A vital part of staying on top of recovering from trauma is knowing what the signs are that it's time to take care of you.Self care is something we sometimes think can be put off. As soon as you recognize your triggers and you feel you're about to spiral, taking care of yourself is your top priority, We were neglected and abandoned as children so it's natural to think we don't matter. However, it's imperative we get to know ourselves and listen to the signs of your inner child crying for help. Teri Andersontrauma care childhood trauma recognizing signs heal yourselfchildhood traumaadverse childhood experiencesreparenting mental health awareness risk factors ptsd abandonment issuesmental health awarenessDigging Through Dominoes hello everyone and welcome back todigging through dominoes where weexamine the dominoes in our pastso we can change the game of our futurewelcome to digging through dominoes apodcast that looks at mental physicaland emotional trauma through real andinspiring conversationsthis is your safe haven that welcomesyou in but also isn't afraid to talkabout what hurts the mostand now here's your host teri andersontoday's episode's gonna be shorter thanthe others becausei'm not doing so greati've got some thingsshingles internal shingles what the heckwho ever thought about something likethatnot feeling so good plustherapy last week i have therapy everyfridayevery friday for yearsand i love my therapisti think a lot of people shy away fromtherapy because they cannot find atherapist that they can connect to andthat happened to me it took me years tofind the right therapistand the right psychiatrist and iyou know i've got a team you know thethree of us we really work at this hardwe work at keeping me healthyandabove above the surface of the waterwhen there are a lot of times that iwanted to be nothing but below thesurface of the waterwell this week in therapy we talkedabout some things that brought somethings up emotionally for methat reallyare affecting meand you know i want to be really blatantreally transparent really clear witheveryonei am still very affected by the thingsthat happened to me when i was a kid andi'm going to tell you about some of thatbut itwith the forewarning that this is goingto be a shorter episode this weekfor that very reason i'm trying to stillwork through these things and on thesurface they may not seem thatcrucialbut to me what it did it brought backthose feelings i had in fullforcewe were talking about the deathof the one person in my lifei knew loved mebeyondmeasurethat was my grandmotheri mean i want you to picture this okayhere i am this this little kid i wasprobablyfour or five years oldmy grandmotherhad a farmthat she rented outshe was very cosmopolitan very chic andyou know way coolshe was born on the farm she hated itshe was always embarrassed that she washad been born on a farm and she didn'thave shoes and she didn't have a horseto ride to school that she had to rideto school on a muleso she really pushed and pushed and shegot herself out of that town but shekept that farmand we were at the farm one time i don'tknow doing farm business or whatever shetook me with hera lotand there was i don't remember what itwas called it was sort of like areservoirit was likeyou know the beverly hillbillies theycall the swimming pool the concrete pondwell this to the best of my recollectionit was aa concretepond but it was above ground i don'tknow i don't know how big it was it hadsome fish in it and there was oneparticular fish i wantedand i'm watching this woman dress to theninestake her shoes off roll her pants upclimb into that reservoir whatever itwas to catch the only fish i wanted ididn't want any other fish i wanted thatone blue fishand i'm watching her with a jarwalk aroundtrying to catch that damn fishif that doesn't say i love youand iwant you to know i love youi don't know what doesbut she did itmy parents never would have done thatnever never neverbut we were talking about her and thethings that she had done that reallymade me feel wanted acceptedandcherishedand then what her death did to mebeing the age i was i was almost 16years old i had hadi was blessed i had a much longer timewith my grandmother than my my cousinsdidand i was also the first grandchildfor i was a girlfirst grandchild and therefore i heldthe crownin thegrandchild arena according to mygrandmotherandi have to say that my auntsi think they gave me a little bit ofgrace in that i thinkwith me i would have a little bit oftrouble with my p with my motherindulging one grandchild over anotherbut i think they may have had a littlegrace with mebecause they did seewhat i went through with my parentsbeing you know almost 16 there are somethings that they told me there were alot of things that they didn't tell mewe did some wonderful wonderful thingsbefore she died and when she diedit was the strangest thingi wasi was in bed i was asleep and my mothercame into my room and woke me upandshe said terry deena just diedi said i knowand my mother just collapsed crying onmewhich was for me very uncomfortable andvery unusual because my mother myparents did not touch me they did nothug me and i can remember looking backatchristmas photoswith my mother and her sisters and theirfamilies and we always get a pictureeveryevery christmasandin my aunt's families they're laying oneach other they're hugging each otherthey'reyou know being all lovey-doveybut in the fan the pictures with myfamilywe were about six inches aparteveryone's arms were crossed and no onewas touchingthat i think was the first time irealized there was a real legitimateproblem with my familyand i don't know how i got off on thattrack talking i guess because i didn'twant to reallyhave to talk about the death of mygrandmotherbut my mother came in and she said terryhad her dina had diedand i knewbecause i had just had a dreamif you could call it a dream or was itnot a dream did i actually travel theredid she beckon me to herin her final momentsi remember being in the bedroom that shewas inand we were talking i had been out andbought a dress that day for a schooldanceand there was a sandstorm which was veryunusual in dfwbut back on the farm it wasn't unusualat all they were all the timeand i remember telling her we talked fora bit she told me how much she loved mei was telling her you know she asked meabout my day i told her about thesandstorm it was just like thesandstorms back in big spring and ithurt it would sting your legs when youwould walk in it would sting your faceit was horribleand i don't know how how long i ifelt i was there seems like i was therelong enough to have a pretty goodconversation with her and thenat one point she told me she loved meagain and she said you need to go nowbecause sandy will be here in a minutesandy was my aunt and my grandmother wasat that time staying with my auntwhile she was sickand the next thing i knew my mother wastapping me on the shoulder telling methat she had died and my answer to herwas i i knowi was telling this to my therapist andweor he asked me a question he said terryhow long did it take youto really come to terms with the deathof your grandmother you speak about hera lotyou you let me know she was really youronlytrusted caregiver besides your yourother auntshow long did it take you to process herdeathand i sat back because that was aquestioni've thought of beforei know for about five or six years ididn't think about it it was actuallyseven years after she died and went tothe cemetery and i just fell apartin the cemeteryon her grave and i spent the entire daytherebut i wouldi told him something that i hadn'treally thought of before and that wasthat i pretended that she wasn't deadhere i am almost 16 years old and i'msayingto myself you know logically i knew mygrandmother was dead i was at thefuneral i saw the whole thing i wasthere i knew it but in my heart ofheartsiwould tell myself she was going toanother country to get treatmentshe was going to get well and she wasgoing to come back for me she wasn'tgoing to leave mein this situation that i was in she wasgoing to surprise us all she was goingto come back her hair was going to beback it was raven blackshe was gorgeousand she was going to be healthy andwhole and everything would be just likeit was when she was thereor at the times when i was with herand i he said really youyou had this fantasy it was like yeah itwas really you know i thought about it alot i thought about it it seems likealmost every dayyou know is she gonna come back today isshe gonna behere today i wonder what country she'sin today i wonder what treatment she'strying todayso i was reallytrying to convince myself i guess thatmy grandmother had not diedandthen he asked me if i hadever hadany otherum similar situationand i thought for a second i looked athimvirtuallyand said yeahwhen i was a little girli had a pretend familyand i knew they were a pretend family itwasn't like i was telling myself mygrandmother was cominghome but i kind of created my own familywhere i was safe i had even a nannyand her main jobwas to make sure that no onehurt me my mom and dad in that fantasyworld had hired herbasically for my protection and you knowwhen i look back at it now i almostwonder ifit was my grandmother that i had in thatrolebut i did i had this pretendfantasy familyit was perfect i would do things with mymom we would go places we would havefun she would cook which she didn't cookand she was teaching me these thingsand my dad was always really my real dadbut he was homehe was always home he wasn't flying hewasn't with other clients he was homelike the rest of the dads werebut i had a different mom and i had thisnanny and so we sort of talked throughthat and that brought up this huge rushof emotionin just how abandoned i felt as a childyou know my parents made sure i hadeverything i neededand i know when i was littleand my dad was going to school and hewas doing these things my mother stayedhome with usi know that my grandmother did pay for alot of things she paid for my dancelesson she paid for my christmas presentshe bought me clothesshe paid for a lot of things andas my dad's career took offthey they did make sure that we had thenecessities that we needed but nothingelseat least my mom my dad was gone mom camehome she'd go to bed she would close thedoor she would lock us outbut in my pretend family that didn'thappen and you knowat the time that my mother went back towork i was probably 12 years old maybe13 years oldheck i could have been older than thatbut i still had this pretend familywhere i was protected and i wouldretreat into that familyi wouldn't be hurti wouldn't be trying to get my mother'sattention that i was really therewe wouldn't get into fist fightsi mean my mother and i and i had somevery physical altercations when i wasyoungandi really don't know why i knowa lot of them ihad said somethingabout wanting to be with my aunt orwanting to be with my grandmother orwhen i was going to see them and i thinkthat set her off i think it provoked herandnow looking back on it you know at 60 or60 years old and seeing the trauma thatmy mother had gone throughnot having her mother there and then herdaughter is crying out for her sisterand her mother and not heri think thatreallyput more of a divide in thereand i take blame for that and i reallyshouldn'tbecause i was young and those were theonly people that had protected me and ifi cried out for themand was beaten like i wasor i wouldn't be spoken toor i would have to stay in my room forhowever many weeks it wasyou know the only safe place to be wasin a fantasy worldand i think that i kept that fantasyworld up for quite some timeyou know i knowuntil myinto my adulthoodon the outside i could be somebodycompletely differenti wasi appeared confident and self-assuredbut i wasn't i was scared i was scared iwas gonna lose something i was afraidthat i was gonna die in a car accidenti was afraid i had all of these fearswithin mebut i was putting on this brave facethis different faceso no one could see how horrible i wasthat my mother didn't love me the wayshe loved my brothersandthat i wasn'tso horrible that my dad chose aprofessionthat would take him away from me all thetimeand i know that's not what happened iknow that's not why my dad decided tobecome a pilothe loved flyingbut flying was really the other woman inhis life or was the woman in his lifeflying took him away from my mother tookhim away from us and my dad and i hadalways been very closeas close as we could be i guessit's really weird i just said thatand then i realized but wait a minuteterry your dad never hugged you your dadnever told you he loved youbut he showed me in ways he bought metoys he made toys for ushe did things that he would interactwith us my mother would nevernever do thatsothat's the way i knew my dad loved meand what's really weird is i don't everreally remember being hit by by my dad ido by my mother and i know my brotherswere hit by my father because iwitnessed it and it scared me to deathto think that that could come toward meand i always tried to be really goodwhen my dad was home because i didn'twant what i saw my brothersgetbut at the same time my gosh being solostandnot realizing a lot of this until i wasabout 58 years old is when i felt safeenough to start letting this come outthat says a lotthat says how much damage and how muchfear was thereand to think of everything that i'velostbecause i implodedin 2008 when my dad died or he died in2007 my mother in 2006 2008 i fell apartand i think i've told you that's becausei thought it was safe to do so thenandi reallywent to rock bottomi had to rebuild every part of myselfand i don't think it was until the lasttwo yearsyou know 2020 2019 2020 that i reallymade a lot ofconnectionsand realizedi wasn't the bad kidmy aunts were telling me i was adelightful child my grandmother loved memy dad started talking to me a whole lotmore after he diedabout how important it was to let yourkids know they you loved themand he you know he still he was stillvery uncomfortable with with anythinglike that he wasbasically left in a playpenumall day long while his mother worked andthe neighbor would come up and feed andchange himso my dadhadmy parents had traumas of their own todeal withand last friday talking to my i thinktexas just came out of my mouth when isaid fridaytalking to my therapist itit's made for a really long really hardweekend i've slept most of it i went toa couple ofi went to see friends performthey're jazz musiciansi went to you know somea couple of things this weekend and ithelped but it it it really umit distracted meand it reminds me how i would distractmyself before i knew what was going onbefore i knew i had cptsd before i knewthat there was reallyan emotional problem that i needed towork onand i would escapeand i feel that's what's happening rightnowand ii really did a lot of research this weekand i was okay i was okay during thedoing the research i was okay puttingeverything togetherbutfridaywith therapyit put everything in a new light a newpicture for meit brought the past alive it brought itback full forceand i'm i meani'm struggling right nowvanderumwhere is that let me find it herebessel vander kulkmany of you if you've if you read a lotonptsd trauma neglectabuse such things such as that you'llyou'll know that name vessel vanderkulthe saidpeople talk about trauma as an eventthat happened a long time agobut what trauma isis the imprints that event has left onyour mind and in your sensationsthe discomfortyou feel and the agitation you feel andthe rage and the helplessness you feelright nowthat's where i am right now i'm not inthe in in thein the present i'm finenot reallyi'm not talking about you know presentdayday problemsit really resurrectedflashbacks for meof when i was a child and some of thethings that had went on had gone onand so i'm having a difficult time soi'm going to ask you to forgive me but iam going to cut this short becausei need to focus on me right nowfor the next couple of days at least andhopefully have afull-length podcast episode upnext tuesdaybut i need to be awareas you do of what your triggers arewhat you need to do to bring them downand sometimes when we push through wepush through so farthat we fallface first because there's somethingemotionally we need to deal withat that time at that momentand i know for me it comes when i startsleeping as much as i've been sleepingso i need to do some soul searching ineed to figure this out i need to sortout this fantasy family and the fantasythat my grandmother had never died youknow those are things that i held and ithink i put them in a box and put themaway but they're really quite disturbingright now and i don't think it'si really don't feel it's like inanyone's best interest for me to go onand domore of an episodeon trauma on ptsd on cptsd at the momentbecause right now i feel like a brokenjarand i know that it has been put togetherbut what bessel vanderkolk said abouttheimprintit's still therei need to take that seriously because ineed you guys to take it seriouslyand i need to bein this positionif i'm going to be doing a podcast onmental healthovercomingcptsd and traumaand i find myself in a position where ineed help i need to be able to bereal with you and sayhey i'm sorry this has to be a shortkind ofon the flyepisode because i need to recognizewhat my inner child is crying out forand that's weird trying to re-parentyour inner child the first time i didthat it was like way weirdand i was in the i was in a flashbackandi realized i was in a flashback and irealized what i was feeling at that timeno was nowhere nearwhat the moment called fori realized i was feeling what i wasfeeling when i was a little kid in thesame thing it happened to meand so what i did wasi'm talking to myself i'm talking tolike little terry there saying it's okayyou're safe with mei'm gonna take care of youi'm not not gonna let anything happen toyouyou are safei mean she was just three four five sixyears old i'm 60. i think i cantake care and protecta little child especially if that littlechild dwells within meso i need to heed that calling and ineed to do that i hope you'll forgive mefor thathopefully next week we'll be back with arevelatoryepisode ofgrand proportionsand that everyone will be able to learnsomethingbutlook at me and look at yourselfif you're feeling your triggersyou're walking through your triggers andyou know what your triggers are listento themand take care of yourselfso that's what i'm going to doi'm going to say bye for nowand i will see younext weekthank you for listening to diggingthrough dominoesmake sure you subscribe so you don'tmiss any future episodes in the meantimeconnect with terry on facebook andinstagram at digging through dominoes ontwitter at digging dominoes and onlineat digging through dominos.comuntil next time thank you for listening[Music]