Latest / State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast / #109 - The Other Side of the Gun: Susan Snow on Murder, Survival, and Reclaiming Her Power Through Forgiveness

Transcript

#109 - The Other Side of the Gun: Susan Snow on Murder, Survival, and Reclaiming Her Power Through Forgiveness · State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast

• 0:00
  my brother watched his dad get murdered and my dad saved his life.
• 0:05
  He told him to duck down in our truck and it saved him.
• 0:08
  So obviously all of the attention in the very beginning from media and everybody was on him Media didn't even...
• 0:18
  figure out he had a teenage daughter for two days.
• 0:21
  My mom and I both kind of from the side of our eyes, we saw my dad's truck.
• 0:26
  So we started to run towards the truck.
• 0:29
  And the closer we got to the truck,
• 0:31
  There was glass on the ground and we rounded the corner and there he was partially covered up.
• 0:36
  I watched my mom drop to her knees and scream and I stood in that street not being able to comprehend what I was seeing.
• 0:44
  So I just hyper focused on the ambulance.
• 0:47
  The conversation in my head was where is everyone?
• 0:50
  Why aren't they helping him?
• 0:51
  I don't understand.
• 0:53
  Hello everybody, welcome to the State of Mind podcast.
• 0:57
  tools, stories and truth on being human.
• 1:01
  My name is Mike Stroh, and this is a podcast for living with courage, clarity, and compassion.
• 1:08
  On today's episode, I am speaking with Susan Snow.
• 1:12
  Hello, Susan.
• 1:13
  Thank you so much for joining me and talking to us about your journey and experience and wisdom.
• 1:20
  Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how you got to this point in your life and what you're up to now?
• 1:27
  Sure, absolutely.
• 1:29
  Well, my name is Susan Snow.
• 1:31
  What got me here is I was a 17 year old who lost her father, who was a Los Angeles police detective I wrote a book that...
• 1:45
  went through my journey of healing from trauma.
• 1:48
  I am an author, obviously.
• 1:51
  em I'm a speaker and I also am a trauma resiliency coach.
• 1:57
  So I help others who feel stuck.
• 2:00
  I'm also a practicing realtor in the Denver metro area, but ah I'm really moving towards my purpose, which is this, is helping people and giving them hope by putting out my
• 2:14
  message.
• 2:15
  Thank you.
• 2:15
  Yeah.
• 2:15
  Can you tell us in whatever detail you want what happened with your dad, how that impacted you, your family and sort of your process from there?
• 2:25
  Sure, absolutely.
• 2:26
  Well, growing up with a cop dad, came with all kinds of things.
• 2:30
  When I was younger, he was a street cop and I always thought, you know, daddy could get hurt, right?
• 2:37
  But as I got older, he became a detective and he was a robbery homicide detective.
• 2:42
  And my mindset was he had a desk job.
• 2:46
  uh He came in after the fact, so therefore him being in danger never really came up on my radar.
• 2:54
  On Halloween of 1985, my dad was getting ready for court.
• 2:59
  He was a lead detective on a case and he was going in to testify that day.
• 3:05
  and we had a normal conversation that day.
• 3:08
  It was Halloween, so obviously being a kid, I wanted to go to a party with my boyfriend and my friends.
• 3:16
  And it was a school night, so he shot that idea down.
• 3:21
  But I didn't stop that from happening.
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  I just, I was bound and determined.
• 3:28
  So the plan that night was that
• 3:31
  My dad would go and pick up my six-year-old brother, I had a six-year-old brother at the time, from school and after school care and come home and then I would, you know, schmooze
• 3:44
  him and my mom to let me go to this party.
• 3:47
  Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
• 3:50
  As I was getting ready, my mom had come home from work and the phone rang.
• 3:56
  and this is when the phone was still attached to the wall.
• 3:58
  So I ran across the room to pick up the phone thinking it was a friend of mine and it was a lady from my brother's school and all she said was that there was a drive-by shooting
• 4:12
  and my dad was involved.
• 4:14
  At that point, my mom kind of rounded the corner and I handed her the phone and I tried to listen in to see what was being said.
• 4:21
  I couldn't hear anything, but I just watched my mom's body language and it told me that it wasn't good.
• 4:28
  So she got off the phone and she looked at me and said, we're going to the school.
• 4:32
  So I said, OK, so we went to the school.
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  It was about a seven minute drive from my childhood home.
• 4:39
  and it was now five o'clock in October, so it was pretty dark outside.
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  As we approached the school, there is a parking lot that's kind of in the middle, so the kids got out on the back side of the school.
• 4:51
  So when we parked, we started heading that way.
• 4:55
  And even though it was dark, the backside of the school looked like daylight because there were so many police car lights that were lighting up the sky.
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  And there was an ambulance in the road as well.
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  And we kept walking.
• 5:12
  My mom and I both kind of from the side of our eyes, we saw my dad's truck.
• 5:17
  So we started to run towards the truck.
• 5:21
  And the closer we got to the truck,
• 5:23
  There was glass on the ground and we rounded the corner and there he was partially covered up.
• 5:28
  I watched my mom drop to her knees and scream and I stood in that street not being able to comprehend what I was seeing.
• 5:36
  So I just hyper focused on the ambulance.
• 5:41
  The conversation in my head was where is everyone?
• 5:44
  Why aren't they helping him?
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  I don't understand.
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  Two officers came pretty quickly and they grabbed us by our arms and escorted us back into the school, into one of the offices.
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  And I sat down and my mom kind of got taken aside by some detectives.
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  And as I sat there trying to process everything, there was so much chaos going on around me.
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  and I just didn't know how to process that.
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  I was listening to two women in the office who worked there and they were having a conversation and the one lady said to the other that my dad was deceased and that's when
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  it hit me.
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  As I sat there, I just wanted to jump up out of that chair and run.
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  run away, run as far as I could from the situation.
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  But my entire body felt like it was filled with cement and I couldn't move.
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  And my mom came to me a little bit after that and she said, I'm sending you with a neighbor.
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  And I know that in that moment I wanted to run, but there was that part of me.
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  that needed to be with my mom and my brother.
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  Like I needed to know that I wasn't alone in this.
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  Unfortunately, I didn't get that chance either.
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  I did go with the neighbor.
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  At that point, I had no idea where my brother was, if he was hurt, what he saw.
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  I knew nothing.
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  I had no information.
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  And I went with the neighbor and the neighbor had known my parents for years.
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  I was friends with their daughter when we were young and she was trying to process everything.
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  My very quiet neighborhood became a circus.
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  There was law enforcement everywhere.
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  And because this was the first time an LAPD officer was
• 7:45
  assassinated, the media ascended as well.
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  And I was still trying to process.
• 7:51
  I was inconsolable.
• 7:53
  The poor neighbor lady, she tried really hard to just console me.
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  But at the time I was dating a guy and I had been dating him for three months and I just wanted him.
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  And he was 19 at the time.
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  She called him, but she didn't give him a lot of information.
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  So when he showed up at the door, he was really confused as to all the police presence, but he did what any normal person would do.
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  He said, you know, grab your purse, grab your jacket.
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  What hospital is he at?
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  Where's your mom?
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  Where's your brother?
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  You know, the normal questions.
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  And I just couldn't spit it out.
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  I couldn't say it.
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  But the more persistent he got, I finally did.
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  And I spit out that I said, he's gone.
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  And he said, what do mean he's gone?
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  And I said, he's gone.
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  He's not at a hospital.
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  And I watched him crumble.
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  And both of us were just really struggling because back then there really was no talk of mental health.
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  There were no resources for kids.
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  LAPD had some resources in place for the widows and the widowers, but not a whole lot for the kids.
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  So we were kind of on our own.
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  was on my own and I didn't know how to process it.
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  I didn't know how to navigate it.
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  I didn't even know when to go home.
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  And when I finally did make that choice to go home,
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  My house was filled with strangers that I had never seen before.
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  And I did what a kid does, you know, I ran to my room and I shut the door and I hid.
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  I didn't want to talk to anybody.
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  I didn't want to answer questions.
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  I could hear my mom in the background talking to people, but she was not aware that I actually came home.
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  Um, and I stayed in my room.
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  I stayed in my room all night.
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  When my boyfriend finally left, I just laid in bed and I couldn't function.
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  I knew it was daylight.
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  I looked outside my window and saw that the sun was up and I didn't sleep that night.
• 9:59
  I could hear my brother crying in his room, so I knew he was home and that he wasn't physically hurt.
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  But I didn't get to see him until about 11 o'clock in the morning when I finally was able to.
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  And I was able to hug him and tell him that I loved him and that we were gonna be okay.
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  But we had that police presence and I still had so much anxiety because my dad was my security.
• 10:28
  I thought if I had my dad, am, you know, he will protect me for the rest of my life.
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  and now he was gone.
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  And I didn't know how to, I didn't know how to handle that.
• 10:42
  And I'm looking outside and I'm seeing 20 police officers in my front yard and in my backyard and I'm helicopters overhead.
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  And this was just a world that I was not prepared for.
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  It was so surreal.
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  And unbeknownst to us, you know, it didn't come out until the trial, but we were targets as well.
• 11:06
  And that is why we had so much police presence because they didn't catch the men that were involved for six days.
• 11:16
  So for six days we had that presence.
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  For six days, I still had so much going on mentally.
• 11:26
  was, um...
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  I had fallen into a deep depression.
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  I was experiencing anxiety like I had never had that before.
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  had never had panic attacks.
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  I didn't have the tools to handle them.
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  So I just felt like I was gonna die at some point.
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  But at the other end of that is that I had suicidal ideation.
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  I just didn't know what it was.
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  I just knew I wanted to be with my dad and I didn't care how that happened.
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  and had no one to talk to about it.
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  I felt like at the time that if I did say something about the things that were going on in my head, that they would throw me in a loony bin and call it a day.
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  So I was terrified.
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  I was like, I don't want to be put in a hospital.
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  But I don't know how to handle this.
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  I don't know how to navigate this.
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  And, you know, it was just a time where, in my mind, if you went to a psychiatrist, if you went to someone like that, you were just nuts.
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  That was my kid brain.
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  And part of that was because it wasn't a conversation about mental health.
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  I didn't know that all the things that were happening to me were PTSD either.
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  So I just felt like I was out of control.
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  I just felt like I was out of my head, that I was losing my mind.
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  And after the six days and they finally found these guys, because this was a planned out assassination of my dad in retaliation.
• 12:59
  for the trial or for the, yeah, yeah.
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  And were they organized crime or were they sort of gangsters, drug dealers, like what was their?
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  they were, it was a robbery ring, organized crime, yes.
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  So yeah, I mean, it was, you I went from this teenage normal teenage life to this.
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  And I just didn't know one day from the next.
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  And how did I mean, I can't imagine, you your mom probably has a similar story aside all this, like, how were the three of you doing?
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  Were you even talking to each other?
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  Were you a cow?
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  How did the three of you get through that first while?
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  so prior to my dad's death, my, my mom and I, relationship was very rocky at best.
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  Um, it was toxic.
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  I just didn't, you know, I didn't recognize that at the time, but she kind of turtled into herself.
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  Everything was about her.
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  And if you can imagine, my brother watched his dad get murdered and my dad saved his life.
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  He told him to duck down in our truck and it saved him.
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  So obviously all of the attention in the very beginning from media and everybody was on him and obviously her.
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  Media didn't even...
• 14:20
  figure out he had a teenage daughter for two days.
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  So it was, you know, I just didn't feel important in this scenario.
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  And that was unfortunate.
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  But, you know, my mom was dealing with not only her grief, but she was also dealing with all of the...
• 14:40
  you know, all the other things that she had to deal with regarding his death and you know, a lot of formality stuff and all of that.
• 14:48
  And so it was, it was kind of left to me to figure it out, like to, to figure out how to move through my day.
• 14:57
  which I did in a cloud.
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  Like I literally felt like if you pushed me in one direction, that's the direction I would go.
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  There was no advocacy.
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  was no, I just, had nothing.
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  I had absolutely nothing.
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  And you know, after the funeral, after everything died down, LAPD came to my mom and said, we want to pay for therapy for all three of you.
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  And again, didn't understand therapy.
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  I was like, what?
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  didn't know what that looked like, didn't know nothing.
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  I just, like I said, you push me in a direction and that's the direction I went.
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  So when my mom, Volin, told me that I'm going to therapy, that's where I went.
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  And I said, okay, I guess I'm going to therapy.
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  I saw this gentleman and I will tell you in hindsight, this man was not trauma competent, nor was he trauma informed.
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  And because of that, he did not ask me the pertinent questions.
• 16:03
  It was, you know, I went there in this feeling of, he's gonna say something, he's gonna ask me something, he's gonna do something to make me feel better.
• 16:14
  But all our sessions were surrounding my relationship with my mom.
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  my brother, my boyfriend in school since I was a senior in high school.
• 16:24
  And, you know, every week I had that same thought like today is the day.
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  He's gonna help me feel better.
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  And it didn't happen.
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  I saw him for an entire year.
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  And at the end of the year, he said, Susan, you're a well-rounded young lady, and you're gonna be fine for the rest of your life.
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  And I don't need to see you anymore.
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  And I walked out of there thinking, okay, I've snapped.
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  I'm crazy.
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  I'm going to have to deal with this.
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  Like, I'm just going to live like this for the rest of my life.
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  I didn't know what fight, flight, fright, freeze and fawn was, but I was in it.
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  Like fully in it.
• 17:01
  And and and sorry, Susan, the during that process, your brother, I mean, at that age, so hard to.
• 17:09
  I always find childhood there, child therapy, um, arbitrary.
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  don't know if that's the right word, but hard to do.
• 17:17
  And, like, did you guys do family counseling?
• 17:21
  Was there no, no, like that.
• 17:24
  Yeah.
• 17:26
  Yeah.
• 17:27
  I think there was one session where my therapist brought my mother in.
• 17:32
  It was the first time I had heard the word abuse.
• 17:35
  And of course, she denied it.
• 17:38
  But it was the truth.
• 17:41
  But at the same time, it was like,
• 17:43
  It was a normal environment for me.
• 17:46
  And so I just didn't, I couldn't wrap my head around the abuse part.
• 17:51
  Like I just was like, oh no, don't all parents treat their kids like this?
• 17:56
  I don't get it.
• 17:57
  Cause my dad was the, at the complete opposite.
• 18:00
  So the abuse would happen when dad wasn't around.
• 18:03
  I just, you know, I think,
• 18:06
  really the the therapy for my brother was like whatever they did with kids.
• 18:12
  I back then I don't know.
• 18:14
  And honestly my mom went but she didn't participate if you know what I mean.
• 18:24
  So
• 18:25
  Well, she may have had a similar experience to you in terms of not being asked like pointed questions about the trauma or like maybe who knows obviously, but.
• 18:36
  Well, I talked to her about that and she basically said the therapist was also another widow.
• 18:43
  And so she used her time to tell this woman all the things that she was going to deal with in the in the future.
• 18:51
  So, so there's that.
• 18:55
  yeah.
• 18:56
  Yes.
• 18:57
  you know, for me, that was my first experience in therapy and uh it did absolutely nothing for me.
• 19:04
  I walked out, I still was dealing with everything I had dealt with the moment I walked through the door and I didn't have the tools.
• 19:14
  I didn't have the tools.
• 19:16
  And so what I ended up doing is I created an emotional mask.
• 19:21
  I didn't know what it was then, but
• 19:24
  People would say things like, Susan, you're so strong.
• 19:28
  Susan, you're so brave, right?
• 19:30
  So that was the mask I wore.
• 19:33
  You know, the inside of me was just a mess, but the external was Susan the brave.
• 19:40
  It's okay.
• 19:41
  in those moments, because it's such a great depiction of what happens to people in those moments where you
• 19:50
  the right way to say believing the mask or did you know you were pretending at the time?
• 19:56
  I tried to believe in the mask.
• 20:00
  I kept telling myself, is gonna make me feel better, right?
• 20:05
  But it didn't make me feel any better because I was still dealing with everything else um or feeling everything else, I should say.
• 20:14
  right, right, yeah.
• 20:16
  And unfortunately, I feel like in hindsight, when I look back at it, it really, because when you're living in fight, flight, freeze and fun, you're not able to really grasp life
• 20:28
  like in a way that I could not understand if, if someone was not a good relationship for me.
• 20:38
  you know, I was, I was begging for friends and support and everything.
• 20:43
  And so if that person wasn't treating me that well, I just went with it.
• 20:51
  I made excuses with it.
• 20:53
  I have a, I have a chapter in my book called Rose-colored Glasses.
• 20:58
  because that's what I wore, you know, and I wasn't able to really see people for who they really were.
• 21:07
  And I was also driven by expectation, even within my own relationship with my boyfriend, who's my husband now, by the way.
• 21:23
  We've been together almost 41 years, but...
• 21:27
  And even that, working with that, he went through trauma.
• 21:31
  He went through everything with me from that night on.
• 21:34
  He may not have seen what I've seen, but he went through everything with me.
• 21:40
  And as a teenage guy, mean, three months in, most guys would have high-tailed it out of there.
• 21:47
  Like, I'm out, this is too much.
• 21:50
  uh But he didn't and you know, and I really firmly believe and he's told me as well in conversations is that he kind of knew my mom was going to turtle into herself.
• 21:59
  He knew that I was going to need somebody to be my support system.
• 22:05
  But at the same time, I feel like we were kind of expected to move in a certain direction, right?
• 22:14
  And so
• 22:14
  Even when we got engaged five years later, it was like, this was an expectation.
• 22:20
  You know, people would say, it's about time.
• 22:22
  Because we had lived with each other and then we got engaged and then we got married.
• 22:29
  And it was like neither one of us were ready to get married.
• 22:32
  I can tell you that right now.
• 22:34
  He was, I was 21, he was 24 and we just weren't, but it was an expectation.
• 22:40
  And I was an unhealed person who was just like, this is the way my life is supposed to be.
• 22:48
  You know what I mean?
• 22:50
  And I didn't understand the real responsibility of that, of the relationship.
• 22:59
  And nor did he.
• 23:02
  So, you know, it's, and that's something we have had to learn through a lot of stuff, you know, good and bad.
• 23:13
  And so you, you did eventually find a therapist that was helpful and you have this line.
• 23:21
  I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.
• 23:27
  I don't know if those two things fit together, but can you talk a little bit about, you know, finding the therapist that was helpful and then also that idea of, know, what, what
• 23:36
  hides underneath our
• 23:37
  anger a lot of time.
• 23:39
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:40
  Well, after a while of living in California and Southern California, I was sick and tired of looking behind my shoulder.
• 23:48
  Once you have been a target, you live with that.
• 23:53
  And I just got sick and tired of it.
• 23:56
  And I think the funny part of this is that I felt like if I left geographically,
• 24:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:02
  that I could leave all of that behind in Southern California and just start over and no one knew my story.
• 24:10
  Ha ha ha.
• 24:11
  Nobody knew my story and I could just move on.
• 24:14
  And so we had made the decision to move to Colorado.
• 24:18
  And at this point I have two babies.
• 24:21
  I had two small children and we when we moved, I was 30, 29, 30.
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  When we moved, I was a master stylist, so hairdresser, and I worked in a salon that was very close to Littleton, Colorado.
• 24:44
  I was working in that salon on April 20th of 1999.
• 24:49
  I took a break, I went into the back room.
• 24:51
  And I turned on our TV and up popped the live coverage of the Columbine shootings.
• 24:57
  And as I stood there and I watched the TV, I started having flashbacks.
• 25:02
  And I didn't know what those were.
• 25:04
  I didn't understand why it was sending me right back to the night my dad was killed.
• 25:09
  I mean, I was seeing the ambulance and I was seeing the police officers and I was seeing the kids and it was at a school.
• 25:16
  but I still couldn't put two and two together.
• 25:18
  I just was not understanding.
• 25:21
  Not to mention, I was told I was going to be fine for the rest of my life.
• 25:25
  Right, right, by the one sort of mental health professional you had.
• 25:29
  Yeah, yeah.
• 25:31
  I had no idea what was happening.
• 25:32
  I knew I was having a panic attack.
• 25:35
  I could start feeling the tingling in my fingers and I knew it.
• 25:38
  I was like, uh-oh, here it comes.
• 25:40
  My coworker had no idea what was going on with me.
• 25:43
  I never told her my story, so she had no idea where this was coming from.
• 25:48
  But I did what I always did.
• 25:50
  I put up that mask.
• 25:53
  and I went out and I finished my day and everybody around me was upset, was crying, you know, there was a lot of emotions around me, but I was Susan the Brave, I was Susan the
• 26:06
  Strong.
• 26:07
  And I finished my day, I walked to my car, got in my car, and everything flooded back in, everything.
• 26:16
  As I was driving home, just, really felt like I was losing it.
• 26:21
  Like I felt like I was, I was like, God, here it comes again.
• 26:26
  And I stopped sleeping.
• 26:28
  I was, I was spiraling.
• 26:30
  I just didn't know.
• 26:32
  that I was spiraling, but I just felt out of control.
• 26:35
  I was having panic attacks again.
• 26:38
  I was suicidal again.
• 26:40
  And I had a mental fight in my brain because part of me didn't want to feel like this anymore.
• 26:49
  I didn't want to be dealing with this anymore.
• 26:52
  It had been 14 years that I had been dealing with this.
• 26:55
  But I had two kids, I had two babies, and I didn't want to leave them.
• 26:59
  My husband is a very smart man and he saw it.
• 27:05
  He saw it and he stopped me at the door one morning and he said, you have two choices.
• 27:10
  You either get help today or I'm putting you in a hospital.
• 27:15
  And at that point I was terrified.
• 27:17
  So I put up my white flag.
• 27:21
  I surrender.
• 27:23
  I surrender.
• 27:25
  I will, I will go.
• 27:26
  I made an appointment and I went and saw a physician initially and he put me on antidepressants because that's what they do.
• 27:35
  And then he handed me a business card of a trauma therapist.
• 27:38
  And he says, I want you to make an appointment with this lady.
• 27:41
  And I laughed in the man's face.
• 27:44
  And I just said, look, I tried this 14 years ago.
• 27:46
  It didn't work.
• 27:47
  Like what makes you think it's going to happen this time?
• 27:51
  And he said, honestly, you're here and you don't have a choice.
• 27:54
  So I said, okay.
• 27:55
  And I did, I made an appointment with this lady and was so skeptical.
• 28:01
  I was not sleeping.
• 28:03
  So I was part zombie.
• 28:05
  And, you know, I honestly, and looking back at that, I don't even know how I functioned because I was still running my business.
• 28:12
  I was still running my business, being a mom, being a wife, like I was doing all of those things, but not, you know what I mean?
• 28:22
  Part of me was, part of me wasn't.
• 28:24
  And this woman just sat and she listened to me.
• 28:28
  And she finally asked me the questions that I had longed to hear.
• 28:33
  And she asked me, you know, how did that night affect you?
• 28:38
  What were you thinking?
• 28:40
  You know, how were you trying to process this stuff?
• 28:43
  Right.
• 28:44
  And, and she gave me a safe space.
• 28:46
  And since I felt safe with her, I was able to be completely
• 28:51
  vulnerable with her and I was able to tell her everything I went through at 17 and what I was currently dealing with and She sat and she listened to me and then she said Susan.
• 29:06
  That's what she said that but she also said Everything you've gone through since you were 17 is normal because you have PTSD and I kind of sat back in my chair and looked at her
• 29:19
  like
• 29:20
  but I'm not in the military and I didn't go to war.
• 29:24
  So what are you talking about?
• 29:26
  And she said, no, she said, anyone who goes through any type of trauma can experience PTSD.
• 29:35
  But what you need to know about it is that PTSD isn't something that just goes away.
• 29:41
  It's something you learn to manage.
• 29:42
  And in those moments, I was like,
• 29:47
  I had so much hope.
• 29:50
  For the first time in my life, I thought, my God, you mean I'm not nuts?
• 29:55
  I'm not crazy?
• 29:56
  I haven't cracked?
• 29:57
  Like this, I can heal from this.
• 30:00
  And that was such a poignant life-changing moment for me.
• 30:06
  And also understanding grief, you know, and how grief...
• 30:13
  shows up in different ways.
• 30:15
  It's not just sadness, right?
• 30:18
  There's so many different other emotions that comes with it.
• 30:22
  And then on top of that, you know, it's just, I just had to...
• 30:26
  I just had to realize at that moment that I found my person, that I was no longer alone and that she was going to be able to, she understood the type of trauma that I had
• 30:40
  experienced and that she was able to move me through it.
• 30:44
  And that's, that's basically what I tell people all the time.
• 30:48
  That is the most important thing to find in a therapist is one, they understand your type of trauma.
• 30:56
  because not all trauma is the same.
• 30:59
  Not all journeys are the same and not all modalities are the same for the different traumas.
• 31:05
  And the whole part of having a safe space.
• 31:10
  If you don't feel safe and heard, you're not gonna be vulnerable and the healing isn't gonna happen.
• 31:18
  So for me, I was kind of...
• 31:21
  like hit in the face with finding another therapist.
• 31:25
  uh It wasn't a decision, so to speak.
• 31:29
  It was more of this is what's going to happen kind of thing.
• 31:33
  I think the universe was just like, no, you're done with this.
• 31:36
  So let's get you to the right people.
• 31:40
  which often happens.
• 31:42
  It's so hard to wave that white flag when we aren't almost cornered into it, right?
• 31:48
  Or just completely done and, and ready to surrender.
• 31:52
  Yeah, it's so hard.
• 31:55
  And what, uh, can you talk a bit about any particular practices or modalities of
• 32:03
  of the therapy and sort of how you did start to heal and what the healing looked like and how that changed your relationship with your brother, maybe your kids, your husband, just
• 32:16
  with life in general.
• 32:18
  yeah.
• 32:20
  Well, God love her.
• 32:22
  First of all, she was a very evolved therapist, meaning she was young and she had done a lot of research on some modalities that weren't really
• 32:36
  in the forefront, you know, not a lot of therapists were using them and stuff.
• 32:40
  I was kind of a guinea pig, which is great.
• 32:45
  okay.
• 32:46
  But initially she knew I was a mess.
• 32:49
  Like she knew that I was dealing with a lot of different emotions and a lot of different things within my PTSD.
• 32:55
  And so she didn't want to throw the kitchen sink at me, so to speak.
• 32:59
  she...
• 32:59
  She asked me, she said, you know, what is the one thing if we could help you with this, that it would make you feel a little bit better?
• 33:09
  And I said, you know, I'm not sleeping.
• 33:11
  And if you know anything about mental health, sleep is imperative.
• 33:17
  It is the most important.
• 33:18
  ah Your body has to be at rest.
• 33:22
  Your, your nervous system has to be at rest.
• 33:26
  in order for you to process and have clarity and you know all the things so she said okay you're not sleeping let's deal with that and i said okay so she said um have you ever
• 33:38
  heard of journaling and i just kind of looked at her like no no and she said okay she said well journaling can be in different ways
• 33:48
  You can write, you can use art, you can write music, like do it through music.
• 33:56
  Now there's podcasting.
• 33:58
  um And what it does is it pulls all the stuff that's swirling around in your head out.
• 34:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:09
  and allows your body to relax that way.
• 34:12
  Right.
• 34:13
  And so I'm looking at her like she's green with pink polka dots.
• 34:16
  Like, what are you talking about?
• 34:18
  So she said, you know, what's your flavor?
• 34:21
  What do you like to do?
• 34:22
  And I said, well, I write.
• 34:23
  And she said, great.
• 34:25
  Take a pad of paper and a pen, put it by your bed.
• 34:28
  And before you go to bed at night, just everything that's swirling around in your head, like just put it on the paper.
• 34:36
  And she says, it doesn't even have to make sense.
• 34:38
  Like, don't worry about punctuation or sentence structure.
• 34:43
  Like, just put it on the paper.
• 34:45
  And I said, okay.
• 34:47
  So skeptical.
• 34:49
  And I went home and I did exactly that.
• 34:51
  and that first night I got two hours of sleep and they thought, no, that, no.
• 34:59
  didn't work.
• 34:59
  The second night I got four hours of sleep and by the third night I was sleeping all night because I look outside and it was daylight when I woke up and I went wait what just
• 35:12
  happened this actually worked so I went back to her and she said how did it go and I said I've been sleeping for four days so there's that.
• 35:21
  So how we dealt with it was we just kind of bit the elephant one bite at a time, right?
• 35:28
  uh So once we started getting that, we got my sleep back in order, then it was dealing with regulating my nervous system and showing me how to move through my panic attacks.
• 35:44
  And so she taught me, we started with some tapping techniques, trying to change the mindset a little bit and moving through that anxiety feeling.
• 35:57
  not full blown panic attacks, but just the anxiety feeling and then showing me the breathing techniques.
• 36:04
  And I learned the box breathing techniques and things like that, that could actually pull me out of a panic attack.
• 36:13
  And so I was like collecting little by little my tools and
• 36:19
  and it started to make me feel like I was in control of my life again.
• 36:25
  Amazing.
• 36:26
  Yeah.
• 36:27
  So nice to hear.
• 36:29
  And it's so helpful to.
• 36:31
  guess to understand that there is a way forward or there is a path.
• 36:38
  We can't do it alone.
• 36:39
  And nobody can write.
• 36:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 36:43
  Now, I always say to people, how's that going for you?
• 36:46
  You know, or and that's what was said to me too.
• 36:48
  uh Yeah.
• 36:50
  And, and that
• 36:53
  All the journeys in some sense, as you say, the different modalities or forms of trauma, et cetera.
• 36:58
  There's always a path and having someone help guide us down.
• 37:02
  is a wonderful thing.
• 37:03
  And just hearing you describe all that is a great example of that.
• 37:07
  Can you talk about how you, guess, as this process was happening, you and your brother, how did you sort of.
• 37:16
  How did your relationship with your brother?
• 37:19
  evolve throughout all of this.
• 37:22
  You know, we kind of walked two different paths, he and I.
• 37:28
  I left the house at 18 and I had to.
• 37:34
  And he was eight.
• 37:37
  And so unfortunately he was the one that dealt with the rest of the abuse.
• 37:42
  And as he got older, you know, he really struggled with one, not having a dad around to kind of guide him, but also
• 37:55
  being in an abusive relationship with his mother.
• 37:58
  And I was older, I was 10 years older.
• 38:01
  And so it was, you know, it was like we had two different lives.
• 38:08
  You know, he had the life of a teenager, but yet I was in my twenties.
• 38:13
  So it was just different.
• 38:16
  When he was making the choices that he was making, I I tried, like my mom,
• 38:23
  My mom would guilt me into, you you got to talk to your brother.
• 38:27
  You got to do this.
• 38:27
  You got to do that.
• 38:28
  And so I tried.
• 38:30
  I really tried.
• 38:32
  And, we're all individuals and we all make our own choices.
• 38:36
  And so he went down a path that I could not be a part of.
• 38:41
  And so I distanced myself.
• 38:44
  because of that.
• 38:45
  And it wasn't until he was older, he got clean.
• 38:49
  And, you know, we are super close now.
• 38:52
  Like, I call him my Hercules.
• 38:55
  The man has been through so much.
• 38:58
  and he's clean and sober and he's, you know, he's thriving the best that he can.
• 39:05
  He's, you know, got a wife now and he's got a biological daughter and step kids and now he's a pop pop and, you know, all the beautiful things in life.
• 39:18
  But for both of us, we always felt like we were two, we were two people on two separate islands.
• 39:24
  And when we were able to come back together, and this was like less than 10 years ago, we were able to talk for, our first conversation was six hours.
• 39:34
  And we just realized that a lot of the issue between us was my mother.
• 39:42
  But, you know, we found each other and now I teach him the lessons that I learned.
• 39:49
  as he's in his healing journey.
• 39:51
  And I feel like for the first time in my life that I'm able to be his sister, friend, and I am able to help him in some sort of way.
• 40:00
  And that feels good because I was unhealed for so many years that there was no way I could help him.
• 40:09
  I was...
• 40:11
  dealing with my own stuff.
• 40:13
  And I never went the route of using alcohol or drugs or anything like that.
• 40:18
  And there's no judgment in that because everybody deals with grief differently, trauma differently.
• 40:26
  And so that's the coping mechanism my mom chose and my brother chose.
• 40:33
  And so...
• 40:34
  And but there's no judgment in it, you know, it's just is it is what it is.
• 40:39
  But, you know, my way of pretending or pretending I'm someone I'm not is not exactly healthy either.
• 40:47
  So, you know, I fully take responsibility for that.
• 40:52
  But yeah, I mean, it definitely shaped our relationship.
• 40:57
  In a way that I.
• 41:00
  always wanted, but was afraid that it would never happen.
• 41:04
  It's such a wonderful example of how trauma, the whole kind of story, if you will, how trauma impacts people, the journey, the healing and the, or you want to call it the fruits
• 41:21
  of that or the potential joys that arise over the journey.
• 41:26
  And as you just described,
• 41:28
  between you and your brother is a wonderful example of that of when we take the actions, however we get there.
• 41:37
  There's no judgment on any of that.
• 41:38
  Obviously it's so hard, right?
• 41:40
  And anyway, your story is a lovely example of all of this.
• 41:45
  One thing I did and ask you, and you mentioned this in some on your website and in other places, like a second Trump traumatic event.
• 41:53
  I don't know if you what how that played a part in all this and I guess maybe we skipped over it but if you want to comment on that at all what was that?
• 42:04
  Yeah.
• 42:05
  That had to do with my husband.
• 42:09
  When I talk about two unhealed people trying to have a relationship, it's difficult.
• 42:17
  It's difficult because when you're unhealed, certain behaviors will arise.
• 42:24
  And for him, it was...
• 42:28
  a feeling and I've talked to him about this so he's he's okay with me saying this but for him it was he had he was so embroiled in everything me right and everything that happened
• 42:43
  with my dad and being around my mom and I is toxic relationship as well and just having his own stuff
• 42:52
  that at one point he just felt like there was something out there.
• 42:56
  There was something different for him.
• 42:58
  There was, you know, he wanted a different life.
• 43:01
  And so he looked to other women.
• 43:04
  So there was infidelity in our relationship.
• 43:07
  And it got to a point where it destroyed our marriage.
• 43:11
  And we did, we got a divorce.
• 43:14
  Now,
• 43:14
  Sometimes in life, even though you think you're done, you're not.
• 43:20
  So when I say a divorce, it was more of a death of the old relationship, the old habits, the old communication between us, the old everything, right?
• 43:40
  And that had to happen.
• 43:43
  We had to lay it to rest, so to speak.
• 43:46
  And we did.
• 43:48
  And so I made the decision to divorce him.
• 43:51
  And our divorce was very quick.
• 43:55
  He didn't, you know, fight me on anything.
• 43:58
  And we lived separately.
• 44:01
  He was initially with the woman that he had had an affair with.
• 44:06
  who ended up pregnant and, he's my kid.
• 44:12
  She just had him.
• 44:13
  But that's a whole other story.
• 44:16
  it was a time where we could start from scratch.
• 44:21
  And...
• 44:23
  Now I was a more healed person, not fully healed, but a more healed person.
• 44:30
  So it was, and I was able to really look at my own self and I was able to peel away the onion and really look at my responsibility in the relationship.
• 44:46
  And
• 44:48
  I looked at him as not only was he my husband and my partner, but he was my best friend as well.
• 44:58
  And I saw my best friend struggling with himself and with his life and the choice that he made.
• 45:11
  And I think that...
• 45:14
  together we just realized that there was a foundation of friendship which was so important in our relationship that we realized we're not we're not done we're not done so we did get
• 45:32
  remarried but we were not we were divorced for six months before we reconciled and
• 45:39
  We went into therapy together almost immediately.
• 45:41
  Like we went into couples therapy and worked through a lot of things in that.
• 45:48
  Before I would allow myself to move forward, to forgive him and to move forward.
• 45:57
  And we were able to get to that point.
• 46:01
  And getting married again, I think that was important for us to recommit, not just to each other, but for our children, you know, because they went through hell.
• 46:14
  Wow.
• 46:16
  And not just a.
• 46:19
  Well, it's it's such a it's what happens to people in your situation, right, and his and just.
• 46:26
  It's amazing when people can talk about it and who do the work, so to speak, to heal from it and move forward, and it's such an important.
• 46:39
  message slash just reality that it's so helpful for people to hear who might be dancing around it or in it or avoiding facing it, all those things.
• 46:50
  hard because it's like, you know, you want to hold on to something that you're comfortable with.
• 46:58
  Yeah.
• 46:58
  but is that comfortable feeling healthy?
• 47:03
  And I, even though I was comfortable, you know, and I knew that he had a wandering eye.
• 47:12
  I just did not pay attention to it.
• 47:16
  And again, I'm a little slow.
• 47:18
  I had to get slapped in the face with it, but.
• 47:22
  At the same time, I'm grateful for that because now, you know, and I'm not saying that marriage is not work now because it is, you know, we're still learning how to communicate
• 47:36
  with each other.
• 47:37
  Because as you get older, it just becomes a different conversation.
• 47:42
  And it's, you know, it is work.
• 47:46
  I know what I'm worth.
• 47:48
  And I think that's the other part of healing is you get to a point where you understand who you are as a person and what you deserve in relationships.
• 48:01
  And you're always looking for people that are in alignment with that, that are healthy.
• 48:09
  uh I will tell you that because of the work that I've done, have, you know, when my book came out, I had to be authentic in this book.
• 48:20
  I was very vulnerable in this book.
• 48:22
  And because I had to tell my mom's story a little bit along with my story, she didn't like that.
• 48:29
  ah
• 48:31
  So she stopped talking to me and ended the relationship.
• 48:37
  And I have to say, because I am in the state that I am right now, and I understand that I need to have healthy relationships around me, and that our relationship was very toxic,
• 48:52
  that I was totally at peace with her decision.
• 48:56
  And so we remain no contact.
• 48:59
  Now, it doesn't mean that I don't love her.
• 49:01
  I send love to her and light to her all the time.
• 49:05
  But I have understood that even though I'm her daughter, that I need to look out for my own mental health and my family, you know?
• 49:20
  And so...
• 49:22
  I'm at peace with leaving that relationship.
• 49:26
  So the book that you are referencing is called The Other Side of the Gun, My Journey from Trauma to Resiliency.
• 49:35
  Yes.
• 49:36
  Yes, wonderful.
• 49:37
  And as you were just describing with your mom, this idea of, I don't know if you sort of.
• 49:44
  put the forgiveness aspect into that or this idea of we can forgive people, perhaps not their actions, we can have loving detachment.
• 49:55
  Many of the things you have described, I learned in AA or also in Al-Anon, I did a lot of both of those things.
• 50:03
  And those aren't unique.
• 50:05
  Those ideas are somewhat universal, I think.
• 50:07
  em Yeah, can I guess just
• 50:13
  And obviously with your husband too.
• 50:15
  Yeah, just the can you talk a little bit about those ideas and how those apply to your life?
• 50:20
  the forgiveness part.
• 50:21
  So I look at forgiveness a little bit differently.
• 50:24
  You know, there's always that, well, if you forgive someone, then you're forgetting what they did kind of feel.
• 50:31
  And for me, I think I got to the point where I was like, I need to find forgiveness for myself.
• 50:40
  because my mindset is when you forgive somebody, you're literally taking your power back from that person or that thing that hurt you.
• 50:55
  And you're telling them, you can no longer hurt me and this no longer is held over my head.
• 51:01
  Like you are not walking with me in life anymore.
• 51:04
  Like I am taking my power back.
• 51:08
  by forgiving you.
• 51:10
  Because I watched my mom, and she's still there.
• 51:14
  She has not left this place.
• 51:16
  Live in victimhood and live with anger inside of her for these men that were involved and not being able to move away from that.
• 51:27
  And for me, I watched her basically give her life to them.
• 51:32
  So when I say I lost my dad that night, I also feel like I lost my mom that night.
• 51:37
  She like lost her identity and forgot who she was.
• 51:42
  And, and it turned into this rage, this internal rage for her.
• 51:47
  And I didn't want my life to look like that.
• 51:51
  I did not.
• 51:51
  I did not want to live in victimhood.
• 51:54
  I wanted to be known as a survivor, period, full stop.
• 51:59
  And so I had to get to that point where I, initially my forgiveness went to the men that were involved in my dad's murder.
• 52:09
  because I wanted them to know that they had no hold over my life.
• 52:15
  Like I was not giving them my power.
• 52:17
  And the same with my husband, you know?
• 52:20
  Because for so many years with him, I gave him my power by not standing up for myself, not...
• 52:27
  calling him out on his behavior, not, you know, all of those things.
• 52:32
  And, you know, but you have to get to that point in your healing where you realize that the only way that I am going to really truly become the person that I've always wanted to
• 52:43
  be is I need to stop giving the power over to someone else or something else.
• 52:49
  I love talking about these things.
• 52:52
  Your story and all the things you just articulated are so wonderful and beautiful examples of sort of suffering and walking through the fire and coming out the other end.
• 53:04
  And it's just so inspiring.
• 53:07
  to hear those things and important for all humanity in a sense to understand these things.
• 53:14
  so thank you so much for sharing that with us.
• 53:17
  Well, thank you for having me and I really appreciate the time of being able to tell this message because, you know, I feel like people walk alone in this journey and they need to
• 53:29
  understand that they're not alone and that there is hope.
• 53:32
  There is hope and you can heal.
• 53:34
  Well, thank you, Susan.
• 53:35
  I wish you all the best.
• 53:37
  Thank you.
• 53:43
  Thanks for listening to this episode of the State of Mind podcast.
• 53:47
  Before you go, pick one practice or idea from this episode and carry it with you this week.
• 53:55
  Remember, live with courage, clarity, and compassion.
• 54:01
  practice inner strength and develop within.
• 54:05
  If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us, subscribe to the podcast, give us a five star and kind review if you feel so inclined.
• 54:17
  and share this episode with someone who you think might find it helpful.
• 54:21
  For more info, you can check us out on the web and on YouTube.
• 54:26
  I wish you all the very best.
• 54:28
  Take it easy.
• 54:29
  Peace out.