Broken in the Stronger Places: From Resilience to Resourcefulness

Elizabeth Estabrooks takes us on a profound journey through trauma, healing, and the unexpected paths to recovery in this eye-opening conversation about her new book "Broken in the Stronger Places: From Resilience to Resourcefulness."

Drawing from three decades working with survivors of personal violence, Estabrooks challenges the popular metaphor that trauma makes us "stronger in the broken places." While many embrace the Japanese art of kintsugi—repairing broken pottery with gold—as a symbol of trauma recovery, she reveals a more complex truth: trauma never truly disappears. Even after extensive healing work, re-traumatization can occur through national events or personal triggers, shattering those supposedly strengthened places.

The conversation pivots to the invisible struggles facing women veterans. "Veteran is default male," Estabrooks explains, leading to troubling statistical blindspots. When headlines celebrate decreased veteran homelessness or suicide rates, they often mask rising rates among women veterans. This invisibility extends to women's self-perception—Estabrooks herself didn't identify as a veteran until age 45, despite serving in the 1980s, a common experience that prevents many from accessing vital benefits.

Perhaps most powerful is Estabrooks' personal healing journey. After burning out at the VA's Center for Women Veterans, she followed her instinct to purchase a van and spend 14 months driving across America. This wasn't a planned therapeutic intervention but an example of "resourcefulness"—the capacity to find what you need when resilience alone isn't enough. For helpers carrying others' trauma stories, she offers wisdom about recognizing when it's time to step away and prioritize your own mental health over career expectations.

Whether you're a survivor seeking validation, a helper navigating vicarious trauma, or someone supporting a loved one through recovery, this conversation offers invaluable insights about trauma's long-term impact and the unexpected resources we might discover on our healing journeys. Visit awomansvoicepress.com to learn more about Elizabeth's work and upcoming book tour.

Chapters

• 1:08 Meet Elizabeth Estabrooks
• 4:17 Recognizing Women as Veterans
• 10:23 Introducing "Broken in the Stronger Places"
• 18:05 Understanding Re-traumatization
• 28:24 From Resilience to Resourcefulness
• 36:32 Self-Care for Helpers and Professionals
• 44:15 Making Tough Decisions for Mental Health
• 49:55 Key Takeaways and Book Details

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Hey, good afternoon. This is Dr Daniel Roberts, president and CEO of Moral Injury Support Network for Service Women Incorporated, and this is the Moral Injury Support Network podcast. Today we are with Elizabeth Esterbrooks, who is a consultant, speaker, writer and author with subject matter expertise on survivors of personal violence, both military and civilians, and women veterans. Since 1992, she has worked in the private, public and non-profit sector on the topics of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, military sexual assault, peer support services, community and organizational planning, and gender and culturally responsive services. In 2022, she retired, leaving her position as a deputy director at the Department of Veteran Affairs Center for Women Veterans Prior to recruitment to CWV.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Ms Estabrook worked as a consultant for nearly 30 years, followed by her appointment as the first Oregon Am Not Invisible photo project of women veterans in Oregon and facilitated expansion as a nationwide project with the VA Center for Women Veterans. She holds a Bachelor's of Science degree in Gender Studies and Political Science from Eastern Oregon University, where she graduated summa cum laude, and a master of science and social work from Columbia University. From 2021 to 2022, she was appointed at the VA's Secretary's Task Force on Inclusion, diversity, equity and Access, the VA Sexual Assault Prevention Committee and the National Gender Policy Council Work Group. She was appointed to the VA National Domestic Violence Task Force in 2012, was a 2013 Fisher Cummings Washington DC Fellow and is a peacetime Cold War-era Army veteran. Ms Estabrooks retired in 2022 and lives in Eastern Oregon, where she is focused on writing books and publishing on Medium. So thank you for coming it's great having you, liz, and thanks for being on our podcast today.

Speaker 2: 2:48

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for inviting me. I really appreciate it. It's good to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:53

So there's a lot in your bio. You've done a lot of great things. Of all that stuff, is there anything you really want to highlight for the audience?

Speaker 2: 3:03

I think you know I want to go ahead and jump ahead kind of to the book, because a lot of people think that the book is just about women veterans or just for women veterans, and I just want to make sure that the sum of my experience over almost 30 years is for it's. I started in the field working with women who are not veterans. Probably there were some women that were that I just wasn't aware of because I wasn't thinking about being a veteran at the time. But but I've worked with both civilian, military and non and women veterans, so the book is really useful for everybody and non and women veterans, so the book is really useful for everybody.

Speaker 2: 3:43

It's you know, and I didn't and I want to throw this out I didn't really recognize myself as a veteran. I left the military in 1980. And I didn't even start thinking of myself as a veteran until I was about 45. And and then it kind of somebody reminded me that I was actually considered a veteran and so that was sort of by the time I got to graduate school in at Columbia in 2011,. That had that, I'd come closer and closer and closer to to seeing myself and and counting myself as a, as a veteran veteran.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1: 4:19

So the book that you're mentioning Make Sure the Audience Gets it is Broken in the Stronger Places, from Resilience to Resourcefulness, and we'll be talking about that book a lot today.

Speaker 1: 4:30

But you brought up a really good point that a lot of women experience is not really feeling like a veteran until much later, and, and a big part of that is because, um, for a very, very long time, right, veteran was a man thing and um, it's just like our culture, our society really still tends to see as veterans as men, um, and and heroes and all that hero type men and um. Nothing wrong with with the special forces guys and the tough guys and the hero guys and all that. But there's a whole lot more to the military than just the combat dudes and the special forces guys. Um, there's men and women who are, you know, working behind the scenes, do administrative things, and of course now we have women doing pretty much everything that you can do in the military and that's great. But just continue need like to recognize women as being very important veterans, regardless of what they did in the military.

Speaker 2: 5:43

That's right. Thank you for all of that. I always said that veteran is default male areas like homelessness and suicide and substance abuse. A lot of times women don't have access to services or don't know what's available to them or they're not getting proper services because default veteran is male. And so, for instance, when VA they like to post on LinkedIn that the rate of homelessness among veterans has decreased. Well, that's only partly true because there are so many male veterans and so many fewer female veterans. When they do their analysis, if we break it down into gender, what we see is that it has reduced among men, but it has gone up among women.

Speaker 2: 6:37

So when VA says suicide has gone down among veterans, homelessness has gone down among veterans, we need to all ask ourselves but is that true of all the veterans or is that only true of the men? Because if you, like I said, when you break it down, what you see is that it hasn't gone down for everybody and that's unfortunate that it's reported that way that male default veteran, that it's just reported by a veteran, because it prevents people who are doing the work in those fields from understanding the reality of what's the true picture, and so they don't prepare their outreach for their homelessness programs, outreach for their homelessness programs. They don't think about building shelters and housing for women, because they don't know that it's going up around for women Same with suicide. So there's a reason we never saw ourselves.

Speaker 2: 7:29

I was just a girl who was in the military. I was just a girl who was in the army. I wasn't a veteran. And when we don't see our status as a veteran or what have you, we tend to leave those benefits on the table and we tend to get fewer services. So it's really important that people like you on these kind of platforms continue to say those things that people don't like to hear.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Yeah, thank you. I remember we'll move on here in a minute but I remember having a conversation. Well, one of my staffers was having a conversation with a woman who was, you know, seemed to be connected to various organizations to help raise funds and so on and so on, and we were trying to explain moral injury and how it happened for women, veterans and so on, and she was, you know, she said something that infuriated Jamie and then Jamie later told me about it and I was infuriated too. But it was something like you know, I think you'd have better luck if you were talking about the hero stuff, you know, and people don't really want to hear about blah, blah, blah. Well, that's totally beside the point. The fact that they don't want to hear about it means they need to hear about it more.

Speaker 2: 8:52

Oh, exactly, thank you.

Speaker 1: 8:54

And the need is so high and, like you mentioned, with women, because of the isolation, because of lack of services and so on, the homelessness, suicidal ideation, whatever it is like all these different issues are higher for women and continue to climb in many of these categories. And we're just not, you know, they continue to be invisible. We'll occasionally acknowledge them, but then when it comes down to actually spending real dollars to take care of them, you know that's where it gets squirrely, yeah that's absolutely correct, thank you. So let's talk about the book.

Speaker 2: 9:46

What prompted you to write that book. So that's a question. That kind of happened over a few years, as I spent more time since I spent most of my time in that 30 years was working with or about women who were victims and survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. And I'm a social worker and I had been in the field even before I got my social work degree. And you know, you hear, when you're in that sort of environment. You hear a lot about trauma and and one of the things that we hear often is that you know that that whole phrase what doesn't kill you, make you stronger. And you know if you, if you do the work, you'll be stronger in the broken places and and and, and I bought into that for a long time. So I'll talk about broken in the stronger places.

Speaker 2: 10:37

There's an art form, a functional art form is what I call it. That is called kensuge, and people don't know the word, but they've probably seen the images or the actual items. And it's when, say, for instance, a piece of porcelain is broken and then repaired with lacquer and gold powder. So you see, like a gold scar on the on the piece, and it's still. It was developed in japan hundreds of years ago, um, and then, once it's repaired, this story is that it was a, it was an emperor, um emperor, some shogun or something, who whose favorite uh thing was broken and he it no longer would hold water and he wanted it repaired. And after searching the land high and low, he was able to find an artisan who was able to fix this by applying the lacquer and the gold and it, and it kept the water from leaking out. And he, it's a lot of beauty and and they said, you know, the idea became, became that it was even the bad and the good and it was what. It accented the beauty of that item's history and made it more special or more valuable.

Speaker 2: 11:54

And so in the early 90s, the field of the psychology field embraced that metaphor and they said, yes, if you have trauma in your history, through recovery steps and counseling and all of the things, you too can become stronger in the broken places. And I believed that for a very long time. And then, after years of working with women who were survivors, I came to understand that that is only partially true, that only tells part of the picture, because trauma never goes away. Once you've experienced trauma, it's in you forever and you can go through all of the steps, you can go through the healing, you can do everything you're supposed to do and still down the road you can experience something that re-traumatizes you, re-traumatizes you, re-triggers you, and it can be a national event or it can be a personal event, and I'll give you an example of a national event is 9-11. The people who were, for instance, in New York City or near the Pentagon or in Pennsylvania, they were very close to that and they and even though years have passed, each year about that time that comes around, they begin, they can begin to feel triggered or re-traumatized through the shows on TV news, reminders, etc.

Speaker 2: 13:14

Um, also, when, when, uh, when, um, oj Simpson's trial was happening, many women who were victims and survivors were, were traumatized. We, you know there was what I call a mass triggering event and that was that murder and that trial. And so you know it could be that, you know, over decades you haven't focused on your trauma, you haven't paid any attention to it, and then something like that can happen and it can blow your world apart. So we don't talk about re-traumatization, which for me means being broken in those stronger places. You've done the work, you've gone through recovery and treatment, et cetera. But then something can happen. You can become re-traumatized and that's not something that we have talked about enough in the mental health field, excuse me, we don't talk about re traumatization, we don't. Triggering has become to most people, just a disclaimer. This is caution. This could trigger you, but re-traumatization is very real and, um, and it's not something because it's not something that we talk about when we're counseling or working with survivors.

Speaker 2: 14:21

When that happens, oftentimes they can, it can, just it can hit them unawares and they it can, it can set them back because they think, and especially women, because we're, you know, in the culture that we exist, we're really the ones who were considered to be the strong. You know we have to be strong, you have to be strong to hold your family together, etc. So it can be very surprising when you all of a sudden or something happened and you and you can't function and and you think again, as part of our culture, I'm a bad mom, I'm a bad employee, I'm a bad sister, I'm a bad person. I did something wrong. This happened because of me and oftentimes it's because that's the messaging we receive, right?

Speaker 2: 15:13

So, with re-traumatization, when that happens and we're not aware that it could happen. Remember we were victims and we're survivors, but that doesn't mean we know the dynamics or the reality of trauma. That doesn't mean we know the dynamics or the reality of trauma. And so when that re-traumatization happens, if we're not prepared for it, if we are not, we don't learn to understand. You know how that, what our response is to that and how we can, how we can, how we can deal with it. It can be very. It can be traumatizing in and of itself. So the book Stronger in the Broken Places is me talking about re-traumatization, about becoming broken in my stronger places and the process, what that looks like. Because I experienced sexual harassment and a lot of groping also known as sexual assault when I was in the army and then I took that away and I never really thought anything about it. And then over the years I started working with survivors and victims and then I had vicarious trauma or have. So it's it's just a it's a process.

Speaker 1: 16:13

That's, that's a really important point about just the re-traumatization, because you you go into counseling or therapy, whatever really wanting to be fixed yeah right, I'm hoping to get fixed, um, and it's like, unfortunately, it doesn't often work that way, that's right, um, but so?

Speaker 1: 16:38

so you talk a lot about the re-traumatization, but it sounds like so as I read the title, right Broken in Stronger Places, from resilience to resourcefulness, right. So there's hope there. This is not just merely about, like you know, sort of demythologizing, the idea of being healed, but you're actually then you know what's the hope for someone who reads this book?

Speaker 2: 17:15

So one of the things when I was writing it and I started writing it because I had there was a bunch of stuff that happened in about a one year space While I was my last year at the Center for Women Veterans, and one of those was that I was starting to understand that VA really didn't care very much about women and that it was kind of all smoke and mirrors didn't care very much about women and that it was kind of all smoke and mirrors and um and and I and so, between my frustration and everything, I was starting my ship, my broke. Stronger places were just starting to shatter, and and so when we talk about, about um, that, the idea of of trauma, when we talk about trauma, there's resilience and you hear probably everyone here has heard about resilience, I'm sure you have that it's that resilience that can help us get through trauma right. But it's resourcefulness that is a tool, an important tool when you are experiencing re-traumatization, when you're re-experiencing trauma, it's that resourcefulness that helps you, that helps you know how to manage. It is your resources. So, for instance, with me, when I had my snapping, as I call it, at the VA, I knew what I needed and it wasn't like I consciously knew, but my focus in was like I have to get out of DC, I have to get in my van, I have to buy a van, I have to drive it, I have to get in the sun, and I was just like this, I just was.

Speaker 2: 18:38

I just kind of knew internally that I needed to do these things or I hoped I could to in order to heal, and so that the resourcefulness was me getting it. And it was funny because I didn't really get this. A friend pointed it out to me Because when you're even if you're a social worker, a psychologist, when you're deeply involved in your trauma, you don't think like a social worker or a psychologist, right? You think like a person who's experiencing trauma. And so my what, what helped me heal, what was my resourcefulness, was my getting into that van and driving for 10 months and then, even after I sold the van, continuing to drive for another four months or whatever. It was that journey, that healing journey, that took me from the trauma to the resilience. The resilience was what helped me completely fall apart. And then the resourcefulness is what helped bring me to a more healing journey, a way out, if you will, a way out of my trauma journey, a way out, if you will, a way out of my trauma. And so when I was driving, when I was, I left DC in November and in January I started writing my book because I just felt like it was something that you know.

Speaker 2: 19:51

A lot of people who are survivors of trauma don't know all of this, and I learned that in my years working with women who were survivors or victims. There's an assumption that they know everything there is to know about domestic violence because they were in it. Right, but they know their experience. That doesn't mean they know the dynamics of domestic violence, and so my hope with this book was that people would read the book, whether they're survivors or whether they're helpers, whether they're people who have nonprofit organizations or governance, people who make laws and policies, and for victims and survivors, that they would come to feel validated so that they would say, yeah, now I get it, Now I'm not just a whatever that I couldn't even pass therapy, that I understand what is happening with me when it happens and why that's happening and how I can help self-care to get out of it or to work through it.

Speaker 1: 20:47

That's awesome. So you, so you left. You said you left DC and then you're. When you say you're driving for 10 months and then four months, what does that mean exactly?

Speaker 2: 21:06

So I bought a van. I, when I was, I took, I took about a month off before I left my job. I took a mental health leave and I I began planning. So I bought a van, I could live in a camper van and I put everything in my home in storage and I rented out my apartment and and I took off and my plan was to live in my van until I was done, and that's what I did.

Speaker 2: 21:31

So so it's it's interesting, because it's not like leaving helped me immediately feel better about anything. I was still a mess. My health, I was still having weekly phone calls with my psychologist. They added anxiety drugs to my, to everything else, and and so when I was preparing my, my, my dear friends, anne-marie and Tiffany, they, they were, like you know, stay here through November and all I could think was I have to go, I have to go, I have to leave, I have to go, I have to go to the sun, I have to be warm. It's so cold here.

Speaker 2: 22:06

And it's interesting about that because what you're feeling in that moment is very different than when you look back with some clarity and go oh, so all I knew was that it was cold, cold and I need the sunshine in the warmth and I felt like that. I in my mind, I felt like that would heal me or help me feel better. And when I was writing book, I looked back at what the weather was during that time period and it was like 55 degrees. It wasn't cold, but my soul was so cold and I just I was such a mess that that's all I knew. And so when I was driving, I headed down 95 to Florida and I remember all I like I wasn't really. You know, when you're driving to someplace, especially somebody place, and you're like, oh, that's pretty, oh, look at that, oh that's interesting. But I was just like car traffic.

Speaker 1: 22:50

Yeah right.

Speaker 2: 22:52

Turn off here, stop here. The dog needs to be like, really functioning is all I was doing. I was just functioning and, and so it took about a month for me to really start coming out of that just just surviving mode and and as I, I and I, I was by myself, it was just me and my little dog and I didn't. I rarely spoke to anybody. I, when I got into a campground or something, I would take my dog for a walk, but I didn't visit, I didn't connect, I just stayed away from everybody pretty much until I got to Baja and then I met some women and we, you know, we hung out and and talked and everything, but I was completely unable or uninterested in talking to people, but, but at the end of but, but, but at the end of it but, and then in August, that was in, I left in in November 22 and August 23, my dog died and I realized that I, I was just like I can't.

Speaker 2: 23:46

I, it's all the trauma. I was revisited with trauma, right, and I realized I couldn't, I couldn't, I just couldn't. I couldn't drive without her, I couldn't be in that van and live and do that life because I wasn't done yet. But, um. So I sold my van and I bought a jeep and then I spit um from from, uh, august or September to um September to March, just driving around again, going and doing things and visiting people and hiking, because I, I was just so set back by the death of my, my best friend, my dog.

Speaker 2: 24:21

So, that was the driving.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Yeah, it's a good friend of mine and retired retired army chaplain. He talked about many years ago when he was struggling and I don't know the entire story but I think he was pastoring for a while and whatever. Things got really intense and whatever. He was just burned out, yeah, and he ended up driving a train for for a couple years and he said just for him, just, you know, sitting there for hours and hours just watching the, the, you know, the scenery go by, uh, was incredibly healing.

Speaker 1: 25:12

And so years later, when I worked for him and we would drive to places doing various what we called strong bonds events back then for soldiers, but like marriage retreat things, where we would ride together and there was some really nice scenery, he would make me really slow down and we would just drive very slowly through there. He also has his own airplane, little private airplane, and he just gets up there and just, you know, it's just about the freedom of being kind of, you know, away from the. He's a very busy person, but you know that was just really important for him those years ago to just let go of all that.

Speaker 2: 26:03

And so I'm guessing.

Speaker 1: 26:04

Some of that happened for you, right.

Speaker 2: 26:07

Yeah, and that was resourcefulness. He used the tools he had, he made a decision and now he's found that that's what he uses whenever he starts feeling the, the revisitation of trauma. Because you know, when we talk about vicarious trauma for people like you and I and your chaplain friend, we hear some of the most horrific things and and that stuff stores inside of us, it just stays it. You know, and and and we, if we're not, and I. You know it was interesting because I was teaching on vicarious trauma. I knew what vicarious trauma was, but I wasn't focusing on my needs and my self-care and whether or not I was. I was. You know, the vicarious trauma was, was embedding itself in me until later when I was like, oh yeah, I probably should have done something.

Speaker 2: 27:01

You know my psychologist, she, when I was speaking with her after, after my breaks, she said you know, you went from your own trauma, you took a break from from it for 10 years and then you jumped headon into this field. That is excruciating at times, what you know and learn. The people you're helping have been through and and you just, and you just bulldozed straight ahead for 30 years. So she said it's first of all, I can't believe you lasted that long. And second, uh, you know, wow, um, you can't do it anymore, ever, ever.

Speaker 2: 27:38

If you do this, if you listen to other women's stories anymore, it will not go well for you, because your trauma is so deep and so wide. You've got your own plus you've you've got the burden of carrying all of those thousands of stories. You know, because I was, I was in full on, I was listening to stories, I was talking to women, I was writing about it, I was, I was uh going to the you know, uh deep into research, and so it was. That's what I lived and breathed for most of 30 years. And um and so for people like who are in that field, that vicarious trauma is real and legitimate so how do?

Speaker 1: 28:23

how do uh, social workers, psychologists, so on how do they manage that and and like because we need people to do that work, right, yeah, and often people are motivated to go into that field because of their own trauma. We see the same thing in the chaplaincy of you know I've had more than one presentation about you know you need to get healed so you can be there for other people and this is you know you're in this field because of of your own trauma or whatever. So how do folks in the care providing field chaplain, psychologist, social workers, whoever right there are other medical doctors, lawyers, I mean there's a lot of people in fields of trying to help people have beenized? What are some ways that they can help manage that, or manage their, if that's the right word as they're doing this work? How can they stay in a good place or whatever?

Speaker 2: 29:30

And I think it's double-edged. I think one, you don't need to be back in that fight with people. If it gets to the point where you can't, then you should leave. Go drive a train, go do something, but don't feel, because when I felt like I had to do that work, I felt like if I would be letting down all those women everywhere if I didn't do that work. And so I think that as helpers what I call us as the helping fields we need to be in a position, we need to be okay with leaving that field. Also, I am not obligated to stay in this field. I have to take care of myself, and I think that's the first conversation we need to have with ourselves is is I need to be aware of what's going on and I need to be able to take care of myself. And if that means I have to step away, fine, then I will step away, but I, but for those who choose to remain, then then the other conversation needs to be you know, what do I need to do? What are the tools I need to gather?

Speaker 2: 30:37

When we went, when I was in Columbia, jeanette Takamura was the Dean and, and the first day she said one of the things that that psychologists and social workers are absolutely the worst at is getting their own mental health care. She said we have mental health services available to all of our students and we expect you to use them, because how can you be in this field and not be connected to therapy and what it looks and feels like? And as time went on, I came to understand what she meant, and I you know. For me it was oh, I have to cancel my mental health appointment because I have to go do this. Right, I have to go help these people. And so I stopped taking care of myself. So we have to be just as important as the people we're helping. We have to make sure that we understand our importance is every bit equal with the importance of those who are helping and that it's okay for us to step back, it's okay for us to take a break, it's okay for us to say I can't do this anymore, it's killing me, it's destroying my own mental health. And so, before you get to the point where you break, maybe you can remain in the field without hearing the stories. But by being in administration and continuing to help people, there are a lot of ways that you can do that work without being one-on-one and face-to-face with it.

Speaker 2: 32:06

So I think, as helpers, that's the most important thing is understanding, first of all, what are our tools? What do I need to do? I need to honor myself by taking a vacation once a year. I need to go, not sacrifice my mental health appointments for somebody else. Like we really just need to make ourselves important enough to do that.

Speaker 2: 32:25

Because all of our like over the years I have been, it has been heartfelt for me the number of women who have said you've done so much, let me do for you, let us do for you. And my sister, in fact my sister Teresa, she and her husband were going to help me with something and I wasn't home and they were going to go do it. And I said, teresa, you guys do so much, you don't have to. And she said, but that's what we're for, like we're family, that's what we. We're here to help you. Just let us help you because you've helped. So over the years it became really hard for me to let people help me. So now I'm like, oh, I don't know, you're doing too much, you can't help me. And so just let us embrace ourselves and give ourselves that hug and that recognition that we need to do this for ourselves.

Speaker 1: 33:40

When you talk about resourcefulness, would you say that the idea that within ourselves, like there's at some deep layer, maybe somewhere in there, that we can, we need to tap into it, that those ideas that will, like our body, deep in our mind somewhere, knows exactly what we need, um, and and is able to to think what steps to take to get what we need would. Would you say that's true, or or okay?

Speaker 2: 33:59

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like like consciously, I didn't know that I needed to take that long journey. It wasn't, you know, I just was thinking I have to do this. But it wasn't like I said. I know, it wasn't like I was sitting around trying to like checking the boxes going should I do this, should I do that, should I do this? Maybe I'll do that and said no, it was just like. It was like my body, as you said, your body and your mind, you know listen to that instinct, because it knew what I needed.

Speaker 1: 34:29

So then, as we, as as we're thinking about that, and then I guess the next piece is just having the courage, or, as we're thinking about that, and then I guess the next piece is just having the courage or maybe there's a better word to actually take that step, because I feel like you know, again, it's this feeling of responsibility I need to you know if I do this, will I be abandoning these people?

Speaker 1: 34:58

What will they think of me? Or what's my spouse going to say, or whatever. It is right that can be tricky for people, I would think, and not not that we're suggesting everybody buy a van and drive for 14 months, but whatever you need, still there's this there's a certain amount of pressure maybe, or or financial pressure of I can't do that because I got to pay the bills and this job pays the bills, or whatever. Do you run into those? Like, how would you help somebody think about those kind of challenges if they're, if they're If deep in their mind or body is saying you need to do this, but then, on the other hand, there this you know resistance to it. How do you sort of overcome that resistance?

Speaker 2: 35:42

um, and I think that when I left my job in dc, I was making more money than I had imagined I would make, and I know a lot of people. There are people who think that people in the federal government make too much, and there are people who who've worked in the federal government who see the salaries and go God, that's like not nearly enough money, and and so I I wasn't necessarily ready to retire and I was enjoying the money, but but I but I knew that I was more important than the money I was making. I think that, especially Americans, we get caught up in what we're supposed to be doing for others, for we get caught up in you have to have a job and you have to have a career and you have to be willing to sacrifice in order to make this much money. Like we have all of these rules that we were born and raised with Right, especially as baby boomers. You're supposed to, you know, you're supposed to work hard and you're supposed to want to do all this stuff. And one of the things that I love about millennials and Z and all the other generations I don't know the ones that are younger than, especially younger than, I think, the Gen X is that they took a look at the lives of baby boomers, of their parents and grandparents, and said oh hell, no, I'm not going to work 12 or 15 hours a day, I'm not going to sacrifice my life for a job. And I think that what people need to realize is do I need it or do I want it? Do I need to make $158,000 a year to be happy? And am I making that much money? Am I happy? And if the answer is no, I'm not happy. Re-examine. Like you, you will make it now. Unfortunately, most of America is burdened with two car payments and house payment for a house they can't afford, and all of that. But but if you're coming to the point where you're questioning, then keep questioning and and ask yourself do I need a 2,000 square foot home? The answer is probably no. Do I need two cars that are $500 or $600 a month? The answer is no, you don't. Do you need good mental health and your life back? 100%? Yes, you do, absolutely. So how do we separate ourselves from that? We just we have to. You know, we give it thought and we ask ourselves these questions and then we start downsizing.

Speaker 2: 38:06

I met a woman when I first bought my van. She was. She was set up and I met a lot of people who said, oh gosh, I want to do that lifeline. And then, in the next breath, she said but I just got my second 10 by 20 storage unit. And I said, girlfriend, you're going the wrong way, like you're going totally the wrong direction. If what you want to do is downsize, if you have to buy a second storage unit to put all your crap in, you're going the wrong way. And and so you know what do we need to do? We need to do what's best for us and we need to make a conscious decision about what that looks like.

Speaker 2: 38:41

And it's scary, I'm not going to lie. It was scary dropping that paycheck. But do I have any regrets? No, I have none at all, and I know some women who are distraught, who are saying but it's the mission and I love my job and I would feel bad leaving. Well, you have to overcome that, because it is having a negative impact on your life. If you're to the point where you're crying or you're not healthy or whatever, it's not healthy. You need to figure out a different way to do your life. I have a friend who wanted to be a jazz musician and succumbed to his parents' pressure of being something else and years later decided to be a jazz musician, dumped that job and went out and became a jazz musician. And his life his life are changed dramatically because he made that decision to walk away from the penthouse and the big fat paycheck and just go live in a small studio and be a jazz musician. It wasn't the stuff was not making him happy, but playing the music that made him happy.

Speaker 1: 39:58

So yeah, um, what is the? What is the one or two things you really want people to get out of this book? I mean, there's a lot to it, but really you know key things you want people to think about or or get out of it as they, as they go into reading this book.

Speaker 2: 40:21

I think for victims and survivors it's kind of a scary idea reading this book, but I tried to write it in a way that nobody would be triggered, right. I didn't tell story details, I alluded to them, but I didn't tell stories of sexual or physical trauma or assault. Rather, and I think, and I think that for, for people who are survivors, whether it's a survivor from intimate partner violence or a survivor from a train wreck or whatever, how, what can they, what they can gain, and the validation of their feelings of post-traumatic stress, because so many people who are burdened with post-traumatic stress, they just don't like they're, they don't, they don't have enough knowledge about it and awareness. And so for those people, for those people who are survivors, validation, understanding what they're going through, um, and recognizing that it's, that it's more common than they believe, and I think that's the case with so much with mental health. And then for people who are family members, friends, supporters, loved ones, workers, including people who are in the mental health field, reading somebody's story of trauma and that journey, as somebody who experienced something that was traumatic and somebody who then did all of this work with others who who were because it's completely informed by by my work with those thousands of people. And so for the people who aren't the the victims and survivors, but but are the helpers, family members, etc. What do they need to understand as a first person story, um, from somebody who's blocked in their field and been a victim and survivor? Because, because, maybe, moral injury.

Speaker 2: 42:10

I saw the first time I ever read anything about moral injury. It stayed with me because it was so powerful. It showed it was a young man. It was a graphic, an infographic, and it was a young man who had been forced to do something egregious while he was serving. And one of the pictures he was talking about how, when he talked to people, they didn't really care, he didn't feel like they were really listening, they didn't want to know his truth, right. So the picture showed him standing in the center and all the family members, clergy, everybody standing in a circle with their backs to him, saying I hear you, but not really like looking at him or acknowledging his pain and his experience.

Speaker 2: 42:46

And and I and I think that's that's it Like, like acknowledge, listen to them when they speak, shore yourself up and listen to them and if you can't hear the details, say I want to talk to you about this, but I you know how can we talk about it. And when they talk to you, believe them. When they have something to tell you that's not something you understand, you don't have to understand it. You have to acknowledge their pain. I used to say to people before I interviewed them tell me what I need to know to help you. And one of the biggest concerns I heard from women veterans was something that really hurt them was when they were sitting in front of a veteran service officer or a doctor and that person never looked at them. They were looking, they were typing on their computer, going uh-huh, uh-huh, and so the woman veteran feels like she's being dismissed, like nobody really cares what she's saying a woman veteran feels like she's being dismissed, like nobody really cares what she's saying.

Speaker 2: 43:47

And so when people talk, look at them, speak with them, listen to them. Just sit and listen at first and hear what they have to say, because you'll learn from them and what you learn will help them. And if you're, you know and I talk about building a workforce and informed trauma workplace you know we go into doctor's appointments and we go into mental health appointments and we're trying to talk about it, but we feel like nobody is listening and it's really just the listening and not thinking about how you know what you're going to do for them as a treatment plan. You can't know that until you've talked to them and it has to be patient centered. It has you have to be able to look at your spouse or partner and say I'm ready to hear it. Because, because oftentimes you think you, you say those words, but instead you substitute things like oh, you're the strongest person, I know you're fine, you know we say these things that unintentionally shut people up.

Speaker 2: 44:40

So my book, I hope. I hope that people who read the book will get that lesson from it. How do I talk to? What do I need to know about? About the therapy modalities, about, about trauma, about, you know, sexual assault and harassment the proper words to use like what do I need to know and what can I learn from this person sitting in front of me, without without me being just the person who's trying to take down exactly what I need to them to tell me yeah, so yeah, so who is this book for?

Speaker 2: 45:14

It's for survivors, first and foremost. It's for survivors and victims, and it's for it's for the and victims and it's for the people who are involved with them closely.

Speaker 1: 45:29

And you can, so people can buy the book. Where all can they get it?

Speaker 2: 45:34

I should ask Okay, so it won't be released until March 18th. I'm pushing for a quicker release. I'm hoping it'll be released next week if I can get everything done. There's no pre-release option right now because of the way it works, and I didn't want to submit an unedited document. I just have trust issues. Honestly, I didn't want to submit an unedited document anywhere because the last thing I want is for that unedited document to get out there in the wild.

Speaker 2: 46:05

So hopefully it will be the 18th. It'll be on most of the places where you can buy books IngramSpark, amazon and, for those people who don't want to buy from Amazon, other book things, my website. It's aw woman's voice presscom. I'll have links to all the places where people can buy it as well. Not sure if it's going to be in bookstores how that's going to work, because I don't like they have to get it from somewhere, so from like ingram spark, but they will be able to go directly. If they don't know how to find it, they'll be able to google the name it's the only book of that name and or they'll be able to go to my website okay, and uh, you have.

Speaker 1: 46:48

Um, you're working on a book tour right now, right?

Speaker 2: 46:51

I am, yeah, so I leave oregon march 23rd and my first stop is in indianapolis and my my website, my webmaster, will be posting the locations thus far and then updating as they come. But there's one in Indianapolis at the Kurt Vonnegut Library Museum and Library on March 30th, and then there's one at Columbia University on April 4th, that I have one in Hackensack on the 7th on April 4th, that I have one in Hackensack on the 7th, there's one in Virginia Beach on the 19th and I've got them down in Florida and around. So there are quite a few different places. They'll be able to come and see it and if somebody wants to know about me coming to their community and doing it, I'm open to that. They can send a form from my uh, my website.

Speaker 1: 47:44

Okay, great, um, well, and we'll post, uh, the website and everything on the, on the show notes for the, for the podcast. Okay, um, you know, for people that log in with their computer and listen to it, and but once again, tell us that website though.

Speaker 2: 48:04

It's a woman's voice presscom. Don't put any like an apostrophe or anything. Some people have tried to put apostrophe in it, but no apostrophe, just a woman's voice presscom.

Speaker 1: 48:16

Okay, okay, awesome. Liz, it's been great talking to you and I appreciate um all that you've done for others 30 years of of hearing people's stories and trying to help them and then, you know, sharing your own story now, uh, through your book. And do you have other books that you're planning to write, or I do.

Speaker 2: 48:42

I one is one on chronic pain, and it will be an anthology of women's stories, of women who, for instance, what was their life before that event that caused the chronic pain, the event or experience, and how does that compare to their life now and again, that will be for people who, uh, who are have experience, who have chronic pain. Millions of people in the world suffer from chronic pain, so it will be for them. Plus, it will also be for helpers, like how do you understand? Because I think chronic pain is very misunderstood or discounted. So there's that one, and then there's going to be a coffee table book of the I Am Not Invisible images. I've got two books of the works.

Speaker 1: 49:29

Yeah, good, good, yeah, okay. Well, I appreciate you coming on with us today and I'll look forward to talking to you again when you get ready to publish the next one, maybe even a few months from now. We should check in and see how the tour's going, or whatever. Okay, I like that, but enjoy the rest of your day, liz, and hope everything goes really well for the book. Thank you and everything else.

Speaker 2: 49:58

Thank you and thanks for the work you're doing uh, you and your team and um and for doing this podcast and inviting me on you're welcome all right well, thank you, daniel.