Nobody Should Believe Me - BONUS: Unabridged Interview with Jackie Rodriguez

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

We are working hard on season 5 of Nobody Should Believe Me, but in the meantime, we’re bringing you a series of unabridged interviews from the experts we talked to during the making of season 4! This week Andrea chats with Jackie Rodriguez, LMSW, who specializes in dissociative identity disorder and complex trauma. Jackie and Andrea discuss the complexities of DID and the stereotypes that have been exacerbated by popular media. Jackie talks through what therapy looks like for someone with DID and gives helpful advice for anyone looking to support someone with DID in their lives. *** Links/Resources:  Learn more about Jackie’s services: https://openpathcollective.org/clinicians/jackie-rodriguez/ Preorder Andrea's new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. To support the show, go to Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

True Story Media. favorite things about making this show is that I get to talk to so many fascinating experts and deepen my understanding of things like dissociative identity disorder, which is the subject of today's conversation with therapist Jackie Rodriguez. In addition to learning so much, I just really loved talking to them. The vibes were immaculate, as the kids say. Also, a reminder that we've got our season four mailbag episode coming up, so be sure to email us your questions and comments to hello at nobody should believe me dot com. That's hello at nobody should believe me dot com. Enjoy! Well friends, it's 2025. It's here. This year is going to be, well, one thing it won't be is boring. And that's about

the only prediction I'm going to make right now. But one piece of news that I am excited to share is that the wait for my new book, The Mother Next Door, is almost over. It is coming at you on February 4th from St. Martin's Press. So soon! I co-authored this book with friend and beloved contributor of this show, Detective Mike Weber, about three of the most impactful cases of his career. Even if you are one of the OG-est of OG listeners to this show, I promise you are going to learn so many new and shocking details about the three cases we cover. We just go into so much more depth on these stories. And you're also going to learn a ton about Mike's story. Now, I know y'all love Detective Mike because he gets

his very own fan mail here at Nobody Should Believe Me. And if you've ever wondered, how did Mike become the detective when it came to Munchausen by proxy cases, you are going to learn all about his origin story in this book. And I know we've got many audiobook listeners out there, so I'm very excited to share with you the audiobook is read by me, Andrea Dunlop, your humble narrator of this very show. I really loved getting to read this book, and I'm so excited to share this with you. If you are able to pre-order the book, doing so will really help us out. It will signal to our publisher that there is excitement about the book, and it will also give us a shot at that all to our publisher that there is excitement about the book, and it will

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These events will be free to attend, but please do RSVP so that we can plan accordingly. See you out there. Calling all sellers. Salesforce is hiring account executives to join us on the cutting edge of technology. Here, innovation isn't a buzzword. It's a way of life. You'll be solving customer challenges faster with agents, winning with purpose, and showing the world what AI was meant to be. Let's create the agent-first future together. Head to salesforce.com slash careers to learn more.

Okay, so just to start off with, Jackie, can you tell us who you are and what you do? Yeah, so my name is Jackie. I'm a trans therapist in Austin, Texas. I do a plethora of things. Right before this, I was finishing my master's in social work. And for the past year, I was working with the local mental health authority doing case management for people that were going through schizophrenia, DID, some of the more like trauma-based, I mean, they're all trauma-based mental health issues, but like those tend to be really intense and chronic over the lifespan. So that's most of

the work that I do there. When I'm not doing those things, I do enjoy playing video games and all the other fun stuff like kayaking and yeah. Wonderful. So could you give us a working definition of dissociative identity disorder? Yeah. So I would say dissociative identity disorder is usually whenever there are two or more distinct personalities or parts that exist within like one's body this tends to happen due to like chronic childhood trauma like neglect abuse of any kind um and really the um the things that make it pretty like distinct are that sometimes people will have memory gaps in between like being like existing in like the driver's wheel i guess or the driver's side of the car. While other people or other parts are not like driving per se, like they will have gaps of like

when they were in control of the body. But this can vary from person to person. It's a very unique circumstance situation. So it's very specific to the person as well. That's so interesting that you used the driving metaphor and I was just smiling because that's exactly the way that Joe described it to us as what they experience of being at the back of the bus while someone else is driving and then sometimes that they're not on the bus at all. So that was very helpful to me as a metaphor to understand that experience. So you mentioned that, you know, DID and schizophrenia are two of your specialties. How did these disorders and in particular DID become a specific area of your focus? What drew you to working with folks on that?

Yeah, so I had my own personal experience going through psychosis, which involves being very completely detached from reality. A lot of the symptoms that exist in schizophrenia and in DID can flow in and out of a psychotic state. So I just I got a very profound experience that makes me able to relate a little bit more than I used to. And then you touched on this a little bit in terms of the childhood trauma, but as far as we know, what causes DID? I was talking with my supervisor this morning, and she said it was like a really messed up lottery system of like trauma happening whenever you're young and usually when trauma happens at a young age people may end up having post-traumatic stress disorder or some sort of personality disorder or like did and really it's just there's a million different factors that can go into like what ends up happening with somebody like their intergenerational trauma just like the trauma of their like ancestors um the way that they were

raised by their parents um specific like big t traumas that like might happen like in one instant like a tornado or like some sort of natural disaster so i really i wish i could tell you more specifically like if this happens then this you more specifically, like, if this happens, then this happens. But it's really like, if this happens, all this could happen. Yeah. No, and it sounds like this is maybe one of the less well-studied disorders that, I mean, has there been a lot of research on this? How has that research sort of evolved over the last several years, 10 years? What have you? I have opinions on the research.

Yes, please. Yeah, so I guess since like the inception of like psychology, like research about DID has been very like stigmatizing and dehumanizing. And like we can see that like portrayed in media as well how like characters that have dad like are extremely dangerous or like um are totally not in control of what's

going on in their bodies but like the the real the reality of it is that like these are normal people that just are a little bit more split than the rest of us and like there's different like therapy modalities that believe that all of us are somehow parts, but there's the integration of all of our parts are a lot closer and the trauma of like going through something very heavy could like split those parts up further. That's, that's really interesting and helpful. And I found as I've been having some of these conversations, we, you know, obviously with, with Joe, who I'm very close with, and then with another, another person, Jade, who we interviewed, who does peer support for multiples, you know, it's a more relatable experience, I think,

than most people understand it as, right? If you're seeing it as the sort of serial killer character that doesn't know they're a serial killer, which is like, of course, the only depiction I can think of from a movie that whatever that James McAvoy movie was, which obviously cartoonish disastrous portrayal of a very real disorder that obviously would be very stigmatizing. And I think that most of us can find a sort of way into relating to this when we think of how we experience

either different relationships in our life, like when you sort of, you know, the way that many of us, when we're with our family members, like when you sort of, you know, the way that many of us when we're with our family members suddenly become a sort of younger self or a younger part. People will describe themselves as like degressing or regressing to like a younger state because they're in that environment. And yeah, I just wanted to agree with you on that. Yeah, no, I really like it when we can sort of put things in those frameworks of when people talk about it. And one thing that's really occurred to me, you know, having known Joe for quite a while and watching them be in these situations where they're talking about these extremely intense parts of their life and these extremely intense experience they've had in this very calm, sort of deliberate, well-managed way. And I think that's something that's incredibly special about Joe and something

that helps them really give people an access point to this experience and helps in their work with survivors and everything else that, you know, the way they've described that experience to me, I can see where I'm trying to phrase this right, but it's obvious that that's part of their coping mechanism is the dissociation. And that, in fact, I can see where that's something that's really helped them survive. Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder if you can talk about like how this is really a survival mechanism yeah yeah so like the whole like existence of other parts in did like hinges on like what they like i guess the original or primary person there's so many different words to explain like how someone like identifies like a main component of a system but like when there is trauma that is like extremely profound that

somebody might not have the coping skills to deal with, like somehow like a part is created and that person and that part like ends up dealing with those memories, those like experiences, those thoughts, those feelings. Yeah. It seems to me from talking to Joe and Jaden, I wonder if you could weigh in on this as well, that there has been a movement in the therapeutic community, or at least the part that is, you know, looking at this in a progressive way of like not sort of, oh, this is a thing we need to get rid of, but like this is something that this person developed for a reason, and that is helping them still to survive. And we want to help that person sort of manage, I guess, the more difficult parts. I mean, can you kind of weigh in on that?

Yes, I can. So, yes, I'm in that boat as well. Like, if somebody wants to work towards integrating all the parts, they absolutely can. But that is like never something that should be prescribed to somebody it's definitely like a client directed journey of like do I want like do I want some sort of oneness with all of these parts or is this something where like we can like work together and like operate like a a mick of some sort so like some sort of like this is a body and like all of us

are doing our little part to keep it fed and make sure that we're safe in that, in any environment that we end up in. Yeah. Yeah. When you're working with clients that have DID, what sort of things do you work on in terms of treatment and coping mechanisms and that kind of thing? Yeah. So the primary work that I've seen in my neck of the woods is usually psychoeducation, which is just like naming the things that are happening or that they're experiencing, giving them like words that could like resonate with them and make sense or giving them tools to like explain to their peers or to their friends or to their family like why this like thing exists and how this is not like a scary

thing and this is simply just another like state of being that a lot of people have have gone through and it's not something that needs to be othered or cured or fixed. Yeah. So it's mostly like destigmatizing work that we do. Like what are some of the most common things that folks are struggling with when they have DID? Like kind of what are some of those really big day-to-day challenges that you see? I would say it's a lot like how a family tries to navigate one part of the family having a hard time in like a four person household. A kid is like struggling with school and the rest of the family is just trying to help them like support their like goals to do the things that they want to do. So it could be very much like that. Just like it all of it happens inside one body instead of everyone has their

own body and like this reality that we're in. Yeah. And I like that metaphor about the family in the house. I think that's a really that's really helpful to understanding and everyone can sort of relate to that. You know, one of the scariest parts that when Joe describes having this experience is those memory gaps that can happen. Right. having this experience is those memory gaps that can happen right and you know they've described described to me like especially when they were at a sort of more difficult part in their healing journey that they would have situations where they would sort of come to and not know where they were

and you know that seems like a much less sort of manageable part of that, like that experience where like Joe's, you know, not on the bus at all, and then just sort of comes to and doesn't know how they got where they are. I mean, that sounds completely destabilizing. How do you work with clients having that experience? And is there a way to sort of to help like either lessen those gaps or i mean what would you sort of do around that particular piece of it there's a lot of like external tools that could help in this like um i had a client that found a just like a phone application where they could log who's in

like who's fronting so that there's like a log of like okay so this person was in charge of the body around for this several amount of time several hours or whatever and um so doing some sort of like external log or like journaling or like keeping tabs could be one tool that could help um help someone with did like get a little bit more cohesion inside of their system um And now like cohesion could help to have those relationships be improved and they can like communicate more effectively or just more healthily with each other. Because usually whenever there's a profound amount of like memory gap it's typically that somebody was activated, somebody was triggered by like a past trauma or whatever it may be and um there needs to be some sort of like um crisis management at that time so usually sort of if you're addressing those traumas

then those gaps may reduce as a result yeah yeah so yeah so and then in the moment of a crisis well i guess before a crisis would occur we would try to make some sort of like safety plan with somebody to like, who are the people that anybody can call to get help if you're like on the bus and then suddenly you come and you're like, well, I'm 20 miles away from my home. How did I get here? What resources exist in the community to help people get back to where they need to be and soothe and like come back to being like present in the moment. And I imagine that this probably differs from case to case, but when you're sort of, I mean, as like as a therapist, when you're working with someone

and you might be speaking to sort of, as you said, kind of what you might describe as the primary or different parts during a session or during, you know, different times, like is all of the external information being input or does that kind of depend on someone being able to sort of communicate with everyone in the sort of in the system? I'm just wondering if like, okay, sort of, I guess, and I don't, I don't mean to say, I don't want any of this to sound sort of like cartoonish at all, but like, okay, like if you, if you told one part that, and that managed to get that information about call someone, if you're in distress, if that managed to get to like one or two or three parts, but not all of them. And then, you know, one was in control when something really bad

happened. I just happened i just almost seems sort of like scary that it's you might not be able to communicate that information about what to do to distress to everyone that might be at the wheel at a given time yeah and through my work i've like kind of realized the limitations of therapy in that way like oh this isn't like a fix-all for everybody's problems like like, the situations that created, like, being in a state of, like, of plurality are the things that need to be addressed so that whenever these things do happen or these do exist, like, there's better supports than going to one person one time a week and navigating in that way.

Like, community care is very important for um for navigating any kind of mental illness but um especially i would say that's important for did what's up spotify this is hobby i remember this one time we're on tour we didn't have any guitar picks and we didn't have time to go to the store, so we placed an order on Prime, and it got there the next day, ready for the show. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. Playoff football is here with BetMGM, and as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL,

BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day with a variety of exciting features. BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action visit bet mgm.com for terms and conditions must be 19 years of age or older ontario only please gamble responsibly gambling problem for free assistance call the connex ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600 bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. For those of us that have someone in our lives with DID, what are some ways that we can be a good support to that person?

Well, in my work with people that have DID, it's usually good to check in on who's fronting at the time. Like, oh, you could be talking to like i don't there's so many names that i don't even know where i was going with that just like it's good to check in with like who's who's in charge per se or like there's um times where multiple people could be in charge so maybe like checking in on pronouns at the time like oh well there's three of us up here so we'll just just use they when you're speaking to all of us or um kind of just like treating them like a human being like they're not some science experiment they're not alien

like altered states have existed throughout time like we're just very closed off from all of that information and all that history um so yeah, it's just like, okay, this person's in charge. All right, this person, let's go do life and have a good time with it. So just like sort of accepting and not judgment. I mean, good advice for dealing with people across the board. Yeah, just like that's where you're at

and that's where we're gonna go. Yeah. So I've known Joe for several years and I didn't start hearing from the other parts explicitly until after we took our trip to minnesota and now sometimes i get um text message from younger parts that tell me that they're not supposed to be on the phone and it's actually it's actually incredibly sweet and i feel incredibly honored that they feel safe enough to talk to me and so then we just like talk about i have a five year old daughter too and one of the parts is five so then we just like talk about, I have a five-year-old daughter too

and one of the parts is five. So then we just talk about like Disney movies and like, you know, and then Joe, sort of the primary takes back over and they're like, oh my God, they weren't supposed to be talking about it. It's just like, it's very sweet. Yeah, it's like sort of talking to family members

within someone that I love. So it's like, you know, and just, and like, yeah, it's really helped me understand I think um yeah like more about what that experience is is like and I think just kind of rolling with it yeah it seems to be the mode yeah I agree like and you you just get the pleasure of like having so many more friends than you originally thought and you're like oh oh, this is awesome. There's a whole team of cool people in there. Yeah. I really, I think with a lot of probably like, you know, your frustrations about the way that people talk about dissociative identity disorder, I have a lot of the same frustrations

with the way that people talk about Munchausen by proxy, because usually if they have any understanding at all, their understanding is extremely like, you know, lifetime movie, you know, just like freak monster kind of take on it. Right. And and which is unhelpful, I think, to people who've had to deal with it in their real lives and are, you know, dealing with the human elements of it. And I think it can be so it's so helpful to sort of like take it down to like those more relatable experiences. And I really appreciate your helping us do that. And one thing that I really, we also see a lot of survivors, probably unsurprisingly, we see a lot of survivors struggling with, if not dissociative identity disorder, then like some pretty extreme level of dissociation where they kind of go in

and out and have gaps in their memory. And especially like from their childhood memories, you know, really have like whole periods of their life missing. And I have a niece and nephew who are victims. And I realized that even in the professional community, people were talking about survivors in this way where they were sort of, and not everyone for sure, but I noticed that there's some tenor to the conversation of basically like kids that grew up like this are a lost cause. Yeah, I know those people. I mean, I don't like those people. I don't associate with them Yeah, I know those people. I mean, I don't like those people. I don't associate with them, but I know they exist. And that's the difference, right, of like, if you're looking at it from a purely academic standpoint and just sort of adding up the adverse

childhood experience score or whatever it is, you know, sort of like looking, which not that those metrics and that data is not helpful. I do think that that has taken us a long way to understanding childhood trauma and how it impacts. And like, there has been a lot of progress in how we understand things that especially happen to kids like under five that really will impact them for the rest of their lives. Like that's valuable. But I sort of, you know, I do see people sort of just looking at like, oh, that kid's a goner anyway. And I'm like, well, that is, you know, not the right way to look at it. That is absolutely depressing to hear from anybody in like a helping profession. Like

you think this person is not worth the help because they're too far gone. Right. Like this is too complicated. Yeah. I have an understanding for like each helping professional has to decide what they themselves can be helpful with. And if someone thinks like, okay, this type of, it is too much for me personally, I cannot be helpful to this person. Like, obviously I think every helping professional has to do that. But I do see some of these conversations where it's just like, there's an almost unwillingness to understand because I think sometimes people like, I mean, I know that childhood trauma is something, especially when it's really extreme. I mean, I think

it makes people very, very uncomfortable. And I think that even people who are studying it sometimes really don't want to look at the human after effects of it, which is surprising to me because I'm not sure why you would get into that profession if that's how you feel about it. But yeah, so I mean, I think that DID is another thing that is heavily stigmatized and that people are sort of like, well, that person who has that thing is just never going to be, you know, and we get very obsessed with how productive a human being someone might be because, you know, capitalism and all that. Just another small problem to solve for another day. But, you know, like that that person sort of isn't going to be a worthwhile member of society, I guess, which is

really, yeah, the worst take on humanity. But, you know, for people that just sort of, that might have some of that bias, I guess, like, what do you want to say about, I mean, besides whatever expletives we're all thinking towards those people? from some trauma and some mental health issues that are just not going to be able to be helped and we're going to sort of put those people over here. I mean, what do you sort of want to say to that whole idea? Yeah, like, I would say compassionately, like, where does that thought come from? Like, I think I would try to maintain some curiosity. Like, is this a thought that you believe because like you think some people are not worth it? Or is this like something that was taught to you in order to like survive in this world. Like, Indigenous cultures before colonialism, like, they didn't, there was roles to be played. You know, there was, I wish I knew more because I'm so disconnected from my own, like, past, like, Indigenous, like, connection.

But, like, we didn't have to produce, produce, produce, produce all the time. So, like, why are we moving so fast like why aren't we slowing down more and just a lot of things to like somebody should reflect upon isn't like a lot of people are involved in different like religious practices and like one of the core tenets of all of them is like love other people and every like living creature, every human has inherent worth to it. And like,

that's a really special, powerful connection that we share with rats, with cats, with trees and being disconnected from like the rest of nature is like, can make somebody think that they need to like cast away the things that they don't like but really like everything is in a very like spiritual woo-woo like kind of way like everything is connected so if you're feeling a need to disconnect from another person or to like

think someone else isn't worth the time like what are you doing that to yourself as well like what are you disconnecting from within yourself too? Yeah. I tend to think that one of the reasons, and I think a lot about the way that people interact with, you know, true crime content and sort of these like big scary things is like part of why we want to put ourselves in that sort of like observer position

and that sort of like even gawking position is because we want to say this would never happen to me this would never happen to my family and uh you know what i always tell people about that with munchausen by proxy which is this sort of particularly terrifying thing on all these visceral levels it's moms that people don't want to think about moms doing it they don't want to think about people experiencing this abuse um they don't want to think it could happen to someone who you know we sort of talk about like cycles of abuse. And like, I think something I see a lot is that like, if someone does grow up to be an abuser, then people really need there to be a

reason. Like people really need to find some inciting incident in childhood that made that person into a person that would do those things. And it's not often not that simple. And I think the reason people need to do that is so that they can say, well, as long as I parent my child in such and such a way, they will not grow up to be that. And as long as like we do not do these things, then our family will never have to experience this horror show that you're talking about. And that's not true. And so I think like it doesn't help us at all to like hold people who have been through very difficult things at a distance, especially because I think there's so I didn't know anybody that had ever been through a case. And so that's been hugely healing thing for me to meet all of these other family members and survivors and really have

some hope and some guidance on what I might be able to eventually help, you know, my niece and nephew with. And I think I sort of struck by the way that we use the word survivor because we often use that to describe people that have not necessarily been through like something that would be a life or death experience. And in this, it's like, no, you really survived something that might have killed you, where there was like a pretty high chance it was going to kill you. If not physically, then like just, you know, it's such a, it is a huge challenge to overcome. And I've been so amazed by survivors and their resilience and even this idea of like how dissociation works.

And like, yeah, like your brain stepped in to protect you. And, you know, something that we see a lot with sort of where this connects to dissociation and this abuse is that, like, most survivors don't understand when they're children what is happening to them, right? They're so inculcated in that worldview of their parents that, like, they just really believe they're sick into their adulthood. And then they have some moment where the dam breaks and they realize what's happened to them and they start kind of going through medical records and that kind of thing and it's sort of it really strikes me how like usually that's their brain protected them until a moment where they were safe enough and

I just thought like that's an amazing thing that brains do like dissociation is it seems to me like a very strong tool for survival. And like, I hadn't appreciated it as that until I really started talking to people who'd had that experience. Yeah. And like, and you can even like extrapolate like dissociation as something that's occurring on a wide scale. Like with people that are like saying, oh, these people aren't worth it. Or like they're too much, there's too much to do there that it's a lost cause like that's a level of dissociation they're like i don't have the tools to help this person and me thinking about it is gonna bring me down so i need to just close off this this part of this information here i need to throw away because then i'm gonna go crazy

dissociation helps like it also harms too and it's it's like, it's a both thing, you know? So this is a pretty like heavy part of like any kind of narrative based therapy where like people are trying to find meaning in their lives and find a way to connect to their history and like what the history informs them to become or where they want to be. So like that, like memory retrieval

could be those like components that like okay well this memory happened and like what not like not exactly like what did i learn from that but like what parts of this like experience do i want to take forward with me so it's not necessarily like the the nitty-gritty details of a memory being brought back but like what were the feelings that i experienced in this foggy memory that i have like how can these feelings like be addressed or like how can they be integrated into like into the whole so kind of in the way that um a couple would be like it's not me versus you it's like us versus the problem and like both people are like trying to navigate like i don't know finances so it's not me versus you it's like us versus the problem and like both people are

like trying to navigate like i don't know finances so it's not like my finances are like the problem it's like money is the thing that we're both addressing so narrative therapy would be like taking whatever experience has happened or a thing that you did or whatever it may be it's it's putting it over here i'm moving my hands i'm remembering that this is a podcast so i move my hands out in front of me like it now exists as this like floating energy or entity and i'm like speaking about it and like being like okay how do i um how can like this thing here be incorporated into like my own like life story? Or like, how can I find a way to make peace with this thing? Cause like,

it is a thing it's chaos. It's good. It's bad. It's neither. So it's kind of like finding a way to like radically accept that things have happened in the past and like, there's no changing those things. So what do I want to do to move forward given this, like, these circumstances? I want to tell you about a show I love, Truer Crime from Cilicia Stanton. My favorite true crime shows are the ones where I feel like the creator has a real stake in what they're talking about. And this is definitely the case with Cilicia, who got interested in covering crime because, like many of us in this genre, she experienced it. In each episode of the show, Cilicia brings a personal, deeply insightful lens to the crime that she covers, whether it's a famous case like the Manson murders or Jonestown, or a lesser-known

case that needs to be heard, like the story of a modern lynching. She covers these stories with a fresh and thoughtful lens, helping listeners understand not just the case itself, but why it matters to our understanding of the world. Her long-awaited second season is airing now, and the first season is ready to binge. So go check out Truer Crime with Cilicia Stanton wherever you get your podcasts. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments about the producers of a certain film,

or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmeichel. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Should Believe Me on the air was quite the roller coaster. Podcasting is just the wild west, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators, doing the work, and making thoughtful survivor-centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator partner, You Probably Think This Story's About You. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittany Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024. Zooming to the number one spot in

the charts on Apple and Spotify as Brittany revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Britney is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache, and resilience. If you love Nobody Should Believe Me, I think you will also love You Probably Think This Story's About You for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find it at the link in our show notes. Something I've thought about a lot with survivors and how they think of their mothers, it's 96% of the time it's mothers. So in every survivor I've talked to, it's been their mother, is sort of how they remember their mother and how they, and for me even, I've been estranged from my sister for 13 years and it is interesting and helpful for me in this whole sort of

conversation about dissociation is that I have this very strange experience where I have a memory of my life that goes up to the point that I was 28 when we discovered this abuse was happening. And then it's like complete sort of bifurcation of like before and after. And I have this experience of talking to people sometimes that I knew before, like someone got in touch randomly on social media, like with someone I knew from my childhood

who'd known my sister. And he was like, hey, how's your sister? And I was like, and he was like, I saw you have a podcast. I'm going to listen. And I was like, whoa, before you do that, heads up, you know? And I was just like, talking to him, I was just like, this is so bizarre. I feel like I can't even really, like, remember. Like, I have those memories, but they just feel like they're in this like glass case or something. Me too. Yeah. And so, and it's like, I didn't have a psychotic break, but I had a very intense time with my mental health where I had some pretty severe PTSD in the sort of year that

followed that, those events. And like, it does just feel like kind of like my life broke and then started again. And I really struggle with making sense in particular of actually my positive memories with my sister growing up. We're very close in age. We're two years apart. She's completely intertwined in my childhood. Like, I don't have childhood memories really that don't incorporate her if they're of vacations or holidays or like most things, right? She's just there for most of it. And it's a very relatable experience for me in talking to survivors about how they come to understand who their mother is or was once the revelation of this abuse that happened to them. You know, we also covered this kid, the Maya Kowalski case last season where it's a girl who's 18 now and her mother died by suicide during an investigation 10 years ago. And I think she believes she wasn't a victim of abuse. And I sort of have wondered many times, like, is it helpful for her to understand that she was a victim of abuse or is it better for her? Her mom's gone. The threat is gone. Is it better for her if she just remembers her mom as she is? And I sort of like, I just wonder sometimes at the

utility of, do we need to understand everything? Is it helpful for us to understand everything? I wonder, like, do you think everybody needs to remember everything about their traumas or is there like a place where it's helpful and a place where it's not? I don't think everybody needs to remember everything about their traumas. And like, there's gaps in my childhood that I'm like, you know, if this never gets opened, as long as I'm like having a good time now, I don't care. That's just where I'm at with it. There's some people that like having all the data, like knowing every single thing.

And I guess it's just like a case by case-case thing also of like do I want to know this thing do will like this information bring me some sort of peace like the human experience is like dealing with all of the emotions all at the same time and I'm trying to find a way to like make peace with that and it's sad and it's hard but but it's imperfect, which is cool? It's interesting anyway, right? At least it's interesting. It's not boring. The plot is pretty interesting.

It's like, oh, so nuanced. Like, if this isn't black and white, that's crazy. I'm sort of thinking about my own experience of like, for many, many, many years, I didn't want to think about this. I didn't want to talk about it. If somebody found out something that was going on with Megan, I did not want to know. I mean, I had this bizarre experience where I finally told my parents, like, listen, there's nothing I can do about this situation. Please, if you hear something that's going on with Megan's kids, like, don't tell me. And then a week later, we got a call from a police detective.

So I was like, oh, maybe something is going to happen. It didn't. Anyway, long story. But I don't know. I think it's really, I mean, do you think people sort of just really need to trust their own intuition of like, if you're feeling like you now is the time you want to explore something and dig into things, do it. And if that's feeling like radioactive, then just don't do it. I mean, absolutely. Yeah, it's it's a take it at your own pace thing.

There's no rush to find out everything. There's no rush to get to the end. Like it's a very unique journey. I'm 26 now and like I was aware of like things that I needed to deal with at 15. And I was like, no, can't do it right now. And then psychosis happened. And then that was just like,

and then now a couple years after that it's like okay I'm ready to like pick up some of these pieces and kind of navigate what's going on um and it just yeah it's different for everybody so just whatever feels good yeah you know one of the things I really am super conscious with the show especially as we've grown is that you know when people feel like they want to tell their story and I think that that's such a, I think it's a brave thing. I think it's an incredibly valuable thing. I think sharing humanity or human stories is how we bring humanity to these things that are so heavily stigmatized. And I know that it's an incredibly intense experience to start digging into this stuff, especially in a very public platform where like idiots on the internet

are going to weigh in. And so I'm always trying to sort of evaluate as best I can if that's going to be a positive experience for someone and not. Do you think that there are sort of like signs when someone's ready to sort of start digging into all this intense stuff or like sort of ways to modulate that just that sort of you've seen being in this practice where you're dealing with people with extremely intense childhood traumas yeah like there's I wouldn't say there's like a before and after time of when someone's ready to like talk about something there's like random events or random like spaces of time where like okay no no one's like thinking like okay i'm going

to schedule from 8 to 10 p.m like i'm going to go through my trauma it's like it does not work that way it'd be cool uh maybe it does for somebody it just does it for me at least um but i think it's like getting your external environment safe so if like if somebody lives with their abuser and like leaving that place or them leaving the places, it's going to be a visual cue for like their body to be like, OK, things are a little bit safer. We can dig a little bit deeper into the brain and like churn some stuff out. Because whenever we go through profound traumas, we get like shot into like the core part of our brain, which is like lot of people call the reptilian brain which is more focused on breathing and survival and then outer layers of the brain are more cognitive and more thinking and more like what's going on and like who am i what is existence so it kind of like getting those basic needs met and then like having supportive people that are like okay that you're like dealing with this part right now. And then that like repeated safety in small and big like doses will slowly like let somebody like

feel like they can breathe in their head more. And there'll be days where you're like ready to talk about all of it. And then tomorrow I can see somebody that reminds me of a trauma and then, oop, we got to go do some soothing stuff. So it's a fluctuating state of affairs. But like having those supports in place, that scaffolding will make going through that easier. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So just making sure someone's in a literal safe space and then also that they have a good support network for going through that. Yeah, and again, that's a great sort of description that I think will be very relatable to all listeners of sort of understanding when you're in that fight or flight state and then versus when you are in sort of a more thoughtful state and kind of can have a little bit of perspective on things. Well, like traditional psychotherapy is very like cognitive top down where it's like, okay, well, let's, well, you're doing a thing and that's wrong. So let's think about it this way.

And it's like, no, no, that's not going to work. Cause like not everybody is at that, like the highest functioning of brain and like even calling it the highest functioning of brain feels weird it's just like this different state that somebody's in where they're like where they can like be more contemplative um but when someone experiences such a profound trauma there needs to be like bottom-up work done so like talking your way out of trauma just not going to work just because trauma doesn't exist at the highest like it exists at this part of the brain it exists like at the core part of the brain so somatic work or bottom up therapies are going to be more helpful in that way and then just like dancing joy laughing like

anything that like involves your body moving and like being present in the world is is really powerful because a lot of the times when someone goes through such a huge trauma they feel extremely disconnected from their body or disconnected from the world i would say like the solution or one of the solutions could be like getting reconnected with your body going out touching grass but like actually touching grass not just being like don't touch grass like on the grass, hanging out with some trees like they're great. the break with my sister. I went to a new, I was like a casual salsa dancer before that. I went to a new studio that had this like kind of, it's like a story for another day, but it was like, I had this very like charismatic leader,

whatever person. And I got obsessed with salsa dancing. I went every day for like a year. I was like on a performance team. Like I just went like full on because I remember I drove up, it was what, you know, it was one of those periods in my life where I was like crying all the time. And like, I don't mean like, you know, I mean like really, like I was like crying at the gym. I was like, this isn't working like this. And then like, I would go out dancing and like the music, the touch that it was like, I was like, oh, that's, this is the only time I don't feel sad. And so I got like obsessed with it. And I was like oh that's this is the only time I don't feel sad yeah and so I got like obsessed with it and I was like that is you know obviously that was like not sustainable

forever and but it was like it was the thing that got me through 100 you could do elements of that at home too like if you're feeling shitty and like oh salsa dance is great just throw on some music while you're doing dishes and like yeah be a little bit more in touch with your body. It's not like, oh, you're not being in touch with your body. It's like, hey, like you deserve to be in touch with your body. Like you deserve to feel safe and you deserve to be happy. And like nobody should have been able to take that away from you. And I'm sorry that that's happened.

So kind. I've heard so many survivors say that like going running or doing yoga because they were always told they had some balance disorder and couldn't be upside down or whatever. And like for Joe too, like finding athletics again as an adult was really healing. And I think that just like that feeling like capable and feeling in touch and feeling like you can trust your body is like so powerful particularly if you've been if you've been made if your body was made your enemy as as you were growing up you know being in touch with your body is is for everybody like there's no right way to do it like it hurts me that like people have been told like oh you can't do yoga it's like i can't stretch i can't like be in touch with like what do you mean like Like there's so many to modify, like any kind of like physical exercise.

If someone can't do a pushup, they might like do it on the wall or that's just one random example. But like there's ways to do anything pretty much. I love that. So I have like one last question ish. I could really talk to you all day. You're a delight, Jackie.

But you mentioned something earlier in our conversation. This just happens to be like something that I'm really fascinated by and that actually came up in Joe's story because one of their interesting elements of their story, interesting, I guess, what I'm putting in like parenthetical. But they were led to believe that someone was their biological father who was not their biological father. And we ended up interviewing the person who's really their biological father. And he came over to the United States as a refugee from Iran during the revolution. And I think that's been an interesting thing for Joe to kind of contemplate is like, how does that, I'm very fascinated. You mentioned sort of understanding ancestors and like that kind of thing and that whole concept of like epigenetic trauma. I wonder if you can just talk us through that a little bit, because I just think

that's something that is so, is such a fascinating sort of lens to put on these otherwise sometimes mysterious emotions that we have or responses to things that we have. Yeah. And I think like a lot of people don't understand intergenerational trauma because we're taught like a lot of the things that exist in our lives are very individual problems. Like, oh, you're anxious because you did this thing or you did this thing or they did this thing to you. And it's like, it only exists in here. But like, like we said earlier, like everything is really connected. And like a lot of people that might have like a schizophrenia disorder,

they'll have a relative that has schizophrenia as well. There's a lot of like genetic factors that go into that. So like things get passed down in your dna um from your ancestors so whatever someone was dealing with in 1500 they might be like looking at you now being like hey i get that that makes a lot of sense oh it's like oh we're never gonna break out of this we're never gonna stop being clumsy oh how fun yeah but i think there's like a really like beautiful um piece of like connectedness that you can have with your lineage in that way like oh all of us stub our toes every

third for thursday you know like what a cute little quirk so like um my my personal definition of intergenerational trauma is like the traumatic experiences that your parents or your grand grand grandparents may have gone through like that informed the way that they rose or raised their kids like my mom would have like soap put in her mouth when she was in third grade for speaking spanish and now every time i try to speak spanish i up because I'm like terrified and I like I just like straight up like I've never experienced that kind of like discrimination and hate from speaking Spanish but like I have a really hard time trying to learn Spanish and I'm it's all of these oh it's just it's so complicated but essentially like the things that

our body learns like goes into our cells and our cells become other humans whenever somebody is born. So that's a part of you. So anything that I've dealt with, it's probably going to get passed on to kids if I have kids. The goal there is to recognize the things that have happened to you and find a a way to end the cycles because it's doable. It's just hard. It requires a lot of self-reflection and a lot of community and a lot of forgiveness and a lot of recognizing of like imperfection. I think it's one of those things that it can sort of, it can feel pretty heavy if you start thinking about like what your ancestors endured,

either if that's your parents or your grandparents or further back. And then also, I think it can feel really beautiful of the idea of like, every time there's a new generation, like we have a chance to sort of, you know, you get a little bit of a do-over or you get a chance to sort of maybe heal something that goes pretty far back if you can sort of recognize it and then there's an interesting parallel there to the idea of like a person with DID carrying multiple people within themselves but like we're all sort of doing that in the way that we like our makeup of all of our ancestors right and so like that could be a way to like bring some healing to like those parts of yourself that are your, that are your predecessors.

Jackie, thank you so much for being with us. And now I just want to like come to Austin and we can all hang out. Yes, I'm very fun. I've been told. You seem extremely fun. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments

about the producers of a certain film, or perhaps you've heard one of some pointed comments about the producers of a certain film, or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmeichel Schmeichel and Bog. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Should Believe Me on the air was quite the roller coaster. Podcasting is just the wild west, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators, doing the work, and making thoughtful, survivor-centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator partner, You Probably Think This Story's About You. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittany

Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024, zooming to the number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Brittany revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Brittany is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache, and resilience. If you love Nobody Should Believe Me, I think you will also love You Probably Think This Story's About You for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes

each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it at the link in our show notes.