When Healing Gets Honest: Trauma, Boundaries, and Finding Real Freedom

This conversation with Dr. Dawnmarie Risley-Childs stays with you. Not because it’s easy to hear, but because it’s real.

Dawnmarie shares her story of growing up in severe abuse and how that shaped her path into psychiatry, and eventually into a much deeper kind of healing. What stands out isn’t just what she’s been through, it’s how she talks about responsibility, boundaries, and what it actually takes to move forward when your past feels overwhelming.

There’s an honest look at things many women in recovery quietly wrestle with. The difference between coping and healing. The weight we carry in our bodies. The complicated truth about family, especially when safety and love don’t exist in the same place.

You’ll also hear a grounded perspective on newer approaches to trauma recovery, including psychedelic-assisted therapy, and why some people turn to it after trying everything else.

A few things we get into:

• What long-term trauma can do to your sense of self
 • Why boundaries can feel so uncomfortable, especially with family
 • The connection between trauma recovery and the body
 • Letting go of what you’ve been carrying for years
 • What real emotional healing can look like over time

This episode speaks directly to sober women and women in recovery who are doing the deeper work. The kind that goes beyond just removing alcohol and into rebuilding a life that actually feels steady and honest.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your sobriety journey, or like you’ve done a lot of work but something still feels heavy, this conversation might land in a meaningful way.

About the Host
 Shelby John is a licensed therapist and founder of Wholistic Living. Through the Confident Sober Women podcast, she explores sobriety, mental health, nervous system regulation, and emotional healing for women building a life after alcohol.

Connect with Shelby
 Website: https://shelbyjohn.com

Podcast: Confident Sober Women

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Preview

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hey there, Sober Ladies. Thank you so much for joining me today for the Confident Sober Women podcast. Today I am sharing with you the conversation I had with Dr. Don Marie Risley Child. Oh wow. I don't have enough words to talk about how amazing this conversation is. She is a DO, so she's also a board-certified psychiatrist. She's the author of a book called The Offering, a Physician's Journey Through Abuse, Psychedelics, and the Freedom of Forgiveness. She shares her story, which is extremely profound, with a lot of trauma, including trafficking by her father and her brothers. She shares very honestly about her experience with that trauma and then the going through the healing process and her journey with psychedelics, which is an incredible opportunity for many people, especially those who have tried a lot of other things or who are what sometimes people consider treatment resistant. So there's a lot of different forms of psychedelic treatment now that are available. Personally, I am being training myself to do ketamine psychotherapy with EMDR integration. So it's CAP KAP. And it's because of the profound nature of combining that medicine with EMDR integration and the powerful nature of healing the brain through that process. So she is a wealth of knowledge. She's brilliant. She's been through a ton of her own trauma, which is incredible. And she talks about how freedom is possible, even for those who feel completely trapped by the weight of their past, by, you know, things they've tried and they haven't worked. It's never too late. It's never too late. It's never, you've never tried everything, right? So we, you know, we just need to keep going and keep trying to find the things that are very powerful for others that we can integrate into our lives to make the difference. So beyond her career, she's also a devoted mother and she loves to be in the redwood forest in California and renovating her home and uh gardening. So uh she's a very dynamic woman. You're really gonna enjoy this. So make sure you grab your big glass of water or your favorite mocktail and listen to this full conversation with Dr. Don Marie Risley Childs. Welcome to Confidence Over Women. I'm your host, Shelby John, a licensed therapist and founder of Holistic Living. This is a space for women who are elevating their lives and choosing clarity over chaos, confidence over coping, and real freedom over short-term relief. And we all know that alcohol and drugs were never the glue that was keeping us together. They were just a temporary escape. Together, we explore sobriety, mental health, nervous system healing, and personal development. We uncover the truth, deal beneath the surface, and build lives we don't want to escape from. Well, hey there, Don Marie. Thank you so much for being here today with me on the Confident Sober Women podcast. I'm so excited to share you and your story and your work with our audience today. So I'm going to turn the mic over to you, let you share a little bit more about your story, and then we're going to talk.

Surviving Abuse And Becoming A Doctor

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Sure. Hi, I'm Dawn Marie Risley Childs. I'm a board certified psychiatrist, and I've been practicing for 30 years and transitioning out of that realm uh into physician coaching. I'm also an author, a keynote speaker, and um, and uh, you know, I continue to write and contribute. So um a little bit about my journey. So I was uh the victim, the survivor of 24 years of uh physical, emotional, sexual, uh financial abuse, um, domestic violence. Um from birth until I was 24 when I left for medical school. And uh that medical school saved me. So medical school saved my life and uh allowed me to have a lucrative career and which eventually you know brought me out to um California. And uh several years ago, um I reached a point uh where I just said enough is enough. I need to do something about the trauma myself. I can't just keep treating other people for trauma and knowing what does work and what doesn't work. And I started venturing into the psychedelic medicine range of getting treatment uh through that avenue.

No Contact And Real Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 5:12

That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. And um, it's such a vulnerable experience, you know, when we step back into some parts of our stories. And um, but I I know that I know for sure, being in the recovery world for so long, and I'm sure that you do as well, that that's truly how it works, right? I mean, we when we show up in the world and we now not everybody wants to recover out loud, and that's okay, you don't have to, but when some of us do, it's so magical what happens for other people because they suddenly start to feel, you know, not alone. They connect, they can relate, they understand, like, oh my gosh, I don't have to do this by myself. Other people have done this, and maybe I can too. Gives people hope. Um, so I'm curious if you I know that you said you experienced that all of that um abuse, and you kind of laid it out so well. And you're I guess was that a marriage, I guess, or a relationship?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

So uh I was trafficked very early on uh by my father um and uh my brothers, and my mother was certainly involved involved or getting me involved in her sex capades. Um my stepfather was brutal and does meet criteria for what's known as psychopathy. And uh I really feel at this point, I think that my mother uh used my stepfather to brutalize me and to brutalize my brothers as as much as she could. Um it took me until about it's been about three years now that I finally said goodbye to my mother for good. Um, we always hold on to that hope that uh our moms are gonna change, mom's gonna see how much she hurt me. Um right now there's it's it appears to be a very active culture of cutting off our parents and the parents are fighting back. Oh my my child doesn't doesn't speak to me. Why doesn't my child speak to me? But they're you know, they're they're selfish, but they've yet to look back in the mirror and say, okay, how did I cause this? What did I do that was so bad that my kid doesn't even want to speak to me anymore or any longer? And you know, for my mother, you know, we each ha come with our own set of boundaries, and when other people blow through those boundaries that can be such a violation and what we really need to do that to the point where you put 3,000 miles between you and the person who's blowing through those boundaries, or you stop calling, or you just have to cut off completely, and you know, despite all of those boundary settings that I was doing with my mother, it wasn't working, and it was to a point where I said, Okay, she's a dangerous woman, and I need to I I need to eliminate this for my life, and that's what I had to do. But so many people will say, But she's mom, but she's our mother. Yeah, bullshit. It doesn't matter. Your mom has a job, your mom is to take care of you, your mom is to love you, your mom is to make sure that you're fed, that you're nurtured, and giving you the tools that that you need to get out there and be independent. And we're not perfect, no one's perfect. I'm not a perfect mother. I've got improvements, I it's you know, up the wazoo that I need to make. I know that. Um, but I love that my kids keep giving me a chance.

When “Abuse” Gets Redefined

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Right. And and thank you so much for bringing up that topic. It's actually been something that's um been on my mind and heart and really a lot over the last couple of years because of the um trend that you're referring to for going no contact. There certainly is a humongous trend via like social media, and it all seems to be like these kind of 30-something millennials, I guess, or the next ones below that. Uh, a lot of that um maybe into their 40s generations. Like this whole this whole thing. Um, and it's given me a lot of um time to think about and consult with some other people. I've had a conversation with another professional who is who's living that as well, like on the other side, like not on the other side from you, as also a therapist, a mental health therapist, and just you know, kind of has shared some of her experiences and some other people in my life, like people I know personally who have family members or different things. Um and it's very interesting. Um, because while I do think that for sure you're right, like when there are when there are violations that are so profound, yeah, that are so um clearly, you know, violations of our personal safety, of our of our you know, like neglect, of our of our medical care. I mean, when our parents are not providing the basic, like legally bound um provisions for their children, which is what we are called to do. Like we are called to keep our children safe, to educate them. There are certain things. And then of course there's the above and beyond stuff, right? Of course, we are, you know, because there's no legal obligation to love your children, you know, or even like give them money, right? I but that's obviously what most of us want to do. Um but when when your parents are not count, you can't count on them to protect you, um, your actual safety, like what you're describing. Right. Or they're so physically abusive or mentally abusive in ways that are just, you know, very profound and would really enter into places like my office that look like pretty high levels of trauma. I can totally see why that's a thing, right? Yeah. It makes sense. And also from when you talk to the I worked in foster care in the beginning part of my career in the Department of Social Services, and like that was I was very young, but like, you know, I was there for a long time and when I worked with mostly older youth, and even some of these kids who had some of the most horrific things happened to them and done to them that anybody could ever experience, they longed for their parents. They wanted they want their moms. They want it. And so I got to see that and what that really looks like. So uh it helped me understand, like, oh, nobody like people who are like that or like what you're describing are are not making that decision lately. They're you're trying, you made a lot of effort. What I think is a happening, and I don't want to get on this tangent because we have other things to talk about, but when I've what I what I think is interesting is the other parts, right? Because there's a whole lot of stuff that's happening that maybe are people that do not meet that criteria. You know, and it's it gives me pause, right? Because it makes me think like, you know. Do you do you know what like the word like what does the word abuse mean to you? Like, right? Or what does neglect mean? I mean, we can talk we can pull up the dictionary definition, right? But like everybody has their own perception of that. And I think there's oftentimes things that go on, or at least my experience and what I've seen, where it isn't those kinds of profound situations, but it's something else happening. Yeah. These like expectations get placed on parents and behavior and things that are that are just really not in that same scope. Do you know what I mean? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

There are, you know, there are the everyday quandaries that we all have that we have with our kids. The, you know, my children are teenagers, so of course I get lip. Um, I get uh you know, they're pushing their boundaries, they're pushing my boundaries because that is a normal part of growing up. What is my response? Sometimes my response is out of control. Sometimes my response is yelling because I don't I don't feel heard. I'm triggered by whatever their response is. Okay, what do I need to do? I need to pull back and I need to come up with a different approach to prevent this from happening. And I'll tell you one thing that I've been using, I've been using AI a lot. Yes, you know, because it will go through all of the literature that says this is how you handle these situations. And so for the past couple days, um my son has trouble waking up in the morning and it's uh yelling and screaming at me, and I'm awake, and just it's horrible, what a horrible way to start the morning, right? So I put in AI, like, how do I improve this? How do I make this better? And it's well, you know, start with some gentle touch, go up and gently rock him, gently wake him up. Okay, wait till all right. So this morning it was okay, baby, you gotta get up. I'm awake. Your eyes are closed. No, they're not, they're open. Like really, how many, how many fingers am I holding up? Three, two. You're just guessing. You know, that's the kind of game that we played this morning. Yeah. But and yesterday, yesterday was a good day, was a good morning for me. Today was a little edgy, but not nearly to the point where it has been in the past. And both kids got off to school on time, both kids are awake, you know, they're getting better regulated, things are, you know, we're you just keep plugging and figuring it out and be flexible to knowing what does and does not work. And we always say, don't take it personally, how can you not? But you gotta kind of remove your ego from parenthood because your ego will be challenged all the time, and you're more than your ego, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Uh yeah, I have three children, they're 22, 20, and 18 now. So um, I've been there, done that, and I have that same kid with the morning. And, you know, and then there's something also to be said for raising our kids with a lot of autonomy, right? And so creating a lot of autonomy and independence looks like you know, natural consequences, or at least it does in my world. Exactly. And so, you know, there's many times when um that particular child um didn't did not make it to school. Um, and you know, we had lots of therapists tell us, you know, uh let her walk, let her do it. And that was really hard for two people who are extremely have very strong work ethic and do not miss things like that. We do not take that happily. And um, it's very, very, very hard to watch. But in the end, like hopefully, you know, and even if it doesn't go well or you don't get like a positive result at the end, like your child isn't, you know, successful, whatever that looks like to you. Like, there is a something that happens there. You're still holding to like a thing that says, this is what we are defining in our family as good parenting. And good parenting looks like we're gonna hold you accountable for your actions. And that's kind of why I brought all that up is that so often what I'm seeing is is these young people, and then their own children and things, um, are basically looking back on their childhoods and picking apart some of these things that their parents have done or not done and kind of making it abuse or making it unacceptable. Or, and I just find it to be really um disturbing, frankly. And then not only is it disturbing, but if you have children in your life and so and now you are doing that to your parent, you're basically telling your children that's fine to do that. Like it's right, it's fine. Exactly. And it's not so when you don't like me or what I do, which is most likely going to be good parenting, you know, discipline, expectations, rules, things like that, you can just cut me off too.

Parenting Without Ego Or Shame

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Firm boundaries are the most loving thing that you can do. And that means even with the schools, that means with their friends, that means with what they watch, what they post, keeping an eye on things, making sure that, you know, you've got to have those boundaries. Boundaries keep us safe, boundaries keep us regulated, boundaries keep other people from abusing us. Because if we blow through our children's boundaries, then they're always going to have the expectations that other adults can blow through their boundaries too, and that they just have to accept that. And, you know, right now I've been processing the men in my life, or and um I'm starting, you know, right there from my first grade boyfriend. Okay, what happened with my first grade boyfriend? What happened with my second grade boyfriend? Well, I didn't have a third grade boyfriend, but you know, this boy was mean to me, and this is what happened. And I'm going through those things to look at where did the breakdown occur? What was going on, how did I feel, and how did I get out of that? And you know, was my body ever my own? Starting from you know, toddlerhood. And the answer was no. And those boundaries uh are things that I'm learning now to keep and to hold. And your podcast, you talk to a lot of people who are in recovery. How many of those people who are in recovery have been sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused, um, didn't have any uh uh financial autonomy. Um for me, it was all of those, you know, it was it was everything. So um not everyone has that. One thing I think that was positive in my life, and maybe it'll even a little bit too positive, was that my parents had strong work ethics. So my mother was very hardworking, she kept the house clean, she kept my father, my stepfather working, she ran his business, he was going out and doing the jobs and bringing home the money, but I saw them work. And so I applied that same work ethic to my studies. And I've always had a little bit of there's always been that one little piece of information that I would get that would focus me so that I would work really hard towards that and use it. And you know, my brother had said to me, Oh, with grades like these, you'll get scholarships to college. And I was thinking, Great, I'm gonna get as many, I'm gonna get straight A's I want to graduate in the top of my class so that I get scholarships so that I can go to school and I can leave. Right. It didn't all pan out that way. I mean, I was also dealing with trauma and abuse every day. So how how well can you function while you're in that? Um, and that was of course the traps that were set and the expectations of it really I think tells me w exactly what I am made of. And for the I've been complaining about my stamina for a very long time, at least since my internship, you know, physicians, physicians are brutally abused. They really are. And when I was in internship, I remember standing there waiting for the light to turn green, thinking, it was the third Saturday that I was working, and thinking, I am exhausted. What is life gonna be like as an O BGYN resident? It's gonna be ten times worse than this internship that I have right now. And I pivoted, I did psychiatry instead. I really liked psychiatry. It's certainly the thing that um it had a natural wave for me given the trauma that I experienced. But most recently I just said to myself, wait a minute, it's not that I don't have stamina, it's just that the stuff that I'm doing, I'm carrying the load that's beyond any person's physical, mental, emotional capacity, and I'm still doing it anyway. Imagine what's gonna happen in my life when I let go of that load. And that's really been what this journey is about, and where the forgiveness has come through. This forgiveness part that's in my book that I talk about is that that forgiveness is allowing you to let Go of that trauma, of that abuse, that I don't have to carry this anymore. Let me dump this off and put it over here.

unknown 22:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

And now it my energy is so much more. And that's where I am. Yeah.

How Trauma Lives In The Body

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And that makes so much sense. You know, we know that the body holds trauma differently than the brain does. And so when we use neurologically based approaches like EMDR therapy, which is what I use in neurofeedback in my practice, or things like CAP, you know, you know, you mentioned psychedelics, um, using, you know, ketamine assisted psychotherapy with integration, with EMDR integration. I mean, these are the kinds of things, personally, in my opinion, like the really the only kinds of things that really will kill the brain at the molecular level and like release that trauma from the store trauma from our bodies because that's not the same as our brains. It's both of things are important, but we need both of those releases so that then, yes, you are way more free. You know, the load is like lifted, your body is not carrying and holding on to that, whether it's manifesting in an actual pain or you don't you're not even aware of it. Um it's it's critical. So I'm I'm really glad that you're able to experience like that you've experienced that and now you're able to kind of know the other side of it. Now, you know, we're never we're never we never arrive. We're all always under construction.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

We arrive when we're dead, we're dead. That's that's the arrival, right? That's that's the end. That's that's your destination is death. But um between but what do you do between that? And you know, in the between that, as we do heal, healing is a constant journey. And you're right about how things are held in our bodies. I've experienced that firsthand of having a right ovary completely shut down and at risk for not being able to have children, and the physical pain that occurred in various aches and pains of my body. And you know, what is that weighing upon my shoulders that is causing my thoracic outlet? It's not just a repetitive injury, it's also more than that. There's you know, that's the integration that medicine needs to embrace. Oh, right. And you know, I'm a DO, I'm a doctor of osteopathic medicine. So as a DO, we have um, we've learned about the body and more intimately and diagnosing things with our hand, diagnosing uh illness with our hands and looking at that somatic visceral dysfunction and visceral somatic dysfunction and somatic somatic dysfunction, these are how does the body on the exterior affect the interior? How does the interior affect the exterior? And there are certainly areas in me that when I released that trauma under psychedelic medicine that I felt as though I had an organ surgically removed from me. You know, the the nerves took several days. It's that's where the psychedelic medicine for me has been. Um it goes into the deepest, darkest areas of where you store that trauma. That you know, it wasn't just it wasn't just that you closed that door, it's that it was behind a vault. You know, it's behind that bank vault. And when it's brought out and released, wow, you're so much lighter. You're so much lighter.

Somatic Release And Whole Person Healing

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Hey, it's me, Shelby. Have you ever wondered what's really happening in your brain during recovery? Are you ready to take control of your anxiety? Sleep better and finally feel focused and confident. I want to introduce you to a game changer that's transforming women's recovery. Remote neurofeedback therapy. I want you to think of this as a personal trainer for your brain. It's helping you build new neuropathways right from the comfort of your own home. So if you're dealing with anxiety that just won't quit, if you have ADHD that's making life chaotic, or sleep issues that leave you exhausted, neurofeedback could be your missing piece. It's science-backed brain training that works with your natural healing process, helping you regulate emotions and build lasting confidence. The best part is you don't need to add another appointment to your busy schedule. My remote neurofeedback program brings professional guidance and support right to your living room. If you want to learn more about neurofeedback therapy, you can go to my website, www.shelbyjohn.com, to download my free guide. Is neurofeedback right for you? Together we'll create the calm, confident future you that you deserve. That's www.shelbyjohn.com. Take the first step towards training your brain for lasting change. Yeah, totally get it. Um, and it's a wonderful thing being a practitioner for of those kinds of modalities because I literally get have the pleasure of working with people like literally watching that happen in front of my eyes. And it's so amazing when you can see like the from the beginning to the end, and you're like, oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

There's a technique um that deo that was uh implemented by a DO. Um it's called fascial distortion model. So they they find the pain points, it's it's patient-led um treatment. Uh the way the patient points at that treatment or points at where their pain is tells you the type of pathology behind it. And when that space is released, it hurts beyond belief when you actually get it. But then when it's released, people have a big smile on their face because of that relief. I myself had treatment done several years ago when I was I was physically impaired. I I couldn't walk upstairs. Now I live in a three-story house. So I was able to buy that, right? So um I'm curious. I would love to see the FDM people work together with um people who are doing uh psychedelic medicine so that they can physically release those areas um of a person to see if healing comes out faster, if you know, if we can speed up the process a bit. So I think we might be onto something in that realm.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Oh, we're definitely on to something. We're on to all of that. I think we've been on to something for um many decades, probably hundreds of years. If you look back at Chinese medicine, they've given us many tools through acupuncture and food and um phaseuticals. We already have had a lot of that. It's just that you know, you bring it in here and you add it to you know, drug companies, whoever else that kind of messes it all up. But like now with 10 plus years of all this incredible brain research, MRI studies, and like literally looking at those receptors and where things show up in the brain and kind of pointing to how you know trauma shows up very similar to drugs and alcohol, those same kinds of things get lit up, you know, just like ever, you know, um there's always going to be forces against us, you know, of course. The industry doesn't want us to know that or to promote that, right? The food industry doesn't want us to stop making those food ingredients that are hurting us, right? Because so there's always we're always fighting, I feel like, upstream, but the more we can get advocation out to that's part of the reason why I do this kind of talk to people like you. That's part of the reason why I bring this up. This comes up in my work at mental health as part of my as part of my psychosocial, right? We discussed your health and your behaviors with that and movement and all of it because you know, we're not just one diagnosis, we're not just our anxiety, we're not just depression, we're not just mental health, we are a whole functioning together to start dying. And so the more we can educate people about it, the more we spread the word, right? And just educate people to you know, books and podcasts and providers like you who are who are functioning in that way, the better it's gonna be. Like then the just messages spreads out, right? But we want to do a little more than just functioning.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

We really want to thrive. And having if you keep doing the same work, you know, I'm at the point where I'm no longer practicing psychiatry. And there's a reason behind that. It's not because I'm lazy, it's not because I don't want to, it's because as I continue to get the exposure to the traumatic stories that the patients tell me, that shield, my heart is wide open right now. That shield's not there. I keep getting affected, I keep getting um absorbing those stories. And I have secondary trauma from patients. It's not something that I ever expected that I would have, uh, certainly when I started psychiatry, but it has been the effect. And so therefore, I'm pivoting to do something else.

Secondary Trauma And Changing Careers

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, and that's wonderful. Like you get to do that, you know, it's wonderful to live in a place that that allows that for you, you know, where you get to literally create and be whatever you want, really. Um, and I think that's really cool. Um and and you know, I know in part of your work you the somatic work you've done. So, what kind of psychedelic uh treatment are you engaged in? Because I'll I don't I know very little about um some of them, but I definitely know some more about like ketamine and the and and ketchup. Yeah. So I'm curious.

Ketamine Relief Plus Side Effects

Psilocybin Is Serious Therapeutic Work

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah, so there's um so ketamine is uh when I first uh was I was in I had uh several ketamine inductions uh that were done intravenously uh by a former anesthesiologist, emergency room doctor who does research on ketamine down in Florida. I'm in California, so he's in Florida, and um he does their ketamine works on about 23 different receptors in the body. So while there were some things that it did help me with, it helped my irritable bowel, it helped uh I was getting cholesterol headaches, my cluster headaches went away, it helped stop rumination, it helped uh there were just so many different things that it helped with. Um, but it also gave me tinnitus. And while I went in there not feeling suicidal, I left having short waves of feeling suicidal and then feeling better, and then short waves of feeling suicidal and then better. Just those things were kind of coming up for me. And um I think after the second set of treatment, I realized no, this this I need something more. And I've been talking to a friend who lives in Florida, and I had noticed a difference in him and his attitude, and he had told me, he's like, Look, you gotta go get yourself some golden teacher. And you know, I'm like, what is that? He's like, Oh, that's mushrooms. You know, I didn't know anything about this. I was very naive to these things. And um, I live in the Nasino. There I'm surrounded by pot farms. The industry is here. Yes. Um, and uh I called a few people that I knew that were in the industry and they led me to my healer, and I had no idea what I was up against, what was you know going to happen. I just thought I was gonna get a couple mushrooms and get high on mushrooms and be done, and everything was gonna be okay. Oh no, no, no, no. That's not it at all. And I don't recommend anyone to think that you're gonna just go do some mushrooms and everything's gonna be better because it's not gonna happen. It's serious work, it's a deep dive. You want to make sure you're with someone who really does have a lot of experience with the materials and with therapy. Um, maps does have maps.org has um training for people who uh for therapists who want to get involved in this type of medicine. It's a lot of hard work. The first trip was beautiful. It was just um I was just laying in bed, listening to some gorgeous music, and it was like this gorgeous light show with my eyes closed. It was amazing. It was I understood so much uh architecture at that point and began to understand art better and where these patterns come from, and then you'll realize, oh, this is why everybody in the 60s was tie-dyeing. Like, okay, now I get it. So um it wasn't just because it looked pretty, it was because we wanted to have those visuals returned to us and to see them all the time when we're not stoned by mushrooms. So um, but it was it got down to some areas and some of those wounded places, and it allowed me to be angry with my mother for the first time. Because I really thought that if I were angry with my mother that it would just kill her. That it was um, and I don't know where I got those thoughts from. And I think that when we when we look at our parents, as we touched on earlier, you know, we want nothing more than the love of our parents. So if we're angry with them, we're afraid that we're gonna chase their love away. But in reality, when you have a mother like mine, you know, it's it wasn't an easy thing for me to be able to sit there and come out and say, Yes, I remember the time when she kicked me out of bed, and this was the thing that I was went to go do with the man that she brought home. And I was only four or five years old. I had to have been in kindergarten. That is it's to even be able to admit to these kinds of disgusting things that were done to you, just as a little kid, it's very hard. And this is what many people who are addicted to methamphetamines or marijuana or alcohol, they want to chase those memories away. They haven't hidden those memories enough. Those memories are all there just floating around just beneath the surface. And if you don't have the skills to lock it away like I did, then you're you're going to uh you know, you're just gonna drown yourself in some other way so that you don't think about those things.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

So did you um I mean, did you are you are you like new to therapy? Like did you take a long time lights into your adult? No, no.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Well, well, that's it, that's an important question because most people do not disclose their trauma until they're in their 50s, the fifth decade. They don't come out until now. And now I understand why. Why, you know, how old is my mom? My mom's 82 years old. How much does she really have left? Max 10 years, but probably not, maybe five with all of her medical conditions. Um she might be on our deathbed now, for all I know. My father died two years ago. And um so I think what we end up ha what ends up happening is that you know we're in our 50s and we look at our parents and we look at how frail they are and we look at how they need taken care of. And now we gotta step up and take care of this person, and we start recognizing what happened way back then. We're looking at well, why should I take care of this person? And um, but then you're guilted by other family members or friends. Oh, but she's your mother. Oh, but she's my mother. No, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

No, I understand that, and I've seen that before too, but I'm just curious, like you you didn't did you start any of your own personal work like sooner than now? Yeah, so when I was sexual.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yeah, when I was in I so I tried, I went to speak to a therapist when I was in college, and then I got shut down pretty rapidly um by the response because um the therapist had said, look at your bot, look at look at your body language, you know, your clothes. And what I read from that was someone's pointing to me and criticizing me. And what really needed to happen was what I needed to have happen was I needed to make sure that I was safe. And when you have someone disclosing to you for the first time, one you want to know is this the first time that you've ever told anyone about this? Okay, if this is the first time, do you feel safe telling me?

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

You need to establish safety, and I was not safe because I was still getting abused when I went back home. And parents, parents' weekend was a nightmare. It meant you know, when my parents were coming to visit, oh, it's a nightmare. He he's around again. And so I was never, I never felt safe.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

And so I didn't pursue therapy because I no one can guarantee that I was safe, even though it's after college, and like after, you know, you went to the and then after college, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Well, so I was back home for a year um after college, and then in medical school, um, it was my housemate who confronted me about what is that relationship about. Like he saw something that was just not right, and he confronted me about it, and then I just kind of hedged, I let him guess it, and he figured it out. He figured out that the man that keeps coming up here, that's her fiance, was married to her mother, and yeah, and he continued that facade because it allowed the statue of limitations for crunally to run out. Because I suspect, because I was starting to decl disclose during college, and I suspect that he was afraid that I would disclose fully, and then he would end up going to prison for child molestation.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Oh, I mean, I feel like we could uh so he tagged the mom with his yeah.

Anger, Memory, And Addiction Avoidance

SPEAKER_00 41:18

I guess I was just asking it because you know, usually people will have um, you know, either a symptomatic experience or and or like just a lot of problems in relationships. I mean, you went through medical school, so you at least got some. I know there's not a lot, maybe the DO program had more, like you had some like kind of training on mental health and like what some of these things were. And then like usually things will start to show up like failed relationships, bad communication, um, just not feeling good about yourself, you know, lots of things, right? So then you lead us to, geez, I can't do this by myself, and like lead us someplace that's gonna like uh start to unpack some of that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

So I had um I had a psychiatrist uh throughout medical school, um, throughout the entire time. I was seeing, in addition to doing medical school, I was also doing therapy two to three days a week, which was very intensive therapy. Okay, on top of medical school. So it was quite a bit, and she was a distance, so I had to drive back and forth. So it took up considerable time, but it was worth it for me at that moment because I it was the support that I needed. And um, but and I adjusted therapy depending on, you know, there were sometimes I would go down to twice a week or just to once a week because it was the GI module that we were studying, and things were really intense with the amount of information that I had to learn. So I was learning all of that information that I needed to become a doctor at the same time that I'm trying to unpack what has happened to me for the past 24 years. And so it was not it was not an easy journey, it was not a pretty journey. Um, there were times where I failed classes and had to take them again, and you know, but I always I had that persistence, that stick to it where I could get up and go again. And you know, I'm always I've always been impressed with the body's need to survive and the body's need to keep going. I think that here I am in my 50s and I've just realized I can't keep going like this.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah, so like, yeah, and you're it's true, like age does sort of break us down. You know, we don't have the same tolerance level and we don't have the same stamina. I mean, we, you know, even if we're really energetic, we take good care of ourselves, like there is a breakdown, you know, we're not 20, you know. And so and I think sometimes, yes, that's the next logical step is like, oh, what else can I do that's gonna help me, you know, be my best self? And so more is revealed. And certainly in parenting your own children, more. Is revealed, and then usually things will, in my experience personally, and then also with clients, like things will come up, right? And you'll start to think exactly oh, when your kid reaches this particular age, and like you might be like, Oh my god, exactly. Exactly. So that's usually what sends people into our you know our rooms. Um so I mean in this period of time, I know we have like unfortunately, I wish we could talk for two more hours and maybe we'll have to come and do another follow-up. Maybe we do. But yeah, I'm just curious if you could say, just in like a in the quickest version possible, like when you when you kind of think about your program now, like your program, whatever that is, your personal program, not just not the not the psychedelics necessarily, although that's part of it, but like what what are the what are like the main like two or three kind of main like tools that you utilize like on a daily basis or very regularly that just really help, you know, keep you on that path?

Gratitude Meditation And Vagus Regulation

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Right. Gratuity is the first thing. I start every morning, I go downstairs, I get my coffee, I come up, I sit in bed, I pull out my journal, and I write down what I'm grateful for. At least two, three, four things. Sometimes the list is long, sometimes I can only do one thing. You know, sometimes I'm just not feeling it. Okay. I'm grateful I have this journey, you know, this journal to keep it today, something small and detailed. Whatever it is, just always bring gratuity in your life. Meditation is really important and um a practice at least once a day, twice a day. I like Yidra no yoga nidra at night uh because it helps put me back into my body and it helps me focus on particular places in my body. Um, there were certainly dissociative episodes while I was being raped by my stepfather, so that helps bring me back there. Uh and starting your um meditation in the morning, I practice the silva method. Um, and I it also is a very body-centered, or any kind of body-centering type of uh meditation is helpful. Uh, those are the two things. The other thing I do is uh is the vagus nerve. So uh people have a when they've gone through trauma, they can have a dysfunctional vagus nerve that that vagus nerve is always turned on and never wants to shut down. And it's learning to regulate that, bringing it up or bringing it down depending on what your mood is. Some people do that through drumming, some people do that from um maybe singing, some people will do tapping to help bring that. I find music to be super helpful. I have two playlists that I personally use, one that I created, one that I found on Spotify. Um, and it uh the one on Spotify is the poly negative polyvagel response. And uh my other one is called Waltz List because I I created that for a friend and then ended up using it myself. Um so the polyvagel one gets me up in the morning if I'm feeling like I can't move because I'm in shutdown mode, then that playlist gets me going. If I feel like I've got way too much nervous energy and I can't focus and I can't get one thing done, then I go to the other one because that brings me, slows me down, and gets me steady. So I get them so that they steady me. And so I found music to be very helpful. Some people can get agitated from the music. If that's the case, you gotta shut it off, right? You just shut it off, change ears, whatever. Yeah, right. That one's not for you. But I very frequently have my phone in my pocket, music turned on, my earpiece in because I'm listening to music most of the day, unless I'm listening to videos or something. And that music has been tremendously helpful in regulating everything that I need.

Book Details And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 48:11

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing those. Those are really, really and I didn't know about the the Vegas nerve of music. Like I use um EMDR sounds a lot. Right. I've noticed that um when I was younger, obviously I have pretty significant ADHD. Um, but it really I was, I think recovery work was able to um help me manage that from when I was younger um for a long time and like whatever was work what was happening. But then in my later 40s, um, like maybe two years ago or whatever, I started to notice that things were really ramping up and like it was like becoming some things were becoming very unmanageable, and um, I needed a different kind of support. So I think that's very menopause, but um like to those you need hormones, yes. Yeah, I just needed something else like to help with those, like that symptomatic experience that I couldn't no longer like control myself. So um, but yeah, I think um so I used to be able to multitask and like watch TV while I was working and you know, you do do a bunch of stuff, and like I cannot do that anymore at all. So now I'll put on those kinds of sounds which give that bilateral stimulation, like while doing notes or researching or whatever. And I find that to be like so it definitely does help me like self-soothe and like get into that space where I'm like, okay, I can do this task, like I can focus on this. Um, and uh, I'd love that we have access to this stuff. You know, I I'm a Spotify member as well, so it's you know, it's included for me. Um but I think we can even access things other ways too. So I really want to thank you so much for your time and for your work too, and for sharing that with us. So when people want to kind of get in touch with you or reach out, how do you like them to do that?

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Uh, they can reach out by my website, it's uh drisleychilds.com. So it's D-R R I S L E Y C H I L D S dot com. And they can go buy my book. I have the offering, a physician's journey through abuse of psychedelics and the freedom of forgiveness. You gotta put in the whole title in Amazon. It's available on Amazon um by the paperback. Uh the the hardcover is still in a little progress right now. Um, but yeah, I I've I've had to update some things a few times, but yeah. So perfect.

Closing Support And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 50:38

I'll make sure I link to both of those in the show notes so people have access very easily. Sure. And again, just thank you so much for your time. Hopefully, we'll reconnect again, maybe a few months down the road and kind of check in, see how things are going, and um reconnect on some of the other topics that we didn't have time for today, because there's certainly so much more that we could talk about. So yes, absolutely. I hope you have a phenomenal holiday season. Um, I look forward to talking to you soon. This is Shelby John, and thank you for joining me on the Confidence Over Women podcast, where we have conversations with women building lives rooted in clarity, resilience, and freedom. If today's episode resonated with you, be sure to hit subscribe. And if you would take a few seconds to leave a review and share it with a woman you know who really needs to hear it. If you're ready for deeper support through therapy, EMDR intensive, or remote neurofeedback at Holistic Living, you can visit our website at holisticliving therapy.com, where we help people rewire their brains for lasting freedom from anxiety, addiction, and trauma. Until next time, uncover the truth, feel beyond the surface, and transform your life. See you next week.