Call Her Daddy - AnnaLynne McCord

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

This week, Father Cooper sits down with AnnaLynne McCord as she recounts the life events that led up to her diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. * Trigger Warning * - this entire episode may be triggering for those who have suffered from sexual abuse or would be triggered from the discussion of self harm. If this episode was at all distressing to you, please reach out to the 24/7 national crisis hotline at 1-800-273-8255. To reach a 24/7 crisis counseling texting hotline send “HOME” to 741741 (valid for the US and Canada). Crisis hotlines for additional countries will be posted via the Call Her Daddy Instagram.

What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy. Hello, hello, hello, Daddy Gang. It is a beautiful, beautiful day. We're back at it again for another episode of Call Her Daddy. So, when I was 16 years old in high school, living in Pennsylvania, I remember watching the show 90210. Okay. There's a lot of fucking shows, Gossip Girl, The Hills, The OC, all the things. 90210 was one of my favorite shows. And I remember in those shows, everybody knows every show you watch, I guess they probably fucking do it on purpose, but it's like you're drawn to a specific character. You either relate or you're obsessed with, or you're drawn to them or you love, you hate them, whatever. And I remember with 90210, I was so drawn to the character Naomi. She was a goddamn alpha, a vixen. She ran the shit

and then fucking nine Oh two one Oh, and I was obsessed. And the person that played that character, her name is Anna Lynn McCord. I was a huge fan back then of Naomi, and now today I'm sitting here on this podcast, an even bigger fan today of Annalyn. Two weeks ago, I sat down with Annalyn McCord, and in this episode, she recounts the life events that led to her diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. And before we get started, I need to say this. This entire episode may be triggering for those who have suffered from sexual abuse or would be triggered from discussion of self-harm. This is a trigger warning.

Daddy gang. This interview that you are about to hear is powerful. Anna Lynn takes us through her diagnosis. diagnosis and the intense work in therapy she did that led to her uncovering and remembering the sexual abuse that she endured years prior as a young girl. It is not easy coming on. It's not even, it's not easy talking about it. So it is not easy coming on this podcast and telling millions of people the trauma you've experienced and endured. So hopefully Daddy Gang, Annalyn's story, as painful as it is, can help someone listening today. Even if it's one person, I'm assuming it's going to be a lot more, but hopefully it can help today and know you are not alone. Daddy gang, without further ado, Anna Lynn McCord.

Hello, hello, hello. You look beautiful. Same. As always though. Also same. Daddy gang, we are sitting in my back house. I'm honored that you're sitting here with me right now. Anna Lynn was a star on Nip Tuck, American heiress. 90210 is obviously what I know you from. Like I was the biggest fan. You were everything I wanted to be and more unbelievable. Started modeling at 15, mental health advocate and advocate for childhood sexual trauma survivors. Reading your story and your journey, I'm inspired and also so excited to have you on today because there are so many young women that listen to my show and you coming on here and just like being open as you've been about your career.

Thank you for like being so open in your recent journey of mental health and being an advocate. I kind of love to start early, early life. I'm always like, let's go back. Like I'm always like everything stems from the childhood. Exactly. If someone is listening to this, that isn't familiar with you, can you kind of walk me through like your early childhood days and like what that backstory is to you? Absolutely. So it's, it's interesting because it's a little piecemealed in the sense that I can walk you through it now. But if you'd asked me this question two and a half years ago, I would have told you a totally different story because I didn't have my childhood memories of what was the most defining element of my life, I think. But I'll throw in all the details, but I'll give it to you first the way I knew it, which was I was a kid from a trailer park.

I had a pipe dream to be an actress at nine years old. I was like, this is what I'm doing with the rest of my life. And also grew up moving place to place. Like we, we packed that trailer up and we rolled it down the freeway. And how many siblings? Two sisters. I left home two months after I turned 15, like was fully financially completely independent. And were your sisters still there? My older sister had run away at age 16 and my younger sister was still there, but she, she was there with my mom. My parents got divorced at that point. And I kind of like slipped out the back door. I graduated from high school. So no one could say that I didn't finish my education. I did like summer school. Like that's the cool thing about homeschool is if

you are motivated, I was a very self-motivated kid. Cause I love learning. I just like, I was like, let's go, let's go. Let's go. I'm going to make this life happen because everybody's telling me it's not. And fuck you motherfuckers. Honestly, it's how like motivating sometimes when people are like, you can't. You're like, oh, watch me, bitch. Oh, that was me.

That was, it was a, oh, watch me, bitch moment for a long time in my life. So you left. I left there. I moved to, well, technically I moved to Miami for a little bit, saved up money modeling. I was in a situation where I had saved up my birthday and Christmas money for all these years. And I had a grand total of $1,200 to my name, I think. And I went into my agency and I was like, I am running out of money and I am not going to be able to stay, but I also can't go home. Like I was like, that was not an option to me. Like what I didn't know at that time was what I would then go on to remember two and a half years ago, which was that

I had also experienced childhood sexual abuse. And that was completely, those memories were fully blocked out. So I had this really like panicked energy when I told them I can't go home because I didn't want to be in the vicinity of the person because that was, there was someone in the community. And like, if I was going to be there, it was going to, you know, it was, it was an energy that I would have to be faced with. And so, so they, they took, they picked up on the energy. The agency just took me under their wing by allowing me to work in the office. Were you lonely? Like, do you remember where you were in that headspace?

Well, you see, I did not have time for feelings. Those were things that we did not do. We did a lot of things, but we did not do feelings. Hustling, hustling. It was like, I did not believe in partnerships, like relationships. I was like, you, you know, you make your mark on the world. That is what you are here for. If you end up liking a dude, cool. But like, make that a super low key thing. And now what I know about that is that when I got my diagnosis for disassociative identity disorder, which I know we'll get into, um, I was splitting,

I was splitting with everybody. I was splitting in every situation in order to cope and creating little anilines everywhere. Like the aniline that handles the model's apartment and the aniline that handles accounting and the aniline that's a model. And you also have to understand like I'm sitting every day. Now I'm working as consistently as a model and I'm showing up and I'm doing Sears catalog for children for teenagers and there's moms with their teenage children I'm by myself so you you can imagine like there's the eyes that are kind of curious and judging and probably concerned but also judging but also concerned right and then there's the makeup and hair chair where shit goes down if you guys if you know anything about my industry if you know anything about obviously for you any kind of press you're sitting in the makeup and hair chair where shit goes down. If you guys, if you know anything about my industry, if you know anything about obviously for you, any kind of press, you're sitting in the makeup hair chair for an hour and a

half, two hours. A lot of things are discussed. The first question is where are your parents? And so I had this tailor-made story of like, well, lying a lot. There was a lot of lying that went on. Pathological lying actually really helped out. And you're still modeling. You haven't gotten into acting yet.

So at this point, I have gotten into acting. I've had a few auditions. So I moved to LA at 18. I get out. Nip Tuck was the kind of the hit moment where I was on the scene finally. It was such an industry watch show. But 90210 came and I was having a little bit of a meltdown. And I was like, I don't want to be an actress anymore.

I, I had reached this level of success where everyone was telling me, Oh my God, you've made it. You did it. All the people that were saying, you're never going to do it. Now I'd prove my point.

But what did I have to prove now? Now my feelings and emotions were catching up with me. I was dealing suddenly the anxiety, the depression. I'm putting a smile on for everybody else while I'm going home and wanting to kill myself, cutting up my arms, self-harming, like all this shit. And, and still not consciously aware at all, like not looking at any of it. So I wanted out, I thought, okay, it's because I decided to be in this egotistical world of acting where everything's narcissistic

and up your own ass. And like, I don't want to be here. And so I go to Cambodia. My, I think I'm going to like, literally in my mind, I'm going to help these sweet little children and be a good person. And they changed my life. Like they turned my world upside down. I realized from former slaves, how enslaved I was because in my mind, I was a slave. I was a total prisoner to my mind. I was so rigid. I was, I mean, I had all these standards of perfection. I was so abusive to myself. I literally, I started doing a college tour, um, a few years back and I would ask people, raise your hands. If you would be friends with the voice inside your head, if that was an actual person, nobody raises their hands. And I'm like, come on guys. Nobody, nobody. It's because that voice inside our mind is an asshole, man.

Asshole. Asshole. Asshole. You know, if it was a person in the room, you'd be like, go fuck yourself. Right. Or you would leave or you would do whatever your coping mechanism is to deal with bullies. But when you can't see the bully, when it's an invisible bully hanging out in your head, you just think it's truth. Did you, were you self-harming before you had this?

It started, it started out here, but it was, then I ended up in a, in a dynamic that was a very sexual relationship and it went on for a while. We went into every kind of BDSM like exploration you can imagine. And I was opening up Pandora's box sexually without consciously knowing why I might like these things, why they might turn me on the way they did, because our beautiful brains that put pain and pleasure together to try to help us ended up putting me, keeping me in a body that would go on to abuse herself for a very long time. And when he and I would have fallout,

it was like, it was like we were at the peak of the highest because you and dopamine and oxytocin, like high, high levels of chemical endorphins with him. And then when the drop off would happen, the fallout was massive. And I started cutting and it wasn't his, it wasn't his fault. It was, he thought he got so freaked out. And it was interesting because I was cutting to feel anything at all. I was so numb. And a big part of BDSM for me was just trying to feel anything in my body at all. Cut to a decade plus later when I'm in treatment for PTSD and I'm doing EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which is for post-traumatic stress disorder.

My doctor literally put buzzers in my hand and I was like, okay, turn it up, turn up the intensity. You determine the intensity and speed. And she's like, okay. And I was like, okay, you can turn up the intensity more. Okay. And more, okay. More. She's like, it doesn't, it doesn't go anymore. This is the highest level. She said in all of her years of practice, she has never had someone whose skin sensitivity was so low. My, the level of torture that I went through when I was a child that I now remember was so horrific that my brain said, no, like she can't feel. So we're going to shut off feeling too. And feeling is experienced in the brain, not in the body. The brain sends signals down the nervous system to the body to feel pain. And I just stopped feeling pain.

And my senses were so dulled that to get to a level of having pain, and people laugh and say, oh, I have a high tolerance for pain. You should ask yourself why. Because that's not a good thing. We have pain for a reason. It is to let us know that something's wrong. And you don't win awards for having a high tolerance to pain. That's unkindness to your body. And I am now very kind to my body, but I was very, very unkind for a long time. And the self-harming

started just because I couldn't feel anything. It was like, I was stuck in this pressure cooker that was also on this really like slow motion speed where it was like, it was just like so confusing because it was terrifying, but nothing was actually happening. And it was, yeah. I want to ask you because you've been so open about mental health and I, I obviously did research cause I want to be as respectful as possible. You can ask me anything, girl. No, yeah. Thank you. You being so open about dissociative identity disorder, which has been very wrongly portrayed,

I think, in film and media to the point where the DSM changed the name from multiple personality disorder to dissociative identity disorder. Can you explain from your perspective and your experience, like what, what is that? If someone's never heard of dissociative identity disorder, like what is it to you? Absolutely. And I appreciate that you brought up the DSM because the diagnostic statistics manual refuses, though, even neuroscientists and doctors are friends of mine and doctors who have decades combined in the field, they have refused, the American Psychiatric Association

that controls the printing of the DSM, refuses to put trauma in the DSM. And yet, this is what the psychiatrists are required to purchase and use as their manual to tell you that you're crazy. They won't put trauma in the fucking book. Right? So it's infuriating, especially for doctors who have the data to prove that you are diagnosing them. I was diagnosed with bipolar. I then had my brain scanned by Dr. Amen, which was when the DID diagnosis came out. Yes. He said, you don't have a bipolar brain. I've scanned 50,000 of them. Also, cause we'll get to that. How long did you

live with that diagnosis until it was like my whole family? I believe that I was bipolar for forever. Like, I mean, I like, it was, it was, it was crazy. And then I went on treatment for it. You know, I was taking medication for bipolar. I, I am grateful that I had done my own research and I went on a mood stabilizer, which actually did help me because I had all the symptoms of bipolar and they weren't, they weren't necessarily wrong to diagnose me bipolar, but they're wrong to leave trauma out of the question as if it's the issue because once I healed most of my trauma, suddenly my bipolar symptoms started to disappear.

So I've been diagnosed with DID. Okay. And that was a conversation more than you are diagnosed with. My doctor is so amazing. I love her so much. But she is a specialist in EMDR. So EMDR is the number one treatment for PTSD. And while undergoing that treatment, she told me pretty much everyone who's been through what you've been through has some form of disassociation.

We all actually, all humans have. Everyone dissociates on some level. Yes. Disassociation is a CEO of the brain mechanism to protect you. Absolutely. The brain wants you to survive. It doesn't care what your quality of life is. So surviving and quality of life are two very different things.

And we don't take that into account always. To the point. The DID diagnosis essentially means, and again, I appreciate you bringing out, bringing up that it is not multiple personality disorder. The name has been changed for a reason. Yes. The, you are not multiple personalities when you experience disassociative identity disorder, you are fragmented versions of yourself, your identity. I explain it like this. If your beautiful mirror here, if God forbid, someone took a hammer and smashed it, I hope you're not superstitious if you're listening. Cause that's terrible. Nobody come to my house. No, I got my house. Um, but

if someone took a hammer in the middle and smash that mirror, the mirror itself was one whole being right. One whole piece. You can now see your reflection 900 different times. You're still one, but now you're all. It's a little confusing, right? Now for me, the way I describe my healing integration process is I didn't have the glue to put myself back together for a long time. Now I have an overwhelming, overflowing amount of glue because glue is love. And I love myself enough to be able to see one image when I look in your beautiful mirror, not the hammer shattered, fragmented, multiple images of myself. And so you would see me over here when, and these, the reason that the

brain splits in this regard, it's always a protective mechanism. So what you'll notice, if you track backwards, if you are in a situation, you can ask yourself this, am It's always a protective mechanism. So what you'll notice if you track backwards, if you are in a situation, you can ask yourself this, am I ever in a situation where I feel like I have to be a certain way and I can't be any other way in that situation or it's dangerous, or I'm going to, someone's going to disapprove of me or whatever, whatever, whatever your level of danger is, it's all relative. Right? So for me, if I'm on a red carpet, I have to say everything just right. That's, that was one of the alters that I had, but my nervous system was so overwhelmed by people, humans around me. I had social anxiety

at a level that was insane, but then I was severely numb. So I couldn't detect the anxiety. So I just felt really uncomfortable in my body. And then at some point I would no longer be at the event and no one would know where I went and I would find myself at home. So something would occur and I was gone. So that overwhelming experience, my brain would take over and put me into my little autopilot. So we would definitely not do this interview back then. I would have been like, oh, thank you so much for having me here. Well, yes, you know, everyone's so, I'm grateful for my experiences. Nice to see you. All the best to you and everyone listening. I would say a whole bunch of nothing because I'd say everything without saying anything at all. I, you would never get a real clear answer out of me. Like I was the perfect media trained little starlet. Right. What was interesting was the fact that the anxiety

would cause all of this to be just a big blur for me. So I wouldn't fully black out like some people lose time when they're in their other altars. Oh, wow. I could remember things, but it's my life in a lot of ways is a blur because I was splitting so much in order to cope. When I would be faced with men, oh my gosh, I would go into baby talk. My little Anna would pop up when, so what this, one of the things, right, that is a hallmark of sexual abuse is grooming. So perpetrators groom children to utilize the own child psychology against them it's really fucked up basically it's don't you want to be a special big girl don't you want to be my special girl like you know what little child what human doesn't want to feel special like no like no i don't want to be special like right so everything is this luring this lure lure lure where the child then becomes

the adult that takes the ownership and fault for all of their traumas because they walked into it willingly at six right oh okay I'm sorry yeah come on but so for me I had this mechanism with men where I thought I had to be really small so so and it wasn't a conscious thought it was a brain protection thought where bad things happened if I wasn't good little girl that was the special girl that did the things that she was supposed to do and and so it was like immediately it was always there was so much sex driven everything. But I didn't know why I had to just give my body to people. I didn't know why I had to just give my body to people. And and I didn't realize that I was doing it because I was hoping that I got some love back. And I was so desperate to be loved because I did feel so alone and I was so alone for so long.

When you would go into that baby talk phase, like was it when you were in like conflict with your partner? Like they'd be yelling at you and you would go like, when would it be that you would utilize that version of yourself? It was, that's a beautiful question, by the way. Thank you very much for asking it because it is, it's always, it's always triggered by some kind of uprising in some way, shape or form. For me, I, I would notice it in a few different ways. And one, it was one really big way was I could not for the life of me. And I think maybe I learned on Monday how to do this. I could not express my needs. Like needs were really hard for me to admit that I had, it was like admitting weakness. It was just like horrible thing to say that I needed something. And I think that that there, I think that there are unconscious memories that I have impressions of, but I don't have full memories, but I have impressions of being I don't have full memories but I have impressions of being made

to feel like I would get in trouble for saying something hurt like like it was worse if something if I said a need like I needed water or I was you know scared or I was hurting or yeah so so there's because the I mean the anxiety like the abstract fear that it would bring up for me to think about considering contemplating ever talking about a need was so far beyond anything that would be considered neurotypical or normal. So one aspect would be that I would, when I needed something, I'd be like, well, you're stupid. Cause I needed you to do this thing and you wouldn't do it. And that's dumb. And it was really cute and endearing like like everyone's like you're so funny like they didn't think of it as like this like she's terrified it was just

like i was being oh you're being you're being cute okay meanwhile yes being triggered by meanwhile yes unable to even ask for it so you have to go to that place you have to go to that place um terror can bring it out for me someone getting into an argument with me did not bring that out oh that brought out the villains i played on television i was ice cold and i could be a real cunt there was a moment and we saw it in my treatment when i was confronting my 13 year old self was terrifying to me. I was like, um, you're very scary and I do need to talk to you in my own mind. This is a conversation is happening. Right. I'm like, but like, you're looking at me in my mind. Um, and I am melting. Like you're like making me melt. Like my 13 year old self, it was, it was like she had had enough and she became the thing

that had terrified her. You know how we, and I did, I became a bully. I became, I became very, I could be very emotionally, psychologically abusive. Like I could be very, in as much as I had the biggest heart in the world and would give you the shirt off my back, I was, I would go into a different, I would go into an altar that was just ice cold and impossible to get through to. And, and it was, I, I thank her now. I have so much gratitude to her. She saved my life in many ways, but I had to make amends for some of the, some of the things she's done. And, and it was when I was, especially with Dom, I remember really like he and I, so Dominic Purcell, just for our listeners, Mr. Present Break Man.

But he, he's a man. Like I had never experienced a real man before in my whole life. He's a man. A sexual hot man. I'm jealous. Or just yummy man. Oh my God. But so I had never experienced a man, like a real masculine energy before. And what's so beautiful about the masculine energy, and I hate when it's shut on because

real masculine doesn't harm, it protects. It's loyal. It's beautiful. It's so yummy and just delicious. And I want to like lick it up. So Dom, Dom does not accept a woman that bows up to him in this masculine way. He, and he showed me, he taught me, we teach people how to treat us, right? He, I was crying one day, I was exhausted. I think I'd worked 90 hour work week and I was so dead tired and I was probably PMSing all the things. And I just, it culminated into upset versus my cold, hard,

altered, you know, ego, literally altered ego. Um, and I was like, I can't take it when you do it like this. And he literally, I can see it in my mind's eye right now in my house in Marina Del Rey. Like he, he's looking down, he grabs my shoulder so protective and he goes, Anna, he like literally shakes me. He's so passionate. He's like, when you are soft like this, I would do anything in the whole world for you. When you get into my face, like that ice cold bitch that you can become, I just want to fucking lob your head off. So I get in my truck and I drive away. So I don't put you in the hospital or worse.

Right. And I was like, Oh wow. How do you really feel? Like, wow. Thanks. Oh my God.

Tell me more. This is kind of sexy. Wait. Also what? You're going to kill me. Oh my God. But I'd never experienced this before. Did he know,

obviously he knew about your, your diagnosis with the ID, but like, well, I didn't have my diagnosis at that point. Right. So he and I met when I was 23, I was still a 90210. I was very young. He's been a dad. Like he knew the, he, we talk about it now where the little Anna, obviously I explained to him once my doctor talked about this. I'm like, you know how I would talk to you with that little voice. He goes, I Anna and he was the one who named her little Anna he's like oh little Anna's here today and it was always this fatherly kind of energy that he was bringing to it that was very nurturing okay and I was like is it a little creepy that like our dynamic has so many like right different art types to it right and he said it's what you needed I was just being what you needed. And when did you get your diagnosis?

August 16th, 2018. Like I remember it like it was yesterday. I was having blackout panic attacks where I was losing time. Oh wow. And then I went into a depression that I could not get myself out of. And I had always been able to jumpstart my like mania, which, you know yeah my form of mania um and get myself out of depressions up until this point by using one of my hyper sexuality or hyper spending or like any of these different traits that i had um that coincided with a bipolar disorder diagnosis but ultimately would come to prove to be trauma related. And I, I was in a six month long depression. And what started to happen was that I started to panic that I was never going to get out of it. And that also was activating the, the, like it was a lot was deteriorating.

I was also reaching an age where a lot of these things happen. Um, but it also coincides with a period of your life where you've lived for a decade as a technical adult. You've started to see things come full circle. And now you're realizing, okay, I can calm down a little bit. This is going to work itself out. Or, you know, I've seen this before. Right. So at that point, a lot of people who have latent memories, they will resurface. Yeah.

So are you working on 90210 at this point? At this point, I have been wrapped from the show for five years. So I've been off the show for a while at this point. And you did talk about one experience. Yeah. So I was also sexually assaulted when I was a teenager here in LA by a quote unquote friend. I attributed a lot of the things I couldn't necessarily put words to or connect dots on I attribute a lot of it to that incident and was just like trying to

chalk it up in my mind with the pieces that I had that's why I'm so fucked up like okay you know and it was obviously it preceded that but I my mind was protecting me and didn't want me to dig so it didn't let me it gave me the the story and something that people should know because so many survivors reach out to me and share with me that their family members don't believe them or they're ostracized for telling me you ruined the family. Like, Oh yeah, I got myself raped as a child and I ruined my family. What? I'm so sorry. I'm so confused by your logic. Um, it's mind boggling. But one thing I will say is do not listen to authoritarians who have no authority on a subject because they have no education and no evidentiary findings to show to you to prove that what, who have lived the experience or both. Otherwise, say thank you so much for your opinion. Let me know when you get raped as a child.

And I hope you never do. But let me know when you do. And then we'll have a conversation about your feelings about what the fuck happened to me. Because that is and it again, it's people are all coming from their pain. I get it. Whatever. But like, shut the fuck up. No, but actually shut the fuck up. So the memories

of a trauma survivor are fragmented. They come in pieces, they come in waves, they come in impressions, they come in sounds, they come in smells, they come in all of these different, you know, imagery, whatever they, there are no two experiences alike because the brain is, is just grabbing. Like it's, it's, it's someone drowning. It's a person drowning in the ocean. They are scrambling for anything to grab onto. When did you remember? August 16th, 2018. What literally only three years ago. I told my doctor, I said, you know, I'm all worried about my sex life. Like it's all I care about. I'm just like, I'm worried about my sex life. So here's the thing. Like when dudes sleep

over, like my legs get like super frozen and I just don't sleep through the whole night and if I want to sleep at all like I kind of just have to like take a Xanax and pass out and completely black out fully in order to sleep at all so that's a little weird right and she's like that is not normal my legs would go completely numb painfully numb like the whole night I would lay there and stare at the ceiling and rotate my ankles just to alleviate the intensity of the numbness it was so horrible never occurred to me that this might be um probably related to something really fucked up trauma yeah um so so she's like okay we can look at that but it's very hard to start this treatment process because she knew what was going to happen she already the second i had started talking to her she knew what she was yeah we're about to open all of it yeah

she knew pandora's box was about to fly the fuck open but she was being so gracious and kind and and she was like it's hard to get into these things if we just do a body sensation so we we should look at something in the mind and use that as the pathway in. And she was right. So we went to the third memory on the list. And this was this person and this incident. And it just cuts off and it blocks out. And I was like, it's also kind of weird because, like, the memory, I'm, like, 17 feet or so away from my body.

And she was like, so you disassociated from your body. And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever. What is what is that like huh yeah I could see myself in profile and in in that moment in that incident with the man the like I my image that was frozen in time and it looked like not like a memory plays out like a movie you know right it was like a frozen image like jammed like like like it got stuck like in a glitch and it and it would pop up throughout my life it was like a frozen image like jammed like like like it got stuck like in a glitch and it and it would pop up throughout my life it was a memory that would pop up randomly at random times I thought I was clearly being triggered and that was flashing but it was like it was like a glitch in the matrix and it was just a stagnant image and then a really icky

yucky gross feeling and this of, I was worried about like who was around, like that, those were things in my awareness about the memory. Um, and then that was it. And then it go to black. My whole life changed forever. I walked from Santa Monica to Marina Del Rey. I walked all the way home, like literally like however many miles, just like completely like in a trance. Like I was, I was, I was not in this dimension. Like I just was like, no, like this didn't happen. What? No. Like, because if you understand, like I've told a story about my life for 31 years, I had that, that story that I told in the makeup and hair chair. And I had a story I told about my life for 31 years. And then in 90 minutes in a treatment session, I'm a different person with a different story.

My whole life is a lie. So which one was I? Am I the story? I ask this question all the time. Which one am I? The one who lived 31 years of a story or the one who had 90 minutes of information that altered that story entirely. And I am neither. I'm both. I get to write that story every day. I'm the author of my story now. Every moment, this moment with you, I'm so grateful for with you guys listening. I'm so

grateful for all of you because I, I, I get to write a new Annalyn every day. She's not the Annalyn that all of this happened to. I tell the story for context, but this is not my life anymore. Well, it's anyone listening that has had one of those sessions. I'm trying to think of like, what, who, what did you, what were your next steps to make sure you were okay? And like, did you reach out to anyone? Like I called Dom. We weren't talking. We weren't, we weren't not talking. We just weren't talking we weren't we weren't not talking we just weren't we hadn't spoken in probably six months and I said I need you and he got in his truck from wherever he was and drove straight to my house and stayed with me through the night and he saw like all of the triggers happening like my body just spasming so just so everyone understands I

was experiencing like physical relive so my body would relive the act that was perpetrated onto me involuntarily, including asphyxiation moments where my own throat would shut itself down as if a rope was around my neck, tightening and shutting off oxygen. So like these were the, this was the level of like flashback memories that I experienced. So he came he witnessed that and he literally that night he said Anna you know that cutthroat Anna that I hate so much you need to be her right now you need to remember her you need to remember how strong you are did you ever tell your family I initially I was not gonna tell my mother because I was like I am not going to do that

to her that's insane ironically I had a 6 a.m flight home the next morning that was previously scheduled so I actually was flying back to Atlanta the next day anyway and I was terrified about coming back because my older sister had planned to pick me up from the airport she was so excited to see me and I was like oh my god like she's gonna immediately know something's wrong and like because I was like I the reason that Dom had said that about don't forget who you are was I was a fragile like shell of a person like I was shaky I felt like I was smaller in size than I am like literally in my body I felt like I was the size of a small child but I was in an adult body I felt like I was smaller in size than I am. Like literally in my body, I felt like I was the size of a small child, but I was in an adult body.

I felt like someone was holding me up height wise because I felt really little in the whole world. That was the energy of the feeling of what this was like. It's really hard to explain. Well, I can't even imagine like you've had trauma your entire life. You felt your coping mechanisms, but you're unsure of even why you do these things.

And then now all of a sudden to go back to where I'm assuming it happened in Atlanta the next day after your yeah geographically I was gonna be like faced with you know like areas smells sounds voices you know like the obviously the southern accent even it's just like all of it so I still go home I get in the car angel second I get in the car with my older sister she's like what is wrong with you something's wrong with you what happened what's going on like and I was like I was like I'm not bringing her down this like dark place I was like listen you know like it's okay but my voice was like everything was like just fragmented I was that shattered mirror on the wall but my my aunt is, uh, she has a master's in psychology. She's a social worker for years and years and years. And so I was like, can I

just wait until I get to aunt Lynn's house? Oh, that's smart. So we, I got back to my aunt's house and that's kind of when it all happened. And I had the weekend there with my aunt and uncle, and that was actually a beautiful gift. it ended up being like nurturing it ended up being nurturing and a very good thing I got back I was still not gonna tell my mom because I didn't want to ruin her life and then I was like you know what actually I need my fucking mom yeah she got on a plane the second I called her and when people question me like how did your mom not know I'm like I didn't know it happened to me for years. I didn't remember, you know, she came out and she was incredible. Like she, she held space for me in this incredible

way. When I was going through the convulsions at one point I was crawling. So I have to say it like this because it was an involuntary response. Like a war veterans will like grab a gun that's not there and start shooting on a web on a battlefield that doesn't exist. Right. You know, when they're dealing with PTSD from war. So my body was doing that with this, like trying to escape what was happening to me. And that this one moment I was like, I felt like slip kind of slid off of my went into the episode, slid off. My couch was just quite low to the ground. My body involuntarily flipped itself and I was scraping into my floor, screaming at the top of my lungs, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.

Like, like, can you imagine being the mother sitting there watching your 31 year old child, like sound like she's your baby girl and she doesn't know where she is, what's happening. And she's, I mean, my, I was, I was ripping through rug material with my nails.

I was gripping through it, clawing for, to save my life. So that was about 10 days after I now had known my life story, but I knew that I needed to go to Cambodia. So I got, I just booked a one way flight to Cambodia. I was like, I just booked a one-way flight to Cambodia. I was like, I'll come back when I'm ready. I called the founder of my organization there. Who's a survivor

of human trafficking has rescued over 7,000 girls. She is my hero, but I called her and I said, I'm not coming as president of the organization. I'm not coming as the ambassador. I'm coming as a girl that you need to save because I am messed up right now. And she said, okay, come. It was life altering to be able to have this community of other survivors. And my doctor was like, you did this backwards. You built a whole community of people that you would need. And then you put yourself in a situation to remember your memories. How incredible. And, and I really, that was a major shift and major healing point for me. And I stopped involuntarily splitting. It was the craziest thing.

I don't, I don't know what they did. Like we were sitting there one night, I woke up to the seizing convulsing kind of situation. They come and they get that. We all sit in the bed together, cross-legged. And Somali says,

look into Ratana's eyes. So Ratana is a survivor. She was raped by her father, got pregnant, like forced to lose the baby, like a horrible situation. Her father, she, um, he died in prison in Cambodia. It was like a, if you don't rectify something before someone dies, like the shame goes to the child. She wrote a letter to asking him,

saying that she forgave him and whatever. He wrote a letter back saying it was all her fault and killed himself to leave the shame on her. It was just like, and she's this light. She's this beautiful light and so happy and so joyful and wants to, and helps all of our girls in such an amazing way. And has an hilarious sense of humor.

And you would never know that this horrible pain was her story and she i don't know what somali did but she had the girl she had ratana to my left nora sitting across from me somali was on my right they're all sitting there and she's somali says look into ratana's eyes none of them spoke ratana stared into my eyes and showed me all of her pain and all of her darkness and all of her darkness and all of her healing and all her light. And then Nora, she said, now look at Nora. And Nora showed me, it was like, I could see her life in her eyes. And then I could see how she got through it. I don't know how to explain this to you. This is the power of human connection, like I didn't split again like I I in the sense of like

involuntarily like I couldn't control right right right I would have convulsions in these things but I wasn't I was dealing with not being able to like get my voice back and not being able to get my like it was it was a takeover of my body from my younger self and that never happened again after that night wow yeah so it was a journey and it was it was interesting because getting to a place where I've gone from I my little self was inside me and I would see her and then she would disappear into the blackness and I talked to my doctor I'm like why is little Anna disappearing on me and she was like she doesn't trust you yet she doesn't trust you yet yet. The house she lived in was a little scary for a long time. And I made it scary for her.

I put myself in these sexual situations to be abused. I am dismantling the dungeon that I had in my home for a very long time. Yeah. I'm like, honestly, in awe of you and your story. I like can't even begin to thank you so many women write into my show and the theme of shame is it is so heartbreaking because you did nothing wrong you did nothing wrong yeah how do you tackle shame like what you have any? I love that. I love that question. Yes, I do. For me, I'll preface this by saying that a doctor that I love, Dr. David Hawkins, may he rest in peace. He studied kinesiology and he put together

a list of emotions, human emotions that he calibrated. Just above death is the calibration of shame. You are a dead person walking when you are living in shame. And we are in a dangerous time in our society and culture where we are promoting shame at a level that is absolutely obscene. And we're calling it cancellation. First of all, accountability culture. That's what you're looking for. And you just named it the wrong thing, everybody.

Accountability culture gives room for redemption. Shame culture does not. Cancel culture does not. And cancel culture is just a nice way of saying shame culture. Because if you try to cancel someone, you've just canceled yourself. Have you never done something wrong? Not once in your life that you're going to cancel someone, you've just canceled yourself. Have you never done something wrong? Not once in your life that you're going to cancel someone else? It takes a very strong person to have compassion.

And that is what we're lacking when we go only in for cancellation. Where is the solution? Where is the solution in cancel culture? What are you solving and have you seen any solution actually come as a result of your cancellations has anything been solved healing sounds great to me that's a that's a solution i'd be into absolutely show me where shame heals anything show me where canceling someone heals anything Do you feel better now that you canceled someone? Did what they did to you go away? No, honey, they didn't. It didn't. But, but I will

tell you what does make everything go away. Compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion. But again, not for the weak. You, you can't be weak and be compassionate. I have a practice. So I do the meta meditation. Anytime you want a free meta meditation situation, I will lead you, guide you in. I will do it. Well, I'll come out here by your beautiful pool and relax you down. Um, but I, one of the, one of the practices that changed my entire life and it was in this journey and it was from 2018 to now that I discovered the meta meditation and it's a Buddhist practice in its origin but it's it doesn't matter what you believe hopefully what you believe in is that compassion is not a bad thing yes I think we can all agree on that

right we all agree that come on compassion is not a bad thing so if you agree with that the meta meditation goes like this I'll drop you in. I do the breath and get you settled in. But then I ask you to offer to yourself, may I be at peace? May I be free from suffering? May I be happy? May I be happy? May I be at peace?

May I be free from suffering? I have you ask, just offer that to yourself. Just graciously offer that to yourself a couple of times. Cause we have to love ourselves first. We can't give what we don't have. Well, we don't, we don't, no one teaches us to build a relationship with the person we spend the most time with, with ourselves.

I have a friendship with myself now. That abusive, loud, nasty voice that I used to have in there has turned into girl looking fly today. Just to be able to show up for my little Anna the way I would have if I could have been a woman there in her life early on. I'm the woman that she needed. I became the woman she needed. That's what my doctor told me. You became the woman that your little self needed. And I want to honor her. I want to honor her ability to survive. Anna Lynn, you are like so unbelievable. I'm inspired and honestly in awe of how open and vulnerable you are. And I think that this is going

to really shine through in this episode and people are going to be thankful and grateful to you for what you just gave them. Cause I, I know I am. Well, I'll just say in response to that, to all of you listening, I am so honored to be even a small part of your journey. Thank you for obviously having me on here to be able to do that because I'm allowed to sit here with you and share my story. And because you are listening guys and, and you're taking this in and maybe it is, is adding hopefully some value to your life. This, this means that everything that happened to me was, it's okay now. It's okay now. Of course we would take someone out of it in real time, but, but I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. I can't tell you because it means I matter.

Okay. Hi, Daddy Gang. It is your dad. Thank you guys so much for listening to this week's episode I know that this was a heavy one but definitely an inspiring one um again thank you so much to Anna Lynn if you guys can go dm her um again she's so fucking brave for coming on and sharing the details that she did and I know she was doing it also because she knows if this helps one fucking person listening, that's all we can ask for. Also, Anna Lynn now does have a podcast with a former 90210 co-host. It is called Unzipped and they also release on Wednesdays, I'm pretty sure. So if you guys want another listen, go listen to Anna Lynn and her former colleague, Sinead. It's called Unzipped. I really hope that this episode helps someone. If you by chance are feeling triggered though from this episode, whether

you want to go take a walk, if you're at work, go take a walk, take time for yourself, call someone. If you don't have someone to call and you are feeling extremely triggered though, guys, I want to give you guys assistance and help. You can call a 24 hour crisis hotline. The number is 800-273-8255. You can call that 24 hours. There is also a text line that has 24 seven crisis counseling. You would text home to 741 741. Again, if you, maybe you don't want to get on the phone with someone, you can text the word home to 741 741, which is for Canada and the United States. I'm also going to post on Instagram, the 24 seven help numbers that you can call in other countries, because I know we have international daddy. So go on Instagram and I will post a picture for you of all the phone numbers

and all the contact information. If you are feeling like you need help. Bottom line, guys, please take care of yourself today because as Annalyn put it so beautifully, you matter. We all fucking matter. Whatever you're going through, you are not alone. I love you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you guys. I'll see you fuckers trying to keep it. I will see you guys next Wednesday.