SHITSHOW SATURDAY #150 - Teresa N.

Summary

Adult Child Podcast

SHITSHOW SATURDAY #150 – Teresa N.

April 19, 2025

Host: Andrea
Guest: Teresa N.

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Overview

This episode features a raw and vulnerable conversation between Andrea and Teresa N. about the long-lasting impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family, codependency, alcoholism, complex trauma (CPTSD), generational trauma, toxic shame, and the challenging journey toward healing. Teresa shares her life story—from her childhood in a chaotic home through substance abuse and trauma, to rebuilding her life and repairing relationships with her children. Together, they explore the importance of community, somatic healing, internal family systems (IFS), and the courage to confront the past.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Finding the "Shitshow" Community and Discovering Adult Child Identity

• Teresa’s Discovery

  • Found the Adult Child podcast after it was recommended, quickly became involved in its community, particularly the support groups focused on IFS (Internal Family Systems).
  • "It feels like home. I found my family." (Teresa, 01:03)

• Self-Identification as an Adult Child

  • Teresa’s realization began in young adulthood after moving to New York at 17 in search of a fresh start and an acting career, post her father's entry into sobriety.
  • Initial exposure to ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meetings, learning about the "laundry list traits."
  • Teresa’s reaction to being told she needed to "get well", feeling frustrated: "You guys are the ones that messed me up...I guess I need to go do something about it." (Teresa, 03:01)

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2. Childhood Dynamics, Trauma, and the Burden of Dysfunction

Growing Up in Montana

• Youngest of four, parents both adult children from Catholic, authoritarian, emotionally repressive backgrounds.
• Father: alcoholic, emotionally absentee; Mother: raged, scapegoated Teresa.
• Teresa labeled as "too sensitive", "the problem", and suffered chronic invalidation.
• Early suicide attempt at age 14; mother’s response: “she didn’t have time for my shit.” (Teresa, 13:15)
• "Expressing emotions was a big no-no in my family...you had to keep the family secret." (Teresa, 12:04)

Generational Trauma & The Role of Religion

• Stories of her father's childhood abuse (beaten for being left-handed by nuns, shamed, neglected).
• Both parents caught in cycles of shame, repression, and unrealistic expectations.
• "My parents couldn’t give their own kids what they never received." (Teresa, 21:15)

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3. Escaping, Substance Abuse, and Emotional Numbing

Coping Strategies and Early Adulthood

• Escaped to New York, worked as a nanny, then university staff; sexually assaulted as a young adult, which deeply compounded her shame and sense of worthlessness.
• Joined the military, repeated family dynamics by marrying an alcoholic, later became the alcoholic in her second marriage.

Progression of Alcoholism

• Made an oath as a teen to never become an alcoholic or marry one; eventually alcoholism took hold after life crises in her 40s.
• "I say that for five years I crawled into the bottom of a bottle and just disappeared." (Teresa, 07:00)
• Drinking escalated rapidly from one glass to all-day drinking within six months.

Recovery Initiation

• DUI arrest in 2015 was a turning point; haven't drunk since.
• Initially found community in AA, but realized the need for deeper trauma work; resonated with an ACA member’s words: "The things that we bury get buried alive and then they eat us from the inside out." (10:26)
• "I can't get to the wounding." (Teresa, 10:52)

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4. Discovering Neurodivergence

Genetic Discovery

• Learned about her and both sons’ neurodivergence after genetic testing (microduplication in chromosome 17; son’s microdeletion in chromosome 22).
• Reflections on lifelong masking, difficulty fitting in, and the grief and anger that came with finally understanding her differences.
• "Oh, my god, I got pummeled as a kid by my own family...nobody listened to me." (Teresa, 25:24)

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5. Healing: Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatics, and Breathwork

Initial Therapy Experiences

• Family discouraged therapy—anytime progress was made, her mother pulled her out to avoid exposure of family secrets.
• As an adult, found lasting healing through IFS and somatic approaches after leaving AA.

IFS and "Parts" Work

• Worked with coach Bill Tierney for 18 months; discovered and unburdened multiple “parts” (e.g., a rage part, “grizzly bear mama,” exiled young selves).
• A pivotal somatic memory: revisiting an 18-month-old self during a stressful diaper-changing episode, leading to resolution of lifelong GI issues.
• "As soon as I showed up for her...I said, 'you're safe, I've got you.' ...After that session I didn't have a problem at all in my GI tract." (Teresa, 36:38)
• "I'm not crazy...we're all born with multiplicity." (Teresa, 32:56)

Embracing Somatic Practice & Breathwork

• Combined somatic work, parts work, and breathwork; credits these modalities for deep transformation.
• “The only way that we can connect our mind to our body is through our breath...when we go into survival mode, we cut ourselves off from our body.” (Teresa, 39:30)
• Emphasized breathwork as a portable, daily tool for emotional processing and suggested integrating breathwork into community practices.

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6. Repairing Family Relationships

Healing Parental Relationships

• Neither parent able or willing to discuss or own family dysfunction; Teresa has compassion, but no expectation of change from them.

Relationship with Siblings

• Sister has engaged in decades of therapeutic work; brothers are distant, no close bonds remaining.

Rebuilding with Her Children

• Grapples with guilt and accountability for trauma experienced by her sons, especially the younger (parentification, emotional neglect, assigning unhealthy roles).
• Healing began after sobriety and intensification of inner work. Allowed her younger son to voice his pain, “letting him say all that he needed to say, and allowing myself to hear it.”
• Used IFS “parts” language to foster understanding and eventually guided her son through his own self-work.
• "For our relationship that we have today...it is so, so beautiful. It takes my breath away." (Teresa, 50:36)

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7. The Power of Community

Staying vs. Running

• Teresa’s history of running away from vulnerability was interrupted by intentionally staying in the “Shit Show” group.
• "Allowing myself to be seen in my shit show moments...and to have that witnessed and embraced from a space of non-judgment and love..." (Teresa, 53:56)

Group Process as Relational Healing

• The importance of witnessing each other’s pain in a group as a corrective, reparative experience—"That’s what we’ve needed the entire time: to be witnessed." (Teresa, 54:46)
• “When people say, well, you can’t go back, you can’t change the past—yes you can. You can go back and you can give your little inner child what they’ve needed this entire time.” (Teresa, 55:20)
• Praised Andrea for “turning your pain into purpose” and building a healing community.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It feels like home. I found my family."
  —Teresa, on joining the community (01:03)

• “You guys are the ones that messed me up…so there was an Al-Anon book, and somehow I got information on ACOA meetings and…that’s when I…I’m an adult child.”
  —Teresa, early realization of family dysfunction (03:01)

• "I say that for five years I crawled into the bottom of a bottle and just disappeared."
  —Teresa, on her period of alcoholism (07:00)

• “The things that we bury get buried alive and then they eat us from the inside out.”
  —AA meeting attendee (relayed by Teresa), on what keeps pain alive (10:26)

• "She didn’t have time for my shit. And she walked away."
  —Teresa, after her suicide attempt at 14 (13:15)

• "We’re all born with multiplicity…my system was just responding to protecting myself."
  —Teresa, on the power of IFS (32:56)

• "As soon as I showed up for her…she just felt safe and I could feel the safety and it was, it was so impactful."
  —Teresa, on healing an inner child memory (36:05)

• "The only way that we can connect our mind to our body is through our breath…it is our medicine."
  —Teresa, on breathwork (39:30)

• "Let that emotion complete its cycle and get it out of your body. Let it process. We can’t do that without the breath."
  —Teresa, on emotional processing (41:58)

• "I had to show up and I had to be accountable and I had to hear what he had to say."
  —Teresa, on repairing her relationship with her younger son (48:57)

• "To have that witnessed and embraced from a space of non-judgment and love…that’s the moment the healing begins."
  —Teresa, on the power of group support (54:46)

• "Thank you for turning your pain into purpose. And thank you for suiting up and showing up even when you’re a shit show."
  —Teresa, to Andrea (55:31)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Finding the Podcast and Community – 01:10–01:37
• Early ACOA Experience & Family Impact – 02:45–05:06
• Alcoholism and Recovery Journey – 07:00–10:52
• IFS and Core “Parts” Work – 31:10–37:21
• Neurodivergence and Diagnosis – 22:09–26:20
• Breathwork and Somatic Healing Explained – 38:52–42:29
• Repairing Relationships with Children – 45:28–51:28
• Group Healing & The Power of Vulnerability – 51:43–55:31

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Final Reflections

The conversation offers frank, compassionate insight on the realities of generational trauma, family dysfunction, addiction, and the deeply non-linear path to healing. Teresa’s story is marked by honesty and hope, underscoring the necessity of community, somatic practice, and courageous self-accountability. The “Shit Show” community is depicted as a vital space for witnessing, support, and collective transformation.

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Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome back to Shit Show Saturday. We have a very special Shit Show. Shit Show. Teresa, welcome.

[Teresa]

Thank you for having me.

[Podcast Host]

When did you join the ship?

[Teresa]

I think January maybe. Maybe December or January. Yeah. Not that long ago.

[Podcast Host]

Doesn't it feel like. How could it possibly be that short? You know?

[Teresa]

It feels like home. It feels like home. I found my family.

[Podcast Host]

When? And how did you find the podcast?

[Teresa]

Somebody mentioned it to me. I googled it right away and listened to it and I was like, oh, I love this. This is it. And then I said, saw that you had all the different offerings, the support groups throughout the week. And then I saw the. The parts group, the IFS group. I'm like, oh, I'm in. I'm in. And I just joined right then and there. And I love it. I love the community you've created. Yeah, that was it. Absolutely. No question. No questions.

[Podcast Host]

It's been great having you. What song do you want played when you walk into a room?

[Teresa]

Let It Be by the Beatles.

[Podcast Host]

When the night is cloudy There is still a light that shines on me Shine until tomor.

[Teresa]

Let it be.

[Podcast Host]

Excellent, excellent choice. Carbohydrate potatoes. How?

[Teresa]

In the instant pot, just cut up with some, maybe lightly buttered with some herbs on top.

[Podcast Host]

Nice and plain. Nice. Okay. Cheese.

[Teresa]

Ah, let me see. That's a toss up. I love blue cheese. Oh my gosh. Now I can't even think of it. It's, ah. I can't even think of the name of it.

[Podcast Host]

Is it like blue cheese?

[Teresa]

Feta cheese? Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And then condiment.

[Teresa]

Brown mustard.

[Podcast Host]

Brown mustard. Are you a condiment gal, Teresa, or not so much. I'm going to say not so much. Based off your potatoes.

[Teresa]

Yeah, not so much.

[Podcast Host]

You're a plain Jane. So how did you learn that you were an adult child?

[Teresa]

I learned I was an adult child when I moved to. I graduated high school at 17. I moved to New York and my idea was I was going to become an actress and make it famous and then, you know, the world was going to see me and then I was.

[Podcast Host]

Going to matter do you want to do Broadway?

[Teresa]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I can't, you know, I can't sing, but I could act and all that other fun stuff. But, yeah, do Broadway plays, off Broadway, whatever. Eventually be cast in a movie, of course. But my dad had gone to treatment. He had gotten sober probably when I was about 13. And so this was, you know, four years later. And I remember receiving in the mail, I. I want to say it was the Al Anon book. And there was like a message of. And I just remember it really, really upset me because it was a message of, you know, you have to get well. You're messed up. You have to get well. And I thought, well, you guys are the ones that messed me up, you know, so there was an Al Anon book, and somehow I got information on ACOA meetings, and I started to. I started attending those in Manhattan, and it was just a handful of meetings that I attended. And I remember being. Being made aware of the laundry list traits. And so that's when. That's when. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm an adult child. I'm an alcoholic. Okay. I guess I need to go do something about it.

[Podcast Host]

Was it like a typical meeting?

[Teresa]

Not like they have today?

[Podcast Host]

No.

[Teresa]

I don't remember the whole structure that, like, you have, like, with AA and whatnot. I don't remember that. I just remember being at a church and there was probably 75 or more people, and you would just raise your hand when you wanted to stand up and speak, and you had to stand up and speak pretty loud. You just introduced yourself, your age, where you were from, and just shared what. What was. What was on your heart. I don't remember there being, like, a topic or anything. I just remember a room full of people that were sharing. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So interesting.

[Teresa]

And that was 1988.

[Podcast Host]

So then did you just, like, put it completely aside?

[Teresa]

Yeah, I did. And I, you know, I was 17 when I moved to New York, and I started out being a nanny. I had three or four families that I worked for.

[Podcast Host]

Did you know anybody there when you moved?

[Teresa]

No.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. Were you nervous?

[Teresa]

Parts of me were nervous, but I knew I had to get away from my family life. I was really, really running. And I. I knew that is if I could get as far enough away as possible, things would be okay for me. And that wasn't the case. And I ended up getting a job at the City University of New York, Hunter College in Manhattan. I worked in the registrar's office, like, the last year that I lived there. But while I was there, there were some Some traumas that I had suffered while I was there. I had worked really hard, I got myself together, I was eating well, I stopped drinking, I had been a sm, I stopped smoking. I was in really good physical shape. And I accepted a date from a guy that was a few years older than me and he sexually assaulted me. And the, the message that I got from that was, see, I'm just never going to amount to anything. There was just a whole bunch of messaging around that. And I didn't tell anybody. I think I was 35 before I even mentioned to anybody that that had happened. So I became very frightened living in New York. And so it made sense to, to run again. And I joined the military and then married an alcoholic and then had my son and got into a second marriage and by the end of that marriage had a, had another son and was the alcoholic.

[Podcast Host]

So then I'm curious. I don't want to go back to your childhood yet. I kind of want to hear this trajectory of like, how then, or actually, let's go to your alcoholism bottom, like, when did your drinking become a problem?

[Teresa]

It became an issue in my teenage years. I started abusing alcohol as a way to escape. And that was sort of off and on. And then I made a decision that I was, I was never going to be an alcoholic, and I was never going to marry an alcoholic. And so you fast forward to probably age 40 after, you know, I lived in, you know, we talk about functional freeze. I raised my children in a state of functional freeze. I lived in this hyper vigilant state for so many decades. And then after a series of some pretty significant life blows, I just didn't know how else to cope. And I turned to alcohol. And I say that for five years I crawled into the bottom of a bottle and just disappeared. So from roughly age 40 to 46, I was, I was pretty, I was pretty gone. And then I got a DUI and never drank after that.

[Podcast Host]

When you made that oath to yourself that you were never going to become an alcoholic, did you stop drinking or you just didn't drink alcoholically?

[Teresa]

I abstained. There was no alcohol.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. Do you remember when you first had a drink, like when you picked it back up, do you have a memory of that?

[Teresa]

Actually, there was a time, okay, so in 19, it was in the 90s, 1994, going into 1995, New Year's Eve, I was going to go to a New Year's Eve party. My husband at the time and I were invited to a New Year's Eve party. And I Brought a couple bottles of wine to share, and I ended up drinking both bottles of wine. And I was, I was horrified because I didn't even really feel drunk. And that's when I was like, no, I'm. I'm never, ever. And that's. From that point on, I completely abstained. There was, there was no alcohol. When there was a series of things that had happened in my life in my 40s, and I just remember thinking, I'm just going to have a glass of wine with dinner. I'm just, I'm just going to calm my nerves. That's all I want to do is just want to calm my nerves. And it was wine, you know, after dinner, then it was wine with dinner, then it was, I don't need dinner. I'm just going to drink wine. And then it was drinking wine in the morning, all through the day, into the evening. And then there was harder alcohol. And then I couldn't stop. As much as I wanted to stop, I absolutely could not stop.

[Podcast Host]

Such a dark place, you know? Yeah. Watch. It's so crazy too. How long do you think that progression was of like from that first glass of wine to when it really was like an all day thing?

[Teresa]

Less than a year? Less than six months? Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Gosh, that saying of your diseases out in the parking lot doing push ups is so, so true. So talk about getting sober.

[Teresa]

I was arrested for DUI on July 29, 2015, and it was a single, single car accident. And I knew I was in trouble and I went to an. I went to an AA meeting the very next day and haven't had a drink since. But I realized after about three years in AA that it wasn't the place for me. I wasn't getting to the healing. I didn't feel like I was one of them. I didn't feel like I was an aa. And then a woman stood up in a meeting and she was part of aca. And she said, the wounds that. The things that we bury get buried alive and then they eat us from the inside out. And I was like, that's. That's what's happening to me. I. I can't get to the wounding. And I left AA and I went back to aca. And shortly after that, I started working with a coach who was a level two practitioner in ifs. And that was my opening up point. That was like, oh my gosh, this is it, this is. And I've always regarded that parts are the disease of. When we say we have a disease with alcoholism, it's unburdened parts. I mean, it's burdened parts that are carrying wounds. That's what the disease is.

[Podcast Host]

Had you ever so like this? The brief stint in ACA when you were a teenager and then before getting sober, had you ever done any therapy or any sort of like work on yourself?

[Teresa]

No, no. The. In the short stints I had in therapy were very short lived because as soon as there was like any sort of breakthrough or anything, I think my mom got a little bit nervous that the family dysfunction was going to be exposed and so she'd pull me out.

[Podcast Host]

Of course.

[Teresa]

Of course.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, well then before we go into like healing, which I can't wait to hear all about, let's backtrack to your upbringing. Paint the picture.

[Teresa]

Okay, so let's see. The youngest of four kids, hard working parents, really good work ethic. My, my parents just really valued that. But there was.

[Podcast Host]

Where did you grow up?

[Teresa]

I grew up in Great Falls, Montana. Okay. Yeah. My parents were both ACAs that came together and wanted better for their children. Wanted better, didn't know how to produce it. My dad was the alcoholic and my mom, I say, was a rage aholic. And I was the scapegoat of the family. And you know, in aca you're not allowed to think, you're not allowed to talk, you're not allowed to feel. Expressing emotions was a big no no in my family. And I was a deeply emotional child. I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard, I wanted to be understood. And it, it was just a lot of unspoken pain. And you were expected to get up. You were expected to know the rules without having the rules explained to you. And no matter what happened, you needed to get up and find a way to make it through the day, find a way to appear that everything was okay. You had to keep the family secret. And I was a rebellious child as well. So I wasn't. I just. I was, I was the one that was the greatest risk of exposing what was happening in the family. So there was a lot of scapegoating that went into getting me to shut down, to be quiet, being labeled the problem if it weren't for you. And I internalized a lot of that. I attempted to. I attempted suicide at 14 years old to escape. And I came desperately close. And when it, when it didn't work, there was a lot of hopelessness in that because I had to return there. There literally was no escape. And probably an hour or so after learning what I had done, my mom's response was that she didn't have time for my shit. And she walked away. And that, I know, was just a time of dissociation for me. Just very despondent, a lot of depression. And that's when alcohol really entered my, my experience as a teenager. Promiscuity, risk taking, anything to survive. And there's, there's a lot that I don't remember. And that's, that's what I wanted to run from. I, I, I just wanted to get away from that.

[Podcast Host]

Was, were you present or were you aware that alcoholism was present when you were a kid? Like, was it spoken of at all? Were you conscious that your dad had a drinking problem?

[Teresa]

No, because he spent. He, he drank away from the family. He would, he went on work, work trips or conventions or whatever, and that's where he drank. There. He, there wasn't. I don't recall ever seeing him drunk in front of me. Maybe, maybe a couple of times. And it was more the neglect and the emotional abuse and the rejection and the shaming, just the constant criticism and just never feeling safe, never feeling emotionally safe.

[Podcast Host]

What was the relationship like between your parents?

[Teresa]

Oh, volatile. I don't ever. I remember being downstairs in the basement often watching tv, and their fights would just be so horrendous that, and we would, it was so normal. We would just, you know, turn the TV up so we could drown out their shouting and screaming. Yeah, not, not a happy marriage.

[Podcast Host]

Where did they meet?

[Teresa]

I think my dad was in the Navy and my mom was living in California. And as adult children, they were attracted, you know, it made sense. It made sense that they were attracted to each other. Both of my parents were raised Catholic. My mom was one of two kids and my dad was one of four kids. And both went all through Catholic Catholic school. My dad grew up in Michigan, my mom grew up in Montana. And so there was just that. I make a point of mentioning, you know, the Catholic school because there was a lot of shaming and, and whatnot around that. A lot of guilt, a lot of shame. And my dad was left handed. And he would tell me stories, he would tell us kids stories about having the nuns would crack his knuckles until they bled with, with, with a ruler because being left handed was of the devil. His dad was a terrible, terrible drunk and his mom was a very staunch Catholic. And there was just a lot of, a lot of violence, a lot of rejection, abandonment, shaming. Really, really, really difficult life. I have a lot of compassion for my dad as a little boy having had to grown up in that surrounding. And I have an uncle his little brother who has, who died from alcoholism. And then his older sister, she died of cancer, but she was a closet alcoholic. And he joined the Navy. And my mom had graduated her Catholic school. And she grew up in an era of children to be seen and not heard and showing emotion and whatnot just was not acceptable. I think she, she just, everything had to be kept inside. So she graduated and she ends up in San Francisco. My dad ends up in San Francisco in the Navy. They meet each other and someone actually approached my mom and said, you know, you need to think twice about this guy. And she's like, oh no, you know, it's going to be okay. And so they're getting ready to get married and it's a few days before the wedding, and my mom says to my grandmother, her mom, she says, you know, I don't want to do this.

[Podcast Host]

Did your mom tell you this story?

[Teresa]

Yes, yes. And so the response that my mom received from her mother was, well, it's a little late now because his mother's on the train, like on her way here. So just, you know, so I can only imagine. Nope, nope. How you feel doesn't matter. What you're experiencing, doesn't matter. You, you can't upset this, this future mother in law. We can't upset her. So you have to alter your entire life to forego upsetting the apple cart. I guess so. By the time my mom was 28 and my dad was 29, they had four kids. 1968, I was the fourth of four kids. So my mom's in a marriage that she doesn't want to be in and a lot of repressed anger and my dad, a lot of drinking. He oftentimes would go to the bar after work, not come home. My sister had stories about how my mom would bundle all of us kids up and she would drive around town and she would look for him and try to find out where he was. A lot of fighting, and my mom had a lot of repressed rage that came out sideways when nobody was looking. And I have one story that she's told me. And in my mind I feel like this was the defining moment of what turned me into the scapegoat. And it was shortly after I was born. She had me all bundled up, ready to taken to his job. He was a baker and she was going to show me off and da, da, da, da, da. And she gets in there and she said a couple of the female employees kind of looked like, oh, you know, the wife is here. And she was pointed to like A storage room or something. And she went back in the bakery, back to the storage room and she felt like she walked in on something that was happening between my dad and a female employee. And I feel like at that moment I just, I don't know, something for her just must have got so heavy. But I became the scapegoat at some point. And I remember in those early years being really young, two years old and just being really teased and teased and teased by my older siblings where I would be like screaming, you know, stop. Or I'd be crying, stop, stop, stop. And I remember one occasion I could see my mom, she was, she was in vision and my siblings are teasing me and I'm crying and crying and I finally just let out this blood curdling scream and she grabbed a bar of soap and charged at me and just washed my mouth out. So there was a lot of needling until I exploded. Then when I exploded, I got into trouble. And so it just, there was this lot of, a lot of targeting that I was the problem. And I was a highly sensitive child. I was very emotional. Things affected me deeply and I grew up often hearing that I was too sensitive, I was overreacting, I was dramatic. I would just speak to hear the sound of my own voice. And I didn't understand things as readily as everybody else around me. And I know now that I'm neurodivergent, but I didn't know that then and neither did anybody else. A lot of comparison of, you know, none of the other, you know, your siblings don't struggle with math, you know, why should you? When I didn't understand homework and I would ask for help, it's your homework, you need to figure it out. Nobody else has trouble with their homework. You're just not applying yourself. So a lot of messages that about it. It's your problem, it's your fault. And if I was, if there was like, if I was suffering emotionally or crying or struggling, it was my fault, I. They would, there would be like this tracing back of, well, if you hadn't done this, you wouldn't be crying right now. If you hadn't done that, this wouldn't be happening. So everything, there was never any compassion or comforting or mirroring of emotion. And not just for me. I think it was the same for my siblings as well. My parents couldn't give their own kids what they never received. So it makes sense that everything got passed on the way it got passed on.

[Podcast Host]

So when did you, when did you come to terms with the neurodivergence for yourself. When was that awakening for you?

[Teresa]

Okay, My oldest son has a chromosomal issue. He. He has a micro deletion of the 22nd chromosome.

[Podcast Host]

Did you know. Did you know that when you were pregnant?

[Teresa]

Okay, no. No. I bet. But I knew something was wrong the moment I got pregnant, Andrea. The moment the sperm hit the egg, I was like, I. Number one, I knew it was a boy. And number two, I knew that something was wrong. And I begged the military for ultrasounds. I'm like, something's wrong. They're like, no, you're just a, you know, first time scared mom, you know, you know, whatever. And, yeah, paranoid. And then as it turns turns out, this chromosomal issue caused a birth defect in him in utero that was spilling over, causing me a lot of problems. And the military had actually diagnosed it in two separate ultrasounds, and they chose not to tell me. And he ended up being in fetal. Fetal distress for four weeks or so because of it. Severe fetal distress. And when all the dust settled, everything, he was born critically ill. Come to find out that the. The doctor who had been treating me, her attitude was, the military doesn't need expensive dependents. It needs soldiers. And they were going to let nature take its course. But I. I fought. I was too loud. You know, I made sure my son was born. So Anyway, he was 8, 8 or 9 years old when we learned that he had this micro deletion of the 22nd chromosome. And the genetics clinic said, you know, about every four or five years, we're going to have you come back and we're just going to do what we call a microarray of genetic testing to see if there's anything else that shows up. So in about, I want to say, 2012, they did another microarray, and they discovered that he had a deficiency or a microduplication of the 17th chromosome. And they said, okay, we want you and your other son to come in. And I didn't think anything of it. I thought, well, I'm sure we're fine. But then it turns out that both Cody and I also have this microduplication of the 17th chromosome, which.

[Podcast Host]

Microduplication.

[Teresa]

It means that there's the. In the 17th chromosome. It's called 17q12. So the 17th chromosome, the. The Q leg and the 12th band, there is a repeating piece of it. So there's like, millions and millions of pieces of extra genetic information which causes this neurodiversity that Cody and I have. And Zachary has it as well. So when I learned that many Things started to make sense to me because I knew I was different. I knew that I understood things differently. I knew that I needed to learn differently. I knew that I had difficulty fitting in and socializing. And by the time I was in junior high, I was really. I was very much high, masking to fit in and just, just struggled, just struggled my whole life. And so in a way, it was a relief to learn that, but in another way, it was. There was just a lot of grief behind that. And then of course, there was grief for my younger son because he's what you would call what used to be classified as Asperger's and now they call it autism level one. And he's incredibly smart, highly, highly intelligent. He has a master's degree in international relations and, you know, he's. He struggles socially as well. And he also grew up being very high masking. So it was a relief to learn this, but there was also a lot of grief and then there was a lot of anger because I, I knew. It's like, oh, my God, I got, I got pummeled as a kid by my own family and everything. Nobody listened to me. Nobody. So, yeah, it was, it was, it was just a lot. There was just a lot around that.

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[Podcast Host]

Clearly, you ended up in ACA at 19. You knew that your childhood was dysfunctional. However, have you always been able to see it with clarity? Or do you feel like there were aspects of denial that you've come to terms with over the past, however long it's been? Seven years.

[Teresa]

You mean like the clarity of understanding?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, just. Yeah, just how impacted you were or just truly how Dysfunctional and toxic it was.

[Teresa]

I'm still coming to terms with that. I have a lot of clarity around my parents. I have compassion for just from a parts work perspective. When I look at my mom and I think of, you know, getting married young and having four children by 1968 and living in a, in a time where women didn't have near the voice that they have today. And domestic violence was sort of, you know, if, if, if, if your husband came home and smacked you around a little bit, what did you do wrong? Or if your husband didn't come home from work and went straight to the bar, well, you know, it's okay. You know, he needs time to relax too. And there just wasn't support systems for women if they found themselves in a situation where they wanted to get divorced with children. So I know that she felt very stuck. She was raised Catholic. There was a lot of shaming, there was a lot of expectation in just that narrative for her. So I know that she did the very, very best that she could with what she had, and there was no relief for her either. But. So I have that clarity. But where I struggle today is just needing to have that conversation of, you know, let's come to terms with what happened and for my own sake and for the loyalty to my system. That's something that I would need to have in order to really step into having a healing relationship with her. And I just don't think that it's possible on, on her end. But I have clarity around what, why she did what she did, why she behaved the way she behaved. She was surviving the same with my dad. He came from Catholic upbringing, a lot of shaming. His. His mother was, you know, dismissive, rejecting. She was a taskmaster. His father was a very, very heavy drinking alcoholic, and a lot of abuse, a lot of rejection, a lot of shaming. And he really, both of my parents really, really wanted a different life. They wanted much better than what they were able to produce. They just didn't have the skills to do so. But given, you know, today, the years that have gone by, they're certainly capable of being able to have those conversations. And for whatever reason, they just, they. They just don't.

[Podcast Host]

And have any of your siblings gone down a healing path?

[Teresa]

I think my sister has really worked, worked hard. She's done a lot of talk therapy. She's done emdr. She's. She's really dedicated many decades to doing her own healing. I can't say the same for my brothers because we just don't have a Connective relationship at all.

[Podcast Host]

Do you have a relationship with your sister?

[Teresa]

Not really. We've tried. We will text occasionally, but it's sad, and it's really kind of heartbreaking that we just can't connect. I have parts of me that are still fearful and sort of guarded, so I don't know. I don't know what it would take for us to. For. For us to have a connected relationship at this point.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, there might just be too much baggage, you know, and that's okay, is what it is. So I want to hear about how this healing journey unfolded for you. So you found this coach, did you? Ifs. I'm sure you probably had not been familiar with it, but how did it kind of unfold?

[Teresa]

I. I was familiar with ifs. Well, not ifs in terms of ifs, but in 1994, I remember trying to work through something that was. That was just very traumatizing for me emotionally and intuitively. Something said, just turn off all the lights and lay down on the couch and just replay the memory. And I replayed the memory, and the. The. The adult me came into the memory and write it, everything. And it felt good, but it didn't. It. It didn't, like, you know, do the trick. You know, the memory was still there, and it was still difficult, but just that. That idea that I did that. I believe that our. And so by the time I discovered this coach, I was like, oh, my gosh. I kind of did something like this. And then to see that there's, like, all of these steps to it and it's a real thing, it's like, this is so fascinating. And right away, my system responded. I had parts that were just, like, really on board and ready to go. It was very much, though, like trying to peel apart a spider web. There was. There was a lot, but I really, really enjoyed it. And I stayed with him for 18 months.

[Podcast Host]

What do you think the most significant part was that you worked with. When you were working with him?

[Teresa]

There was a part that is. It has shrunk. It's very, very small today. And it's. It comes in, like. I was talking about it last night. It comes in like an iron fist, and it's the part that would shut me down. And it used to be. It used to feel like just a steel piece of armor that would be on my body from my neck all the way, just covering my entire torso, and it would just put me into a freeze. I'm not allowed to feel. I'm not allowed to feel. I'm not Allowed to express. I'm not allowed to cry. I'm just. Just stay still. Just get through this. You have to keep showing up. And don't think, don't feel. There was a lot of work that we did with that part. I ended up with, like, seven major parts of me. There was grizzly bear mama. There was a rage part that I worked with that she was able. She showed up as, like, a. Just like this lava volcano, and she has shrunk down. I haven't heard from my rage part in quite a while, but it was really exciting to be able to connect with these parts and see that. Oh, my gosh, I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy, because there was a time when I would see these parts shifting, and sometimes it would feel like somebody shoved me into the trunk of a car and the car took off, and it was like, wait a minute. And. And then, you know, being blended, and then the unblending would take place, and I would look at all of this damage, and it's like, oh, my God, I can't believe I did this. And so believing that I was crazy. And I remember researching borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and it's like, do I have this? And by the time I met the coach, it was, like, such a relief to know that we're all born with multiplicity and that my system was just responding to. Protecting myself. From early on, from very early on, the most significant part of me this was. I was 18 months old. My siblings. My sister's six years older than me, and then my brothers are five and four years older than me, and they were leaving for school. They were walking across the front yard, and I was standing there with my mother, and I was about 18 months old, and she discovered that I had soiled my cloth diaper. And she was very, very angry. It was very scary. And she. There was a lot of yanking around. And I remember laying on the bathroom floor, and then I got up to toddle away, and she said, oh, no, no, you get back here and see what you see, what you make me have to do. And I. I grew up with chronic constipation my. My entire life, to the point where I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. I had to drink mineral oil. All through childhood, I had been taken to the emergency room for Suspect of what is the. On the right side of the body. No, on the right side of the body. That. No, the attack that you get. Like, okay, anyway. Appendicitis. Yes. Only to find out That I was like severely impacted with stool. This is such a, this is such an unattractive topic.

[Podcast Host]

Whatever.

[Teresa]

We all, yeah, we all shit. And I've long since forgotten about this memory. I didn't remember this memory until I started working with the IFS coach. So we work with this little 18 month old and I went, I was in that memory. And there was a lot of memories that we worked through. We lived in Twin Falls, Idaho at this time. There was a lot of memories that, that he and I worked through for my little 18 month old, 2 year old, 3 year old. But as soon as I showed up for her, I mean in the memory I just showed up and I asked, you know, just let my mom know you, you can back off. I see you, but you need to back off. You need to step aside. And I got the attention of this little 18 month old and she looked at me and I just picked her up and I said, you, you're safe. You're safe. I've got you. And there wasn't even, there wasn't even like the, you know, do you know who I am? You know, there. She wasn't able to do that. She just felt safe and I could feel the safety and it was, it was so impactful. I'm getting, I'm getting tingling all through my body as I talk about it. But after that session I didn't have a problem at all in my GI tract. I, there's no more irritable bowel syndrome. There's no more. And I have pulled many exiles out of that house. I've pulled many exiles out of the home in Great Falls. I've journaled about them. There's been a lot of integration. Yeah, I am not anywhere near in the same, the same space or state of mind that I was in 2018 when I started working with this coach.

[Podcast Host]

That's amazing. So when and how did you decide that you wanted to become like a healing practitioner and help people?

[Teresa]

Just sort of evolved. When I, I spent 18 months with my coach that was like my experiential mentorship, a gentleman named Bill, Bill Tierney, who was a level 2 ifs practitioner. And he had these free weekly groups where he would do the work of Byron, Katie with people. And I was one of four facilitators, parts work facilitators. And I, I was part of that for about eight months and then I branched away and started doing my own coaching. I had always been the person that, that people could come to and, and was able to empathetically understand people and Help acknowledge them and help them walk through whatever emotional issues that they were carrying. Because that's, you know, that's how I felt valued. That's how I felt like I mattered. And so a lot of it was intuitive, but, but also a lot of it was. Became skilled and perfected because it, it was, it was, it just became my calling card to where I could feel value. But after working with this coach for 18 months, I decided, you know, I think I'm going to try to like, totally do this. And then from there, it was just looking for different modalities as they came across my path to examine those modalities, learn from those modalities, get certified, and really, really learning the polyvagal theory.

[Podcast Host]

So when were you exposed to somatic.

[Teresa]

Work and breath somatic? I did. I studied with a lady named Linda Go and I graduated from her program and then at the same time discovered breath work and was absolutely blown away at the effects that I received from that. And I thought, okay, I'm going to get certified in this. This is beautiful. So I combined the somatics work, parts work, and breath work all in one. I've. I think that breath work and parts work are a really beautiful coupling.

[Podcast Host]

How has breath work been healing to you or how would you explain why it's so impactful?

[Teresa]

Well, the only way that we can connect our mind to our body is through our breath. And I, you know, I love that our breath was our very first nutrition and it is, it is our medicine. And when we go into survival mode, we, we cut ourselves off from our body. Our body is where our wounds are stored, our mind is where our parts are stored. And when we are in our survival mode, we are in our prefrontal cortex. We are looking and scanning and problem solving. And even without trauma, we live in a society where, you know, it's 9 to 5 to 65 and we have to meet this task and this task and this task. I mean, we are dumped into a thinking society. We are not promoted to connect with ourselves. And in addition, like micro stressors, they put us into shallow breathing. We just live very disconnected. And the only way that we can connect the mind and the body is through the breath. We have to be able to relax that prefrontal cortex, and that's through the mindful connected circular breathing to be able to relax the system and then the subconscious is able to open up. And that's when our, it's kind of like pulling open a filing cabinet. And that's when our, our unprocessed emotions and wounds are willing to be seen and we can breathe them away. And it doesn't always have to be like a, like a cathartic release. You know, you can do a nice lengthy 30, 40 minute rebirthing flow and get just as much relief.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it's been so impactful and so helpful for me. And you know, it's like I, I've consciously understood that the somatic work is important, but like my entire life, it's like being forced into something as a result of excruciating amounts of pain. But it's, it's everything, right? Like it, this is in the body. It's the only way to heal, right?

[Teresa]

Yes, absolutely. And you can do breath work anywhere. You can do it while you're pushing a grocery cart. You can do it while you are driving down the, down the street. I still get carried away to where it's like, oh God, why didn't I breathe? Why didn't I return to my breath? But what I encourage people to do is when you feel those somatic reactions in your body, just embrace it. Just allow it to be there and immediately go into. I would have a breathwork technique for them. Just go into the breathing, breathe in some golden green light or whatever light is appealing to you and just wrap it around whatever sensation is happening and do a breathwork technique three or four times and just breathe it through. Just let that emotion complete its cycle and get it out of your body. Let it process. And we can't do that without the breath. We, we just absolutely cannot process our emotions and feel our emotions without incorporating proper connective conscious breathing.

[Podcast Host]

Well, I have to tell you, out of all the workshops and different things that we've done in the community, I've never been this excited to do something just because of the changes that I've had in my life. Just in the past few months from starting to do implement some of these practices, it has been such a huge game changer. You know, like, I'm able to start showing up, you know, for myself. And yeah, I just know that there's so many people out there that desperately need to do this work. There's so many people who have either avoided the somatic piece, there's so many people that are in functional freeze. There's so many people that are like in it, whether it's a divorce or, you know, something challenging. And so, yeah, I'm so excited for this.

[Teresa]

I'm excited too. And I, I want to speak to them. I want to speak about our protective parts who show up, who you know, they never call in sick. They never take a lunch break, they never. They never relax. They show up dutifully to perform their. Their jobs every single day. And we have to be mindful of them when we're doing breath work as well, because when we calm down the prefrontal cortex and we put them, the protectors, to sleep, and then emotions, unprocessed emotions, are. They come to the surface and they're pulled out. We're doing that with. Without the actual permission of the protectors. And so after a breath work session, you can say, oh, my gosh, I feel so light. I feel so wonderful. I still feel so fantastic. And then the next day, you might experience some depression, some shutdowns, some anxieties, and it can be confusing because breath work is supposed to be healing. Right? And it is. But we really need to be mindful that when we have cptsd, we. We are working with a system that is. Has been in survival mode for a very, very long time. And we have to honor these parts that have been showing up with their. With their jobs, and we have to gain their permission, and we have to let them know what's happening before it happens. And then we have to meet with them after the breathwork session so we can work with them more. They need to be part of the process. We have to honor these parts that have been working very, very hard to keep the system afloat, even when their strategies have been really shitty. Even when they. Even when we're talking about shitty strategies.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I know all about those. And I think it's going to be really powerful, too, to have it be like in a group setting, too. Right. Because as we say, this is like relational trauma. So to do this together and then also to be there for one another, like when as stuff comes up, I just think it's going to be really powerful. I wanted to see if you could share about the process of repairing the relationship with your children as a result of the damage caused from your alcoholism.

[Teresa]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

That's been like.

[Teresa]

My oldest son has always been with me because he has lifelong. He has lifelong needs. He's medically fragile. And I know that he suffered his own emotional traumas because of my alcoholism, but not near to the extent or severity that my younger son did. I think the. The traumas that he suffered were just the loss of his mom. You know, I couldn't be there. I was. There was a period of time in the. Between 40 and 46 where I was just too drunk, I couldn't get out of bed. And so he had, he had no mother, you know, period. And the same for my younger son, but my younger son, and this, this was really hard to realize once I got sober, is that I traumatized my younger son to the same extent that I was traumatized. I had scapegoated him to the same extent that I was scapegoated. It just looked different. He was expected to sit on the back burner while his brother received all of the attention. And you know, that wasn't, you know, I never woke up on any given day and decided that that's what it was going to be like. My oldest was born critically ill and over, you know, he's 32, but he's had 21 surgeries and he was tube fed for two and a half years and just a lot of, of really scary medical things to make our way through. And so I, and I used to do really damaging things. I didn't know that they were damaging, but I would say to my younger son, you know, you're my healthy one, you're my healthy one. So here I was assigning him the role of you can never be sick. And I remember having a conversation with him where I said, can't you, can't you just please understand? You, you have the world in the palm of your hands. Your brother is never going to be able to be the things that you're going to be. So, you know, can't you just be the little soldier that I need you to be? Can't you just raise yourself? Is basically the message that he received. So there was a lot of expectation on him to just to, you know, and he was parentified. I mean, he many times was, was my parent meeting, you know, meeting my need of, of just emotional connection if I was having a struggle. And so by the time I got sober, I realized that I could not stay and I could not stay in Tennessee where I'm, I'm living back here now. But I could not stay here at that time. And I chose to move. And my younger son was, I think he was, he was 18. And that was just a really huge abandonment for him because here I'd made it into aa, I was getting sober. And from his standpoint he's like, I'm going to get my mom back. I'm going to have my mom. And I didn't feel like I could survive here. I felt like I was going to end up drinking again. And so I left to go back up north to try to repair things with my family of origin and in those nearly 10 years that I was away, my younger son went through a lot. He. He had his own bouts with substances and trying to find his way through, and we were somewhat estranged for five or six years. And by the time I started working with the IFS coach, I was able to have conversations with him where I allowed him to say, I just. I had to show up. I had to show up and I had to be accountable and I had to hear what he had to say. And I remember having conversations with him on the phone where we would start to. We would be talking, and here would come his rage, and I would just hold the phone away from me because I. I couldn't bear hearing what he had to say, but I knew that he had to feel like he had the freedom to say it and be heard. So there was a lot of that. There was a lot of mistreatment from him that I tolerated and made room for. I felt like that was part of the healing process. And then I had learned enough about parts work, and I had just unders, you know, perfected the system with myself that I started communicating with him. Say, you know, hey, when we talk, you know, you know, part of me feels this way, part of me feels that way. And I was explaining to him about multiplicity and how we. Our parts get forced into roles due to trauma and we behave certain ways, and. And he really embraced it. And so we would communicate with each other, speaking for our parts rather than from our parts. And then there were a couple of times I did a parts work session with him, probably I would say three or four, and they were pretty significant. And he does his own parts work today. And I credit that for how. For our relationship that we have today. And, you know, we all. I'm back in Tennessee, and we've all come back together as a family. And I came downstairs after the shit show support group yesterday, and it was, like I said, it was such a. It was such an emotionally activating day for me. And you're the support. The shit show support groups are so, so nice. And after the group, I took a shower and I came downstairs and seeing my sons interact the way they were interacting, you know, my. My younger son is. Is kind of the big brother, and he was helping my older son put together this big LEGO twin tower model. And he was so patient with him. He's like, oh, that's not the right piece. Now I want you to look. What. What piece are you looking for? Tell me. You know, he was just guiding him through. It was like watching. Was like watching this very patient, loving teacher or caregiver. And just for a moment it was like, this is my life. This is real. This is the destruction that we went through. This is where we've arrived. And it is so, so beautiful. Yeah, just. It takes my breath away.

[Podcast Host]

I love hearing that.

[Teresa]

And the relationship that I have with just. Yeah, just very connective. We're on the up and up as far as, like, honoring each other as people, as equals.

[Podcast Host]

Can you speak to just being a part of the community and just your pattern in the past of, you know, running away when things get vulnerable?

[Teresa]

Yes, I'd love to. I love that you can show up exactly as you are at the shit show. I love that that is promoted and that it's allowed. I love that everyone is welcomed and it's really, really vulnerable. And there are some really deep, difficult things that are discussed and talked about and it can be very emotionally activating for people who are listening. And that was my experience. I did not realize that there was so much more from my childhood that particularly my. My teenage years that was coming to the surface and it was really scary. And I considered leaving the shit show because I thought this is just too much. And I remember standing in my room doing some muscle testing, connecting with my spirit guides, asking, do it. Do I stay at the shit show? Yes. Do I need to leave the shit show? No. Do I stay at the shit show? Yes. And so I'm doing all this muscle testing and then I even called a dear friend of mine, we've been friends since third grade, and I was running this by her, and it's just so much. And she said, well, you know, you can run again. Yeah, you can do that, but why don't you stay? And so then I was like, okay, I'm going to stay. And allowing myself to be seen in my shit show moments, in the moments where I am a shit show, in the moments where I'm just a blubbering mess. And to have that witnessed and embraced from a space of non judgment and love and the. In the chats afterward where people show up and they support you. And in particular, the ACA yellow book step study. We're on step four. And so we are discussing some. Some really, really deep, difficult, difficult things. We're talking about the core wounds and there's. There's no holding back. And when someone puts out there the devastating thing that they endured, the shame around that, the fear of being judged for whatever's coming up, to be able to put that out there completely, honestly and openly and then the rest of us, there's just silence. And in that silence, we're just holding, we're holding that person. And I often visualize all of our little inner children holding hands together or we're on a playground together and we're just hanging out and it's okay. But those moments where we are saying things out loud for the first time and allowing ourselves to be held and loved, that's what we've needed the entire time to be witnessed. That's, that's the moment the healing begins, is when you can be witnessed from a space of love and non judgment. And so when, when people say, well, you can't go back, you can't change the past, yes you can. You can go back and you can finish. You can go back and you can give your little inner child what they've needed this entire time. And you provide that. You have created a community where that is provided again and again and again. And so thank you for being a change maker and thank you for elevating the love and light of this universe and thank you for turning your pain into purpose. And thank you for suiting up and showing up even when you're a shit show.

[Podcast Host]

Give me three things that you like about yourself.

[Teresa]

Oh, I love how much I love people. I love how much I love people and like about myself. I like that I'm a badass. I like that I like my vision. I want to create communities where we're sort of living in a hybrid where we're not focused on social media so much, we're not behind the computer so much and we're able to live and do some organic farming and sit in share circles and look into each other's faces, communicate and feel safe that. I have that vision and I love that I'm a good mom.

[Podcast Host]

You are a good mom. Hope or dream for the future, but you kind of just named one, but.

[Teresa]

You'Re allowed to choose something else to really to travel and to help. I want to say help people. I'm. I work with men, but I'm mostly geared toward working with women. I really want to make a huge difference in helping elevate the light, the love and light of the universe by helping to be here. And I want to do it all over the world, all over the dance.

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[Podcast Host]

Just turn around and see if you won't find a hamburger.

[Teresa]

Patch as you hadn't ordered McDonaldland meal.

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