Ep165: The Healing Fantasy with Jessica Van der Merwe

You can ask for something small, like a knock before someone enters your space, and suddenly you’re defending your character, calming their emotions, and questioning your own reality. That spiral is not a personal failure, it’s often a predictable pattern in relationships with emotionally immature parents and other emotionally immature people. We talk about why “just set a boundary” can backfire for adult children of dysfunctional families, how guilt hijacks the nervous system, and why the aftermath can feel so lonely and disorienting.

Jessica breaks down DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) in plain language and explains how it fuels the crazy-making loop that pulls you back into caretaking. From there, we dig into the “healing fantasy” (a term from psychologist Lindsay Gibson): the relentless hope that if you find the perfect words, do enough therapy, or become “good enough,” they’ll finally see you, validate you, and change. We also explore how that fantasy can quietly migrate into partnerships, friendships, and work, placing impossible pressure on other people to heal childhood wounds.

We end with real, grounded hope: trauma may be part of your story, but it doesn’t have to be your identity. We discuss grief work, inner child work, parts work, and rebuilding self-trust so your past can be true without wrecking you. If this conversation resonates, subscribe for more trauma-informed therapy conversations, share it with someone who needs language for what they’re living, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome Back And Trauma Recap

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello, listener, welcome back. I'm your host, Dr. Beth Tremell, and this is Things You Learn Therapy. I am so excited about our episode today. We have just been connecting and reminiscing about the part one that Jessica and I uh had time to do earlier this year. And so I'm just so happy, Jessica. You said yes to coming back. And we're gonna talk about trauma again. And, you know, last episode, if you haven't listened, I would encourage you to either push pause and go back and listen first, or go ahead and finish this episode and then definitely go back and listen. Jessica's actually had a couple of episodes that I think are just so powerful in terms of talking about trauma. And this isn't just your like regular, I'm gonna talk about trauma kind of thing. And in fact, Jessica and I were talking um before we started about the power of really great podcasting is when it resonates on a different level. And that has always been you. I mean, that just has always been you. That even the first time I met you and you were talking about trauma, I just remember being like, oh my gosh, this is just so, I mean, it's so much better than like a training on um trauma or the ACEs. And I love trainings, but the way in which you talk about things, anyway. Listen, friend, I am glad you're here. Um, can you just introduce yourself briefly in case folks don't know who you are? And then we're gonna dig into um some of the stuff that we didn't get to last time that we just barely touched on. And I just can't wait. So tell us a little about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Oh, thanks, Beth. Um it's really great to be back, even though I was mentioning I have some nerves about this morning. A little bit about me for those who don't know me. I'm a licensed professional counselor in Portland, Oregon. I have a private practice there and I specialize in complex trauma and dissociation in adult children of dysfunctional families, which was like really the topic of last session or last uh podcast, where we were diving into like what it's like for an adult child of emotionally immature parents or a dysfunctional family, um, what you might experience if you are one of those adults. Um, what one being like how it feels and how the role of guilt activates our nervous system, how we um respond to it and how we it contributes to the cycle of being in that dysfunctional dynamic with a parent or loved one or someone that you're trying to work out the dynamic in. Um we talked about grief and the loneliness that can come with being an adult child of an emotionally immature parent who cannot meet your needs. And there's a deep sense of like just almost like an existential loneliness. Um, and the grief that comes with recognizing that your parent can't be the parent you need, or other people for that matter. So we kind of like left on that cliffhanger around what uh I name as healing fantasies. And so is that like a sufficient breakdown? I was trying to remember all of that.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yes. I mean, listen, you summed it up, and already I'm just like, I want to go back and listen again. I mean all that stuff. I just love it. And I think the heart of the episode is really just the power of how vulnerably you shared, both about you know, your personal story, but also the stories of people that you've grown to know clinically. And I just remember so many moments of like, this is so powerful. And and we actually had folks kind of reach out and share how powerful it was for them. And you know, one person in particular wrote just how clearly you talked about the processes that people like experience, right? Like the lived experience is so I mean, I the word I want to use is nuanced, but I'm not sure if that really captures it. But we're starting to get this idea and mainstream what trauma is and what early childhood trauma uh kind of does to folks. But I don't I don't think people really hear the stories of the everyday lived experiences until you talk about it so clearly, about that guilt and about like, you know, these words of boundaries and self-care and how that can sometimes be, you know, almost offensive when you are working through some of the parts of so much childhood stuff. And so, yes, I mean, I think you um kind of summarized that, but I really want to bring listeners back to remember that the power of doing this work and the power of showing up for people, even if you're not a therapist, is in honoring the lived experience of the person in front of you. And that's what you do beautifully, and so I'm just excited for us to talk about this.

Emotional Immaturity Versus Bad Days

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Thank you. I'm glad people were like actually feeling connected to what is coming up. And I think, you know, I recognize that when I hear someone speaking about this issue, or like when I hear other podcasters, or I hear therapists, or or you know, it's like there's something that is a knowing of like, yes, that's it, because I haven't found words for it before. Um, it's like I just have this deep sense of like loneliness or emptiness or like longing um or not good enoughness, or I'm never these things that are kind of in the background humming all the time for adult children, dysfunction of uh of abuse, it's like it's the underlying current that you have to kind of live with or figure out how to navigate or dissociate from, or you know, whatever it might be. So um speaking to that, I think like if anyone feels like that, you know, if you're like, what is what is it? Is something's wrong with me kind of feeling, you know, those sorts of things that can be um, or you know, it can also go with the inverse of response to being like, well, everyone else is the problem, or no one understands me, or no one wants to understand me, or no one cares about me. Those are other things that will be like a frequent flyer thought in the minds and um and bodies of anyone who's come from these cycles. So so I just want to like hold that with some compassion, and I hope the listener can just notice it as we're talking today and just being really aware of how these words land or don't. This is sort of an opening to noticing what's going on inside. So I thought it might be helpful to like go backward a little bit before we start moving into what the healing fantasy looks like too and and where that comes from. Um for people who haven't listened, who are just here for the first time, or like maybe even trying to figure out why I know things don't feel right, but I'm not really sure why. Um and so I thought it'd be helpful to identify some of the key traits or things you would experience with an immature, emotionally immature person. And I'm speaking about just person now because I think it can go way beyond just the parents. So I want to be really inclusive with this and how this looks. Um, and you know, I want to differentiate, differentiate that is from what an emotionally immature person is versus temporary emotional regression. There's there's personality traits that are gonna be really different. Um, and this is where I want to call out anyone's like, you know, the words narcissist are being flown around a lot. Like, well, they didn't do this and therefore they're a narcissist. I'm like, well, not necessarily. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, we're all gonna have temporary emotional regression when we have something emotional come up, when we have maybe our like window of tolerance for stress that day is really low. Um, maybe something else is happening in our life that's circumstantial. Um, that's you know, it's not to say like we don't have these experiences where we're I'm gonna list some things that come up and people like, uh-oh, that's me. Does that I'm emotionally mature? Maybe not. It's just like, well, we have moments of that. The difference is that the person that is experiencing something more temporary has the ability to reflect on that thing, or maybe something they said, and return to the person to do repair work and exist in the nuance of I can recognize I might have overstepped or said something that was hurtful, and I want to come back and just own that and take responsibility, accountability for those things. And I can tolerate that discomfort for like a longer-term positive outcome in a relationship. That's more of a sign of like emotional maturity, like we had a temporary regression and we can move forward with change. Now, that's the key component because that's the thing that will be missing for emotionally immature people or people with like, well, I'll just leave it at that because I don't want to diagnose anything. We just have that blanket statement. But we'll see a real like egocentric, self-involved way of being in the world. So all roads lead back to how they feel about a social situation or situation or how it affects them or how they are perceived. And you probably see this, you know, you sometimes like, oh well, you said this, and like it means that this is about me, and that you know, they start turning it into a story about now they're in like more of a victim status, or something about them, and flips it so that you then have to take care of them in a situation. You have to appease their feelings instead of the other way around, which is initially maybe what you came for. So that's a big one. We might see a lot of like really low stress tolerance. So someone with emotional maturity does not tolerate stress well. They will react very quickly, they'll deny, distort, and replace reality with a version of their own. So it becomes like a very reactive or volatile situation. I see you nodding. So I'm like, we know, we know how this goes sometimes. And again, like speaking to that, I think I have a note on just how their reality is based on their feeling of what happened, um, not what maybe objectively happened. So this can look like let's I have an example in my head of someone saying, like, um, mom, I need you to like just knock on the door before just before you walk in to our house. And mom might be like, Well, I've always walked into your house. So, like, if I have to knock on the door, like that's a rejection of me. I I I feel that personally. So therefore it becomes about a rejection rather than like a real realistic boundary setting of like this is something we just would appreciate for privacy, but that doesn't apply. Those sort of rules of boundaries don't really apply for that person, it becomes about them.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Well, I wonder too, if you can speak to like as a therapist, I'm then like extrapolating how that feels for the person trying to set the boundary or for the person who is in relationship with that person. But you know, you talked about this like idea of loneliness and not enoughness from earlier. And I just think about the like day in and day out tiny moments like that, where all the experts say, well, just set a boundary, tell her she's got a knock on the door. But then you get into this interaction with this person that you have, you know, perhaps a really long, loving, intense. I mean, it's if it's like your parent, right? It's like okay, but then it gets really messy. And I just think like I I put myself in that situation and I'd be like, Am I crazy? What is happening? And am I being rude and am I rejecting her? And wait, my therapist told me that I should just lock the door, you know? Like, I don't know. Can you speak to that kind of interpersonal level and how it impacts the person?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

That's a great question. Yeah, the it's exactly right. I think your response there, like how it when there's pushback or backlash around like a new boundary setting, like we were talking about boundaries and stuff, like lack of a better word, um, but just a request for um space or privacy or whatever it is, the backlash can be so severe. So especially when the person, like the mom in this situation, hypothetical situation, um, has benefited throughout life of that child not having their boundaries. They benefit from the lack of boundaries. Yeah. But once it's in place, there is a huge backlash because it this is not how we do things. This is not how, you know, I'm sp this is supposed to go. You're supposed to like let me do what I want, essentially. That's what, even though that wouldn't maybe put it to words. So that your crazy feeling of like, you know, maybe I am mean, maybe I am being rude, maybe this is really cold. This is very common, like at the beginning. And I try to prepare people for that. So, you know, kind of going into oh, actually, it might help to talk about um some of the cycle of this and recognizing what happens because as you know, I start to be, I start working with people on the beginning parts of doing something a little different. Um, a lot of people do expect that if I just do this, then it will be okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Um, or they'll listen, or maybe it'll be all right. Yeah. Um, or they have a in the in the on the opposite end of the spectrum, a ton of fear about it will not go okay. It will be a humongous blowout. Um, they will start doing all kinds of malicious things. Um, so I can't do that. Maybe I am just being mean, maybe I am being unreasonable. Maybe what I want really doesn't matter here, and I can like let that go at the greater because I can't deal with the outcome. Yeah. Or I'll just avoid it.

unknown 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Better just to avoid it than to have to face whatever tumultuousness is coming. Yeah.

DARVO And The Crazy Making Loop

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Yeah. I don't know if that I'm answering that question there, but I think like it, like what we're saying is like to prepare for and expect like there will be backlash and knowing you there may be crazy making that happens. Yeah. You will have we talked about the guilt connection there too, and in our last episode. And so I want to tie that back into how that's uh weaponized by the emotionally immature person to make the person get back in the cycle, make them do what they want them to do. Yeah. Um, it might help to also recognize, like, there's a helpful acronym in abuse cycles. And I'm not saying this is all abuse, by the way. This is on a spectrum of emotional immaturity, and some of it does go into abuse, right? So recognize that. But the acronym is DARVO, which has been around since the 90s, was developed by Jennifer Freud, I think is how you say her last name. Um, and it stands for deny, attack, reverse victim, and offender. So this is kind of like you can recognize this pattern in an emotionally immature person's responses as well. Doesn't mean they're being necessarily abusive, but you can recognize, oh, there is a pattern here. Uh-huh. And what it does is like the person that feels offended, let's say the immature person, they deny the wrongdoing. They haven't done anything wrong. Yeah. They don't you they can't even believe this is happening. They attack the accuser or the person setting the boundaries. They reverse roles with the victim. So now they are the victim. And how dare they do this thing to them? I can't believe you would do this to me. I must be a terrible mother. I must be a terrible person. I can't believe how I'm in, I'm in this wounded position. And how can you do this if I just leave me here? You know, it can get really intense. And then they cast themselves as the harm party in that. So that's a crazy making cycle, I think, that you're talking about. And it really is, they're really good at it. It's really effective at making the person that is just trying to get a need met feel like they're bad and feel crazy, like, wow, how did that happen? Now I'm feeling guilty. Now I've I've done this terrible thing, or maybe they recognize they didn't even do something wrong, but they feel so confused. Yeah. And the confusion can be very, very cloudy to like any sort of thought process. You feel really kind of outside of yourself or um disoriented. Um, some people can feel that way. It's and I really want to name that because I think it's helpful to put names and like lay up that is a thing that is happening. Yes, it's not you being crazy. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yes. Say enough on that. Yes. As I'm listening, it's like then you have the person who is like, I don't want to do that again. And so I'm either going to just give in next time because I don't have the emotional energy to keep going through this sort of whole Darvo thing. And so they're either saying, I don't want to do this again, or I'm cutting them off. Right. Like I'm just not going to talk to them. But then I think about this topic that we're talking about in terms of the healing fantasy, right? So it's like it feels very you're darned if you do, and you're darned if you don't.

unknown 19:03

Mm-hmm.

Healing Fantasy And Relentless Hope

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yes. There is everyone loses, right? It's like Yes. Yeah. So let me go into that a little bit. The healing fantasy is a term that Lindsay Gibson uh coined, who Lindsay Gibson is a phenomenal psychologist who wrote all the adult children of emotionally immature parents books. There's a whole series. Um, highly recommend them. And the she names the healing fantasy as um sort of like this ongoing experience from childhood, uh, where like having an emotionally immature or abusive parent forces the child to adjust to their parents' limitations by developing a role to adapt to get their needs met. Yep. And it's a form of like a relentless hope we talked about that one day their parent will be able to see, love, and appreciate them for who they are. Um and so it's the it's a necessary strategy that offers a child a hope for the better, a better future. It's a way to survive what feels unsurvivable.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And if we keep at it long enough, eventually we'll get people to change, or we can we can make that parent see us, or maybe they'll feel calm enough to um be okay, you know. So it's sort of like if you think about in your adult life, you might have thoughts about if I just have the right answer, or if I can just read the right books or get the right phrasing, if I just practice really good communication, then they'll like hear me and then they can validate me. Or if I just get them the help they need, if I can really find them the right therapist, or if I can find them the thing they need, or if I can just give them security materially or in some other form, it might look like a number of different things, then they'll see me. Yeah, just want to pause on that for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yeah. Anyone listening, even if this topic isn't something you've experienced personally, can relate to that idea at least. You can at least recognize yeah, if I were in that situation, I think that would be the only way to survive, right? The only way to survive is to try to maintain something that's within your control, right? And so that's what we're searching for is well, if I could do this and if I could be this, yeah, what are you thinking? You're thinking something.

How The Fantasy Spreads To Life

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yeah, I'm thinking a lot of things because a lot comes in my brain as I'm thinking I've been preparing for this. I'm like, wow. There's so much that I I would like to say, because it covers a lot of different ground for different people in different situations. But you know, I'm thinking of like this also plays out in our partnerships. And to look out for some of that. And this is where maybe some of the role from our childhood of being caretaker or the person who fixes things or can provide enough information or can do whatever carries that into their adult life, right? Um we we subconsciously put these healing fantasies fantasies onto our parent, our partners, our children or bosses or friends. We don't really notice we're doing it. But there's a often there's I see this like a belief that I just if I just had the family that I didn't have.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

If my partner could just give me it love this way, then it will be okay. Then I'll feel really seen and heard. Or, you know, if I just, if my boss can really recognize me and help me achieve this next level of promotion. Um, so there's this, it's a it places a really intense burden actually on our family members or people to fulfill a healing role for childhood wounds that that really it's an impossible task. And that's why a lot of people feel like they're hitting their head up against a wall. They're like, why can't I just get this need met? Or why they don't recognize maybe the displacement of some of that need, um, the wounding and their system, their nervous system is still trying to work it out. It's kind of like, how can I make this happen now if it couldn't have happened then? Or maybe it could it's simultaneously happening with a partner in it in one way and happening with their parent in a different way. It gets it's very complicated. Even as I'm talking about it, I feel like, oh, you know, I feel the heaviness of the weight of all of it. So like therapy often exposes these healing fantasies, and it's meant to, so that we can recognize like where what's happening. And it's only when we can really recognize that it's a fantasy that we can change.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah.

A Personal Story Of Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Something can be different. I wanted to speak to that too in my own experience of like when I came to recognize a healing fantasy. Because I remember hearing hearing this term and reading it, I was like, ouch. It feels kind of painful to hear fantasy attached to hope for healing and and reconciliation. You're like, that's rude. Yeah, right. You're like, um, I don't appreciate that at all. Right, right. My parent will change and I will make it better. Yes. Yes. The relentlessness about it to make things different. And I guess I wanted to share this personal experience because it's I think others can relate to it in some way. I was thinking back a couple of years, several years back now, where you know, my parents were going through divorce. I grew up with a lot, my my father left and came back, was in and out of the house throughout my life. A lot of infidelity, a lot of inconsistency. And when they finally divorced, in I was in my 30s, all of that stuff started to surface. And I really wanted some accountability on my from my father. And there was a period where, you know, we really, it was like, if I could just like get him to say the X, Y, Z. And there was a point where I kind of gave up on that because I recognized he wasn't going to do it. But I was like, well, if I can just like maybe we can start over and like get to know each other. Like, and I put myself out there in that way and did, I was like, if I'm just the mature person, like talk about parentified child, right? If I can be like the adult in the situation, then maybe it will be. And so I put myself in that situation and sent a message or sent an email. I can't remember if it was an email or I'm pretty sure it was. And then I waited and I was like expecting a reply of some kind. And it was met with silence. I think it was pretty much dead silence for about three months. And the third month, I was like, oh no, this is never gonna happen. Never gonna happen. And it was really gutting for me. It might have been obvious to other people outside of a situation. And this is like listeners might also have friends or family that are like, I don't know what you're doing. But maybe this time. And when the bottom fell out, it was like, okay, I really had to grieve. Like, I can't be enough for that person to change. And that's a really devastating reality to come to. So through that, you know, like a lot of healing work around grieving and parts of me that were like not enough or not didn't matter. And this is where, like, you know, coming to talk about inner child work as part of healing fantasy recovery is really important. And what I really specialize a lot in and recommend. And it's becoming more popular now, too. It's becoming more of a known, which is wonderful because I think it's so helpful for so many people. Instead of looking outward for someone to resolve the pain inside, um, we come to terms with hey, we can't put our hopes in that. But we can shift the dynamic inside. Yeah. When we attune to the child parts of us that didn't have those needs met, we can be the safe adult for them. And I know that's very abstract for uh general public here. Uh might sound woo-woo to some people who are really new to inner child work or like IFS or parts work. Um I live in that world, so it's like, oh yeah, totally. Like it just feels very normal to me. I can talk about it all day long. But it can feel really strange, invulnerable. There's a distrust often in ourselves to be able to tolerate the pain of our younger selves. Um yeah.

Not Defined By Trauma Anymore

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Thank you for sharing that part of the story. And I can only imagine you've had this relentless hope. And now, you know, now we can kind of name these things and you know, come to an understanding of why it felt so devastating, even though it was perhaps predictable to people around you. And you know, we could probably have a whole episode on like supporting someone else who's going through healing fantasy recovery. And because it it is like how do you let go of how do you let go of that relentless hope without feeling just total despair? And you know, obviously that is you know where grief work comes in. But I think the other thing I was thinking about was a question that somebody came to me with as they were kind of talking about trauma and maybe this relates to this inner child work that you're talking about, but I think there are some folks who similar to like I'm gonna take on a new identity and I'm gonna rein, you know, reinvigorate this relationship with the the person where it's like, okay, this trauma, I I don't want to be under this trauma anymore, right? I don't want to be defined by this trauma. I'm just I want to be a new person, I want a new identity, and I don't want to have to be defined by this trauma anymore. And as I was thinking about how I was gonna respond to this person, because I was like, well, I found myself saying, What would Jessica say? And I'm like, no, I I have the opportunity to ask Jessica what she would say because I was like, I can see it being like kind of this this two-way, and and perhaps it depends on how you see, you know, maybe a theoretical orientation or modality sort of thing. But you know, it's like well, your childhood is a part of you. I mean, it is always, and um, denying it or pretending it's not there may not necessarily be exactly what we want to do. But then I also was like, well, listen, you know what, you do what feels right in your situation, and who am I to tell you what not to do? You know what I'm saying? So, how would you answer this question around like, I don't want to be defined by my trauma anymore? I'm so tired of being defined by my trauma. What do I do to move forward?

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah, it's a great question, it's very nuanced. I first I get really excited when I hear that. I'm like, great, I don't want that for you either. Yeah, exactly. We don't need to have our identity entrenched in trauma. Yeah, that's not that's not healing, obviously. Like, I don't want to be defined by this, I don't want to be labeled as like this thing. Yeah, and I think this is where like holding a dialectical response is helpful, holding both of like my trauma happened, and it is part of my story, and it informs a lot of my responses to myself and others, and also it is not my whole story, it is not my identity, and for a long time I thought it was my identity.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

The question is existential, it becomes who am I now, or who am I, who was I all along? And that identity work is really important work. It's about building, rebuilding, reclaiming self-trust and who you are, what your capacity is. You know, when someone comes to me with that, I one, it's the excitement, and it's also okay, you know, we're not like necessarily letting go, and it's not like it didn't happen. How can we integrate it and be able to be with what happened without dismissing or avoiding? Because that's important. Yeah. And like, what does that mean to the person? I'd be really curious. Like, what does not being defined by your trauma mean to you? What is that? And kind of hearing from them what they imagine. Yeah. What would that freedom look like? Yeah. And what would it mean? Yeah. And then I would look at that where the whatever they go to, like in that freedom, I'm like, okay, what part of you doesn't feel free? And then we go there.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Yeah. That's good. Okay. Earlier you were saying something, I think, I think maybe before we started recording, this idea of role selves versus true selves.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah. This this you know question kind of rolls right into that. It's like our role selves versus true selves, you know, and I think I've addressed some of it already. It's sort of like um, so it's sort of woven through. But I think you can I you can see like, okay, if you're who is the the role self developed as a way to get those needs met. Yeah, and it may be like a way to become admired or accepted, or how how you adapted to get attention and care. It might be sound, it might even sound like I'll become so self-sacrificing that other people will praise me and love me, or it might take the negative, I will get their attention no matter what it takes. So we kind of look at like how did that need get met? How did you feel affirmed? How is that continuing to play out in your current life? Does it feel draining now? Where are you playing a role? Or you know, were you doing something in your life where you resent it? How do you hope others see you? Like, and and another thing on the other side is what personality traits do you want to conceal? When you're trying to hide parts of you that's probably the parts that have been rejected, but also are part of your true self.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

So, you know, we talked about that in the first episode all about masking and then what that looks like. Yeah. How some of this is like, oh, you know, I've adapted and it feels like my identity. It's sort of like when we think about, I'll I'll just use me as an example. From an early age, I was like, well, I'm gonna be a marriage therapist. Obvious reasons, probably, but I was like, at the time, I was like, I just want to help people resolve conflict. And I did all of these things um to, you know, at school, I was a conflict manager in like elementary school, and you know, did all of this other stuff. And it was, uh, I'm like, oh, because that's where it felt like I was being helpful. Yeah. I could make tension diffuse and now, like, yeah, it's a career. Most, you know, yes, but I've I don't uh at, you know, not putting weight into it as if like all of this is determining how my self-worth feels or whatever. Um, because I've had to do that work before. But it might look different in other areas of your life. So I'm kind of going on and on. I think it's important to reflect on this, I guess at the end here to go, you know, what where are these things coming up for me? Like what what role did I play in my family that may be um a way that it feels positive even.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

But I'm overfunctioning in my daily life, or I feel resentful in these areas, because that resentment is a cue of some overfunctioning um and masking of true emotion and true experiences. And just to start like opening that up a little bit, um, like, what does true self look like? That's a bigger question around identity work, um, which I know I don't think we can answer in one minute, but it's starting to explore that of like, if I didn't have to do this, what would I want to be doing?

SPEAKER_01 37:37

The conversation here, and part of what I think both of us are like, oh my gosh, and we, you know, we need to talk about that whole path, you know. And you were saying earlier, you're like, I just feel like I'm going in a lot of directions because there's so many nuances that I just think we're shedding light on, you know, and I think that that is what I'm so proud of for you and coming to share and proud of this podcast to be able to do that, to have a platform to bring light to these things. Because I just think it's so easy to be like, oh yeah, those folks whose parents are not so good, and at Christmas time they have a big blow up. But it's like I encounter folks where it's like this is every day, every other day, three times a day, sometimes where we're talking about all of these processes happening. And I think about how impactful that is. And I I don't want to say impairing necessarily, because I don't think that it maybe has a detrimental impact on a person all the time, but I do think it's impactful all the time. And so thinking about this idea of moving forward and being like, okay, I am developing some, I'm, you know, I'm moving into this work that I'm doing and I'm getting healthier and I'm healing. And then tomorrow happens, right? Or it's like the healing just it feels like does it ever end? Is that a question to me? I don't know. I don't really want to end there, but I am really like, even even if the person is around, if you've cut isn't around, right? You've cut them off, they've passed away. It's like Yeah, because again, I don't want to, I don't want to end and be like, well, forever you're gonna feel terrible and have some feeling work to do. But I it's like for those folks who are like, I just want it to end today. I've been dealing with this for X years or X weeks or X months or whatever, and maybe I'm not doing it right, or maybe I am not digging in enough, or maybe I have the wrong therapist. I don't know. I just those feelings of doubt, I want to normalize those because this doesn't feel like it's going to be a fast process.

How Long Healing Takes And Hope

SPEAKER_00 39:57

It is not by any means. So don't expect that, right? Like I think for anyone we want it to be fast. One of the main questions I get asked is how long will this take? Yes. So I um is there like a way to not do it, like not feel this, but like get to the end? And I'm like, if we had found it already, we would be doing it. Um problem is we have to, you know, the cliche kind of response, but we have to feel it to heal it.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

And moving through that. And sometimes it is opening the box up to go like that pain is there. So I I also hear kind of in your what you're saying right now is is there hope for change like for us? And I think the yes, it's like maybe the person that you're hoping for who they who you want them to change, recognizing that they probably won't, but you have the power and control to do your own change work. And that is hard work. Yes. Um, find a therapist that does inner child work or does parts work, does like early childhood trauma awareness stuff, like who gets it. Right. We're dealing with this because uh you're gonna need something that is more connected to the younger parts of you. You can tune to that, or some somatic work or some combination of the two. And I can say, you know, speaking about like the things that were going on with my my dad, I am in a completely different place now because I've had to do a lot of grieving work, I've had to do a lot of parts work, but I'm not activated around that issue anymore. I used to not be able to talk about it without full-on sobbing.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

No, I'm just like, yeah, that that's something that happened. Yeah. Being able to move through it. So, yes, there is absolutely hope to have your story be your story without it wrecking you.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

So I really want that to be heard. I know it because we're talking about really heavy stuff. It is heavy, it is not fun. No one who comes to my office is like, yay, I'm here for fun. No, people like, I don't want to be here today because it's gonna hurt. I'm like, I know, yes. Um, but I also know you're not gonna hurt forever. Yeah. As long as we keep moving through that, there will be change. And I really want to just leave everyone with that note of like that there is hope on the other side of this.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Um, and you can you can tolerate the pain to get there. It you can do it, it even if it feels like it'll take you over, you know. Yeah. So anyway, I hope that's useful to have a little like you it's sort of like you can do it. Um, but you need the right community and you need the space that's say safe to process it. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

And I I love that. I love that. I love that you're ending with a reminder that hope is there and it's a different kind of hope than we were talking about earlier, related to that healing fantasy. And so I'm grateful to have kind of a shift in the mindset toward that. And I just am just so grateful for you and how you've come to share. And I know that um folks listening have just been so moved and informed by the things you've shared. So thank you for saying yes, even though it is fun and not fun sometimes, you know? It's kind of a similar thing, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah, it does feel like that sometimes. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Beth. I really appreciate you and I appreciate your listeners and just really have like come to this with a lot of humility because I know I don't have all the answers, or I can't answer questions in a 45 or 50 minutes um episode. So I just hope everyone can hear this with a lot of gentleness and um. Where it takes them in their journey.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

So appreciate you so much. I love that. I love that. We're gonna end right there. Listen, folks, I'll I'll link to where you can find Jessica and all her work. But for now, stay safe, stay well. Thanks for being here. Ciao.