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Transcript

How Do I Tell You This with Tonya Pieske · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gimick
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Speaker 1: person I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to
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Speaker 1: helping those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank
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Speaker 1: you to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting
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Speaker 1: this show. So five four, three, two and 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, Tanya Pask Tanya, welcome, Thank you so awesome.
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Speaker 1: He thanks. Tanya is a musician, producer, and sound designer
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Speaker 1: based in Portland, Oregon. She's a creator of how to
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Speaker 1: Tell Someone, a storytelling podcast exploring the moments of communication
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Speaker 1: that shape how we perceive and move through the world.
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Speaker 1: Tanya blends her lived experience with CPTSD together with a
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Speaker 1: background in fostering psychological safety through our nonprofit to create
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Speaker 1: a trauma informed space for emotionally nuanced, vulnerable storytelling. All right, Tanya, obviously,
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Speaker 1: just a little bit about you share with our listeners.
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Speaker 1: Where you're from a ridge, and as I already said,
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Speaker 1: but where you are currently and then we'll get going.
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Speaker 2: Sure. I grew up in Oregon in the Northeast corner,
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Speaker 2: very rural area of the state La grand area if
1:13
Speaker 2: anyone knows it, usually have to work my way out.
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Speaker 2: Have you heard of Pendleton?
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Speaker 1: Then?
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Speaker 2: Have you heard of La Grande? Then Union? That's where
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Speaker 2: I grew up.
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Speaker 1: In Union, Okay, And currently, yes, I.
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Speaker 2: Made my way to Portland. I've been here for about
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Speaker 2: ten years.
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Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome. So first of all, I have to say
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Speaker 1: I love your voice. Thank you. It's an incredible voice.
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Speaker 1: And your podcast just sounds so good. When I clicked
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Speaker 1: on it and started listening, I was like, Okay, something,
1:44
Speaker 1: this girl knows what she's doing. And then I was
1:47
Speaker 1: reading your bio and your sound designer. But we're going
1:49
Speaker 1: to get into that. But how did all this start
1:52
Speaker 1: for you?
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I have been sort of a DIY
1:58
Speaker 2: musician since I was really young. It was one of
2:01
Speaker 2: the first real passions of my life, and I guess
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Speaker 2: I just had a spirit for figuring things out and
2:12
Speaker 2: so I started, you know, recording my own music when
2:15
Speaker 2: I was around seventeen, and that evolved over time. I've
2:19
Speaker 2: released ooh probably fifteen albums self produced albums and two
2:27
Speaker 2: that were produced by someone else. But throughout that time,
2:31
Speaker 2: you know, podcasts started popping up, and then I started
2:33
Speaker 2: getting really into them around twenty seventeen, and I was like,
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Speaker 2: I could do this. I've already you know, I know
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Speaker 2: about audio editing. I could probably do this it. You know,
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Speaker 2: I was wrong. It was like way harder than I expected.
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Speaker 2: It's a whole other ballgame. But but then I got
2:47
Speaker 2: a couple of podcasts down, you know, thinking about just
2:52
Speaker 2: like conversational, casual stuff with friends, and that evolved finally
2:57
Speaker 2: into how to Tell Someone, which is a little bit
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Speaker 2: more serious, a little bit more holistic in terms of
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Speaker 2: my interests and experience, and the first time that I
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Speaker 2: folded in my own music to the podcast. So this
3:12
Speaker 2: project is very special to me.
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Speaker 1: It evolved.
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Speaker 2: I think it had to wait until this point in
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Speaker 2: my life prefer it to be possible.
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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, okay, so that's the broad picture, the
3:25
Speaker 1: big picture, the broad brush joke. What's beneath all that?
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Speaker 1: Obviously there's something story experience.
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Speaker 2: So I grew up in a pretty traumatic household and
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Speaker 2: was diagnosed with PTSD pretty much the second I left home,
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Speaker 2: which was unusual in retrospect because it was around two
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Speaker 2: thousand and five, and I don't I feel very grateful
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Speaker 2: that I got that diagnosis at that time because it
3:55
Speaker 2: was not on my radar. There was not a lot
3:57
Speaker 2: of conversation around PTSD, especially for someone like me who
4:02
Speaker 2: didn't fit like a sort of I don't a sort
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Speaker 2: of traditional understanding of PTSD. So I was in a
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Speaker 2: household that was violent and chaotic and psychologically abusive and
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Speaker 2: sort of just had this understanding that I had to
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Speaker 2: keep my head down and survive and just move away
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Speaker 2: from home and start my life, and that was the
4:27
Speaker 2: only option for me.
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Speaker 1: Pause right there for a seconds. So during that time
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Speaker 1: before you moved out, how was this playing out in
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Speaker 1: your life?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents divorced when I was pretty young, and
4:43
Speaker 2: both remarried very quickly, and my mother remarried someone who
4:48
Speaker 2: was a very dangerous, violent person, and so my daily
4:52
Speaker 2: life shifted dramatically when I was around nine years old,
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Speaker 2: and that became a really sort of oppressive environment where
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Speaker 2: I was sort of punished for all kinds of things
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Speaker 2: that didn't make sense to me, that wouldn't even occur.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'm sorry, at least to stop you. I
5:13
Speaker 1: should have prefaced what I was saying before. You don't
5:17
Speaker 1: have to talk about anything you don't want to. What
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Speaker 1: I was asking about specifically, is how this was playing
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Speaker 1: out for you. Were you hiding, were you not performing
5:31
Speaker 1: in school? Were you over performing in school? I mean, symptomatically,
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Speaker 1: you can share whatever you want, but I didn't mean
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Speaker 1: for you to specifically share what was the abuse and
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Speaker 1: so forth. I just want to make that clear.
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Speaker 2: Well, I think first for reasons that I still don't
5:49
Speaker 2: fully understand. I think I had some really good coping
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Speaker 2: mechanisms and some really bad ones, but I did I
5:57
Speaker 2: think just sort of logistically want to spend as much
5:59
Speaker 2: time away from home as possible, so I really threw
6:03
Speaker 2: everything into extracurriculars really just to stretch my time away
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Speaker 2: from home, and that resulted in getting into things like
6:11
Speaker 2: theater and music and sports, which kept me out of
6:15
Speaker 2: the house as much as possible and gave me something
6:19
Speaker 2: really productive to focus on. But I sort of had
6:22
Speaker 2: this dual life happening where I was really motivated and
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Speaker 2: good at all of those things and ambitious and kind
6:33
Speaker 2: of kind of like a little pill, you know, Like
6:36
Speaker 2: teachers were like, oh, no, here she comes, because I
6:39
Speaker 2: was just extra all the time. But on the other side,
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Speaker 2: I was just sort of scared all the time and
6:47
Speaker 2: engaging in self harm, suicidal ideation. I was really struggling
6:52
Speaker 2: to function, and then I would go to school and
6:54
Speaker 2: just sort of flip that switch off and perform, And
6:58
Speaker 2: that kind of compartmental is got me through and ultimately
7:04
Speaker 2: crumbled the second. I didn't have any structure. When I
7:07
Speaker 2: was finally off on my own, I didn't have, you know,
7:11
Speaker 2: the same kind of guardrails around me that I had
7:14
Speaker 2: in high school where people expect you to show up
7:17
Speaker 2: and there's no wiggle room, you know, Like once I
7:21
Speaker 2: was an adult and out of the home, I had
7:24
Speaker 2: no it was up to me to figure everything out.
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Speaker 1: And that's no accountability, no one holding you. During your
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Speaker 1: high school experience, did you share what was going on
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Speaker 1: with anyone? Did you have siblings?
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Speaker 2: I have an older brother, and we both knew it's complicated.
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Speaker 2: I think part of me was terrified, and there was
7:50
Speaker 2: some physiological thing happening, Like if I tried to talk
7:54
Speaker 2: about what was happening in my house, it's like my
7:56
Speaker 2: throat would close up. I would start shaking violently and
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Speaker 2: I just couldn't actually say it, and there were people
8:03
Speaker 2: around me who suspected something was off. I became what
8:09
Speaker 2: my therapist now calls the identified patient in the household.
8:13
Speaker 2: So I was suddenly the crazy girl that all of
8:16
Speaker 2: the resources went into treating my mental illness instead of
8:19
Speaker 2: addressing the actual problem, which was that I was being
8:22
Speaker 2: traumatized regularly at home and was struggling to cope with it.
8:27
Speaker 2: And so a lot of that high school experience was
8:34
Speaker 2: navigating medications at all these diagnoses, and I couldn't just say,
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Speaker 2: this is what's happening, this is why I'm so distressed
8:43
Speaker 2: all the time.
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Speaker 1: So what caused you to seek out therapy during that time?
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Speaker 2: I didn't seek it out. So I hit sort of
8:53
Speaker 2: a crisis and there was intervention by a teacher. So
8:58
Speaker 2: the self harm outed me and that resulted in, you know,
9:03
Speaker 2: a parent teacher conference to figure out how to move forward,
9:07
Speaker 2: and that I got into therapy. And the first therapist
9:11
Speaker 2: I had right away, you know, was just sort of
9:15
Speaker 2: I think the first or second session was just asking
9:18
Speaker 2: about my home life, not prying or like insinuating anything,
9:22
Speaker 2: just simply asking about my home life. And I got weird.
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Speaker 2: You know, my demeanor must have changed. I didn't say anything,
9:30
Speaker 2: but he could tell something.
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Speaker 1: You didn't have to say anything.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, and so he called my mother to basically check in,
9:36
Speaker 2: and that's when she pulled me out of that therapist
9:39
Speaker 2: and sent me to a different therapist. So even if
9:41
Speaker 2: I tried, it was shut down pretty quickly. And the
9:46
Speaker 2: only time that I really laid it all out for
9:49
Speaker 2: anyone was for my dad, who was sort of over
9:54
Speaker 2: the course of my childhood, was kind of drifting away
9:58
Speaker 2: and not being as present and not showing up for visitation,
10:01
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't speak to him or wouldn't hear from
10:04
Speaker 2: him for months at a time.
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Speaker 1: So this is your biological father, Yeah, okay, who was
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Speaker 1: out of the house, Yes, okay.
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Speaker 2: And I really thought this might be my only chance
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Speaker 2: to get out of here. If I can work up
10:18
Speaker 2: the courage to tell him what's going on, certainly he'll intervene.
10:23
Speaker 2: And so I did, around fifteen, work up the courage
10:28
Speaker 2: and just laid it all out for him and his
10:30
Speaker 2: second wife. And it was such a wild It was
10:36
Speaker 2: such a wild trajectory because I remember my dad just
10:40
Speaker 2: kind of looking at the floor and not really responding,
10:43
Speaker 2: and his wife was really engaging with me, like horrified
10:48
Speaker 2: and kind of had the response that you might expect,
10:50
Speaker 2: and was the only one sort of asking follow up questions.
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Speaker 2: The next morning, she said, your dad and I talked,
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Speaker 2: we want to know if you want to come live
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Speaker 2: with us, And I was like, of course yes, And
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Speaker 2: I really thought, like I'm saved.
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Speaker 1: I did it.
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Speaker 2: I finally did it. We even drove around and looked
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Speaker 2: at the school that I would be going to, and
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Speaker 2: I really saw myself like in a new life, like
11:11
Speaker 2: I could visualize it. And we were far enough away
11:14
Speaker 2: across the state. We were in the Bend area, and
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Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, well, he can't come and attack us
11:21
Speaker 2: or hurt us because he's too far away. You know,
11:23
Speaker 2: he's hours and hours away, so they'll handle the communication.
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Speaker 2: I'm already sort of two feet planted in this new
11:30
Speaker 2: life at this point. And then at the end of
11:32
Speaker 2: the day, my dad came home from work and they
11:34
Speaker 2: had a little private meeting in their bedroom, and I
11:37
Speaker 2: remember him opening the door and I could see her
11:39
Speaker 2: sitting on the edge of the bed with her head
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Speaker 2: and her hands, crying, and he just really flatly said
11:45
Speaker 2: that they reconsidered and it just wasn't going to be possible.
11:49
Speaker 2: That he just and I think his excuse was that
11:52
Speaker 2: they just couldn't afford to take care of me, and
11:56
Speaker 2: I found out a few years later that they both
11:59
Speaker 2: had gambling a days, but at the time, I just like,
12:03
Speaker 2: there was no other explanation, and I was already sort
12:07
Speaker 2: of in this in this headspace of like, I can't
12:12
Speaker 2: ask directly for help because if I'm denied it, it
12:15
Speaker 2: will be so crushing. And I was I had gotten
12:18
Speaker 2: used to just not getting any kind of basic support,
12:22
Speaker 2: emotional or otherwise from any parental figure in my life
12:25
Speaker 2: that I was like, well, I'm not going to argue
12:28
Speaker 2: with them about this. I just have to accept it.
12:30
Speaker 2: And then a few days later, they you know, took
12:32
Speaker 2: me back home and there was never another conversation about
12:35
Speaker 2: it ever again. And so that's why I had that
12:39
Speaker 2: mentality of like, oh, no one's gonna save me. It
12:41
Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't matter if I tell anybody or not.
12:44
Speaker 2: There's nothing anyone can do.
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Speaker 1: It feels it feels like so helpless. Yeah, like, no matter,
12:51
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do. I mean, if you can't
12:56
Speaker 1: find hope and solace and safety with your box political father,
13:03
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? I mean, Oh my god.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think you know that still shows up
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Speaker 2: for me today. That's still stuff. That I'm working on.
13:13
Speaker 2: It's just asking for help with any small thing, because
13:17
Speaker 2: there's a little part of me. It's not very conscious,
13:20
Speaker 2: but there is a part of me that's like, if
13:21
Speaker 2: I'm told no, it will be worse than just not
13:24
Speaker 2: having the help or not asking for it to start with.
13:28
Speaker 2: That's still like maybe one of the most long term
13:33
Speaker 2: sort of issues that I'm you know, still working on
13:36
Speaker 2: and will probably work on for the rest of my life.
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Speaker 1: Right. So, given this situation, Tanya, in this experience, were
13:44
Speaker 1: you like desperate to get out of the house to
13:48
Speaker 1: go to school, to go to college. What happened after
13:51
Speaker 1: high school?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I left this as soon as I could, So
13:54
Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly how long, but it was maybe
13:57
Speaker 2: a month after I graduated. I was out of there
14:00
Speaker 2: and I just used. I mean I I was supposed
14:02
Speaker 2: to start school in the fall in Southern Oregon, but
14:07
Speaker 2: I had all summer to figure out what to do
14:10
Speaker 2: until school started, and I used. I just s grounded
14:13
Speaker 2: up all the graduation money and moved to Southern Oregon
14:17
Speaker 2: and got an apartment, which was naive in a way
14:21
Speaker 2: because I couldn't find a job fast enough to sustain
14:23
Speaker 2: that rent, but also I didn't really have another choice.
14:26
Speaker 2: I didn't have anywhere else to go. I just needed
14:28
Speaker 2: to I thought, just follow through on the plan, get
14:31
Speaker 2: out of the house. It seems possible. Start your life,
14:34
Speaker 2: then you'll be fine. And it was. That was not
14:39
Speaker 2: the experience that I had. The second I left home
14:41
Speaker 2: and I was on my own, it was like just
14:44
Speaker 2: a long series of panic attacks. It was the most
14:48
Speaker 2: scared I've ever been, the most depressed I've ever been,
14:51
Speaker 2: and it felt cruel. It felt like, well, this isn't
14:55
Speaker 2: supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be safe. Now I
14:59
Speaker 2: did what I I did what I was supposed to do.
15:02
Speaker 2: I left, I survived, and now I'm worse off. How
15:05
Speaker 2: is that fair? And so that summer was was was
15:11
Speaker 2: very rough, and then starting school, I just was on
15:14
Speaker 2: a steady decline. And then by the time school started
15:17
Speaker 2: I was barely able to function. And what is that?
15:21
Speaker 1: When you say that, what do you mean by that?
15:24
Speaker 2: I developed this severe social anxiety, which I didn't have before.
15:28
Speaker 2: So I was even struggling to get out of my
15:31
Speaker 2: dorm to go to class, Like the idea of interacting
15:34
Speaker 2: with other people was terrifying, And of course I didn't
15:36
Speaker 2: have any money, so you know, in order to feed myself,
15:40
Speaker 2: I needed to go to you know, go to the
15:44
Speaker 2: food court on campus. But I didn't want to have
15:47
Speaker 2: to interact with anyone. So I wasn't eating very much,
15:50
Speaker 2: and I was not going to class or I was
15:53
Speaker 2: severely late, I wasn't sleeping. I started developing night terrors, and.
16:01
Speaker 1: Like every possible symptom there is out there, you were
16:05
Speaker 1: checking that box. My god.
16:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was even like the physical stuff started
16:10
Speaker 2: to happen, like feeling faint a lot, and just like
16:13
Speaker 2: I was just really ill all around, not doing well,
16:20
Speaker 2: and I started isolating myself as well. I had a
16:25
Speaker 2: roommate we shared a dorm, and I liked her, there
16:28
Speaker 2: was nothing wrong with the relationship, but I just like
16:31
Speaker 2: felt this need to be alone. And I secured a
16:36
Speaker 2: different dorm room on my own, which racked up more
16:39
Speaker 2: bills because now I'm not sharing a room. And they
16:42
Speaker 2: showed me a map of the dorm and I picked
16:46
Speaker 2: the room that was surrounded by empty rooms, which is
16:49
Speaker 2: like so on the nose. But I just didn't want
16:53
Speaker 2: anyone to interact with me, and so it wasn't long
16:59
Speaker 2: into my friend or semester that I was called into
17:01
Speaker 2: the dean's office and was put on academic probation because
17:04
Speaker 2: I was doing so poorly in every single class, and
17:11
Speaker 2: I had already gone to the I think around the
17:14
Speaker 2: same time I had gone to the campus clinic because
17:20
Speaker 2: I started to feel I was stockpiling my medication. I
17:24
Speaker 2: wasn't taking it, and I was There was a part
17:27
Speaker 2: of me that was like, well, this is my backup plan.
17:30
Speaker 2: I've got this stockpile of meds that I could take
17:33
Speaker 2: and then this would all be over.
17:36
Speaker 1: But I did, so, why weren't you taking the medication?
17:41
Speaker 2: Well, I think part of me was resentful.
17:46
Speaker 1: That I was what was medication for? What kind of
17:49
Speaker 1: medication was it?
17:50
Speaker 2: Well, at that point, I had a diagnosis of bipolar two,
17:53
Speaker 2: so I think there was probably it's hard to remember
17:56
Speaker 2: I have taken so many different ones, but probably a
17:58
Speaker 2: mood stabilizer, in a depressant, and maybe an antipsychotic, and
18:05
Speaker 2: I just stopped taking all of them, and so I
18:10
Speaker 2: think part of me was like, I didn't feel like
18:12
Speaker 2: they were doing anything for me. I was like, I'm
18:15
Speaker 2: miserable whether I'm taking them or not. I did not
18:19
Speaker 2: like the side effects they made me very lethargic and
18:23
Speaker 2: a lot of brain fog. And I think also I
18:26
Speaker 2: was just resentful that I was on all of these
18:29
Speaker 2: medications and I didn't feel like that was actually my
18:32
Speaker 2: core issue. And so there was a little bit of
18:35
Speaker 2: rebellion and a little bit of like, well, this will
18:39
Speaker 2: give me enough to end my life if I want to.
18:43
Speaker 2: And then also they weren't working for me in the
18:46
Speaker 2: way that I expected them to or was told they would,
18:51
Speaker 2: and so I just dragged myself to the clinic to say, like,
18:55
Speaker 2: somebody has to do something. I don't really want to die,
18:58
Speaker 2: but I'm like out of options here. I just can't function.
19:02
Speaker 2: And I was motivated to like keep living and make
19:06
Speaker 2: it work, but I just bottomed out. I just didn't
19:09
Speaker 2: know how to do it.
19:12
Speaker 1: And you said that to a therapist.
19:14
Speaker 2: I did, and we talked through I don't it's such
19:18
Speaker 2: a blur. I barely remember the appointment, but I walked
19:20
Speaker 2: out of it with a diagnosis of PTSD and started
19:25
Speaker 2: researching PTSD and I was like, WHOA, Everything's kind of
19:29
Speaker 2: making sense to me, and it helped just to know
19:32
Speaker 2: that I didn't have the resources to follow through or
19:36
Speaker 2: follow up on that and get treatment for it. Yet
19:40
Speaker 2: I just knew that it was there, and.
19:42
Speaker 1: They diagnosed excuse me, they diagnosed you because you shared
19:46
Speaker 1: with them what was what had gone on.
19:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know how much detail I shared,
19:52
Speaker 2: because yeah, it's I don't remember the appointment at all,
19:55
Speaker 2: but I must have shared enough for them to know
20:00
Speaker 2: that I had drama in my background, so that that
20:05
Speaker 2: sort of helped me. But also I was completely derailed.
20:09
Speaker 2: I left school, never returned, and the plan I was
20:13
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a therapist.
20:14
Speaker 1: I was.
20:15
Speaker 2: I was a peer counselor in school, and I took
20:17
Speaker 2: that job very seriously and I was very motivated to
20:20
Speaker 2: be a therapist. But ironically left school because I essentially
20:27
Speaker 2: had a nervous breakdown and didn't return for various reasons,
20:33
Speaker 2: mostly financial and also I couldn't. I couldn't. I didn't. Again,
20:38
Speaker 2: I didn't have the resources to do anything about this diagnosis.
20:41
Speaker 2: In a perfect world, I would have taken some time
20:43
Speaker 2: off of school to sort of like get some treatment
20:46
Speaker 2: in place, get you know, get my feet back on
20:49
Speaker 2: the ground, and then re enroll, which was the plan.
20:51
Speaker 2: But I didn't. I did not get my feet back
20:54
Speaker 2: on the ground for like ten more years, so I
20:57
Speaker 2: never came back to that path.
21:00
Speaker 1: And did you have any communication with your mother during
21:05
Speaker 1: this time?
21:09
Speaker 2: Yes, and no. We at that point I had sort
21:13
Speaker 2: of our relationship was really falling apart, and part of
21:18
Speaker 2: that was this, you know, experience growing up not being
21:22
Speaker 2: protected and also not having the experience acknowledged by her.
21:30
Speaker 2: You know, we're all in this together, we all see
21:32
Speaker 2: what's happening, but there was this like very persistent downplaying
21:37
Speaker 2: of things that made me distance myself from her emotionally.
21:42
Speaker 2: So I wasn't sharing with her what was going on
21:44
Speaker 2: with me.
21:44
Speaker 1: I was.
21:44
Speaker 2: I felt completely alone in the world at that point.
21:47
Speaker 2: I just didn't feel like I had parents. And at
21:52
Speaker 2: the same time that I was leaving school, she was
21:55
Speaker 2: going through a divorce from her husband. And that was
22:00
Speaker 2: the thing that I never thought would happen. I really
22:02
Speaker 2: thought she's going to be in this until someone dies.
22:05
Speaker 2: I really really thought she was going to end up
22:07
Speaker 2: dead one day, and suddenly the relationship is ending. And
22:13
Speaker 2: so I was able to move back home because he
22:16
Speaker 2: was out of the house now, which I didn't see coming,
22:20
Speaker 2: but it happened, and I wish that we were able
22:26
Speaker 2: to come back together after that, but I think in
22:29
Speaker 2: some ways her emotional distance grew. She would she didn't
22:34
Speaker 2: handle the divorce well. He was the one to walk away,
22:37
Speaker 2: and she was desperately trying to get him back, which
22:40
Speaker 2: was also a very confusing and distressing thing to see.
22:44
Speaker 2: At one point, she asked me to call him and
22:45
Speaker 2: apologize for not being grateful enough for all the things
22:48
Speaker 2: he did for us as a family, to try to
22:50
Speaker 2: see if that would work to bring him back. Was
22:55
Speaker 2: it just felt like we were living on different planets
22:57
Speaker 2: like we were birth two. Yes, we were in different
23:01
Speaker 2: realities and I how to talk to her and that
23:05
Speaker 2: really hasn't changed.
23:07
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well let's shift gears a little. So you
23:10
Speaker 1: said there was a period of ten years. How did
23:15
Speaker 1: things evolve such that here we are together right now
23:20
Speaker 1: sharing this And first of all, and I want to say, Tanya,
23:23
Speaker 1: I so appreciate you just being here sharing your story,
23:27
Speaker 1: because I can't imagine it's got to be easy. But
23:31
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate and respect your your vulnerability in
23:36
Speaker 1: doing that.
23:37
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, it took a long time to be
23:41
Speaker 2: able to talk about any of it without sort of
23:43
Speaker 2: getting that like body shaking, you know. But it's It's
23:50
Speaker 2: taken a lot of therapy to get to the point
23:52
Speaker 2: where I can just talk about it and it doesn't
23:53
Speaker 2: affect me for the rest of the day, you know.
23:57
Speaker 2: But I you know, went into survival modes. So for
24:00
Speaker 2: the next several years, I didn't have anywhere to go.
24:04
Speaker 2: My mom was moving across the state and was basically
24:08
Speaker 2: like figure it out. So I was in essence homeless
24:12
Speaker 2: for a period of time. And to take a really
24:17
Speaker 2: long story down to a nutshell, I got married way
24:22
Speaker 2: too young to a man that was way too old
24:25
Speaker 2: for me and was an alcoholic, and that relationship became
24:31
Speaker 2: emotionally and then eventually physically abusive, and I had to
24:34
Speaker 2: leave and start over again. And that brought me to Portland.
24:41
Speaker 2: And I did start over and just kind of you know,
24:47
Speaker 2: had really low paying jobs just trying to stay employed.
24:52
Speaker 2: And it took many, many years. I found a really
24:55
Speaker 2: great therapist that I've had for about nine years, which
24:58
Speaker 2: is wow. I think going through so many before that,
25:02
Speaker 2: finding the right fit was like felt like a miracle
25:07
Speaker 2: and and I think, honestly I credit her for where
25:13
Speaker 2: my where I am today, because you know, I would
25:16
Speaker 2: land myself in jobs that were really toxic and made
25:18
Speaker 2: me feel terrible, but I would stay there for so long,
25:22
Speaker 2: and she's gently trying to help me see that there
25:25
Speaker 2: is a way to be, you know, to move out
25:28
Speaker 2: of those situations that I'm not stuck. And and through
25:32
Speaker 2: that work with her, I realized I just needed to
25:36
Speaker 2: get out of completely. I needed to completely make a
25:40
Speaker 2: change in my career and find work that was more
25:45
Speaker 2: aligned with my values and felt like mission driven. And
25:49
Speaker 2: so I decided to move into nonprofit work. And I
25:53
Speaker 2: was like, I'll take any I'll take any nonprofit job.
25:55
Speaker 2: Just get me into nonprofit work. And that that worked
25:58
Speaker 2: for me. I found myself in a really great position
26:01
Speaker 2: where it was a growing organization and I got to
26:03
Speaker 2: work my way up the chain really quickly because they're
26:06
Speaker 2: scrappy and it's a startup and and I loved it.
26:10
Speaker 2: And it's like I opened up and remembered all of
26:14
Speaker 2: these skills that I had that were just like lying dormant.
26:17
Speaker 2: And I got to do a lot of culture building
26:21
Speaker 2: work and people policies and you know, like creating an
26:25
Speaker 2: environment that people want to work in. And that was
26:29
Speaker 2: so fulfilling to be able to create like a really,
26:33
Speaker 2: really comfortable space where people are taking care of themselves.
26:37
Speaker 2: They have the resources and benefits to take care of themselves,
26:41
Speaker 2: and we genuinely take care of each other. And I
26:45
Speaker 2: found that I was able to withstand so much stress
26:49
Speaker 2: at work because we had all of these systems in
26:52
Speaker 2: place to like counterbalance, you know, to actually like care
26:58
Speaker 2: about the things that we're doing. And I think through
27:02
Speaker 2: that experience and seeing the impact that I could have
27:05
Speaker 2: on other people to help them come to work as
27:08
Speaker 2: them their whole selves and be vulnerable and just say
27:12
Speaker 2: what they're feeling and sort of flatten the hierarchy so
27:16
Speaker 2: every voice is valued. It was like a little bit
27:21
Speaker 2: like a little bit of a utopia for me in
27:24
Speaker 2: in so much as you can have in a work
27:27
Speaker 2: in a work environment.
27:28
Speaker 1: You know, it's so cool, Tanya, to see your your
27:32
Speaker 1: emotion change when you talk about this, you start to
27:36
Speaker 1: brighten up. It's it's pretty it's pretty cool. It's very noticeable.
27:43
Speaker 2: Thanks, I feel it. Yeah, anyway, through that experience, I
27:48
Speaker 2: I I think that's why I said at the start,
27:53
Speaker 2: like I think it just I needed this much time
27:56
Speaker 2: to have that experience, develop my skills as an audio
28:01
Speaker 2: producer working on other projects and have a couple of
28:06
Speaker 2: silly podcasts under my belt to kind of culminate in
28:10
Speaker 2: this project where I've invited my friends to.
28:14
Speaker 1: Well, hang on, So let's introduce this project, this podcast
28:19
Speaker 1: how to Tell Someone? How did this come about?
28:24
Speaker 2: I was talking to a friend. We were she was saying, oh,
28:30
Speaker 2: you have so many stories. I wish I had stories
28:32
Speaker 2: like you have, and she's like, I want to get
28:35
Speaker 2: back into writing, but I don't really have anything to say.
28:38
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's just wrong. That's just there's
28:41
Speaker 2: no one on the planet that doesn't have a story.
28:44
Speaker 2: And so it that sort of like got in the
28:47
Speaker 2: back of my head, and I was thinking, every single
28:51
Speaker 2: person has some vulnerable story that they're just not telling,
28:57
Speaker 2: and that could be that they're comparing it to other
29:00
Speaker 2: people's stories and saying, well, mine's not, like, you know, notable,
29:04
Speaker 2: it's not dramatic enough, it's not traumatic enough to tell,
29:09
Speaker 2: or there's just not a safe space to do it,
29:14
Speaker 2: Like you're afraid of how it will be received, You're
29:17
Speaker 2: afraid of getting all the details right, all of the
29:19
Speaker 2: facts straight, getting it in chronological order, especially if it's
29:23
Speaker 2: a big scary story. It's all over the place in
29:26
Speaker 2: your mind there are so many reasons why people just
29:28
Speaker 2: don't talk about things that have happened to them, and
29:32
Speaker 2: I lived in that space for most of my life.
29:35
Speaker 2: I just set it aside, and for a lot of
29:38
Speaker 2: those years it festered, and it wasn't until I was
29:41
Speaker 2: able to start talking about it, and then hearing from
29:44
Speaker 2: other people that they just have nothing to say, I
29:46
Speaker 2: was like, that's just not true, and I'm going to
29:49
Speaker 2: prove it to all of my friends. I'm going to
29:51
Speaker 2: prove it to them. And so I just had this idea,
29:57
Speaker 2: and partially it was coming from a place of like,
30:00
Speaker 2: all of these pivotal moments in our lives involve communication
30:05
Speaker 2: and how we receive information and how we deliver information,
30:09
Speaker 2: and like, universally we're all pretty bad at it, you know,
30:13
Speaker 2: like especially when it's most important, we're like the worst
30:17
Speaker 2: at it. And that's like just it's a universal problem.
30:22
Speaker 2: And so the joke to me was that we would
30:24
Speaker 2: call it how to tell someone, but it's not a
30:27
Speaker 2: how to We're not actually trying to tell someone how
30:29
Speaker 2: to do anything, because the point here is that it's
30:31
Speaker 2: all so messy and that we don't really know and
30:34
Speaker 2: we're just kind of figuring it out as we go.
30:37
Speaker 2: And so I thought of a few of my friends
30:41
Speaker 2: who you know, I've heard some parts of their history,
30:45
Speaker 2: and I wanted them to tell the story in full.
30:47
Speaker 2: And that's the other thing. There's a difference between saying,
30:50
Speaker 2: for example, my dad died when I was really young. Period,
30:54
Speaker 2: that's not a story, that's a fact, but telling the
30:58
Speaker 2: story of your relationship with your dad, what your family
31:02
Speaker 2: dynamics were like, and then the moment when you find
31:05
Speaker 2: out that information and how that sort of permanently changes
31:09
Speaker 2: the way that you view the world and it can
31:12
Speaker 2: change the way that you relate to other people in
31:14
Speaker 2: your life, and then how it shows up for you today.
31:17
Speaker 2: That's a story and everyone has one of those. And
31:21
Speaker 2: if you can get the conditions right and open it
31:25
Speaker 2: up for vulnerability and a really thorough storytelling experience, it
31:32
Speaker 2: can help people sort of crack themselves open a little
31:35
Speaker 2: bit and in a safe way. So taking that example.
31:39
Speaker 1: Or be cracked open. So you're talking about and I
31:44
Speaker 1: love this. I love the whole concept of what you're doing.
31:48
Speaker 1: You're talking about creating a space to get those microscopic
31:56
Speaker 1: details and let's be honest here, the vulnerable details. They're
32:02
Speaker 1: not so easy to tell details, and that oftentimes cannot
32:07
Speaker 1: be easy because that's what I like to do, and
32:10
Speaker 1: a lot of people like to come on and give
32:13
Speaker 1: you the twenty thousand foot view. So how do you
32:19
Speaker 1: go about creating that space for your guests to do that?
32:22
Speaker 1: Because it's not easy.
32:25
Speaker 2: It was a very involved process. This is not like
32:28
Speaker 2: any other podcasts that I've worked on or listen to.
32:31
Speaker 2: Really we started with a call to talk through what
32:37
Speaker 2: story they might want to tell, and then I created
32:39
Speaker 2: a worksheet. It was optional. I didn't want to assign
32:41
Speaker 2: homework to people, but I created a worksheet to help
32:45
Speaker 2: them think through those details. Because you're right, people will
32:48
Speaker 2: want to focus on the highest level, and I want
32:51
Speaker 2: to hear about the nuance. I want to hear about
32:53
Speaker 2: their sensory experience, and so taking them through and helping
32:59
Speaker 2: them think about it in advance helped. So they wrote
33:02
Speaker 2: out there and some of them shared them with me
33:04
Speaker 2: ahead of the interview, which was great because then I
33:07
Speaker 2: knew what follow up questions I wanted to ask in
33:10
Speaker 2: advance and then in the conversation. Each episode is about
33:14
Speaker 2: an hour long, give or take, but those recording sessions
33:19
Speaker 2: were like sometimes three hours long. So I've done a
33:22
Speaker 2: lot of editing, but a lot of that was warming up,
33:25
Speaker 2: so making sure we're not going straight into their story.
33:28
Speaker 2: There was about thirty minutes of just I had a
33:30
Speaker 2: little question wheel that they would spin so it's fun,
33:35
Speaker 2: and then just have some icebreaker questions to help them
33:37
Speaker 2: loosen up. And these are also not professional storytellers, they're
33:40
Speaker 2: just people in my life, so having a microphone in
33:43
Speaker 2: front of them freaked them out, so I needed them
33:45
Speaker 2: to loosen up. And then lots of digging in So those.
33:49
Speaker 1: Moments, lots of alcohol.
33:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a few may have partaken just to
33:58
Speaker 2: loosen up a little bit, but yeah, I think it's
34:02
Speaker 2: just finding those moments where you can tell they're skipping
34:05
Speaker 2: over or they're moving ahead too fast because it's uncomfortable,
34:08
Speaker 2: and being close enough with them to say, Okay, hold up,
34:12
Speaker 2: you just mentioned something kind of big. Can we slow
34:15
Speaker 2: that down? And so I think it helped me kind
34:22
Speaker 2: of tap into that natural ability I had when I
34:24
Speaker 2: was younger that I wanted to explore and go to
34:26
Speaker 2: school for and kind of like help usher them into
34:31
Speaker 2: a deeper level of their story. And what happened was
34:36
Speaker 2: pretty It was pretty mind changing for me. I mean,
34:41
Speaker 2: I didn't expect it to be such a profoundly emotional
34:46
Speaker 2: experience for people, Like the example I gave of losing
34:51
Speaker 2: a parent at a young age. My two closest friends
34:53
Speaker 2: both lost their dads when they were very young, and
34:55
Speaker 2: I was like, I would love to hear both of
34:57
Speaker 2: your stories and kind of have them side by side.
35:00
Speaker 2: And for one of those friends, he was like, Wow, yeah,
35:05
Speaker 2: no problem. I tell this story all the time, but
35:07
Speaker 2: his version of the story is my dad died when
35:09
Speaker 2: I was young, and he feels nothing. When he says
35:11
Speaker 2: that this was different, and he got choked up and
35:15
Speaker 2: he was really caught off guard, and he even said,
35:18
Speaker 2: I'm like having realizations right now as we're talking because
35:21
Speaker 2: it had been and he said, he's like, it's been
35:24
Speaker 2: thirty years since I cried about my dad. And he
35:28
Speaker 2: was able to kind of like reframe things and reconnect
35:33
Speaker 2: with his grief in a healthy way, and he said
35:36
Speaker 2: at the end of the episode that he was grateful
35:38
Speaker 2: that he still had that he still feel sad about
35:43
Speaker 2: his dad's death, like he's grateful for that. He doesn't
35:45
Speaker 2: want to lose touch with that feeling. He wants to
35:48
Speaker 2: feel connected to his dad. He doesn't want to feel
35:50
Speaker 2: nothing when he says, my dad died when I was young.
35:53
Speaker 2: But you know, some of it is just time. You know,
35:57
Speaker 2: maybe he's at a place in his life where he
35:59
Speaker 2: can reconnect with it in a healthy way. But I
36:01
Speaker 2: think part of it is just getting to the nitty
36:06
Speaker 2: gritty of the details and talking through the whole story
36:08
Speaker 2: and sort of like stepping back and looking at his
36:11
Speaker 2: life in a way that he hasn't. That kind of
36:13
Speaker 2: reflection doesn't happen naturally for most people, like something has
36:18
Speaker 2: to spark it.
36:20
Speaker 1: Well. Also too, it's to ask someone to pause, like
36:26
Speaker 1: you said, you know, you said something really big. There
36:30
Speaker 1: can we slow this down? To do that as a host,
36:34
Speaker 1: it is not easy, number one, because oftentimes you could
36:38
Speaker 1: feel like you're stepping on someone's toes. You don't want to,
36:42
Speaker 1: you don't know how they're going to react, and that's
36:46
Speaker 1: not an easy thing to do. But the other side
36:49
Speaker 1: to that is sometimes people need that push or tug
36:54
Speaker 1: or pull. Yes, you know, And it can also, like
36:57
Speaker 1: everything else, it's how it's done right if you're doing
37:00
Speaker 1: it in respectful, gentle way. That can also be oftentimes
37:05
Speaker 1: in imitation, for them to move into a space they've
37:09
Speaker 1: needed to or wanted to, And no one's ever asked right, right,
37:13
Speaker 1: because a lot of times people think, why I can't
37:16
Speaker 1: ask them, that's a really personal thing. Yeah, but sometimes
37:19
Speaker 1: people want to be asked. You seem like you're so
37:24
Speaker 1: good at it. Yeah.
37:27
Speaker 2: I think it's just I feel really grateful that the
37:31
Speaker 2: things that I didn't receive growing up, the things that
37:35
Speaker 2: I really needed, which was someone being like, are you okay?
37:39
Speaker 2: Do you want? Is there something going on? And to
37:41
Speaker 2: dig a little deeper and not let me wiggle out
37:44
Speaker 2: of it. I needed that, and a lot of adults
37:49
Speaker 2: that are denied those things at a young age just
37:53
Speaker 2: sort of turn that part of themselves off. And I
37:57
Speaker 2: feel very fortunate and grateful that that I have been
38:01
Speaker 2: a little bit more proactive about providing it to other
38:04
Speaker 2: people and really still working on getting it for myself,
38:10
Speaker 2: you know, Like I don't I can't tell you exactly
38:15
Speaker 2: why it turned out the way that it did, but
38:18
Speaker 2: I feel grateful that I was able to sort of
38:20
Speaker 2: like transmute the things that I was missing growing up,
38:24
Speaker 2: the ability to just like say what's happening to me
38:28
Speaker 2: and receive compassion and empathy and support. I get that now.
38:36
Speaker 2: I'm surrounded by incredible people, and if you listen to
38:38
Speaker 2: the podcast, you'll find that because these are all of
38:40
Speaker 2: my friends. And I felt such intense gratitude when I
38:47
Speaker 2: was making this podcast because it was like a daily
38:51
Speaker 2: reminder working on it of how many amazing people are
38:54
Speaker 2: in my life that are like emotionally intelligent and really
38:58
Speaker 2: empathetic and willing to be vulnerable with me. And I
39:04
Speaker 2: can't imagine having a better life, you know, not just
39:08
Speaker 2: in comparison to what I grew up with, but like,
39:11
Speaker 2: I really love the people in my life, and I
39:13
Speaker 2: love how my life has turned out. And I never
39:17
Speaker 2: would have expected that. If you asked me how my
39:19
Speaker 2: life would turn out when I was eighteen, it would
39:21
Speaker 2: be a grim answer. And so I feel like this project,
39:26
Speaker 2: I know that people will connect with these stories in
39:28
Speaker 2: a really real and deep way, even the ones that
39:33
Speaker 2: are experiences that are vastly different from mine. I feel
39:36
Speaker 2: more connected to these people now because you know, I
39:39
Speaker 2: didn't lose a parent to death, but I've lost parents
39:44
Speaker 2: and I and hearing them talk about the grief that
39:47
Speaker 2: they went through, I can empathize with that I didn't
39:49
Speaker 2: have the same experience, but because they're able to talk
39:52
Speaker 2: about it in a deeper way, you're able to connect
39:55
Speaker 2: emotionally to stories that are vastly different from your experience.
40:00
Speaker 2: A lot of these feelings are universal, yeah, and they're
40:03
Speaker 2: communicated really well by some really incredible people that have participated.
40:09
Speaker 1: All right, Tanya, how do people learn more about what
40:13
Speaker 1: you're doing? And remind us the name of the podcast?
40:17
Speaker 2: The podcast is called how to Tell Someone, and you
40:20
Speaker 2: can go to how tootellsone dot com. You'll find all
40:24
Speaker 2: the links to where you can listen. It's on all
40:27
Speaker 2: of the platforms you can find out more about the show.
40:29
Speaker 2: There also substack. There's a link to substack. We're posting
40:33
Speaker 2: all kinds of bonus stuff like companion pieces and bonus
40:37
Speaker 2: material there.
40:38
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have all that linked up here at the
40:40
Speaker 1: show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Tanya,
40:44
Speaker 1: you're amazing. Love to have you back at a later
40:48
Speaker 1: time if you you'd love to do that. I'd love
40:52
Speaker 1: to have you. Thank you so much for being here.
40:55
Speaker 2: Thank you. I would love to come back season two
40:57
Speaker 2: of coming, so it might be hearing from me again.
41:00
Speaker 1: Take care.
41:01
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
41:03
Speaker 1: Bye m hmm.