeah.
• 9:53
  And making that decision took you a whole master's degree, right?
• 10:00
  It took you a long time.
• 10:01
  I think a lot of reflection, a lot of healing, that was your process, your path towards healing, towards trying to create understanding and acceptance of just yourself, your
• 10:12
  identities, what you were feeling.
• 10:14
  Because I think something that I've noticed as a therapist, and also as a Latina myself, is that
• 10:22
  We are infantilized a lot in in our culture, in the religion as well.
• 10:30
  Like we grow up developmentally.
• 10:33
  Yes, like our bodies continue to grow, but our behaviors are suppressed a lot over the years.
• 10:41
  And so I've given I've talked about this on and off somewhat about how, you know, when I was in college, yes, I was 18.
• 10:49
  When I got pregnant, I was 19.
• 10:51
  I felt 16.
• 10:52
  I did not have control over the choices that I made.
• 10:57
  Over anything that I thought of, it had to be ran by my parents.
• 11:01
  I had to be very obedient.
• 11:03
  That's what I thought.
• 11:04
  That's I felt.
• 11:05
  And even though I was living two hours away from college, know, las regañadas, the way that they'd punish when they'd yell, it even took me back to like when I was 10, eight
• 11:17
  years old.
• 11:18
  And so I think that
• 11:20
  That was your way of creating liberation and separation to protect ultimately that inner child of yours.
• 11:28
  And so when was it that you realized like, wow, that those chapters of my life have been a trauma for me?
• 11:40
  It was when I finally decided to get divorced.
• 11:44
  So I had sort of like, I did everything right.
• 11:48
  Cause I was scared of my parents.
• 11:50
  I was terrified of them.
• 11:52
  And I had to, I knew that I wanted to leave the house.
• 11:57
  I hit a, like a wall.
• 11:59
  I think it was like the last time they hit me and I was in college.
• 12:03
  And I was just like, I don't ever want to be hit by you again.
• 12:06
  So I'm going to leave the house.
• 12:07
  But how do you leave the house in a home that you're scared of your parents?
• 12:11
  It was you do it with by getting married.
• 12:14
  And so I got married to somebody.
• 12:16
  I met him in January.
• 12:18
  We were engaged in August and I was getting married in December.
• 12:21
  Like it was like in the blink of an eye, it all happened.
• 12:25
  But it was like I just like I was like, I'm going to do what they need me to do to get out of here.
• 12:30
  And then I got married and realized I couldn't reproduce naturally.
• 12:33
  And so.
• 12:35
  I went to grad school, he was really supportive of me going to grad school, but then in grad school as I started to really see cracks in my foundation, I also started to see
• 12:45
  cracks in the foundation of my marriage.
• 12:48
  I saw the ways that my marriage had really been not my choice at all.
• 12:55
  It was something I did just to please them that I was like, I don't wanna be married to you.
• 13:00
  He did nothing wrong.
• 13:03
  We did nothing wrong.
• 13:04
  was just like, don't, this isn't the marriage I want.
• 13:08
  This isn't the story I want to tell about a relationship that I have.
• 13:12
  I want to decide that.
• 13:14
  And so when I got divorced, when I left him, I remember I called my mom.
• 13:18
  had moved.
• 13:19
  So when you're so scared of your parents, you also know that you can't tell them anything.
• 13:24
  Like I grew up, I had to, if I was sad, I had to figure it out and not show that I was sad.
• 13:30
  If I was angry, I had to figure it out.
• 13:32
  And so like,
• 13:32
  I was getting separated, so I had to figure it out.
• 13:35
  I got a place.
• 13:36
  I moved out.
• 13:37
  My friends helped me move out.
• 13:39
  I was living in the basement in an inflatable mattress when I finally called my mom and was like, mommy, lo deje.
• 13:47
  And she, I mean, laid it on me.
• 13:50
  I mean, me grito, me dijo, all the things.
• 13:53
  my, cause also like, they create a lot of your triggers, but your parents, I think.
• 13:58
  And so I, she knew what to say.
• 14:01
  She was like,
• 14:03
  Nobody's gonna want you.
• 14:04
  A bunch of things that I, that is my inner dialogue.
• 14:10
  She planted all these doubts and seeds about myself.
• 14:13
  And I hung up the phone and I changed my number.
• 14:18
  I had an AT &T phone.
• 14:20
  I went online and changed my number immediately.
• 14:23
  And I just disappeared from their lives.
• 14:27
  For three months, they had no access to me.
• 14:30
  I was talking to my sister only.
• 14:34
  And for three months, I just was like, I'll figure it out.
• 14:38
  You've never been someone I could emotionally rely on anyways.
• 14:42
  So I'll figure it out and I'll pick up the pieces.
• 14:45
  And in that, I also was reading really great texts.
• 14:47
  And so I was like, I had read the term sexual liberation.
• 14:51
  I had read a book about it and I was like, I'm gonna become a.
• 14:55
  a puta and I started like writing about it on Instagram, like really scandalizing church people who followed me because my dad's a pastor at a church and they were telling them
• 15:07
  about it.
• 15:07
  It was all happening really, really publicly and in a way that for me as somebody who sort of lived in secrets and in the shadows of my family's religion.
• 15:20
  It was really important for me to come out and just claim myself, claim my body.
• 15:24
  I started getting tattoos.
• 15:25
  I got knuckle tattoos.
• 15:26
  I got neck tattoos.
• 15:27
  I I just started just really being like, this is my body and this is how I'm gonna claim my body to myself.
• 15:33
  I'm gonna say the things that the opposite of what you tell me I am, I am divina.
• 15:38
  Like I was like, no, I get to, I get to love me on my terms.
• 15:44
  And I mean, that was really when I was like,
• 15:48
  your God has never been my God and your understanding of the Bible has never been my understanding of the Bible.
• 15:55
  And I refuse to live by those rules and I won't let it dictate anything that I do.
• 16:01
  And there was me, mommy who finally reached out and was like, I don't care what you do.
• 16:05
  I don't care who you are.
• 16:06
  I just want to have access to you and to love you.
• 16:10
  And that was kind of where we began to repair a lot of things and we began to have a reckoning.
• 16:16
  But
• 16:17
  It was sort of like, I did everything right and it's not working.
• 16:22
  So I hit just a wall and I needed something to change.
• 16:29
  Let me ask you this, during that time when you had to go MIA for your safety, you realized for three months, how did you take care of your mental health then?
• 16:43
  So I started seeing a therapist for the first time.
• 16:46
  That was the big thing.
• 16:48
  I had a really good network by then and people who were sort of destigmatizing the entire idea, the concept of therapy for me.
• 16:57
  I was just in different friendship circles.
• 17:00
  And so all my friends were seeing therapists and they were like, you need to see someone.
• 17:04
  And so I started, the university at the time gave unlimited access to therapists.
• 17:10
  You just had to use the ones at the school.
• 17:13
  And I got to practice the art of like saying, saying the most awful thoughts that you think you've ever had processing through your darkest fears, all of that.
• 17:24
  got to practice on somebody who wasn't, I feel like I was one of thousands she saw, but I got to practice.
• 17:32
  What does this feel like?
• 17:33
  What does this look like?
• 17:35
  You're probably not gonna, you as a white lady living in the suburbs with like
• 17:41
  upper middle class are not going to understand my context at all.
• 17:44
  But I need to practice saying all this stuff and I need to practice not keeping everything a secret and a strategy and how to appear the best to everybody.
• 17:56
  That was like the thing that dominated my life and the thing that I needed to break down, I think, first.
• 18:04
  That's amazing.
• 18:05
  You were like, I'm I clean this space and I'm using this space as I need to.
• 18:11
  Yeah, she wouldn't even remember what I would say the previous time.
• 18:14
  I was like, it's fine.
• 18:15
  Whatever.
• 18:17
  I'm sorry.
• 18:19
  I'm sorry for that experience.
• 18:21
  But I'm so glad you were on a mission again to heal.
• 18:25
  It was yeah, you know, you you did what you needed to do.
• 18:28
  And it does sound like you were in survival mode.
• 18:32
  You have been probably living in survival mode chronically since you were young.
• 18:37
  And that was just another season of survival mode.
• 18:42
  But
• 18:43
  Okay, so at that time, you entered into therapy and you were making do and eventually your mom called you and was like, I accept you, I am gonna be here for you as you are with who
• 18:57
  you are, know, and she just, I guess you two talked about boundaries, right?
• 19:02
  Over time.
• 19:04
  Okay.
• 19:06
  No, it was kind of immediate.
• 19:07
  told her.
• 19:11
  this is what I'm doing.
• 19:12
  I'm having casual sex.
• 19:15
  I'm, I'm just, I just like put it all out there.
• 19:18
  The thing, the things you're not supposed to do.
• 19:20
  I just said, I'm doing it all.
• 19:21
  I'm doing all of it at this point.
• 19:23
  I don't even know if it's a healthy response to anything, but what I need from you is just for you to know everything because like I keep saying, I really did leave, live a life of
• 19:35
  secrets and she didn't know me.
• 19:38
  And so was like, you need to see everything.
• 19:40
  You need to see all of it.
• 19:42
  And she would be just, I mean, I remember, remember like going into a bar because I was on a, I was like on a hookup date.
• 19:49
  Like we had agreed on Tinder and we were just going to hook up or we meeting at a bar.
• 19:53
  And I was like, mommy, in 45 minutos, si no salgo.
• 19:57
  Here, I dropped the pin, call 911.
• 19:59
  Like that's what she became.
• 20:01
  I was like, you're going to be, you mean that you really want me in your life?
• 20:05
  let's.
• 20:05
  I'm gonna put it to the test.
• 20:06
  I'm gonna push your limits beyond what you even thought your kids were ever gonna do.
• 20:12
  And she'd be like, but it was great.
• 20:18
  It was great for us.
• 20:19
  And I think it's made her, it made her start challenging some of the gendered ideals that were still operating in her own household with my dad.
• 20:29
  She started, he never wanted her to have long hair because that was.
• 20:34
  too sexy for a mom and she's her hair's longer than mine.
• 20:40
  He wouldn't want her to wear heels because he said nobody needs to see her toes.
• 20:48
  And she was like, so she started wearing heel, open toe heels all the time.
• 20:54
  Like, I think she started to be like, what are you gonna do about it?
• 20:58
  Yeah.
• 21:00
  That's good.
• 21:01
  Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it was it's it's been a lot of that Maria Nismo, right embedded within the the ideology, you have to be as close to the Virgin Mary as possible.
• 21:14
  And so you helped liberate her as well with like, No, I don't have to like she I think the thing is that like there's
• 21:24
  We're not saying, I have to repeat this when I talk about religion, like we're not saying that all religion is bad.
• 21:29
  There just are some churches, I don't even know the exact term of it, but like there's, let's say like some church houses that do restrict and do control and that are not safe or
• 21:42
  healthy for people.
• 21:45
  And so when it comes to growing up in systems like that, it's really important to
• 21:53
  analyze if you are being controlled and if you're or you could reframe it as this, are you being limited in your expression?
• 22:01
  Right.
• 22:02
  So your mommy now is able to express herself and it seems like she got some healing through you.
• 22:10
  Yeah, I think it was like a permission we started to give each other too.
• 22:15
  Yeah.
• 22:17
  So Prisca, this is just a little snippet, right, of everything that you talk about in your books now.
• 22:25
  You've done it, you've done the process twice, and I'm going to show people your book that's going to come out as of this recording, but probably when you all hear this, it's
• 22:33
  going to be out.
• 22:35
  And so, Tias and Primas on Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us.
• 22:40
  And so these two books have a lot of
• 22:45
  They have a lot of different mental health topics, a lot of your lived experiences, and some of them are very intense, right?
• 22:54
  It's very raw.
• 22:55
  It's very raw and it's very necessary.
• 22:59
  Things that we should be talking about that should be normalized because they're so common, but we're not hearing about them because of all the shame and the guilt.
• 23:07
  And so I want to ask you on a personal level,
• 23:11
  How have you gone about taking care of yourself as you wrote these books, as you went through that whole process?
• 23:25
  I would love to have a good answer for this to the therapist, right?
• 23:32
  But it's not been easy.
• 23:35
  It's not easy to say the things.
• 23:38
  It feels like my body turned against me with the first book.
• 23:43
  I remember I would just sit and type and I would have like these waves started at my hips of goosebumps that would go to my fingertips.
• 23:52
  and just go back, but the whole time I was writing.
• 23:55
  It was just like, I started developing autoimmune responses on my skin.
• 23:59
  So I have like rashes that still I have, like they show up at nights and nobody can figure out what they are.
• 24:05
  And that to take Zyrtec is the only thing I take two a day just to make it so it feels like my skin's on fire at nights.
• 24:15
  So I take like cold showers.
• 24:16
  I love a hot shower, but I have to take cold showers.
• 24:19
  So.
• 24:20
  And we're still trying to figure out with my therapist, like what my body's been trying to tell me.
• 24:26
  working theory is that my body was trying to tell me to shut up.
• 24:30
  Like it was trying to keep me, it was survival mode in my house to not talk and not say anything about these things.
• 24:37
  And now that I'm saying them and writing them and they're going out to like a wide audience, my body's just like, no, no, no.
• 24:44
  And so I have this battle that I'm still dealing with with my body.
• 24:48
  I knew that the second book had to be written differently so that it wouldn't have this intense response because I didn't want more of these problems.
• 24:57
  I have the ones I got the first book.
• 24:59
  I didn't want more.
• 25:01
  And so there is a distance in the second book that I needed in the first book.
• 25:05
  It was all me.
• 25:07
  And the second book, I'm more prescriptive to the reader.
• 25:10
  So it gives me a little more distance and I am sort of imagining these archetypes.
• 25:16
  They are based on a lot of women, but it isn't just like everything I've ever endured and seen.
• 25:23
  you know, it isn't that intimate to me.
• 25:26
  It was a lot more creative and imaginative in the ways that I got to paint these women.
• 25:32
  But I knew that that was a self -care strategy that I took on to
• 25:39
  not make whatever is happening in my body right now worse.
• 25:43
  But I don't know how we write these kinds of stories when a lot of us grew up in fear of speaking up and then you're just tasked with writing 80 ,000 words when you weren't
• 25:57
  supposed to say even half of that in your lifetime.
• 26:00
  So it's hard.
• 26:03
  Thank you for your vulnerability for sharing that openly.
• 26:08
  You know, I'll admit that when I was reading both of them, I'm not done with the Tias and Primas by any means, but when I was reading your first one, I was just thinking about you
• 26:17
  and like, I was like, I wonder what she did.
• 26:20
  I hope she was okay writing through this, you know, in the present, because I would imagine that there was some sort of somatic dissonance, if you will.
• 26:32
  Yeah.
• 26:32
  that you experienced and I didn't know that you're still experiencing it today.
• 26:38
  So I hope that you're able to, all the parts within you are able to communicate with one another and find some relief because that sounds uncomfortable too.
• 26:49
  It was a labor of love and we're all gonna hold you.
• 26:53
  We're all gonna hold you and take care of you because you've given us so much through these books, Priska.
• 26:59
  And I thank you so much.
• 27:01
  for all the work that you put out.
• 27:04
  Thank you.
• 27:05
  That means a lot.
• 27:07
  is, I feel like that's why if you listen to the audio book of my first book, I cry in a lot of the readings and I couldn't stop crying.
• 27:17
  And I think that people connect with it, but it's also like, no, it was just hard.
• 27:23
  And people are quick to be like, you were so brave for doing that.
• 27:27
  I'm like, I don't know if, I don't know if.
• 27:29
  Brave is the word.
• 27:30
  I think I just did it afraid.
• 27:31
  I think that that's just how I've had to operate my whole life.
• 27:36
  To have the life that I have today, I've just had to say fuck the socializing that I have.
• 27:43
  Fuck all the survival instincts that I have.
• 27:46
  I am now safe.
• 27:49
  So just do it even if you're scared.
• 27:53
  When people say you are so brave, as you said, and you know, there's that rejection of just like, but that doesn't sit right, which is completely fine.
• 28:04
  Would it be correct or would it feel better if people rephrased that perhaps to you were so authentic, you were so raw?
• 28:15
  Is that better than brave for you?
• 28:18
  Yeah.
• 28:19
  Because brave -ness doesn't feel like the word at all.
• 28:22
  I don't feel brave.
• 28:24
  But I do feel like I was honest.
• 28:26
  I feel like I was raw.
• 28:28
  feel like it was a lot of...
• 28:33
  It was a deep desire to connect and to feel seen.
• 28:37
  But those are...
• 28:38
  Those don't all feel...
• 28:39
  I don't know.
• 28:41
  Yeah.
• 28:42
  It doesn't feel like brave.
• 28:43
  It feels like...
• 28:45
  Still a survival mode.
• 28:48
  Mm hmm.
• 28:49
  It's in process.
• 28:50
  I mean, this is something that you're undelving from years ago that you went through for probably over two decades for sure.
• 28:58
  It pues yeah, no, this all makes sense.
• 29:02
  So that was I asked that because it's more like a call to the community to kind of, you know, be aware again, I want this episode to serve as you know, a thank you a gratitude
• 29:13
  episode, but also, you know,
• 29:15
  for folks to get to know you a little bit more in that sense.
• 29:18
  So, because you're doing a lot of book tours, meet and greets, and, you know, I think for people that listen to this, they'll know also how to approach.
• 29:28
  For me, like when it came to grief, it was uncomfortable to hear, you're so strong.
• 29:36
  Because for me, whether I'm crying or not, I'm strong either way, right?
• 29:41
  So when people wouldn't be seeing me crying,
• 29:44
  they tell me that, but I'm like, I was crying last night, but that doesn't mean I'm not strong.
• 29:51
  So I think it's somewhat parallel to that experience and that kind of like rejection of that affirmation, if you will.
• 30:00
  So with that Prisca, can you share a little bit about where people can find you and what you're up to currently this season?
• 30:10
  Sorry, I don't know if you heard my dog just running right now.
• 30:16
  Where people can find me and what I'm up to.
• 30:19
  I'm going on book tour.
• 30:21
  I'll be doing a lot for my book tour.
• 30:24
  It all can be found on my website, PriscaDorcas .com and I'm Prisca Dorcas everywhere online.
• 30:31
  TikTok is a very different platform for me and I just have fun with it.
• 30:36
  Just like don't have expectations for people you love their books about.
• 30:42
  We're like normal human beings just trying to navigate being online and be like the branding that's always happening and being directed at us because we're, you know,
• 30:55
  outspoken thought leaders or whatever.
• 30:57
  No, we're just like normal people just navigating space.
• 31:00
  And if you really want to see me be as human as possible, it's going to be on TikTok.
• 31:04
  Yeah, yeah, Briska is very fashionable on TikTok.
• 31:07
  I love it.
• 31:09
  Miss, rent the one runway subscription.
• 31:14
  It just came!
• 31:17
  We might have to stay after but I went on and I was trying to look at the subscriptions because I have a speaking engagement season so I was like maybe maybe but no so yeah thank
• 31:28
  you for sharing that and okay so priscadorcas .com and the book the book that's coming out in just a few days from this recording can be available on I believe all all major
• 31:40
  booksellers right?
• 31:42
  Yeah, yeah, everywhere books are sold, it'll be there.
• 31:45
  And if it's not there, ask for it and they'll get it.
• 31:48
  Perfect.
• 31:49
  Thank you.
• 31:50
  Well, you can also clune into this episode coming up in Spanish.
• 31:53
  We are going to have just a few different questions, but I want to say thank you so much, Prisca.
• 31:58
  And to everybody, please be sure you check out her new book and the other book as well.
• 32:03
  I'm going to link them below.
• 32:04
  Muchas gracias.
• 32:06
  Thank you, Prisca.
• 32:07
  Thank you, bye.