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There’s An Issue With My Mom with Karen C.L. Anderson · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Diver's podcast. My name is Guiming
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  Speaker 1: Ferson and I interview incredible people who share the story
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  Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
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  Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
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  Speaker 1: and our sponsors. So five four three two one our folks,
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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  Speaker 1: my guest today. Karen C. L Anderson, Karen, Welcome, Thank you,
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  Speaker 1: glad to be here. Welcome. Karen is a Master certified
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  Speaker 1: life coach and author who specializes in helping women understand
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  Speaker 1: and relate to shame differently so they no longer hurt
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  Speaker 1: themselves and others with it. She's the author of several
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  Speaker 1: books including You're Not Your Mother, Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame,
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  Speaker 1: and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters, A Guide for Separation, Liberation
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  Speaker 1: and Inspiration. All right, so just a little bit about you, obviously,
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  Speaker 1: but before we get going, share with the listeners, Karen
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  Speaker 1: and where you're from originally and where you are currently.
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  Speaker 2: I was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, and I grew up
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  Speaker 2: in Newtown, Connecticut, and I currently live in Waterford, Connecticut.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, awesome, awesome.
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  Speaker 2: I've traveled a lot, but I've lived in Connecticut my
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  Speaker 2: entire life.
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  Speaker 1: You're back. Cool, all right, So let's get into it.
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  Speaker 1: How did this start for you? This journey, this passion,
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  Speaker 1: this specialist.
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  Speaker 3: So I have a.
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  Speaker 2: Mother, and as I grew up and grew and became
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  Speaker 2: an adult and started living my life and doing my
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  Speaker 2: work and all of that, right, the relationship that I
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  Speaker 2: had with my mother, and consequently the relationship she had
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  Speaker 2: with her mother, which I was watching as well, became
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  Speaker 2: an issue for me. And you know, starting in the
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  Speaker 2: early two thousands, let's say, it became obvious to me
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  Speaker 2: that it wasn't healthy, but like, I couldn't. I didn't
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  Speaker 2: really have much context. It was just like, oh, there
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  Speaker 2: must be something wrong with me, or oh maybe there's
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  Speaker 2: something wrong with her.
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  Speaker 1: You know, give us some more if you can't. What
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  Speaker 1: was going on?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, there's the childhood trauma, which again,
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  Speaker 2: when we're in it, we don't necessarily see it as that.
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  Speaker 2: But my parents got divorced when I was two. My
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  Speaker 2: mother got remarried when I was five. She married a
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  Speaker 2: man who had a lot of substance abuse issues. I
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  Speaker 2: didn't know this, but she did as well. There was
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  Speaker 2: a lot of neglect, benign neglect.
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  Speaker 3: If you will. You know, I'm not one to.
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  Speaker 2: Want to diagnose people, but you know, it has been
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  Speaker 2: suggested to me that she's a narcissist, that she may
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  Speaker 2: even have borderline personality disorder. But again that like when
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  Speaker 2: I was a child, I wasn't obviously thinking about that
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  Speaker 2: kind of thing. And when I was in my teens
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  Speaker 2: and early days, my mom divorced my stepfather and she
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  Speaker 2: and I became what I now can see is very
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  Speaker 2: unhealthily close, and I lived with her and she basically
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  Speaker 2: this would have been the early to mid eighties, you know,
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  Speaker 2: take let's go out to nightclubs and meet men and
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  Speaker 2: drink and dance and all of that.
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  Speaker 3: And at the time, it was like, oh, this is
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  Speaker 3: kind of fun.
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  Speaker 2: Because I was kind of a shy person to begin
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  Speaker 2: with and I didn't have a lot of friends.
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, in.
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  Speaker 2: Hindsight, and like at any time that I tried to
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  Speaker 2: sort of differentiate myself, separate myself, have my own friends,
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  Speaker 2: have a boyfriend or a husband.
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  Speaker 3: I did have a husband in there at one point.
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  Speaker 2: You know, she didn't like it, and I was constantly
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  Speaker 2: seeking her approval and constantly trying to bend and contort
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  Speaker 2: so that.
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  Speaker 3: She would like me when she would approve of me,
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  Speaker 3: And so everything was.
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  Speaker 1: You know, enmeshed totally and match codependence.
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  Speaker 3: Again, didn't have the language for it at the time.
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  Speaker 2: I know what it was at the time, but you know,
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  Speaker 2: so the healthier I got, the older I became, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the more that I tried to, as I said, sort
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  Speaker 2: of separate myself.
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  Speaker 3: From her, you know.
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  Speaker 2: And it's funny because I've started using this language more recently,
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  Speaker 2: I'm realizing that I never probably ever felt safe with
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  Speaker 2: my mother.
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  Speaker 3: And that's not to say.
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  Speaker 2: That she's a bad, horrible person, but I think most
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  Speaker 2: of us are walking around now. I'm like most of
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  Speaker 2: us don't feel safe in a lot of situations or
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  Speaker 2: with certain people. And to be honest, based on what
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  Speaker 2: the studying I've done, in the classes I've taken, in
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  Speaker 2: the books I've read, I don't think she feels safe
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  Speaker 2: with me either. I think that this is sort of
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  Speaker 2: like a you know, triggered nervous systems living together and
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  Speaker 2: not knowing how.
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  Speaker 3: To how to be with each other.
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  Speaker 1: Without your weed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me in Rejeck
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  Speaker 1: for a second, So at what point, how old were
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  Speaker 1: you when you started to maybe get some perspective on
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  Speaker 1: this and start to move away.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm sixty two now, I would say in my
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  Speaker 2: early forties is when I started to get some perspective.
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  Speaker 1: When you started to become now okay, so let's define perspective.
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  Speaker 1: When you started to become aware?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, like something's not right?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay?
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  Speaker 3: Why is this so hard? Why do I, you know,
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  Speaker 3: struggle so much?
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  Speaker 1: So what did you do when you started all the things?
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  Speaker 3: Perspect the therapy?
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  Speaker 2: Like you know, I did all kinds of things, therapy, books, classes,
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  Speaker 2: alternative therapies ef T.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, right, because there were other things.
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  Speaker 2: Concurrently that were happening in my life that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I thought I needed to fix my body, image, weight,
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  Speaker 2: making money, like you know, all the things that we.
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  Speaker 1: Use everything, all the things and do me at this
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  Speaker 1: time professionally, what were you doing?
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  Speaker 3: So I spent the first I guess, half of my
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  Speaker 3: career And this is so funny.
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  Speaker 2: I've always been a writer, but I spent the first
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  Speaker 2: half of my career as a plastics industry trade magazine journalist,
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  Speaker 2: So eighties nine and up through the.
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  Speaker 3: Early two thousands. Then I started freelance writing, and I
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  Speaker 3: act it was.
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  Speaker 2: And this is interesting because this is sort of a
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  Speaker 2: turning point, is when I started blogging for myself.
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  Speaker 3: Right, the internet comes along and we start right.
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  Speaker 2: Adjusting to that and having that as a as a
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  Speaker 2: resource and as a place of self expression and whatnot.
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  Speaker 2: That's when it seemed that my mother like ramped up
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  Speaker 2: her abuse of me, if you will, was because I
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  Speaker 2: was starting to I was starting to feel really good
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  Speaker 2: about myself.
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  Speaker 3: I was starting to shine. I was like, oh wow,
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  Speaker 3: people are reading my blog. This is cool.
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  Speaker 2: I think I might write a book, and I did.
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  Speaker 2: I wrote a book that came out in twenty eleven,
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  Speaker 2: and that was where it really started to become really
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  Speaker 2: obvious to me that there was something wrong because of
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  Speaker 2: the books.
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  Speaker 1: Are you referring to you or not my mother?
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  Speaker 3: No?
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 2: No, okay, you and not your mother came out into
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. Now the book that I'm referring to
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  Speaker 2: is it's not even on the market anymore.
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  Speaker 3: I pulled it off.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, it was cool.
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  Speaker 3: It was about body image and weight loss.
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  Speaker 1: So how do things unfold such that you started to
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  Speaker 1: write about this?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, I discovered that for me, writing
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  Speaker 2: is how I know myself. And I was never one
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  Speaker 2: to like journal like you know privately. That's why having
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  Speaker 2: a blog, I don't know what it did for me,
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  Speaker 2: Like I don't know what the mechanism was, but once
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  Speaker 2: I was expressing myself to others, it's.
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  Speaker 3: Like I to know myself. I said, this is how
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  Speaker 3: I know myself. This is how I processed what's happening
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  Speaker 3: to me. This is how I figure myself out. And
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  Speaker 3: it's funny.
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  Speaker 2: There's an author who died. He's famous. He wrote the
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  Speaker 2: Prince of Tides.
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  Speaker 3: What's his name?
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  Speaker 2: Pat Conroy, and he wrote he had written about himself
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  Speaker 2: saying that the more that I write and I explain
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  Speaker 2: myself to myself, the more I help other people understand themselves.
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  Speaker 2: And that's what I was starting to see is that
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  Speaker 2: as I started to write about some of the struggles
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  Speaker 2: that I was having, other people were like, oh wow,
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  Speaker 2: Like I hadn't considered that, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, well, I was just going to say.
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  Speaker 3: And it was at that time that my mother.
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  Speaker 2: And again I don't know if you want the whole backstory,
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  Speaker 2: because it's we could be here for a long time.
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  Speaker 2: That she emailed me and she said, I don't like
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  Speaker 2: the person she put it, I'm disappointed in the person
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  Speaker 2: you've become. And that's and that was at the end
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  Speaker 2: of twenty ten. That's what I cut ties with.
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  Speaker 1: My mother at that pretty heavy statement.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's funny because up until that point it
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  Speaker 2: had always been verbal.
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  Speaker 3: She had never written it down, and it was sort of.
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  Speaker 2: Like, you know, and you know, I think a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people who struggle in these types of relationships.
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  Speaker 3: Are like, did I hear that right?
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  Speaker 1: Like that?
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  Speaker 2: She couldn't have meant that, Like, no one's gonna believe that,
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  Speaker 2: you know. And you know, my husband who I was
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  Speaker 2: married to at the time. I'm still married to this
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  Speaker 2: husband I had too one a long time ago.
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  Speaker 3: My current husband, we've been together almost thirty years and
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  Speaker 3: he's amazing. But you know, he he sort of played
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  Speaker 3: a role in this too of like I don't think
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  Speaker 3: that's how mothers are supposed to talk to their their daughters.
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  Speaker 1: You know, So so he he kind of helped you
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  Speaker 1: with that a little bit.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think he was also like.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so how do you think it was?
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  Speaker 3: It was once it was like it had started to
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  Speaker 3: become so obvious.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think she could contain it the way she
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  Speaker 2: used to do her contempt.
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  Speaker 3: For me, which is my perception of how she thinks
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  Speaker 3: about me. But he was like, Okay, it's pretty obvious.
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  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, and oftentimes we need that other voice, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: to like I often need that, I need someone to
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  Speaker 1: like shake me, Like, what the hell are you doing?
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  Speaker 1: So when did you start coaching women and writing about
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  Speaker 1: this specifically?
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  Speaker 3: So you know, it's so funny.
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  Speaker 2: I went to the coach schools, right, I've done several
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  Speaker 2: certifications and whatnot. Again, I came into this world sort
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  Speaker 2: of around the idea of body image, weight, fitness and
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  Speaker 2: all of that, and it became more obvious to me that, okay,
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  Speaker 2: there's an issue with my mom. And it was during
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  Speaker 2: one of the coach trainings, and it was after I
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  Speaker 2: had cut ties with my mom. So this is maybe
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  Speaker 2: like twenty twelve thirteen. In that timeframe that I became
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  Speaker 2: my grandmother's legal guardian, my mother's mother, who was still alive.
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  Speaker 2: And again, family history was such that my grandmother was like,
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  Speaker 2: I don't think I want to trust my mother to
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  Speaker 2: be her legal guardian. So I became the legal guardian
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  Speaker 2: required me to be in touch with my mom and
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  Speaker 2: my aunt and uncle. I'm navigating that as I'm doing
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  Speaker 2: this coach training, and as I'm doing the coach training,
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  Speaker 2: it's becoming obvious to me that I need to be
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  Speaker 2: coached on this or have therapy or both. Because it
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  Speaker 2: was it was really difficult for me, and in the
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  Speaker 2: coach training, it was so transformative for me. Some of
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  Speaker 2: the tools that I learned that I was like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: maybe I could coach women around this, but also like, okay,
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  Speaker 2: but I'm not a therapist. I'm not a licensed professional,
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  Speaker 2: So what is my lane right without you know, wanting
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  Speaker 2: to cross that line? And it's that's been a big
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  Speaker 2: learning curve as well. And so, you know, it was
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  Speaker 2: that's how I started. I was writing about it.
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  Speaker 3: People signed up for my mailing list, you know.
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  Speaker 1: It just people are like, tell me know what specifically
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  Speaker 1: was transformative to you around this topic.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because it was so transformative at the time.
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  Speaker 2: And then it's not that I don't agree with it anymore,
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  Speaker 2: but it's more nuanced because I think the other thing
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  Speaker 2: that most of us, maybe some people knew it back then,
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  Speaker 2: but is understanding the role of the nervous system in trauma,
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  Speaker 2: and I didn't understand that in the beginning, and when
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  Speaker 2: I first started doing my coach training, I didn't know
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  Speaker 2: that I had trauma. If you will, I wouldn't have
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  Speaker 2: used that language.
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  Speaker 3: But it was transformative because it was teaching me.
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  Speaker 2: That I could that the way that I was thinking
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  Speaker 2: about myself in regards to my mother was hurting me.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where the shame piece comes in, right,
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  Speaker 2: because then right around that time, Brene Brown is out
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  Speaker 2: there with her talking about shame and vulnerability, and I
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  Speaker 2: was like, oh, shame, That's what's going on here, right,
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  Speaker 2: Like I'm kind of instantly thinking there's something wrong with
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  Speaker 2: me that I can't deal with my mother or that
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  Speaker 2: my mother scares me, you know. So the transformative piece
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  Speaker 2: was I don't have to it's the way that I'm
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  Speaker 2: thinking about myself that is causing me all this pain.
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  Speaker 3: But then I was like, Okay, well, what's wrong with
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  Speaker 3: me that I keep thinking this way?
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 3: So it just but it was transformative in that I
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  Speaker 3: had a.
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  Speaker 2: New it was like a new way of seeing myself
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  Speaker 2: and my mother and my relationship to her.
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  Speaker 3: And it's it's been evolving ever since.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, when you first learned something, it's like boo, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and then ten years later you're like, yeah, that was big,
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  Speaker 2: but right.
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  Speaker 1: Right, right, So you said, all along you've kind of
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  Speaker 1: been doing quote unquote doing your own work and stuff,
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  Speaker 1: or in addition to that experience with that coaching, if anything,
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  Speaker 1: were therapists or treatments, was anything working for you helping you.
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  Speaker 2: I have found internal families to be very helpful. I
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  Speaker 2: have done a little bit of EMDR, which it was
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  Speaker 2: funny because I went specifically for I have a phobia
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  Speaker 2: about throwing up or other people throwing up, significant anxiety,
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  Speaker 2: so it was like in that I also in hindsight
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  Speaker 2: can see that that was partly a perimenoplause thing, the
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  Speaker 2: anxiety that I was experiencing back then, but it seemed
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  Speaker 2: to all be focused on this throw up phobia thing.
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  Speaker 2: And so I did EMDR, and of course my mother
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: came up in that, and we uncovered some stuff from
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  Speaker 2: my childhood about that, learning how to set boundaries, learning
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  Speaker 2: how to understand and work with my nervous system. Not
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  Speaker 2: from the perspective of like, oh, I have to hack
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  Speaker 2: my nervous system so that I can be perfect, right,
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  Speaker 2: but how can I