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What my body remembered that my brain tried to forget · You're Not Too Much

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When you're dealing with grief and trauma, the brain breaks things apart until
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they're boring. I'm starting to wonder
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how much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked
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on top of each other. I am a Southern
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California native, and so, you know, live by the beach, travel to
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Hawaii often, and I wanted something that
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covered the things I wasn't yet ready to show the world.
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All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record because that feels right.
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Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop! Hi
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everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different
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Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that—
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that there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and
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the reality is you're just different, and that's fine. I've talked about this a
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little bit, I've referenced this a little bit, but a couple weeks ago my mom
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was in the hospital. She's fine now. Mostly it, we, we
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honestly still don't know what it was. She just got like very acutely ill one
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day and we let her wait it out at home for a while at
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the instruction of her doctor really. And after
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several hours I contacted her cuz I was working the whole day. It
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turned out that she wasn't feeling any better and we really thought that she would
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be feeling better by then. So I went over to her house and kind of
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assessed the situation and I really couldn't move her. And so
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I called an ambulance and I, I felt kind of silly
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calling the ambulance because she was technically ambulatory. She
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was technically able to get up, but it was just me. You know, she had
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this horrible stomachache. The car was just far enough away
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that she was gonna have to go downstairs to get there. I wasn't sure I
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was gonna be able to get her across the street. It was like a whole
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thing. My husband couldn't come help me. There was nobody else around who could come
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help me 'cause my brothers weren't nearby. And so I was just like, I
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gotta call the ambulance. And so I called and
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they were great. And I really felt like we were kind of like, I don't
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wanna say misusing it 'cause we definitely needed it, but like, it wasn't the kind
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of emergency where we needed them to come resuscitate
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her. The dispatcher said, "Turn on the lights on
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the front porch. If she's safe to
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leave, go stand outside and flag them down so that they know what house it
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is. If she's not safe to leave, and you can leave the door
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open, do that. If not, you know, they'll figure it
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out. So I was kind of running back and forth between her
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and, uh, and I was also on the phone with John, my business partner, because
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he's an ER doc and he was kind of just walking me through like what
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to look for, you know, when to intervene
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more, more thoroughly, et cetera. I was calm. There
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was no problem. I was calm. I knew she was sick.
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Truly, at that point, I didn't know how sick she was. And I don't say
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that because things got so much
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worse. I just— she was talking, she was
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upright. I just physically couldn't move her. I couldn't
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do the transport. And so I needed help. Typically, when you're calling an
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ambulance for a family member, you're so panicked and scared. And that
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wasn't the case here. It just was what it was.
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And so they did get there and
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it was already dark out, so it wasn't exactly the same, but
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I saw, not through the window, but I must have gone up to the front
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of the house and I saw the ambulance lights on and I was like,
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okay, they're here. And so I left her where I could and just let her
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know, like, please don't move. I'm going to go flag them down. And so I
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went outside, they were already unloading, and I went to
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say, to explain what was happening to the guy that was standing there. And
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I like, nothing came out. I was like, it was just very,
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very strange. Everybody listening to this,
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if this is your first day, hi. I doubt it's your first day. Talking is
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not my problem. There are very few situations
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where I can't find something to say. It's like either my greatest skill or my
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worst trait is that like, it's very rare you throw me into a situation and
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I can't find a way to run my mouth. It's like my thing. But I'm
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standing on the porch and all of a sudden I'm just like, I couldn't get
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words to come out. And the guy looks at me and he says, are you
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okay? And I finally said like, yeah, I'm fine.
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And he asked where she was. And I said,
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she's in there in the bathroom. But I like genuinely felt paralyzed. I was like,
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I don't remember feeling scared. I wasn't, I
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truly, and I don't say this to be negative, I wasn't worried about my mom.
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I really genuinely felt like she was gonna be okay. It wasn't like I was
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worried that she was so sick that she wasn't gonna recover. I
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just needed help transporting her and I could not. And so it
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wasn't that. I'm standing there, the next guy walks up and
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he's the one who has to get all the information. I just, not an
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exaggeration, started sobbing, totally sobbing,
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couldn't turn it off, gulping
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for air. And again,
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this was not a crisis situation. I was trying to
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explain to him who she was, where she was, where she was. And I'm, like,
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gulping for air trying to get out. And he finally says to me, just like,
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take a second. It's okay.
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Walk me to where she is. So I walked them in there and there were
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a bunch of them and they were all very
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lighthearted and jovial, which in the situation we were in was
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appropriate. It was a way to keep the temperature down. It was a way
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to make sure that my mom knew she was in good hands. It was a
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way to make me know that they were, you know, that they were friendly and
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approachable and we could talk and I could tell them anything. It wasn't a tense
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situation at all. And I'm sobbing.
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We go to walk into the bedroom, and my mom's front
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door leads to a long hallway. There's rooms on either
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side, and if you go immediately to the right, that's her
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bedroom. And then you take the next open door to the right and
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that's her bathroom. And that's where I had her sat. But I
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realized that what was
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happening in that moment didn't matter.
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I was communicating with them, I was giving them the instructions, but I was not
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reacting to that morning
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in February of 2026.
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My body was there. My brain was somewhere else
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because I was standing in the spot
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where I called an ambulance for my dad
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9 and a half years ago. And I walked them
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down the same hallway
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to the same place.
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9 and a half years ago.
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And my confidence that my mother was
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going to be fine, and I truly, again, I
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was confident in that. I was not worried. I was worried that she was sick,
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but I wasn't worried that she was dying, had nothing
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to do with the reaction that I was having.
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As far as my nervous system was concerned,
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I was taking this crew of very, very similar,
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very lovely first responders, I should say, who were just as
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lovely then as they were this time, into
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a room
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the exact same room
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where my dad had
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waited long enough to make eye contact
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with me one more time before he died.
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And I knew my mother was coming back home.
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My dad did not come back home. And it
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didn't matter that intellectually
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I knew that I was standing here safe
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and taken care of in 2026, and that these
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nice people were going to haul my mother off to exactly where she
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needed to be, and that we would get her taken care of, and
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that she was going to be fine. It didn't matter
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because as far as my nervous system was concerned
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It was August 21st, 2016,
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and I am not a person who
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remembers every detail of a lot of different situations. I'm just not.
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I remember every single second
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between walking into my dad's bedroom as we knew that he was
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crashing and watching them take him away,
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praying it wasn't true but knowing I was never going to see him again.
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And I might as well have been watching myself
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walk into that room 10 years ago as I was walking
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in to get them to my mother again,
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intellectually repeating to myself over and over and over,
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everything's fine, this is fine. And I kept saying— I said this to the guy,
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I was like, I'm I'm so sorry. I— there's nothing wrong right now. I understand
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she's sick, but there's nothing wrong. I am literally having a
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reaction to something that happened 10 years ago in this room
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that I didn't realize was gonna happen until I walked out on that porch.
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And this very, very sweet first responder
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looked at me and shrugged and said, meh, I've seen weirder. And I was
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like, is that a challenge?
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It's been 10 years, 9 and a half years. It'll be 10 years in August.
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We have officially reached the point of this timeline where the year
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we're in has the same last number as the year he died.
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And I never thought it was possible to get this far out there. I never
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thought it was possible for this much time to pass. I never thought I would
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have this much, this many stories and this much life without him in it. It
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just never occurred to me that there was 10 years to live and
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even obviously more without him
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right there. It's not that I didn't know it was possible, 'cause there are lots
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of moments that are just a punch in the gut outta nowhere and just render
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me to tears. And I'm like, how could that, how could this just, this isn't
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new information. He doesn't keep dying. He did it one time. It was
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rude enough that one time, but it's not like he keeps dying. But
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like, this is not new information, but
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that is the mechanism of grief. And we have
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talked about this before, how the brain breaks things apart when
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you're dealing with grief and trauma. It breaks things apart until they're boring.
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And that is not a linear process, and it's not a process that happens
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quickly. And even 10 years later, it can still be
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happening. And so my brain,
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up until that night 2 weeks ago,
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had never thought about what it would be like—and why
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would it?—had never thought about what it would be like to be standing on
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that porch in that
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location with
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that experience and
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have such a similar thing happen.
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I had never deconstructed what it was like to have
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paramedics come on the porch again. I had never deconstructed
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the fact that the sound of the monitor
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that they put on him that showed he had no heart
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activity, I'd never processed the fact that that sound
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still lives in my head and I can hear it. And I'm not
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usually good at conjuring those things back up, but I can hear it at any
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time. I know what it sounds like. It is, like,
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deeply ingrained in my soul. And I
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had never broken that part down because I had never been in a situation to
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break that part down. So I got
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my mom to the hospital. I cried,
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and I stopped trying to stop. I think that was the difference. I
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stopped trying to stop. I am not the most unhinged person
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these paramedics have seen that day and I'm not getting in their way and I'm
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not causing them problems. So I'm just gonna cry and that's just gonna have to
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be okay with them. And it was, they were super cool about it. But I
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stopped trying to stop because my body wasn't ready to stop.
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I went through all of the steps. I got her out the
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door, I got her house locked up, I got her dog taken care of.
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I talked to her neighbor so that, you know, her neighbor asked if there was
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anything that we needed and I talked to him and I got his phone number.
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I got into my car, I drove to my house, I grabbed my stuff. I
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was sobbing the whole time. My body
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wasn't done yet. It was involuntary. There's nothing I can do about it.
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I sat in the car at the hospital until I
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felt like I had it back together, and then had it
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together for the entire time that I was at the hospital. Also,
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for the record, the doctor, when they ask you if
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your mother lives with you, you're supposedly not supposed
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to say, oh God, no. That's not the response they
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want. I don't know what response they do want, but that is not the response
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they want. She actually laughed. That was shocking. And then also, when
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they ask if you'll hold all of her jewelry, you are not supposed to say
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that yes because you can pawn it. Also
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not supposed to do. Oh, and then
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when your mother's liver studies come back over 11,000, which is
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like liver failure levels, except she's never had liver issues before, so that's very
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weird. And a month ago, her liver studies were fine. You are not
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supposed to look at her in front of the doctor and ask her— because when
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they say, like, this could be some kind of hepatitis, you are not supposed to
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look at her and ask her if she's using intravenous drugs again, because
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they will laugh. They will. But then when they wheel her out to
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CT, the very sweet but a
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little dense nurse will come to you and say,
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"I'm 99% sure you were joking, but I just need to clarify that
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she does not actually use intravenous drugs." And I was like, "She does not, no.
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In fact, I wish she would, but she does not." But I thought when I
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left that the episode would just be over.
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I was on— I was standing on that porch in my mind.
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For the 3 days that followed, easily.
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Because that is what grief is. And that's what
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trauma responses are. That's what my brain did.
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And I had no control over it. And I, I couldn't,
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even if I wanted to fight it, I couldn't have, but I wasn't going to
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because that was involuntary. That was out of my control.
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I am proof that you can both be
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mid-trauma response and also
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an asshole smartass, because it's like my thing.
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It's like a two-for-one that you get, like me sobbing and also
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making jokes about the fact that one of the paramedics
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said that the woman paramedic who was
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in charge, the— I guess the paramedic in charge, that he
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was joking with her and said that she was micromanaging him, and
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me, through sobs, said, "You probably deserve it."
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And he was like, "You're correct. I can still
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be an asshole." Which is— I don't know how to
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turn that off. But so two things can be true. But also,
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that is the reality, the deep, deep
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reality of grief and trauma that we— I don't think we talk about,
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which is that 10 years later, out
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of nowhere, it is a Mack truck that
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will run you over without explanation, or without
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anticipation, I guess. There's no time to
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protect yourself. There's no time to put up the guard. There's no time to
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send yourself the trigger warnings that you need
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to put up the armor. There wasn't time. And 10 years
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later, my brain is not healed, and I don't think it ever will be.
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I mean, it's not something that I want to happen. I don't want to walk
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around sobbing for 3 days, but sobbing kind of feels good when life's a dumpster
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fire and everything seems awful. It's just also
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not— you're not in control of it. And I will say
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that I feel awfully lucky to be 10
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years in and to have
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been so deeply connected with somebody
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that I could be rendered to tears on
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a porch on a random Tuesday night
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because he still hasn't come
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back. And that's rude. Very, very rude.
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And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's
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Small Talk. We have a question from Andrew in
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Eugene, Oregon. "I'm starting to wonder how
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much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked on
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top of each other. Is there a real me underneath that, or is
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that the wrong question entirely?" I don't know that it's ever
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the wrong question. If it's a question you have, it's a question
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you have. I think maybe the inclination to second-guess
17:34
yourself kind of like illuminates the problem
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altogether, right? It's that you're second-guessing you
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second-guessing yourself. So, like, that's meta
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and adorable. But it's really hard to figure
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out who you are without doing a whole lot of
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work. It takes time. It takes a whole lot
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of feeling things within your body and also, like, deciphering what is
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the right thing to feel. And that's a kind of a complicated way to say
18:04
it, but like, you know, there are times when you're going to be presented with
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something that you either think you want to do or think you need to
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do. If you feel like you need to do it and you don't
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want to do it, you're gonna be presented with
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guilt or stress or frustration.
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Like, is that the valid emotion there? Because if it's something you don't have to
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do, something you've never had to do, but you're still trying to unravel from this
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pressure you've always been under to be someone else, or to be somebody who
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would do those kinds of things, what's the correct thing to feel
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there? And, and there's not a right answer to that at all,
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but it takes a little bit of time of
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being honest with yourself. And sometimes you're gonna do things
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just because it's what you've always done without realizing that
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that's not what you want to be doing or not things that fill you up.
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I mean, there's things that we all have to do that we don't want to
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do, like Nobody wants to go get their driver's license renewed, but we have to
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go do it anyway. Like, you're not gonna wake up one day and be like,
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"That is the thing I love doing, and I have just
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misunderstood my intention." It just takes time. And the
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real complication to that is not necessarily
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figuring out who you are now, which is, again, takes time and
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is a process and requires just you,
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you know, thinking through and trying things and testing things and seeing what
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you like and seeing what you don't like and seeing who you enjoy being around,
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and which might be no one, to be honest, and seeing
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who you don't enjoy being around and those people that you want to
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separate from. But
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the real kind of kicker to that is you're not the same person
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throughout your whole life. You're just not. This is going
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to shock people. This is gonna shock everybody listening. There was a
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time in my life when I was young and dumb that I really
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liked going to things.
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I liked being around people. I had a lot of friends,
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I think. I had a lot of people who tolerated me, at a minimum.
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I had— wait for
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this one. Wait for this one. I had a lot
20:18
of shoes, and I wore them all the
20:21
time, and I coordinated them to my outfits
20:26
because I liked shoes that much. I enjoyed
20:29
wearing shoes. That was me in my
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youth. I was a very smart
20:37
kid, but also clearly dumb because I wore shoes all the
20:40
time and I didn't need to. That was me 20 years
20:44
ago. That is not me now.
20:48
So maybe you are performing a version of
20:52
yourself who you're not anymore because you've grown out of that. Maybe you need
20:56
to take some time to just feel around and make
21:00
note of what feels good and what doesn't and what feels like what you want
21:02
to do and what doesn't to figure out who you are now. And maybe you
21:06
also just need to give yourself space to realize that, like, you might be someone
21:09
different in 5 years anyway. And so just, like,
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roll with it. But there are a lot of people who are
21:17
so used to masking that they don't know who they actually are under that.
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And the only way to really figure that out is to try things, to see
21:25
what feels comfortable, to see what you enjoy, to see what you don't enjoy,
21:29
to figure out what lights you up, to note what things
21:33
give you unmanageable dread, and go from
21:37
there.
21:42
We have a special guest today, guys. So excited to have her here.
21:46
I want to introduce you to Lauren Yerkes, who's gonna tell us
21:49
a little bit about her company that she runs.
21:53
Um, it is an incredible accessible apparel company
21:57
that is focused on very niche populations and
22:01
people who have historically had a lot of trouble finding certain types of garments.
22:05
So I wanted to give her a couple minutes to tell our audience about what
22:08
she does, why she does it, how she got here. Um, so
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Lauren, thank you so much for being here. And also thanks for causing mass confusion
22:15
among my staff because we do not know how to deal with two Laurens, which
22:19
is fun. Mostly me going to respond to things that
22:23
were not meant for me because I clearly have control issues. But I
22:26
would love to hear a little bit more about your background and your company so
22:30
that our, our listeners can learn a little bit more. Yeah, well, thank you for
22:33
having me. I'm very honored and I've been around
22:36
multiple Laurens too, so I totally understand where you're coming from.
22:40
It's literally how I became L2, so it's not like I should be
22:44
like averse to this, but it's been messing with my brain, so. I
22:47
understand. Well, my name is Lauren and I'm the founder of
22:51
Post Swim. Uh, Post Swim is a purpose-driven
22:55
swimwear brand and it was born out of my
22:59
own diagnosis with breast cancer. I was diagnosed at the age of 37,
23:03
and I've spent years in the fashion industry. I
23:08
saw all of this product all the time. Um, I was formerly
23:11
the chief merchandising officer for Revolve, and so I was approving brands to go
23:15
on the website on a regular basis. And after my own
23:18
diagnosis and going through surgery and treatments, I really
23:22
struggled to put a bathing suit back on. I am a Southern California
23:26
native, and so you know, live by the beach, travel to Hawaii often,
23:30
and I wanted something that covered the things I
23:34
wasn't yet ready to show the world. And so we focus on
23:38
coverage, and I always say that with a subtext, so
23:41
to speak, because I always want people to know that it's not coverage to
23:45
hide, it's coverage to empower women to share their story when
23:49
they're ready, because it does take time after you've gone through something like this to
23:52
feel comfortable to share and to expose the things that you're maybe still getting
23:56
used to. And so that is our goal at Post
24:00
Swim. And we design, you know, purely with intention. We
24:04
design with coverage in mind. We design for comfort and confidence.
24:07
All of our suits are different purposes. So there's
24:11
minimal to maximum coverage. There are styles that are great for
24:15
women who are flat after surgeries, great for women who use
24:19
a prosthetic, and great for an woman who has had no
24:22
surgeries. So it's really about thinking about
24:26
the outcomes after a diagnosis or any surgery, a
24:30
hysterectomy, you know, C-section, whatever it may be. The
24:33
first time that you put on one of your own suits that actually
24:38
made you feel confident enough to wear that suit, what was that
24:41
like? Oh my gosh. I just remember standing in front of the mirror and I
24:45
was like grinning from ear to ear. I was like so
24:49
I felt so confident and really just comfortable.
24:53
I had reconstructive surgery, and so I have this rippling effect
24:57
that you can see anytime I bend over or move a certain way. And it—
25:00
that was really made me self-conscious. And so our
25:04
first suit from the first collection is called the Kim Top, and it's a square
25:08
neck and it sits a little bit higher and it covered that for
25:11
me. And so it felt like I was me again. I
25:15
just wanted to feel normal and I felt like that swimsuit gave me that
25:19
ability. How do you encourage people to find the balance
25:22
between, you know, 'cause there, there are very strong messages about the, out there
25:26
about how you shouldn't be ashamed. And that's obviously that's true.
25:30
And those scars are how you survived to get here, et cetera. But
25:34
also even if you're not ashamed of them and you shouldn't be ashamed of them,
25:37
but even if you're not ashamed of them, they're so personal. A stranger who sees
25:41
you have a giant scar might have questions and maybe you don't want to talk
25:43
to them about that. How do you approach that with women who, or
25:47
people who use your products who are still kind of navigating that journey
25:51
and maybe just not sure how to handle it? Yeah, it's, it's
25:54
really about finding that right suit. Not every
25:58
suit can cover every scar. So it's really thinking about where are your
26:02
scars and, you know, if you have multiple scars, which
26:06
one is the most triggering for you. So for me,
26:10
it was like a port scar was really like, anytime I see somebody with
26:14
a port scar, I'm like, you had cancer. I know it because I have the
26:17
same scar. And so it was, it's really trying to help the woman
26:21
identify what is she most self-conscious about and
26:24
finding a suit to help her to, you know,
26:28
it's not cover, it's coverage, but it's not to hide. To your point,
26:32
it's really to allow them to just feel normal again. You
26:36
know, think back to life before cancer, and that's always what
26:39
you compare to is what was life like before
26:43
cancer? And now it's always, there's the before Lauren and then there's the
26:47
after Lauren. And a lot of times women will tell me, I
26:50
just, I want the old me back. And so I just
26:54
try to build that and work with them to identify what that style is that
26:58
fits their needs. Awesome. Lauren, where can
27:01
people find your suits? Our website is
27:04
postswim.com, and then you can follow us on social media
27:07
at Post Swim Official. We're on Instagram, TikTok,
27:11
Facebook, and X, Twitter, whatever it's called.
27:17
Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad we got to learn
27:19
a little bit more about what you do. And, uh, everybody go check out her
27:23
website and send it to your friends who might have a need. Thank you so
27:26
much. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.
27:34
While we're doing this, I'm gonna run to the bathroom. No bathroom
27:38
breaks. I'll make sure to mute myself then. I did
27:41
not sign off on that.