Genesis The Podcast

From Grief to Growth with Edy Nathan

• Genesis Women's Shelter & Support

Share episode

We welcome back Edy Nathan, a renowned therapist and grief expert, who shares her poignant journey through grief as shaped by personal experiences of profound loss. Edy opens up about the transformative impact of losing her partner to cancer in her late twenties, a pivotal event that led her to a deeper understanding of grief and its manifestations beyond the death of a loved one, including domestic violence. Her insights challenge traditional views, urging us to see grief as a non-linear process that offers the potential for growth and resilience.

Grief can shape our lives in unexpected ways, especially in the context of abusive relationships. In our conversation, we explore how such environments lead to a complex form of grief marked by the loss of self and identity. Edy sheds light on the silent struggles of survivors who often put their children's safety before their own well-being, and the resulting grief that often goes unnoticed. The discussion extends to the ways children express their grief, emphasizing the importance of finding the right language and support to facilitate healing for both adults and children trapped in silence as a coping mechanism.

This episode includes personal stories of experiences with death, dying, illness, grief, intimate partner violence, anxiety and agoraphobia that some may find troubling or triggering. Please take care of yourself while listening to this conversation. 

These stories, the personal experiences of our guest Edy Nathan, are not shared or intended to stand alone or be an end in themselves. Rather, Edy uses her personal experiences as teachable moments for both herself, and generously, for all of us. 

As such, this episode also includes examples of bravery in the face of adversity, the courageous spirit of a survivor who uses both her voice and her work to empower others, and the extraordinary ability of the human spirit to survive violence, confront trauma, embrace grief, and emerge from all of it resilient, though not unchanged. 

Speaker 1:

Therapist, author and grief expert, edie Nathan is back with her own personal stories of survival, tools for tackling anxiety and news of a new interactive project for trauma survivors. I'm Maria McMullin and this is Genesis, the podcast. Edie Nathan is a licensed clinical social worker, author, public speaker and licensed therapist. She has earned degrees from New York University and Fordham University, with postgraduate training at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy. She practices in New York City.

Speaker 1:

This episode includes personal stories of experiences with death, dying, illness, grief, intimate partner violence, anxiety and agoraphobia that some may find troubling or triggering. Please take care of yourself while listening to this conversation. These stories, the personal experiences of our guest Edie Nathan, are not shared or intended to stand alone or be an end in themselves. Rather, edie uses her personal experiences as teachable moments for both herself and, generously, for all of us. As such, this episode also includes examples of bravery in the face of adversity, the courageous spirit of a survivor who uses both her voice and her work to empower others, and the extraordinary ability of the human spirit to survive violence. And the extraordinary ability of the human spirit to survive violence, confront trauma, embrace grief and emerge from all of it resilient, though not unchanged.

Speaker 1:

We acknowledge that trauma, grief, violence and other adverse experiences are very personal and very different for each of us, and respect that the journey of every survivor takes time, patience and fortitude. If you're listening, as a survivor, we stand with you and we support you. It is our hope that by offering both personal experiences and examples of therapeutic practices, that you will feel empowered and supported. Edie is an expert in working through grief. When most of us think of grief, we likely equate it with the loss of a loved one, but grief takes many other forms as well, and experts agree that traumatic experiences such as domestic violence can result in grief that ranges from the loss of the relationship, loss of the world as we knew it, or a loss of self. Today, we explore trauma through the lens of grief to better understand loss and our responses to it.

Speaker 2:

Edie. Welcome to the show. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

It's great to have you back. It's been a little while since we got together and I know you've been very busy working all around the world, and I'm grateful to have some time with you again Now. We've talked several times over the years on this show. I think we met in 21 or 22, and then again in 23. And mostly we've talked about grief in the context of domestic violence and sexual violence, as well as your work as a grief therapist. I recently viewed your webinar, getting to Love, where you not only talked about recovery from a sexually traumatic event, but also provided participants tools, some hands-on practices that they could do in the moment to activate healing and promote calm, and I want to bring some of those to our listeners. And before we do that, though, we also learned about you in the webinar and some of your own healing process. Can you share with us what led you to this work with grief?

Speaker 2:

When I was in my late 20s, my partner died. I was 27 years old. He died and we were, we were. He was an actor, I was an actor, but you know, we were very psychologically minded. I was back in school really thinking that I was going to go into the corporate life and do corporate training, and that's what I was going to do. And then he was diagnosed, sadly, with a kind of cancer that people don't tend to survive from, and he didn't. And we were together during that whole process and when it, when he finally left his body, um, I wanted to leave mine too and there just didn't seem to be any help for me there. Yeah, I was, I was I.

Speaker 2:

I sought out help, I sought out therapists and I got more messages that said it's okay, You're young, You'll find another partner, and that's a terrible message to give anyone who's grieving the loss of their love. And that message really like I didn't know what to do with it. I was insulted, I was angry, I became very angry, and when anger turns inward, it also turns into anxiety, and the anxiety that I was feeling just took me down and I said you know what this has got to stop. And so, because I'm a researcher, because I love knowledge, I said, okay, I've got to learn about this thing called grief. Had I had losses? Yes, but I hadn't even lost grandparents that I had known at that point. So this was a big loss.

Speaker 2:

And I read Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. But then, upon reading Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, I realized but this is for people who are dying, it's not for the living. And that then sent me on a whole other kind of journey. You know what? There's a different way to look at grief. And the more I push it away, you know what happens it gets bigger, Right, and the more I dance with it. And that's like the subtitle of my first book the Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss. It was like if I partner with you, if I get to know you, if I get to understand when you come in and when you want to rest in my body and why you wake me up and instead of saying no, go away, but rather okay, I'm going to feel you, I'm going to invite you in. It became a whole different experience. And when I looked for books that said invite it in, dance with it, understand it, see its temperament almost like learning to date someone new, there was nothing out there. And there began my journey into writing about becoming well-learned in what is grief and learned, of course, that grief is different for everyone and that it's non-linear.

Speaker 2:

And though we want it to be in a box and all we have to do is go step B, step C, step D, step E and we're done, it doesn't work that way, and I wished right. I see you're shaking your head. Yeah, no, it doesn't work that way. And I wished right. I see you shaking your head. No, it doesn't work that way. No, it doesn't work that way. What it does is it's like it's like a maze, and there are mazes where you do a meander, and there are mazes where you know it's it's. It's more like a maze where you stop and start, whereas the meander it's like when am I finally going to get to the center, to the core? And those labyrinths are really, I think, what grief is like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's an incredible comparison or just to give us the visual of what it's like to be on a journey with grief. It is kind of a winding road. You really don't know how to get through it or where the exit might be, or if there is one in fact. That's right. That's right. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Speaker 1:

Now, a lot of your work turned toward supporting people who experience some form of sexual violence, right or intimate partner violence, and we talk about those topics on this show all of the time, but we don't always remember them within the context of grief, because we don't think about things as grief when everyone is living. We typically experience grief due to the loss of life, so the death of a loved one or something like that. But there's all kinds of grief and you've educated us about that over the years. Let's talk about those types of grief that people experience when they're in a relationship and either the relationship is over, it's broken up, the marriage has ended, there's intimate partner violence. What types of grief do people in those situations experience?

Speaker 2:

On one hand, the reason I begin with just an overview of grief and my perspective on grief is because if we, if we can have a platform, this is what grief is and it's non-linear and it doesn't fit into a box. Then, talking about the grief that goes into intimate partner violence or or or sexually traumatic imprints or events that happen that are predatory events really, that to understand that when someone's body is hurt, when someone's psyche is chastised and taken, stripped away so that one's personal identity is lost, it's grief and that loss of self. When someone is hurt, really hurt and hurt by someone, because we know the statistics usually and I don't know what the statistics are, but they're pretty high usually, and I don't know what the statistics are, but they're pretty high when there is sexual violence, it's usually happens with someone you know, someone you are in relationship with, yeah, or someone someone who is close to the family.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and one of the descriptions that I've read about some of your work you call it quote like some part of you was taken without your permission. That's right End quote. And so, in other words, then you grieve the loss of that part of yourself that in some ways doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. And what happens? That part of you and thank you for the quote, you know, because it is as if a part of you and thank you for the quote because it is as if a part of you has been cut out and you're like an amputee and there's something been amputated from you. The thing is is that sometimes we're not even aware of the missing pieces from the mosaic that makes up the beauty of us.

Speaker 1:

I could see that, especially when we're talking about someone in an abusive relationship who is managing a lot of moving parts, possibly has safety concerns, is trying to leave, trying to get custody orders, filing for divorce, trying to keep the kids in school and doing everything they're supposed to be doing, the last thing she's thinking about is grieving, even though she may be grieving all along.

Speaker 2:

That's right. And the last thing she's thinking about especially if she's got kids right is herself. She's thinking about what are the best ways right? What are the best ways that I can keep my kids safe and I will die for them. I will do whatever I need to do to protect them. And that's of course the mindset, because our children, we must protect them.

Speaker 2:

But sometimes we're not taking care of the self and we're not even thinking about our own psyches or our own depression or our own anxiety, and it comes out in very tangled ways.

Speaker 2:

Maybe there's unconscious cutting, maybe there's drinking, maybe there's obsessive thinking, maybe there's unconscious cutting, maybe there's drinking, maybe there's obsessive thinking, maybe there's anxiety, and those are all pieces of the mosaic of survival and they are survival. They may not be some of the best choices, but if those are the choices that may even help calm the nervous system and we know that sometimes these choices do in the long run they hurt. They hurt the survivalist, they hurt the woman who's been facing the horrors that she's faced. If she can begin to say okay, when I go to the bathroom, I'm going to actually take in three breaths and I'm just going to sit here a little bit longer and if she can trust that nobody's going to burst through that door and if she's in a safe house or a safe space, then she can begin to do that. And it may be the beginning of only three breaths on the toilet, which sounds silly three breaths on the toilet, which sounds silly but it may be the only place where there's a little bit of quiet or safety or privacy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. And I have to wonder too when children are involved in these scenarios, are the children grieving as well?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. The children often will see things that they've been told not to see, Like let's pretend that this isn't happening. It's, you know, we can call it gaslighting, but we use the term gaslighting so much. I think it's just it's the parents trying to say you know, no, this isn't happening and we're going to write a different script for you and the children either buy it or they don't buy it.

Speaker 2:

But the grief is not only the loss of the primary mother, but also the mother's partner or husband or wife. I mean, this is just, it's so hard on the children and of course they're grieving. But grief and you and I have talked about this in children looks very different than grief in adults. We see regressive behavior in children. So a child that might be a toddler, who might be potty trained, all of a sudden isn't Child sleeping through the night, may not? A child may show more signs of anxiety, cognitive issues, memory isn't good, or if they are playing games. There are so many popular video games these days, but all their concentration is on those games. It's a way for them to escape, and so escapism is also a way of dealing with the grief. And there's no language for kids. We barely have it as adults.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, another thing that you said. This is another quote from you. The body, mind and soul often go into hiding and remain silent as a go-to coping mechanism.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's right. I thank you for the quote. And yes, the soul and the body and the mind and grief will filter through the mind and the body and the soul in different ways. If we think about the body, the body can hold on to grief and also the traumatic imprint of violence and crimes against the body in a variety of ways.

Speaker 2:

There can be eating disorders, so that either there's just kind of a starvation, not being hungry, denying food almost as a way to feel something when you're numb, or eating in abundance even though you may not even be hungry. You may not even be aware of a hunger signal. You may not even be aware of a hunger signal. You may not even be aware of a hunger signal that you're feeding yourself just to calm the nervous system and we're learning so much about what happens in the nervous system right now. And so the eating is just one thing, sleep disruption is another.

Speaker 2:

Grief can absolutely filter through. So if you were a good sleeper and you're not sleeping, if you're waking up intermittently and the waking up intermittently may have also been a pattern within a violent home just to see okay, where's my partner? Is my partner next to me? Is my partner up and around. Do I need to be hyper? That hypervigilance sets the nervous system up to just be awake and aware at all times and so sleep. What we find often is if you ask someone who has gone through intimate partner domestic violence and they've been within those situations, they will often not dream because they're not going deep enough into a sleep.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:

So because they're on the surface, I liken it to bamboo that bamboo grows on the surface and yet can destroy. And certainly when we don't dream, it can create greater depression, anxiety, nervousness, dryness in the mouth, inability to focus. So, and those are all because you're not getting the proper sleep and that hypervigilance will certainly you want to protect yourself and your kids, so you're barely sleeping.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you're like in that survival mode, right?

Speaker 2:

Complete survival mode. Complete survival mode. And I had a personal experience. When I was in college I dated a really crazy ex-con. It was not a good situation and I was really afraid of him and I was really afraid of him. And what ended up happening is, I was so scared and I was afraid I was I'm a deep sleeper that I wasn't going to hear him, and so we were living in apartments and I attached a string from my apartment to my friend's apartment with a bell attached, and so if the door opened, you know it would ring the bell and then it would let my neighbor know. And I have chills when I talk about this because it was so long ago, but when I remember it it's as if it was yesterday.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah, I think, looking back on situations like that, they can be re-traumatizing if we don't heal from them.

Speaker 2:

Yes. So let's just talk about what happens emotionally when there's grief. Yes, it's hard to focus, but you may find yourself going between anger and anxiety and those are really important emotions. Because when you don't experience the anger and anxiety and those are really important emotions, because when you don't experience the anger and you may not have been allowed to experience it or you may have flattened it because your rage was so extreme that you were afraid, maybe, that you know we do go into killer instincts sometimes and we may not like that parts of our, those parts of ourselves. But it's like I need to protect my kids and it's like there may be ideas or thoughts I just want to hurt the person who's hurting me. And though that is a thought and it's an emotion, it is really anger and rage. So to have a place to expel it whether you write it down, whether you pound pillows to expel some of the anger will actually help the anxiety and that's very, very important.

Speaker 2:

Anyone who comes in to see me with this kind of history, what I will ask is tell me about your anxiety and if it's extreme, then I say have you felt anger? Well, no, I kind of put that away. What happens when there's the expression of the anger, the anxiety begins to dissipate and it's an amazing thing to see so emotionally you are going to move in and out of all of the different phases of grief. And those phases I number 11, but it really goes from the numbness and the denial and there's five in what I call emotional armor and they are your emotional armor all the way down to grace, and the grace is not healing, or I am healed Because I don't want anybody to have an emotional misgiving that because you're out of a situation and you're doing what you need to do for protection, to be healed to me sometimes means to forget and I'm not so sure that we ever forget, as I just spoke about my experience in a dorm, but I think that we learn to remember more peacefully and that for me is how I define healing emotionally over to the spirit and one's spirit and one's spirituality and one's belief system.

Speaker 2:

Oftentimes we are brought up with the religion or the belief system of a family unit, of our community, and when we find ourselves in situations, when you are in a situation where you are trapped, where you are really held hostage by what is going on and you are being hurt over and, over and over again emotionally put down, physically put down or perhaps even spiritually not being allowed to pray, not being allowed to honor your faith, not being allowed to go with your girlfriends or be in community those are all spiritual things. It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to go to a house of worship. Being with friends can actually be a wonderfully spiritual thing.

Speaker 1:

I think spirituality is different for everyone, right, and it's the spirit of community. Sometimes it's that network of support and nothing frightens an abusive person more than their intended victim having other people in their lives. That's right.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

And paying attention to others who are not that abusive person.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. And so what ends up happening to the spiritual world is your community gets smaller and smaller to the spiritual world is your community gets smaller and smaller. And those are signs. And when you start missing your friends, if you find that somehow your phone isn't working or you can't find your cell phone, things go missing and you think you're losing your mind, you're not. Your mind and your brain really are intact, but there's this predatory event that continues to happen.

Speaker 2:

And when the spiritual, I feel like our spiritual health is so vastly important. And so when you finally begin to find a little bit of freedom, where you're a little more liberated, the first step I would invite you to take is to begin to dabble in meeting friends, being in community, talking about things that don't matter, even if it's just the weather. Nobody needs to know the story if you don't want to share it. But also understand that every time you tell one little aspect of part of your story, what you're doing is you're telling your brain. You're not afraid of it, and you may actually be opening a door for someone who is stuck in a way that you have no idea about.

Speaker 1:

That's so insightful and I love the idea that by talking about it, you're telling yourself you're not afraid of it. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2:

So, as we were talking about anger and anxiety, if you are not afraid of your anger and you allow yourself to express it, then the anxiety dissipates. It is the same thing. If you are not afraid and we, you know, women become very afraid. Even that that that college experience I had I was really afraid to even talk about it because was, was, was he going to come after me? And he ended up going back into prison, this guy. But was he going to come after me somehow or send somebody after me? So I couldn't talk about it.

Speaker 2:

And when I finally began to say okay, you know what, I'm going to be brave enough to say yeah, I got so afraid one time I had to create a string between my door and somebody else's door and that's all I said. I didn't have to say anything else. But I I could feel some release within my body and it was like nothing happened. And as the brain begins to learn, okay, I'm still here, no one's, no one's come and burst into the door and told me that I'm not supposed to speak, or locked me in the bathroom, or told me to stay in the dark closet. Okay, it's going to be okay. And then the more you can share with someone who is a safe person for you. And I don't know what that is for anyone. It's going to be different for everyone. But to dare this is a daring dance. To begin to share a little bit about what you've experienced. It opens up a world for your nervous system to not have to hold it all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it makes me think that you know, by by talking about it when we're ready and with people that we feel, create a safe space for us, those thoughts no longer control us. That's right. That's right, we can release them and we can move on, and I love that you shared that strategy with us. I'd love to hear some other strategies that you might have, other strategies that you might have, and if we can go back to the anger and anxiety example, I'm sure a lot of people who experience domestic abuse, even though they're being abused, they have some anger right. It can make you very angry and have a lot of anxiety. So let's talk about examples of how to release anger in a healthy way in order to soothe anxiety.

Speaker 2:

It's going to be different for everyone, sure, so what works for one might not work for another. So, whatever, I suggest here to all of you that you know, all of you who are listening, you know, I want you to know, I see you, I see you even though I don't see you, and I hear you even though I can't hear your voices, and I hold you in my heart and sometimes, when there is that, when there's anger, we first need to even acknowledge its presence and to even just say I am angry is an exercise. The next part of that is where is my anger? In my body? And a lot of people it's in their gut, and the gut is there's ulcers, there's burping, there's bad breath, know teeth that aren't doing well, and it's often because of the gut. And so if you've got like stuff that's going on belly aches, tummy aches a lot of times there's anger there. And so to even put your hands and this is not like a out there kind of exercise but just say, okay, you know anger, you might be in my belly and when you gurgle, maybe that's anger.

Speaker 2:

And I'm just going to tell you that I'm paying attention. Because what do we want to do? What often happens with anger is nope, I'm avoiding you at all costs. Nope, I am not looking at you, I'm not dealing with you. And it could be the opposite. All I'm going to do is feel my anxiety, because anxiety feels easier than anger, and I didn't happen to feel that anxiety was easier than anger, but I also couldn't get to my anger. So the anxiety was rampant. And you know, anxiety is just. You know, shaky hands, sweaty palms, dry mouth, hard to focus, tapping feet, words that come out sideways. You know, I call it spaghetti brain. It's almost like, cognitively, I'm just not thinking straight, which is also part of the emotional hurt that happens for people who are in domestic abuse situations. There's this emotional brain cognitive craziness that gives you messages of am unworthy, I am ugly, I didn't walk away, so I am bad, and the goal is to counter that. So I am angry. And instead of like anger, go away, it's like yeah, you are and you have every right to be, and to even say that, yeah, you have every right to be.

Speaker 2:

And for some of you, writing about your anger in a notebook could be great. For others, maybe it's hitting a pillow and saying I am so angry. For others it might be walking, exercise, I don't know. There are these bands that you can get and they're not expensive at like a Dick's or like a workout place, and there are bands and sometimes when I'm working with clients and also with myself is I'll take those bands and I'll just stretch them and I'll say, okay, I'm angry but I'm releasing. I'm angry but I'm releasing. And if you've got kids, the bands can actually be a wonderful game and you play a tug of war. You're not asking your child to get in touch with their anger, but what happens in a tug of war, and if you really play the tug of war, well then they're going to go and you're going to go and you know, truly, in a game like that you're also releasing the energy of anger.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can get the visual on that one as well. I can just imagine so many different systems are activated in a game of tug of war, especially a friendly one, right, yeah?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and so that friendly tug of war. You're using your body, you're using your mind, you're using all of your strength, and you know what the intention is, mom. But on the other hand, you know it doesn't matter, because if you're engaging with the child, you are doing a whole lot of stuff. You're engaging with them, you're concentrating on them, you're also working on yourself. You're making something into a game when maybe they haven't even had that kind of contact with you. That's been like a game.

Speaker 2:

So it is finding other games. It might be going and playing like you know, a game on the internet and that is, you know, not violent, but sometimes I've found, like car races or, you know, doing anything where there might be a shared competition, could be really fun, because the desire to win and that's another place where, if you don't have the desire in a game like that to win and I'm not talking about like when you're playing with your kids, necessarily, but just like I want to do this, that's letting you know the grief is there, because I think that we can be a good competitive and that's about life, it's about like, oh, I want to win Takes a certain energy.

Speaker 1:

It does and it kind of is a validation of wanting to be alive and participate in humanity.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right. And it's not I want to beat someone, but it's wanting to win for the self. And that's talking to the brain. I was talking to the forefathers of polyvagal theory, to the brain. I was talking to the forefathers of polyvagal theory, stephen Porges, and he really talks about the nervous system. And I said so you know what's going on, you know in sexual violence and domestic violence what's happening? And he said it's the brainstem. And I then took it a step further, because the brainstem really communicates to our entire body and when the brainstem kind of dies, there's no communication or aliveness to the rest of the body. So what we want to do is say knock, knock on the brainstem, knock, knock, knock. Are you there and say, okay, come on, come out, let's reinvigorate you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's another interesting analogy and a good visual of you know. Just, I think after grief there is life, but there will always be a little bit of grief in life there is.

Speaker 2:

There's a little bit of grief. But you know, without pain I don't really think we have growth. Now I'm not talking about domestic abuse, pain I wouldn't wish that on anyone but just life's ups and downs and the topsy-turviness of course you know, and the pain that your listeners have had. No one should ever experience this kind of pain. No one, no one, no one. Pain no one, no one, no one. And it doesn't mean you have to remain in it.

Speaker 2:

And what we know during you know what happens if someone is repeatedly hit in the head is it really does affect how we think and it really does affect how you know those neural pathways and do you have the power to change and shift those neural pathways? Absolutely. And what we know is that you've got the power to do that by acknowledging your negative cognitions, which we mentioned earlier, and instead of saying I'm going to just stay in this judgment of myself, to say you know what I can do this differently. Yes, I feel this way. And there's another way that I can think about this One.

Speaker 2:

If you're even listening to this, you're already ahead of the game. If you're in a safe house, you're already ahead of the game. If you're in a group with survivalists. You're already. You're doing it. If you take one step in front of the other and you're still living in the situation that you're in and you are not finding a way to get out, and you're listening to this, you're getting to a place where it's going to feel okay enough for you to get the help you need. And those are all strategies of self-talk.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there are some really great strategies in some of your trainings, in your book, in your website. I also noticed that sometimes you work with archetypes which I'm not real familiar. I mean, I'm familiar enough with them, but not in depth, and so I'd love to know how those are helpful or important in healing and moving forward, and would they work for, let's say, victims of domestic violence.

Speaker 2:

So yes, let me answer the last question first. They would absolutely work with people who have lived with domestic violence, absolutely. However, the archetypes are good, really, for anyone, it's all people. Archetypes are non-binary. Even when they're binary, they're non-binary, and I say that because, if we think, let me define what an archetype is, oh, that would be helpful. Yes, do that, okay. So why don't we just talk about that? So an archetype is a term developed by a Jungian psychologist. His name is Carl Jung, jungian Carl Jung, and it's spelled in a really weird way, in case you want to look it up J-U-N-G. J-u-n-g is his last name, name, and he saw that we have symbols and we have relationships with roles that, no matter where you're from, no matter what your socioeconomic background, no matter what you know, it doesn't matter that we all understand certain terms or certain roles that we have or people we've met. So if I say mother, no matter what language I'm speaking it in, everyone knows what that word means. Sure.

Speaker 1:

So mother would be an archetype right Mother is an archetype.

Speaker 2:

So when we think of mother, father, king, queen, those are archetypes, and within every archetype, these collective symbols that we all relate to, there's the good part of the archetype, and then there is what is called the shadow. The good archetype is like the good mother, the good king, the good father, and there are so many, many archetypes that can be part of a conversation. So the good mother is really the good enough mother in the archetype. That archetype of the good mother is someone who's caring and loving, someone who shows up, someone who nurtures someone and for everyone. What that archetype might be could be different, but the shadow is really the darker side of the mother the mother that held neglect, the mother that was abusive, the mother that is cruel, the mother that is judgmental, and so we have two different aspects of mother, father and all of these other archetypes. What the archetype allows anyone to do, and if we're talking about to all of you here in this audience that it is a way to say okay, so I know that I want to be more like the good mother archetype, but sometimes I go into that shadow place and my mother was that shadow in that shadow place, and what it allows is a projection. It gives you some distance from talking from the eye per se and just saying, oh, within this archetype I recognize some parts of myself and I recognize the darker sides of myself, and the shadow is what we don't want to look at and we kind of enter into a space with those aspects of that archetype, the darker side. Archetype, the darker side, and we grapple with it, we talk to it, we understand it, we try to understand how it might interrupt us from our own happiness or from being the mother, or engendering the mother that we would like to own within ourselves. And sometimes in survivalists of domestic violence, what I find is that often they haven't incorporated the good mother, not that they're not good mothers, but maybe they didn't feel their own good mother, and so the archetype allows them to understand what even is a good mother. I didn't know that maybe a good mother would feed me or make my bed or share her bed with me if we didn't have two beds, or keep me safe. I didn't understand that, and so what the archetypes conversation allows us to do is perhaps see what these different roles are, and the more positive and the darker side, so that we can perhaps understand ourselves through them. I'll tell you the story.

Speaker 2:

So I had terrible anxiety. I had such bad anxiety that I was agoraphobic and I couldn't even leave my house. That's how bad my anxiety was. Now, was this before your husband died or after? Experienced was a very different anxiety. But once the brain touches on agoraphobia and the inability to leave one's house, it's masterful at stealing your soul and stealing your freedom, and I was truly held hostage by it. It wasn't my languaging back then, but it is now Anyway.

Speaker 2:

So I was going to therapy three days a week. The man I was living with was taking me to his therapist. I could barely walk down a flight of stairs without my pulse going to 180 beats per minute. I kid you not. I kid you not. I ended up in more ERs in New York City. I know all of them very intimately because I kept thinking I was having a heart attack at 23. And it was just horrific.

Speaker 2:

So after about a year I started to venture out.

Speaker 2:

It was not easy.

Speaker 2:

I was able to walk down a flight of stairs and one of the few first forays onto a subway, I had gone into the city.

Speaker 2:

I was living in Brooklyn, I went into the city, so it's about a 20-minute ride, 25-minute ride from Brooklyn, where I was living, to the city, new York City, and then I was taking the subway back and it was the time where chains were stolen and so I was counting because my therapist told me to count that while I was on the train, to try to get my mind off of what I was, where I wanted to go, which was the anxiety and the panic and feeling like I couldn't breathe.

Speaker 2:

I was on the train and I was counting and then, all of a sudden, this very tall man grabs my neck and my chain around my neck and I looked at him and I swore and I said don't you effing dare. I grabbed his wrist. Now I was two stops away from where I needed to get off, and me walking was never an option, but I got off the train at the next stop was never an option, but I got off the train at the next stop. It stopped him and my anxiety was gone and I thought, oh my God, wow, it was the distilling of the anger that actually interrupted the anxiety and I walked home and, for the first time in a year and a half, I felt free.

Speaker 1:

That's incredible. I have the chills. I felt free. Wow, I'm so grateful to hear that story from you and I have to ask you any idea what brought on the agoraphobia for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was. I'd left home when I was 17. And actually I went away to school when I was 15 because I really couldn't be in the house. It wasn't apparently an unsafe house, but it was an unsafe house for me, and so I returned for a couple of months and then I left.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, I loved to travel, and then my parents were always at each other and I was the one that my mom went to, so I was the one she confided in and told her truths to, and part of me needing to get out was being in that role of surrogate, and I couldn't really handle it anymore. So I told them that if they wanted through some really great therapy, they wanted to see me they needed to come and see me separately because I didn't want to be triangulated any longer. Right? So, 23 years old, my mom comes to visit and we go out to dinner and she begins like just ranting about things at home and I really couldn't take it anymore.

Speaker 2:

And instead of really getting angry with her, the anger turned inward, I believe, and we were in a very, very tall building having dinner and I looked at her and I said I'm not going to be able to get down. I can't get down, I can't get into that elevator. I don't know, maria, what hit me. I don't know what changed in my brain in that moment, but all I can tell you it was as if the Achilles tendon snapped in my brain and she literally had to drag me into that elevator. We went down 66 floors and from that point forward, once I landed in my apartment, I said I can't get out.

Speaker 1:

So you were kind of trapped in yourself for about a year until you were able to let your anger out.

Speaker 2:

That's right. The saddest part of the story, I think, is that my mom they lived in Chicago left. So I called the guy I was dating. I'd been dating him for three weeks and I called him and I said I need help and he came and he moved in and he took care of me. Wow, she left.

Speaker 1:

That's a lot for a young woman.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but that's why I do the work I do.

Speaker 1:

I'm so proud of you. Thank you, I'm so proud of you.

Speaker 2:

I am so proud of you telling us about that experience You've had so many of them and your recovery, and I just I admire your strength, because the stories are important, you know, and it's like, okay, I come here and you know, I look, I can talk about all of this stuff and I have a healthy distance from them, but it's not that they don't walk with me and they're not in every piece of what I do. Yeah, and I may not have cuts on my back or on my arms or across my face, but they're in my heart.

Speaker 2:

I understand that arms or across my face, but they're in my heart. I understand that. I think the stories are important, you know, and to understand that just because I'm a clinician and a therapist and you know I went back to school and whatever that, I come here with my wounds. They're just not showing, but they express themselves by helping others.

Speaker 1:

When we were talking earlier, you mentioned a new project that you're working on. Tell us about that, sure.

Speaker 2:

So I, as you know and I don't know that your audience knows this, that we've touched on it I'm writing a new book called right now it's a working title, so nobody hold me to this, okay. Okay, you're not being held to it it's called the sexual grief effect from loathing to liberation to love, and it's really self-loathing to liberation to self-love. And you know, so often when there's any kind of a predatory event, it really holds us hostage and it's it creates this kind of self-loathing or disgust or shame. And what I'm working on is teaching people how to become more liberated from kind of a hostage situation that they find themselves in right.

Speaker 2:

And then get to self-love, which is hard. We don't really know what love is and sometimes we don't even know how it feels or what the experience of it is, when it might even be right in front of us. And so that's the book, and I'm inviting people to become part of the Sexual Grief Project, whether it's you want to share your stories, and they can be part of the book, or not. Or you just want to share your stories, and they can be part of the book or not, or you just want to share your stories, and what I am going to be doing in the next few months is once a sub stack, a free sub stack, where people can come in and read articles about all different things around grief, around sexual grief, around freeing the hostage, around hostage techniques and strategies, and just learning a lot about becoming part of this project. That will grow legs because you're talking about it and it's called the Sexual Grief Project.

Speaker 1:

That sounds so interesting. I mean, I'd love to have you come back in a couple of months, or even a couple of years, and let us know more about that. I look forward to reading the book. I love talking with you and learning from you. Tell us your website before I let you go.

Speaker 2:

Certainly so. It's edy, E-D-Y, N-A-T-H-A-N, ednathancom and sexualgriefcom. So those are the two websites. Edie, thanks so much for being on the show.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women in abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence, and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at GenesisShelterorg and when you follow us on social media on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis Women's Shelter, and on X at Genesis Shelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by call or text at 214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.