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Adult Child
When Breaking Your Silence Means Losing Your Family: Narcissistic Abuse, Gaslighting & Fawning w/ Dr. Ingrid Clayton
01:05:25
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- [00:01]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
This is the story of the 1. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:31]
Andrea
Flags don't look like red flags when they feel like home. My name is Andrea, and this is an old child.
- [00:53]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
What's making you small now?
- [00:57]
Andrea
Welcome back to Adult Child, where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Ahoy, my dear. Shit shows, shit show nation. It's been a while since I've done that. Thought I'd. Thought I'd bless you with that all today. For any new listeners that haven't turned this off yet, my name is Andrea. I am a total and complete shit show. I. I'm an adult child of an alcoholic family. And this is the podcast where we talk about what the hell to do. When you realize that your childhood screws you up a whole hell of a lot more than you initially thought that it did. When you realize that you have complex trauma, that you're suffering from complex ptsd. Which came as quite a shock to me. I had always known my childhood was less than ideal, but I had no damn clue that what I experienced qualified as trauma. And I'm sure many of y' all had the same realization, too. So welcome aboard this hot mess of a ship.
- [01:49]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
We curse here.
- [01:50]
Andrea
You've been fucking warned. I'm an acquired taste. You've been warned. So today, folks, we are revisiting a gem of an episode. This episode is with Dr. Ingrid Clayton. She is the author of many a book, including her memoir, Believe in Me, and her most recent, or actually, it's not out yet. It's coming out next week. It's called Fawning. Why the need to please makes us lose ourselves and how to find our way back. So this episode is for anyone who has ever minimized their childhood and told themselves that it wasn't that bad. For those who grew up in alcoholism or narcissistic abuse or any form of dysfunction that left you doubting your own reality, we are diving into what it looks like to stop fawning, how to stop carrying the family shame as your own, and how to finally start believing in yourself when nobody else does. So with that, let's just get on with the damn show. But first, let's talk about why you. Yes, you need to damn the join shit show. My online support community where we have a minimum of six weekly zoom support groups where you can connect with other fellow shit shows who are doing the damn work to heal. This is an app. This is a support system. System at your fingertips in your back pocket, available to you 24 7. This is a support community that's actually fun, where we actually laugh in addition to at times crying. If you're looking to feel seen, heard and understood like never before, then look no further than the shit show. This is relational trauma, folks. We heal relational trauma through safe relationships.
- [03:34]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
This is where you can do so.
- [03:35]
Andrea
For less than a damn dollar a day.
- [03:37]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
So you.
- [03:38]
Andrea
Yes, you.
- [03:39]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah, you.
- [03:40]
Andrea
Yeah, I'm looking at you. The person that's been wanting to join for forever. How about we do it today? See the link in the show notes. Or you can head to adultchildpodcast.com shitshow next. Give me a little follow on the Insta on the TikTok at adulthropod. And last but not least, whatever the hell you do, please, please, please Give me damn 5 star rating on Apple, on Spotify.
- [03:57]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Thank you.
- [03:57]
Andrea
Love you all. All right, y', all, we're in for a treat. You have not deemed yourself this, but I am going to deem you a recovering shit show. So we have Ingrid Clayton. She's a clinical psychologist. She's a trauma therapist. She's got a couple books that we're going to talk about. Believing me, that's your memoir? Yeah, Recovering Spirituality, which is kind of all about, like, spiritual bypassing, which I think is fascinating. So welcome.
- [04:26]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Thank you for having me. I will take the title of recovering shit show. I will add it to my resume.
- [04:32]
Andrea
Yeah, absolutely. I think it sums it all up. I. I used to say former shit show, but I'm like, that's not.
- [04:37]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Oh, yeah, no, ongoing, for sure.
- [04:40]
Andrea
So here's my deal. I was reading what in your memoir. What did it say? It was so good. It was like, where was it? Basically you said something specifically, like about nine years, you know, in a couple books. It talks, I think in one of Melody Beatty's books and maybe in one of Tion Dayton's books, too. She talks about that seven to 10 years is when all of sobriety is when all that shit comes the surface. So for me, it was romantic relationships. Shocking, right?
- [05:09]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah.
- [05:10]
Andrea
And my bottom was. I dated two alcoholics named Brian back to back in Sobriety. So Brian, number one, seven years sober. We dated for less than a month. He ghosted me. And my reaction was as if my husband of 30 years had just tragically died in a plane crash.
- [05:26]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Oh, yeah.
- [05:27]
Andrea
And I became non functioning. And the first aha. Was there's no way that the way that I'm feeling right now could actually be about this person for less than a month. And then, Paul, was that this was a feeling that I felt often as a child.
- [05:39]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Wow.
- [05:40]
Andrea
A couple months later, I go to a meeting and I hear a woman with over 30 years sober talk about the bottom that she hit at seven years, where she came to terms with the true impact that her childhood had on her. And she mentioned the book Adult Child. And I went home and I read it, and my mind was blown. And then I saw her the next week, and I was like, thank you for your share. And she was like, it's great. I just want you to know that this is going to take you like many, many, many, many, many years to work through, like, 28. And I was like, I don't fucking have years, lady.
- [06:10]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
No.
- [06:11]
Andrea
And I just really hope that her childhood was, like, way more fucked up than mine.
- [06:15]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Right.
- [06:16]
Andrea
I was like, I'll just read this book and I'll take a year off from dating, and surely that'll be good.
- [06:20]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Oh, yeah.
- [06:21]
Andrea
And number two, worst six months of my entire life. Most painful six months of my entire life. That was at nine years sober. And that's when I realized that what I was dealing with was a lot just as powerful, actually more powerful than my alcoholism. And that's when I really understood that I was. What I was experiencing was trauma.
- [06:42]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah.
- [06:43]
Andrea
And then that kind of led me on my journey. So the one question that I love to ask is, like, was there a particular aha moment where you were like, holy shit. Like, my childhood impacted me way more than I thought it did.
- [06:57]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Ooh, that's such a big question. I mean, I'll say I'd been someone who, since my childhood, actually knew that I was being deeply, negatively impacted. I was the kind of kid who, like, talked to my friends and found the counselors at school. And I was very verbal and articulate, and I knew that things were not, like, my friends homes. Right. That thing of, like, I want to hang out at your house because you're doing, like, normal family things. And so a part of me always knew. And I think my story's been more of an unfolding over time, you know, because I think I had some magical thinking that well, because I know that it was bad. I'm gonna move away, and I'm gonna. You know, Andrea, I'm gonna get sober at 21, okay? So, boom. Kick the alcoholism, quit smoking somewhere along the way after that, you know what? I'm going to go back to school, and I'm going to get me some degrees. Okay. I'm going to just really stack the deck. I'm going to move kind of far away, you know, and, like, I did all of these things, not necessarily with this idea that I was going to override or overcome or get better, but, yeah, that's what I was doing. Right. And now, you know, all these decades later, I can put that in the framework of trauma and look at it as a flight response. Right? It's flight trauma response that flight sometimes is. You know, it's the animal in the woods, and they feel like they're going to get attacked and they run. Flight is also sometimes I'm going to stay in perpetual motion. I'm going to outrun this thing. It's my perfectionism. It's my obsessive compulsive tendencies. It is my addiction. Right. It just morphed into a million. Like that whack a mole game idea is basically my life. If it's a symptom, springs up over here. Got it. You know, and so I think it's been over time, like an awakening, a reawakening. Oh, my gosh. It affected me there. Wow. I had no idea. It affected me here. And, you know, I think part of the truth of my story, too, is that a big piece of the dysfunction was narcissism and narcissistic abuse, which came with a lot of gaslighting. Right. So it was also that I was told repeatedly, you're the problem. You made it all up. None of that really happened. It wasn't that bad. And I think I, like most children, internalize that, at least to some degree. So it was like I was split. A half of me knew better. You know, I'm not the bad guy. This was wrong and inappropriate and unhealthy. And this other part of me was like, well. And quite frankly, I think the 12 steps helped me in this regard, though. Well, let me just look at my side of the street and, you know, let me lean into forgiveness and spirituality and all these things, and that's going to be enough to kind of repair these relationships and move forward, move on, let it go. And I think I rode that so deeply into the ground until I just literally, my body was like, you cannot do this one more day. You are carrying the entire burden for the entire system, and it's run you into the ground. It's like the final epiphany was like the last house on the block for me to go. There's nothing left for me to outrun. Do right. What am I going to, like, get three more degrees? I mean, you know, there was just nowhere else to turn except for inward. And that's why the memoir is called Believing Me, because I had to go back and go, wait a second. What really happened? First of all, own it. Own the truth of it. And then I say this all the time. If we don't own our stories as traumatic, we cannot avail ourselves of the tools of trauma healing. So as long as I was minimizing, maybe it wasn't that bad. Other people had it so much worse. I can't. I'm not. That wasn't really trauma. Right. As long as I kept minimizing, I could never really heal, because what am I healing from? Right? It's like. So I honestly just think my body got so that it couldn't do it anymore.
- [11:08]
Andrea
When you talk about that last house on the block moment was what had triggered that.
- [11:14]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Well, it's a few things. One is that after a string of only unhealthy relationships my entire life, romantic relationships, I finally, you know, found myself after getting divorced, you know, to an active alcoholic and all of these things, I found myself in the healthiest relationship of my life. And I think from having that contrast and that true, sort of reciprocal, healthy dynamic, it gave me some safety. It gave me a container to be able to look at some other things. I also had a child, which was a little bit like, oh, boy, the stakes are so much higher now. It's not just about me. It's about my son. And then my stepdad, who is the sort of main. Yeah.
- [11:58]
Andrea
Culprit.
- [11:59]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Abuser. Yeah. In my life. He died. And I really believe, you know, for anyone who's like, why, you know, can. Couldn't I do this work sooner? What's wrong with me? Or I just couldn't see it. You know what? I am a practicing psychologist, trauma therapist, and I really, honestly believe that I could not see my own truth until my body sent its truth safe enough to do so. And it became safe enough to do so when that man was no longer on the planet. It was instant. I felt safer than I had maybe ever felt in my whole life. And something changed. And I became available to myself in ways that I was not available when I was still guarding against all of that pain and is it going to happen again? And, you know, he was still married to my mom, very much in my life, even if it was at a distance. And so I just say to folks, it takes what it takes. Right. And it's not up to us. It wasn't up to me. I've been working at it for so long. Like, you know, if there was a retreat, sign me up. You know, like, how many 12 STEP programs do I need to be in? Like, I did all the things. I'd sat on a million therapists, couches. I told my story 10,000 times. And these were some of the building blocks that, like, had to finally be in place for me to, like, see it differently. See it differently.
- [13:23]
Andrea
I can really relate to what you shared about. I too, was aware that my childhood was, like, not great. Like, my mom was an alcoholic. My parents fought a lot, but I became the identified patient and the scapegoat at a pretty young age. And so from like 12 to 19, that's. I was the primary focus of the family. So I got sent to treatment for the first time in eighth grade.
- [13:45]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I.
- [13:45]
Andrea
And I was an only child. And so that worked in fixing the family. Like, when I started drinking and using drugs and acted out, my mom stopped as much and my parents stopped fighting. And so I really was like the focus until I got sober. And then it's been like a downward spiral for the both of them. But, like, I intellectually understood that it was not great, but I thought that because I could talk about it without getting upset, that meant it didn't really impact me.
- [14:12]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Wow.
- [14:13]
Andrea
Being a, you know, being like a news reporter standing in front of a burning building and it's actually your house, you know.
- [14:20]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yes. Which is actually one of the, you know, most common signs of trauma is we're talking about it like this. Yes, that happened to me. And I'm actually not here because I've left my body. Right. But we think that it's like, oh, no. Like, it's, you know, it's so well processed. No, it's so unprocessed. You're so disconnected from your own self that you can report it. That's a perfect way to talk about it.
- [14:45]
Andrea
And I was also forced to talk about all that stuff too. So much. And it wasn't that I was minimizing. Yes, I was minimizing it, but, like, not from, like, I didn't know what I didn't know. Like, I didn't know what complex trauma was. I didn't know what that was.
- [14:59]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah, it's. None of us did, you know? Yeah.
- [15:03]
Andrea
And so, yeah, I just continue to be what I'm like, my. I really started working on this stuff in 2018, and I just continue to be blown away at all the places that it shows up, you know? Yeah, it's fucking hard. So was your. And I want to go back to your childhood and talk about that some, but I don't know what your experience was, like, in being in AA and stuff. And it's. Nobody was able to point out, like, hey, maybe you need to go get some extra help. You know, nobody once ever said, like, oh, I think that this is trauma. And granted, I was like, I got sober in the south, and I think it's a little bit different, you know, but it's. That's, like, why now when I'm in a meeting and it's appropriate, I will share this stuff because, yeah, you go through your childhood, like in, you know, in your fourth and fifth step, but not to the degree that we actually need to. And I just think that so many people that are suffering, that have a lot of sobriety under their belt, who have no idea. That's why.
- [16:06]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I mean, I think that my thinking about addiction and trauma, it has really changed so much over the years. Like, I just had 28 years sober in September.
- [16:16]
Andrea
What's your date?
- [16:17]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
September 17th.
- [16:19]
Andrea
Okay, I'm the 13th. I had 15 years.
- [16:21]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Oh, congratulations. And listen, don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for my sobriety. I feel like it's foundational to me being able to do anything else. Like, so. And the community that I've met, and there's just been so many positives right along the way. And I think, you know, even the mental health community, we just have so much more information now. And the truth is, we've moved away from this notion of the disease model. And I really see addiction as an extension of trauma. Right. It's the body's way, and I think quite an intelligent way of trying to find some peace and connection or disconnect from the pain. And when it finds something that works, it's going to do it again and again. And so if you now place that back in this context of being asked to do a moral inventory, I have a hard time with that today. I have a hard time with that today. I did not need a moral inventory. You know, I needed healing. I needed some validation around the wounds that were deep and, you know, pervasive my whole life. And I think depending on where you Live to your other point, right? In the country or in the world or who you happen to hear in a meeting. Maybe sometimes you get these nuanced perspectives. But I think for a lot of folks, you know, and I heard it so often in early sobriety, and I was in New York, like a pretty progressive place with a lot of information and. And they would say, well, you know, when it comes down to the fourth step, like someone abusing you is never your fault. You don't have a part in that. Right. But they might say, but your part is that you're still holding on. Your part is that you're renting out space to people you know in your own head are carrying around. That's my part. And you know what? That is re. Traumatizing to folks. That is just, again, the body's way of protecting. And we don't have a conscious choice. I think as maybe addicts in particular, we love this idea that we can figure it out. It's what we did with our drugs and alcohol. Like, I'm a chemist. I'm going to do a little of this and a little of that. I'm going to create this experience. Right. So we love this idea that I'm going to write it all down, I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to, you know, exercise that from my life. I'm going to. And it's way more complicated than that. And so I maybe got a little off track there from the. You were asking me. But my thinking has definitely changed as. As it relates to addiction. And I see pretty much everything through the lens of trauma now because it's the one thing that allowed me to make sense to myself and not have so much shame. Right. Because that's the other thing. It's. Oh, honey, you're still carrying that around, though. Well, that was so long ago. Like, maybe you should pray about it again and again. Maybe you should be of compulsive service. Okay, so here's my other big thing that really come to understand that if we look at the founders of 12 Step, it's 99 men, one woman. Look at that from the lens of trauma. Chances are perhaps that most of these men were engaged in a chronic overactive fight response. For a fight response, you do want to encourage things like service. You do want to say that, like, anger is a luxury maybe for normal men. Like. Right.
- [19:48]
Andrea
Dubious luxury.
- [19:49]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
That's right. That's right. Thank you.
- [19:51]
Andrea
Dubious.
- [19:52]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
When you look at the other end of the fight response, and this is based on Pete Walker's work who is amazing with complex trauma. He's done us such a service with his work. The other end of the fight response is the fawn response, which basically is codependency. But I love the language of fawning more because. Because it's rooted in trauma. So if you look at the fight response and you say, like, resentments are the number one offender, you know, anger isn't allowed. Do a moral inventory. Call somebody else, get outside of yourself, be of service. Those are useful suggestions if you are living in a chronic fawn response like I was for decades. Those are all counterindicated. Those are all things that kept me stuck in a chronic, fawning, codependent response. And so we just need so much more nuance and information, I think, and listen, like anything else, like, we continue to grow and learn and we just need to adopt those new ideas. And I think some people are and some people aren't and it gets tricky. And you know, I am speaking from personal experience, but also as a clinician and I think some of these things that have been handed down and down can do more harm than good.
- [21:08]
Andrea
I agree. I agree.
- [21:09]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah.
- [21:10]
Andrea
I mean, it saved my life, you know.
- [21:12]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yes, me too. That's the thing.
- [21:14]
Andrea
It, you know. But at the same time, I think that what you're saying about certain things being re. Traumatizing. So my understanding is like, I don't think I would have been able to like address and get to this stuff unless I had that sobriety under my belt. However, I think that there's other people who are unable to get any time under their belt because they're not addressing that. So it's like kind of a hard thing to, to measure because I that sometimes for me, I wasn't in a position to really start looking at this when I was in early sobriety. But then you have other people to where, like I said, unless it's addressed immediately or up front or, you know, in early sobriety, they're not going to be able to get any time under their belt.
- [21:55]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
That's right. And I've seen that all the time in my decades as a therapist that, you know, it's so independent, it's so individual. It's like some people need that deep trauma scaffolding first and some people can't touch it until well, well into sobriety. So I'm just saying, you know, there's no one size fits all. And I think we need a little more breathing room, which I know is also scary because it's like. But these are the Principles that saved my life. And you know what, my best thinking got me here. So I need to take the rule of the law and sort of do what's suggested. And so it's a tricky conversation.
- [22:33]
Andrea
I'm curious for you. And I've had this experience where my friends, like in the program that I've gotten to a level of depth that makes them very uncomfortable.
- [22:43]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
To a level of depth.
- [22:45]
Andrea
And I recently just had a friendship breakup and she's been my, one of my best friends for, since I got sober, you know, and she kind of just like broke up with me out of nowhere. But I mean, the gist of it is like, you know, she feels like I strayed from aa.
- [23:00]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah.
- [23:01]
Andrea
You know, and that's like the problem. That's, you know, it's painful and hurtful. But I just notice how, you know, our journeys, like, we grow together, we grow apart. But I think that sometimes when we're touching, we're getting to a certain level of depth in ourselves or talking about certain topics that can make other people feel real damn uncomfortable.
- [23:20]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah, I mean, I've seen it happen. It happened early. In my own very early sobriety, I was seeing a therapist and AA was absolutely, absolutely saving my life. I was like, you know, three subway rides down to a morning meeting at 7:30 in the morning every single day, and I'm seeing this new therapist and she's, I think you should read this book, Drama of the Gifted Child. And I was like, okay, you know, I'm a good student, I'm compliant. I'll go and read it. And there was, I don't even remember what it was, but it was something that was a little like I interpreted it as anti 12 step. And I was like, I can't read this book. Right. It felt threatening to the thing that was giving me the most safety at the time. And so that is just kind of how the body works. Right. It's. I'm going to hold on to the things that are really working for me and I'm not going to create any more space for anything new until my body says that it is ready. And I have to honor that. Right. And, and it's not even hierarchical necessarily. It's like everybody is doing their own work in a different way at a different pace. They're meant to look at different things at a different time, you know, and some people are here for a lifetime and some are for a season, you know, and that's okay.
- [24:36]
Andrea
It is okay. Okay, so let's backtrack to your childhood.
- [24:40]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Okay.
- [24:40]
Andrea
So how do you summarize your breed of dysfunction that you were exposed to?
- [24:45]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Deep alcoholism runs on both sides of my family. Very.
- [24:50]
Andrea
I was screwed, too. Didn't stand to stand a chance.
- [24:53]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yes, a hundred percent. I wrote a scene in my book where I. I'm about 8 years old, which is my son's age now, so it particularly breaks my heart, but my parents are smoking pot with their friends in the living room, and they have me and my younger brother join in the circle, and I'm holding a bong in my tiny little eight year old hands, like, watching it light up as I. Right. So, wow. I was telling someone yesterday, we were sort of talking about these themes, and I was older than 8 at the time, but my parents, after they got divorced and my mom and stepdad were together, they had an Easter party, and it was for their friends and the kids who were there all hid little bottles of booze around the backyard for the adults to find. And Santa got a shot and a beer, right? He was over that milk and cookies thing. So the alcoholism thing to me was, like, apparent from day one. I wrote my term paper in eighth grade, so I'm 12 years old. We could write about anything. And I grew up in Colorado, and friends are writing about skiing and snowboarding or maybe their favorite musician, Andrea. The title of my paper at 12 years old was Alcoholism, the family disease. Okay, so. So I was in deep. I was like, I'm gonna figure this thing out. I know what's going on. I always knew where they hid the drugs. Sometimes it was in those little cabinets above the refrigerator. Sometimes it was behind their waterbed headboard, deep in their closet. I just needed to know I was hypervigilant. Traffic happening all the time. When are they coming home from the bar? Oh, I hear the footsteps. I hear the car coming down the gravel driveway. They're here. Run to your rooms. You don't know what the mood is going to be calling the bar. The bartenders knew me and my brother and stepbrother's voices. Oh, hey, you know, let me get your stepdad, or when are you coming home? And so, addiction, addiction, addiction. I always knew.
- [26:44]
Andrea
I'm curious. I was told that my mom was an alcoholic when I was seven.
- [26:48]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Wow.
- [26:48]
Andrea
I, too, was, like, very aware of what alcoholism was. And my dad, he really parentified me in the sense of, like, he would have me help him search the house for my mom's booze. And I remember being, like 9 years old and going into the liquor cabinet and taking a paint stick and, like, Marking the levels of each bottle. Drinking was a secret from everybody else, so he only really talked to me about it. But I'm curious, like, at 12 years old, how did you find out about the term alcoholism?
- [27:18]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I don't even know. As we're starting to talk, I was like, I have no idea where I got that specific language at that age.
- [27:26]
Andrea
It was talked. Like, they talked to me about it directly, you know, like I was. You know, it was very inappropriate. But it didn't sound like your family.
- [27:33]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
They were like, no, it didn't come from my parents. Like, we're alcoholics and this might, you know, impact you in this way. No, they were not talking about it. I don't know where I got that language.
- [27:44]
Andrea
Maybe really interesting.
- [27:45]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I'll let that percolate and the memory will come. But, yeah, so I always had that foundation. And then, you know, my parents divorced, like, fourth grade, and immediately it seemed like they both had new partners, and they both had new partners who were clearly the boss. So both of my parents had.
- [28:05]
Andrea
Who was the boss in their relationship.
- [28:07]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
It's hard for me to say for sure because I was so much younger, but I. I've always sort of felt like my biological parents were kind of the same person.
- [28:16]
Andrea
And were you happy when they got divorced?
- [28:19]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
No. Devastated. No, devastated. All of us were. It was like this sad thing sitting down. My one biological brother and my parents. Like, when they were telling us we were all four, just sobbing. I couldn't believe this was going to happen. And then just pretty quickly moved out with my mom and the man who became my stepdad, who I knew because he used to be my dad's best friend, of course. So then because he's the controlling narcissist, he starts pulling us further and further away from the suburbs. We're in from family, from friends. My mom's more isolated, we're more isolated. Moved to the mountains, what felt like the middle of nowhere, coming from Denver. And I just. It was like I literally saw my mom disappear. She was standing in his shadow. She wouldn't say anything, I swear, unless she literally heard him say those words before. Like, that was her permission to go. Like, oh, no, this is how we feel about it. And I was like, but you are my mom. He's not my parent. Like, you are the. And she was just, like, lost herself completely. 100% lost herself. And I didn't stay with my dad as much, but it had the same flavor, same feeling, like his wife was the one who had the say. Right. And I just sort of felt like I lost them both. I lost them both. And I didn't understand. I didn't have the language for that. I didn't, you know. And then my stepdad ended up, what I now know was grooming me to be his next in line girlfriend. And he did it in a very covert way. And so it was confusing. Right? It's sort of that I'm doing and saying things, but I'm not. I'm doing them for these reasons.
- [30:05]
Andrea
And do you have any specific examples?
- [30:08]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Well, you know, I talk about in the book, maybe I'm 12 years old and I'm sitting outside in our hot tub by myself at night. And he comes out and he gets in with me and he just starts blurring the lines and closing space between us. And he's kind of joking with me, which is a relief because a lot of the time he's an asshole or he's shutting me out. Right? That sort of classic trauma bonding, intermittent reinforcement, I love you, now I hate you, tomorrow kind of thing. So I was already in that cycle. And so getting a little bit of positive attention was such a relief. I was like, oh, thank God. So that was the beginning. And then he's, hey, why don't you come sit on my lap? But it felt like a very fatherly thing. Like, hey, it's my olive branch, right? Like, we've been going through some tough times. And it was the way that he held me. And then what he said was, I'm so glad we can be this close. Like, other girls would be more uptight. And I was like, are you saying that this could be inappropriate? And I started kind of pushing back on it to the degree that I could. And it was just that whole scene. I just. My body clocked every second of that being as so wrong and deeply traumatizing. But I couldn't say that to him. I couldn't ask more direct questions. Cause I might embarrass him. And if I embarrass him, I'm really gonna get in trouble. And, you know, fast forward, years later, my mom is with her dying father in Texas. And they're rarely apart. So this is like a real moment in time. Like, she never, like, would go traveling by herself. It's truly by necessity. And the second that she leaves, he comes back to my room and says, hey, how'd you like to go to Las Vegas this weekend? And it's couched in this whole idea that I was like a budding singer. And he was a singer, songwriter, musician. And I want to show you true Entertainers and. But don't 16, but don't tell your brothers about it. You know, they think I'm going out of town on business and that you're going to be staying with a friend. And I'm like, but why is it a lie, right? Like, why can't I tell him? And so again, my body's, this is wrong. I'm terrified. But again, I'm also like, but he's not grounding me for months at a time, giving me the silent treatment for months at a time. He's actually cherishing these things about me that I feel deserve to be cherished and loved and adored and wouldn't. And so I went to Vegas with him and it was like the crux of what became this deep trauma that has so stayed with me for decades since. And it's not because he raped me or wooed me into sleeping with him. It was because of all of the gaslighting and that didn't really happen. And you're making it all up. And my mom's saying, well, I believe that you believe those things happened, but I don't really believe that they did. And so when your body is going, this is wrong, this is wrong something, and everybody around you is saying, it's perfectly fine. You're the problem. As a child, especially on some level, we will always make ourselves at fault because we need our caregivers to survive. We're one of the very few species who else raises children until they're 18 years old, right? We are hardwired for relationship and privileging our caregivers above all else, even if a part of us knows this is wrong. So again, that's split in me, right? It was just boom, even further concretized. Like a part of me knows it was you, and I know that that was wrong. And I'm pretty sure you were parading me around as a girlfriend. And the other part of me is going, maybe he really wasn't. I mean, he never called me his girlfriend. And a big part of what I ended up uncovering and writing my memoir because I got like, fearless and shameless about looking under every single rock and calling whomever I could think of. And I got so much information that little me needed, which is that this was a historical pattern that he had carried out many times before that he did in fact refer to me as a girlfriend to a friend of his that we saw when we were in Vegas. And I never would have had any of this information if I didn't, like, really Receive this calling to go on this deep dive. My whole body was like, you need to reclaim your story in order to reclaim yourself. Fragments of me, pieces of me. I just felt like they were everywhere and they belonged to everybody else but me. It was like this giant puzzle. I just had to put things back together in a way that was true and made sense. And with each piece, I could breathe into a whole self almost for the first time in my whole life.
- [34:55]
Andrea
When was it that he passed away?
- [34:57]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Just over six years ago now, I think.
- [35:00]
Andrea
Is your mother still living?
- [35:02]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yes.
- [35:02]
Andrea
And so how are things panned out there?
- [35:04]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
It's the hardest, trickiest part of my whole experience that never ever. I cannot say enough never evers to emphasize that it never, one time, even as a tiny thought occurred to me that I would ever be estranged from anybody in my family. I'd never even heard of it. It was like, what are you talking about? All those notions of, you know, family's is the one who has your back and blood is thicker than water. And it was, this is your lot in life. You gotta make the best of it. And you know, what happened through writing my story and starting to talk to literally everyone about it. And then I was like, have to talk to my mom, too. And we hadn't talked about any of this since maybe. I was 16, 17 years old when I organized an intervention with social services for my family.
- [35:53]
Andrea
I was like, did she get sober?
- [35:55]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
No. No one. My intervention made everything worse.
- [36:00]
Andrea
Shocking.
- [36:00]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
It wasn't helpful at all. It made it so bad, in fact, that I was bracing for that kind of impact again. Going. There was this part of me. It's like, why would I want to have these conversations again now? Like, I got so burned. I got so brutalized. And yet I was like, well, I gotta. Because a part of me wanted to salvage a relationship with my mom and maybe even have one with her for the first time ever. I'm like, well, now he's dead. He's not pulling the puppet strings anymore. Maybe I can get her back. Maybe I had what I now feel is this toxic hope, this hope that maybe one day she'll see. Maybe one day she'll release me. Maybe one day she'll validate me. Now he's gone. Now I've written pages and pages of a book and talked to everyone in our mutual lives, and we all agree, Andrea, that this is real and it happened, and it was horrific. Maybe now. And basically, she was like, I can't do it. It's too painful. I'm gonna pray for you, you know, all of these sort of, like, on some level, you go, oh, well, it sounds like maybe she's sort of going, you know, I love you and I wanna have you in my life. But basically, yeah, that door is closed. And I was like, okay, then the door is closing because to the extent that you still see me as a liar who made it all up, is the extent that I am in harm's way by keeping you in my life, even if you're my mom, even if I know that you're deeply traumatized and all of these things. And I can have compassion for that, but I think my compassion and my empathy and my understanding outweighed my need to protect myself my whole life. I am going to do. I'm going to help you do the work so that maybe. And I'm just like, no, I'm not waiting for anyone else to do their work, to decide that I'm worth taking care of. And again, that extends to my son because I am a mother now. And if you're putting me in harm's way by still seeing me as the bad guy, I know intergenerationally, I know it's already steeped in my body and I'm having to work so hard every day to break cycles I didn't even know lived in me until, oh, I uncovered another one and another one. It's like the hardest work I will ever do, and I'm just fiercely protecting it. And honestly, it's the biggest heartbreak of my life. Especially when I look at my son and I'm like, I will do anything to show up and be the parent that he needs me to be. I'm gonna do it, like, so flawed. And he's still gonna have stuff that he comes to me and his mom, you know, like, you kind of suck that one up. And I'm gonna go, yeah, you know what? I totally did. And I'm so, so sorry. And what else do you want to tell me about that? Right? I'm never going to do it correctly, but I'm so fiercely committed to being the parent that he needs me to be, not the parent that I dreamed of being, that I hoped it was going to be like some version of fantasy that it just is not. That the idea that after all this time, she still just is not capable, it hurts. It hurts so that it is not what I wanted. My every intention was like, this is finally going to bring her around. And you know what? It did? It brought me around. And I honestly think that is. It's like the Cool and heartbreaking part of healing from childhood trauma. But also the blessing and the miracle is that we can do it. We don't have to wait for anyone to say, yes, I fucked up. Yes, that was horrible. Like, the healing is in our hands. And thank God for that. That's. I'm so grateful, even though it's this painful. And I go, you know what? Hardest thing I've ever done, hardest conversations I've ever had. I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Finally feeling like I belong to myself. I am not riddled with so much guilt and shame and anxiety and hyper vigilance. I still have my stuff. I still get triggered right. I get emotional flashbacks, all of these things. It is not my every waking moment where I'm sitting there going, I've done all this work and I'm sober forever. Like, what's wrong with me? It's. You know what? There is nothing wrong with me. There was never anything wrong with me. My body was doing exactly what our bodies are designed to do to protect us from such horrific things. And then I got stuck there, and I didn't know it. I didn't know that I was stuck in these chronic trauma responses, just trying to protect myself now and now. And I don't have to live in that bracing.
- [40:38]
Andrea
I. I had dinner with my dad last week, and so they're both horrible alcoholics. And I've really started to dethaw in the past year or so to where, like, the tears are coming up, you know, for me, because in my family, it was like, anger numbness, right? There was never any sadness, you know, displayed. And I went to the US Open with my mom a couple weeks ago, and, you know, I never. I'm at a point where, you know, if I can have good times with my mom, I'll take them. Like, I'm prepared, like, if, you know, if something happens, like, I have tools. I can, you know, pivot, you know, if I need to, you know. But we've gone a couple of years in a row, and it's been actually really lovely experience. And I'll take any of those moments that I can, like where we can actually have a nice time together. Because that's the thing that I think is kind of a challenge and fucked up in my story is like, my mom was like, the most amazing mom, except for when she was drinking. And she was like a periodic, you know, so it was, like, very sporadic. But, like, when she was not drinking, like, she. I mean, she was just the most amazing mom. And she was. And Even into, like, my early sobriety and several years, and it's been in the past. I know it probably started to really go downhill, like, around when I've had three years, and then it's just been for the past 12 years. She's not the same person anymore. You know, mentally, she's changed so much just because of the disease, like, what it's done to her brain. I think that sometimes it's, like, almost harder in a way to have once had something and no longer have it, as opposed to, like, other people who. Their moms were always just awful. But it was not a good experience this year. Like, it didn't. It wasn't. It didn't go well. I won't do it again. And that's, like, sad and heartbreaking, but. So I had a conversation with my dad last week. They live in Lake Tahoe during the summer. But he basically was like, you know, I try to stay out of it as much as I can. I was so involved for so long, you know, that, like, now I really try to, like, you know, I don't really know what's going on. It's then the way that I like to explain it is, like, I also don't participate in the family denial either, though. So I will, like, acknowledge the elephant in the room. I just won't try to carry the elephant out of the room any. Basically, you know, he's just like, yeah, it's. And he's. No, he's got his own issues, but his alcoholism is a lot less severe than hers, you know, and he's. And he said this so many times before that he's, you know, we either need to go to therapy or get a divorce. And I've heard that my whole entire life. But what he was explaining to me was very tragic and sad and heartbreaking. And I still, like. I was very numb in the conversation, and I'm still, like. I still. The emotions, like, it hasn't hit. You know, I'm very dissociated from the conversation still. So I'm wondering, like, what your experience.
- [43:26]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Has been with that numbness and dissociation. Yeah.
- [43:31]
Andrea
As far as. Especially as it relates to kind of like, these. What you're sharing about with your mom.
- [43:36]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah.
- [43:36]
Andrea
You know, sometimes it can come up. There still is just this protective. I know it's my teenager protecting my inner child.
- [43:44]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
You know, I think a couple of things. I mean, honestly, as you were just talking therapist me, wanted to move into the chair and have us slow it down. And what do you notice in your body right now, I'm not going to do that to you, but if I were your therapist, that is what we would do because that's where all of that lives, right? It's in the body and it's in the slowing. And then you reference your inner teenager and I think, you know, internal family systems and parts work is so profoundly powerful for, for healing.
- [44:16]
Andrea
I just started doing it with my therapist. I realize how important it is.
- [44:21]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
You know, I just think because we're so complex, right, that there is this very rational, very adult part of you that understands and gets it, but there are other parts of you that are really literally stuck in different chronological ages with different coping skills, with different jobs, right? This, we have these, you know, like protectors, the wounded parts that are like, I'm out of here, I'm never going to be seen again. And I think isolating them in a way, just that part of it is so healing and helpful because it reduces the shame and it allows me to go, oh well, of course the teenager or of course the 12 year old or the 8 year old is devastated and the rest of me can still be me. Like whole self, full self, authentic self stuff, however you want to look at it. But I can lean in to be present for that other part of me which is essentially, I think, you know, I think it's interesting. I did not set out to write my memoir. The idea of like I'm going to write a memoir on childhood drama is like the worst idea, you know, like it would never come to me like that. But I was just struck when he died. Pages and pages of material in the middle of the night, like stories and essays and all these things. And then all my history of horrific romantic relationships. And I was like, how does this all hang here? And it was a big jumble and I couldn't quite make sense of it. But I think it's sort of amazing that now I can look back and see that I was using, not consciously, but I was using all of these amazing principles of trauma therapy while I was sitting at my computer typing out my story. Even like the act of typing is a form of bilateral stimulation that we use from emdr. The way that you write a scene, engaging your senses and so you go back into a story and you go, what did it smell like? What did I see? The language of the nervous system, which is what we have to attune to in trauma, is the senses, right? And then I'm going back and I'm looking at these parts and it was years until I could do this. But I'm writing the scene of the 8 year old and the 12 year old and the 26 year old and the 30 year old. But I'm finally seeing it through the lens of a trauma therapist and I'm now being with those parts in this very different way. And so I just think it's kind of amazing that this spontaneous thing happened that I wasn't in the driver's seat of. And yet it was pulling from all of these principles that now the research shows us is so powerful. Like all these different modalities. Right. The sensory work is also. Peter Levine, somatic exception experiencing. Right. So pulling from all of these principles that are so powerful and, and I believe too, what's, what is universal about that, because not everyone's going to go and write a book about their story is my body knew what I needed more than I knew what I needed. I. It was like I was being pulled sometimes begrudgingly. Like I would look to my husband and be like, this is pain porn. This is awful. This hurts so bad. Why am I doing this? And he'd go, huh, I know, yeah, you're not going to finish. You're done yet. You can just, you know, hang up that pencil or whatever. And then the next day I'd be like that kid that can be like, I got to keep going, I got to keep going. There was something that needed to be worked through. And I think there's different ways that can look for different people. Sometimes it's on a pottery wheel, sometimes it's in their hiking boots out on a trail. That to really be curious about those things that we feel called to, that can bring us into our bodies, that can engage us with present time and the senses. And because there's something, I believe so healing in those callings, in those moments, in those experiences, I believe the body knows what it needs. And, and sometimes that's trauma therapy, right? Sometimes that's getting our butt in a seat with someone who is not just trauma informed. My bias is I want someone who is trauma trained, who really has some skills and tools and theoretical framework. Again, I sat on a lot of couches with a lot of really well meaning folks and I talked and talked my head off and I felt like I maybe was getting somewhere. And it was, you know, largely not so much. So working with someone who can hold the space for you to go in and say, hey, can we slow this down? What are you noticing in your body right now as you're telling me about how hard it was with your mom this year, you know, and really follow that thread.
- [49:03]
Andrea
What was the initial somatic modality that you used when you really started diving into your own healing?
- [49:11]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
It's interesting. I mean, I first trained with Somatic Experiencing Peter Levine's work, and it was just like, oh my gosh, this is mind blowing and I still love it and I incorporate it. And then I did EMDR training and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Yep. And now I'm, you know, super interested in ifs. I also think the research that's coming out of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is, I mean, it's undeniable. We can't sort of turn away from that and look at some of the powerful things that are happening there. Again, because it's stored in the body and our conscious mind is saying, hell no, I will not go there. And sometimes what are your thoughts on.
- [49:48]
Andrea
That with somebody with substance abuse issues?
- [49:51]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I think we have to be super mindful and careful. I think if your intention is ever like, woo one and done, I'm going to go do ayahuasca in Peru. And that makes me nervous. Right?
- [50:01]
Andrea
Yeah.
- [50:01]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I think it also makes me nervous the idea of just like doing it yourself, a DIY situation. But I think if you're really doing it in the right set and setting with the right intention and support, that it's really grounded again in someone who is trauma trained. And then I think again, we can't sort of turn away from some of the results that are happening there for people that have failed by every single modality. So it's like everything else. I don't think there's one panacea. I think it's all nervous system dependent. We all have a very different relationship to our stories, our experience experience, our truth, the access to that, to our feelings, to our bodies. But I find that I just want to keep availing myself of. I, you know, maybe I'm still an addict in that way. I'm a freedom junkie. I'm just like, I want more access to me, I want more conscious choice. I want more availability again, to be the kind of parent that I want to be for my son. And so if something seems like it's going to help me get there, I'm going to be open to it. Yeah.
- [51:04]
Andrea
And a couple of things. So there are so different modalities that people can partake in. What do you think the best way is for. For someone to navigate that as far as which route to take?
- [51:17]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I think you need to be talking to a professional. In my Opinion. You know, a lot of people reach out to me. Are you taking clients? You're taking clients and I'm not. But I always give the same suggestion, which is, I think Psychology Today, if you're looking for a traditional psychotherapist, is a great resource. I would look for people that have experience with complex trauma, that have specific trauma trainings. For the people that have experienced that deep emotional abuse or narcissistic abuse, I would ask that therapist, do you have, you know, training or information? Are you well versed in this? Because the people that aren't can end up going well. They're just doing their best and can you give them a break? And it's, you know, what we're talking about. Deeply abusive people that have zero intention of changing. No capacity for empathy. It's. It's a different rule book. You're not just looking to go, oh, we'll just have compassion. It's no. Have boundaries. Have real boundaries. It's allowed. And so make the phone calls, make several appointments with several different people. If it's available to you, really trust your body in that process, what felt right, why? And then engage in the conversations. Because it's always a process. You know, to the point of the woman who scared you half to death by saying, this is going to take a long time. Like, it's a process, that it's an ongoing path. We're never done. And so there's no rush. It's not. I need to go do eight EMDR sessions and, you know, a ketamine treatment. And with a dose of somatic experiencing, it's not just, be in your body, be in your life. Go take a walk, Orient with your senses to your surroundings. Notice what you see. Honestly, these are the building blocks. Some of the most foundational things, I think, through all my social media. If you click on my links, I have a link to a DIY sort of trauma toolbox that has a whole list of things that you can be doing in your life that I believe are so nourishing for your nervous system to be in present day. Because trauma is the past. As though it's happening now. It's happening now. And so these ways of orienting to the present moment, so it's all of it, and it's be intentional and trust the process, and it's not a race. And don't do it alone. Right. That's the other piece where I go, listen, I. Yes, I was sitting at my kitchen table writing this thing for five years, and I was doing it without any support because at that point I was like, therapists have kind of burned me. I feel like I haven't been well served there. And I wasn't well served because they weren't trauma therapists. And what we know about complex trauma now, we didn't know at all when I got sober. We didn't know really that this much when I was finishing graduate school and all these things. And we're just better informed now. And so avail yourself of the information. Right. Like, it's my whole mission on all my social media, my Instagram and all these things. It's. I'm trying to bring more real information to folks in a way that's accessible. Because sometimes those trauma textbooks and those things, it's like I can hardly read it. Sometimes I totally dissociate. I'm like, boop, I'm out of my body. I'm not going to get that.
- [54:22]
Andrea
Exactly.
- [54:23]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
And so find ways to get more information. There's a lot of downsides to social media, but this is one of the huge upsides to me is that there are amazing professionals. You've had a ton of them on your podcast that are giving away so much good information for free. I know what you and I would have done with that in our own childhoods. Right.
- [54:45]
Andrea
It's no shit. I want to talk with you briefly about fawning. So can you talk about what? How has working through that looked like for you? In what ways do you find yourself still struggling with it?
- [54:59]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah, it's so huge. It's so. I didn't know that I was stuck in a chronic fawning trauma response.
- [55:08]
Andrea
What did that look like for you?
- [55:10]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Well, a lot of it was privileging my mom's wounding over what my own needs. Right. Because I learned it so early on. I'm going to figure out what you need and try not to certainly be a burden to you. I'm going to, like, wrap my every choice around what I think you need in the hope that my needs are finally going to be met. And so that I just had this thought. So it's.
- [55:33]
Andrea
You know, one of the things that really blocks people is, you know, the fear of talking about my childhood is betraying my. My family. And that, in essence, is fawning.
- [55:42]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yes, that's 100% that's fawning. And I think the other reason I like the language of fawning so much is because to me, and maybe this is because I kind of grew up in AA and codependency language comes out of the addiction world. And it almost seemed like the. Well, you're either an addict or you're a codependent. And if I identify addict, right. Yes, I'm definitely. I belong everywhere. But I think there was this kind of a vibe of like those codependents, those al Anons. Right. It's like, I don't want to be that. Don't be a doormat. Get some self esteem. It all felt like a choice. And, and of course there's this part of me going, well, I'm not a doormat, right? Like I'm not that. And so my defense against all of that kind of blocked me from seeing how I was engaging in those very same behaviors. And when I got to Pete Walker's work and he's telling me why, from a trauma perspective, the body will always privilege safety and connection above all else. And this was the family I was born into. I didn't have a lot of wiggle room in terms of finding safety and connection. And how brilliant this is where I flip this whole notion of and like, just take care of yourself and love yourself and do some affirmations. It's, you know what? My body was so brilliant that even as a young child, it figured out how to receive even a modicum of safety and connection. And then, guess what? That's my blueprint. Because we don't learn by theories, right? Oh, of course I want to be X, Y and Z. We are experiential learners. We are experiential learners. So that's all I learned. I know how to keep myself safe in the context of active addiction. Liars, abusers, manipulators, scapegoating me. I'm going to take the blame. So in a way, I didn't have a chance but to go out and find people that fit this model because not because I had a bad picker and what's wrong with me, I was doing it because that's where my body felt the safest. Because it was my only relationship to safety. All my tools and myself skills were forged in that environment. I. I don't know whose quote this is, but I used it in the book that red flags don't look like red flags when they feel like home. And so I did it over and over and I'm knowing that I'm doing it over and I'm like telling my therapist, why can't I have a healthy relationship to save my life? And now I know why. Because I was reenacting my trauma, which was me being stuck to in a chronic, fixing, pleasing. I'll take all the responsibility, don't worry, I got it response. And in order for me to start to heal that like I really have, I had to look at boundaries like we talked about, the biggest boundaries that I've had to set of all, which was my relationship with my mom. But it's in every facet of our lives, right? It's sort of this reflexive thing. Our trauma responses aren't conscious. We just do it, right? So I will still to this day go into like, oh, you know, oh, you seem like you're in a bad mood, whoever this person is and it's my fault and I need to fix it, you know, and then I have to notice that when I can and take some deep breaths and orient to present time and place and maybe put my hand on my heart, which is a powerful stance of self compassion, it releases oxytocin bias for us. And I can take some deep breaths and be like, I don't have to do that today. I can be present to whoever which part is activated inside of me and I can take care of that part and do it differently. And so some days I can do that really well and some days those tools are not available to me and then I really have to double down with self compassion and just go, yeah, it's always going to be, it's always going to be a process for me just talking about these things too and sharing my own experience on places like Instagram. And it's also reduced the shame where I just can laugh at it and be like, oh, of course I did that, of course I did it again and again. And here's what works sometimes and here's a framework that's interesting to me and oh, I did it again. You know, it's a process, but one that I'm engaged in.
- [60:06]
Andrea
When was the last time that you experienced a pretty intense emotional flashback?
- [60:11]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
That's a good question. Not super recently, but maybe about a year or so before that. I know I was talking about it more regularly on social media cuz I was going through some stuff. Historically I have had that feeling that I'm going to get in trouble and I'm going to get in trouble. You know, I'm 49 years old, right? Like, who am I going to get in trouble with? But it was this deep. Not only am I going to get in trouble, but it's going to be bad. Like it's going to be, I mean, I guess similar from my childhood. It was like, you're not allowed to, you're not allowed anything. You're Hunkered down in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. No phone calls, no friendship. We don't even look at you in your own home. You don't exist. Right. So anything that feels like if I can avoid that. And so, you know, I think we used to have this idea with flashbacks that they were like we see in the movies, like a vet who is at a fourth of July parade and it's suddenly back in wartime. Right. But really, it's any little fragment, and sometimes it's a known fragment, sense memory, and sometimes it's not. So in other words, sometimes I can pinpoint it and be like, oh, yeah, that person was maybe expressing some frustration with me and it triggered something in me. Or maybe it was a smell or who knows? But sometimes I can't place it. It just feels real. I'm like. And my whole body is guarding against what do I need to do? How do I get out of this? It's this deep rumination and obsession about, like, running over the thing. And now when that captures me, eventually I can see it for what it is and start to kind of, like, come back into present time and do some of these other things, like I've already shared, just really offering compassion and orienting. But it feels so real when you're in it. It just feels so real and there is no time. Yeah. And that language of emotional flashback is also Pete Walker's. I'm so grateful for that, you know, because again, I just felt stupid. I'll be honest. I'll be like, I know I'm not consciously going to get in trouble, but when I was flooded with that feeling and it felt so real and I felt so childlike, and I had no resources, and, I mean, that powerlessness is devastating. And so then to have the shame on top of it, well, you should know better. Like, why, you know, consciously, you know, you're not going to get in trouble. It's not a conscious thing. My body is being completely triggered back to a state that was terrifying, and it thinks it's happening again.
- [62:44]
Andrea
It's such an interesting place to. To witness it. You know, it's okay, yeah, I'm going to die because this person I know I'm not going to die because this person didn't text me back after 30 minutes. But I'm like, pretty fucking sure I'm going to die.
- [62:57]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah. Yes. Yes. It feels that bad.
- [63:02]
Andrea
It's miserable. It's the most miserable experience ever. But, God, yeah. I just remember the first time that I was able to kind of have that witnessing experience of it, and it makes it worse, but almost better at the same time. You know, it's like, it's.
- [63:17]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Yeah, because it's not a quick fix. It's not like I can go, oh, this is an emotional flashback. I feel so much. It's like a slow, like, tissue. One little thread at a time. I can start to kind of like, disconnect from and be like, oh, okay, I'm eventually back.
- [63:35]
Andrea
So I'm going to put links to all of your shit in the show notes, your books. Oh, the memoir is wonderful. What else do you want to promote or what are you doing working on? What do you want the folks to know?
- [63:47]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
I mean, I think where I'm having the most fun is the social media stuff now. And particularly after the book came out, a lot of people were like, well, what are you going to do now? And subscription or workshops and all these things that I think a lot of other people are doing really well. And I didn't necessarily feel called into that space, but the thing that kept occurring to me was really blending these different parts of me that's just been such a big piece of my healing. It's like I'm not just a survivor or an addict or, you know, a clinician or an expert or a trauma therapist or a mom. Like, I'm all of these things all in one place. And the ability to be that without shame has been so, so healing. And so for me to be a survivor and a therapist and kind of a nut job, just like being super playful and childlike and having fun is the space that I've wanted to continue to grow. So I started this variety show on YouTube called Standup Therapy. I've only had one episode. I'm working on the second one. I just filmed a cooking show with. So fun. Oh, my God, it's so fun. Yeah. I just went and met Dr. Ramani out at her studio space, and I brought us chef hats and made us aprons that say, we make the recipe so you don't have to. And we're making a trauma bond smoothie. And it's. I don't know. This is what I want to do. I want to make these concepts really accessible, funny, and fun so we don't feel so alone. I love the performance aspect and like I said, laughing at things that have honestly brought me so much pain. And now that I know what it is and have the language and can be a little bit softer around it, I just want to help other people be softer around it. And so this is what I'm doing now. We'll see where that goes. But I'm having fun with it for sure.
- [65:31]
Andrea
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been really awesome. What you holding on to?
- [65:46]
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Let's just let it all go what's making you small now? Just let it all go what you got to do? Yeah.