Episode 30 · 39 min · Sep 29, 2026
She Was Hospitalized at 10, and Doctors Still Missed Her Diagnosis | Anna Lacey, LCSW
with Anna Lacey, LCSW
Anna Lacey was ten years old when she was placed in an adult psychiatric ward for anorexia. In Nebraska in 1990, eating disorders were poorly understood, and the clinical system had no framework to explain what she was experiencing. She was simply treated and discharged. What came next, a revolving door of therapists, years of addiction, corrosive shame, and relationships built on distrust, would go unnamed for more than two decades. It was not until Lacey sat in a classroom at UC Berkeley in 2012 that she heard the phrase complex PTSD, and everything clicked into place.
Lacey, now a licensed clinical social worker based in California and the founder of Let the Light In Therapy, built her clinical practice around the very thing no one diagnosed in her: complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Unlike standard PTSD, she explains, complex PTSD is not defined by a single catastrophic event. It is defined by identity and shame. It is the result of chronic, repetitive invalidation in childhood, the kind that erodes a child's sense of self worth until the distorted beliefs instilled by neglect and criticism feel like fact. As Lacey puts it, by the time those children become adults, they walk around looking for proof that the terrible things they believe about themselves are true.
The framework Lacey brings to her clients draws from two distinct modalities: dialectical behavioral therapy's prolonged exposure and Internal Family Systems. At the center of her DBT-PE practice is a tool called the Wheel of Traumatic Invalidation, developed by researcher Melanie Harned and almost entirely unknown outside the narrow subset of therapists who specialize in DBT-PE. The wheel maps nine categories of childhood harm, including controlling, ignoring, blaming, and rejecting, to the specific flavors of shame each leaves behind. A child who was chronically ignored internalizes the belief that their needs do not matter. A child who was criticized internalizes unworthiness. Lacey introduces this wheel to nearly every client she suspects may carry a layer of complex PTSD, and she describes the look on their faces when they see it as one of the most meaningful moments in therapy.
Understanding the origin of shame is only half the work. Internal Family Systems, developed by Richard Schwartz, gives Lacey and her clients a way to interact with the parts of themselves that still carry it. In IFS, different protective strategies, people-pleasing, isolation, substance use, exist to keep the exiled parts, the wounded inner children who hold the shame, out of conscious awareness. Once a client can identify which invalidation categories shaped their shame and at what age those wounds formed, Lacey guides them to re-parent those younger versions of themselves. This is not metaphorical: she describes waking at three in the morning after a nightmare rooted in her college years, feeling the old shame surge, and consciously entering the scene in her mind's eye, sitting with her younger self in that college housing, and telling her what she needed to hear then. She went back to sleep. The next morning, the emotion had shifted from shame to sadness, which is far easier to live with.
Lacey reserves particular care for two realities her clients often resist. The first is intergenerational trauma: she helps clients hold both love for their parents and recognition of the harm they caused, without collapsing into either defense or blame. The second is grief. People with complex PTSD carry the weight of years spent suffering, misunderstood, and ashamed of experiences that deserved compassion. Reclaiming those years requires naming what was lost.
She also lost her sister Sarah to anorexia at thirty-three. Lacey lived with that grief largely in silence, self-editing because she could see how uncomfortable others found it. Finding ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, gave her a community that could handle the full truth without flinching. That freedom, to speak plainly and completely, turned out to be a form of healing in itself.
The work Anna Lacey does is not theoretical. It is something she practiced at three in the morning and built out of her own survival. That may be why, when her clients see the Wheel of Traumatic Invalidation for the first time, they recognize themselves in it so completely. The shame was never who they were. It was what someone taught them to believe.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Understand why complex PTSD is defined by shame and identity, not by the number or severity of individual traumatic events.
- Use the Wheel of Traumatic Invalidation to trace how specific categories of childhood harm created distinct flavors of shame.
- Recognize how Internal Family Systems helps you identify the parts of yourself that are protecting against buried shame.
- Practice re-parenting your inner child in real time, including during nighttime distress, by entering past scenes in your mind's eye.
- Learn to hold both love for parents and honest acknowledgment of the harm they caused without falling into black-and-white thinking.
- Discover why radical acceptance does not mean agreeing with what happened, but accepting full reality so healing can begin.
- Find community through ACA where complex PTSD experiences can be spoken aloud without self-editing or apologizing in advance.
Host
Welcome back to Therapist Voices at ReachLink. I'm Jessica Hurwitz. I'm your host. Today, I'm so excited. We've got Anna Lacey. Anna is an LCSW. She's located in California. You will have all of her contact information and resources at the end of the episode. Allow me to introduce Anna. She is going to talk with us a lot about her journey, her experience as a therapist, some personal stuff that she's, she's open to sharing with us weaved in there. Anna, thank you so much for being here. Um, tell us a little bit, a little bit about you.
Guest
Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. This is just a wonderful opportunity. I've never been on a podcast before, so.
Host
I barely have either. So you're in good, you're in good company.
Guest
I am a clinician. I've been a clinician for a long time at this point, but I, I think something that's really unique to my personal experience and what I bring therapy is that I identify very closely with a lot of what my clients bring in. I identify as somebody that has complex post-traumatic stress disorder. I just recently wrote a book called Complex PTSD: Follow My Map to Healing. And—
Host
And you're gonna let us know as soon as it's available so we can promote it.
Guest
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It'll also be available on my website. I have complexptsd.com. That's where I have a lot of different resources, blogs, vlogs, that kind of thing, book recommendations. When I was younger and I was going through a lot of my own turmoil from growing up in a family full of a lot of emotional neglect, a lot of criticism, my sister and I, we really struggled. And we were at later within our, you know, early teens, even for me, actually in my last year of elementary school, we were hospitalized and with, we both had severe anorexia. And I first came down with this at 10 years old. And this was in 1990 in Nebraska when eating disorders weren't very common yet. So I was actually placed in an adult psych ward at 10 years old. And so I think just knowing, like, since a very, very young age, understanding that there are people with severe mental health disorders who are also the loveliest people in the world, that stuck to me at a very, very young age. And so as I, you know, stumbled my way into early adulthood, continued to just have a lot of complex PTSD symptoms. I felt low self-worth, shame. I was often very concerned that I was being misinterpreted in a negative light. I couldn't trust in my relationships. I'm now sober. So that was also something where I just, I couldn't really stand to be in my own head. I didn't like the thoughts that I would tell myself. And it was just so many memories that would always be coming up. And it was just really, really hard to just, to just exist. And so I would go to therapists and nothing seemed to really be that helpful. I often felt that they weren't understanding what I was bringing.
Host
Not discouraging at all to someone who's making the step to reach out for help.
Guest
Right. And so, you know, over time, uh, you know, I finally was able in my early 30s to get, get ahold of the addiction side of things. And so once that cleared up, I had kind of more energy and more ability to actually figure out like, what the heck is going on with me? And then I was in a master's program at Berkeley, at UC Berkeley, and I heard about this thing called complex PTSD. And I just remember it hitting me so strongly. And I just thought, wow, that's what I have. That's it.
Host
I always feel silly when I use this, but which probably gave you such, you know, sure, you don't want anything to be wrong with you, but hearing something that resonates, it's just so, oh my gosh, like, thank God, you know, it's not all, I don't have to figure it all out. There is something.
Guest
Absolutely. Yeah. So, so then once, once I kind of figured that out, this was in 2012. And complex PTSD only became an official diagnosis with the World Health Organization in 2022. So I learned about it a good 10 years before it became official and it's still not even in the most current DSM.
Host
I was just going to ask, I was going to look up like, is this on our diagnosis list?
Guest
Yeah, not yet. I think it's going to be in the next one, hopefully, but there's a lot of people that don't understand what it is. I think what I've learned through just, you know, picking through resources and working with different clinicians and working with many clients, I kind of developed what I thought was a good synthesis of concepts from a couple different modalities. And when I put those together, I figured out what really helped me as well as what was really helpful for my clients. That's why I'm so excited to share this because I feel that, you know, this is such a new mental health disorder. A lot of people don't understand what it is. People think, oh, if you have post-traumatic stress disorder, were you held up at gunpoint? Were you in war? You know, and nothing like that ever happened to me. What happened to me was just this repetitive chipping away at my confidence when I was a kid, this repetitive feeling of being criticized, of, you know, and so I developed these internalized views of myself that my needs didn't matter, that I had to be self-sufficient. I couldn't ask for help. I expected people to not like me, you know, and all of this was just put into me by my parents. And I don't think they did it intentionally. I think they were passing on the way they had been parented, you know, that intergenerational trauma. It's not that I blame my parents, but in order to understand this diagnosis, I had to be able to say, I had to take a hard look at my, the way I had been parented. And kind of undo somehow those internalized messages.
Host
How did you do that? Sorry, but like, how do you, how does one do that?
Guest
Yeah. Yeah. That's what a lot of my clients ask exactly that when they come in, if they even know what complex PTSD is. The majority come in thinking they have depression, anxiety, autism, sometimes ADHD, bipolar personality disorder. I see people that come in having all of these labels. And when I ask them about their childhood, it really just hits me deeply that the— here are more people that have been misinterpreted the same way that I was. And so the way that I synthesize modalities is I take one primary concept from dialectical behavioral therapy's prolonged exposure. So that's DBT-PE. There's something in there. created by Melanie Harned called the Wheel of Traumatic Invalidation. And my goodness, I wish everybody knew about this Wheel of Traumatic Invalidation.
Host
Well, we're going to make sure they do.
Guest
We're going to make sure of
Host
it.
Guest
Great. Yeah, it's— I introduce it to every client that I suspect might have some layer of complex PTSD to their diagnosis. And what it is, is it's a wheel. And it's got 3 different layers. On the outer layer, it describes 9 different categories of behavior that a kid might experience as a child. So for example, controlling, ignoring, denying of reality, which is, you know, my stomach hurts. No, it doesn't hurt. You know, so just denying that experience.
Host
Oh God, I think I said that one to my daughter this morning.
Guest
Well, the thing is it only becomes traumatic if it's very repetitive and There's no counterbalance of nurture. No, no, nobody there to say, okay, yeah, I'm sorry, but you know, actually, here's a hug, you know.
Host
Okay, okay.
Guest
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're dramatically invalidating your child.
Host
But okay, what after— sorry, interrupted you. I just got very excited about that stomachache. I thought, oh my God, she did have a stomachache. She just didn't want to go to school.
Guest
Yeah, maybe she didn't want to.
Host
What, what else? So,
Guest
sure, sure. Right. So once you identify out of those 9 categories, like there's also blaming, there's rejecting, there's treating differently, maybe if there are 2 different siblings. So once you identify which categories you relate to from childhood, if you go into the middle of the wheel, it explains what flavor of shame you have internalized. So for example, for me, I was criticized a lot, like I said. Sure. So I developed a sense that I am unworthy, that I am bad, that I'm undeserving of support. Another one that I experienced a lot of was ignoring. And so what that one does is it taught me my needs don't matter and that I have to figure things out by myself. So you can imagine that if you internalize these things and they, you really feel they're a part of your identity when you're a child, if it's left to just fester or the environment just continues to pick, pick, pick, by the time the child turns into an adult, they just fully believe these horrible things about themselves and they walk around in the world thinking that it's true. They walk around looking for more Proof that it's true. And so that was, that was how I walked around and hence why I had an addiction because I could not stand how much shame I carried. I just hated myself. And I thought that there was no other option other than to try and numb myself out. I thought that was the best I could do. So, you know, I got sober, joined AA, did that whole thing, got beautiful friendships, I, that's when I came upon this traumatic invalidation and that gave me one piece of the puzzle. But what I then realized is, okay, so now I can understand the why. I know why this happened and how it was created inside of me, but now what do I do? Right? Right.
Host
Great.
Guest
Now, right, right. It's like, yeah, that sucks. I don't know what, so
Host
who's going to help me with this?
Guest
Right. Right. And that's when I came across Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz. So internal family systems, he creates this really beautiful way of looking at trauma as we all have different parts of ourselves that can become burdened with a feeling of shame. And so for me, I just tied those 2 together and I thought, okay, I can identify who the little parts are inside of me by thinking of what kind of traumatic invalidation I experienced. So when somebody criticizes me, I can know, oh, it's that little part inside that reacts to that, that flavor of shame. And I know exactly what that part of me needs to hear. So I know exactly what to say, how to cope over time. You know, this is something that when I'm working with clients, we figure out like, how can we help you relate to when this occurred for you? You know, in the past, because if we only focus on the current reactivation, we're not going to ever get to the source, to the root of what's causing the distress. So what I welcome my clients to do, if let's say they experience criticism in the present, I don't have them try to put it on a leaf and have it float away. People with trauma, they really need to be validated and And so what I encourage them to do is to actually think back to when that particular emotional wound formed and talk to that little younger version of themselves inside, because it has so little to do with what happened in the present and it has so much more to do with the original wound.
Host
Anna, is it hard for, you know, I know we've got all these modalities like EMDR and things, you know, I'm thinking perfect scenario, someone shows up on the couch across from you and says, I know what happened when I was 5. And you are able to identify that now as a clinician and as someone who's gone through all this. Is it often a large challenge to figure that out with, with your client, or do they often know kind of what it is?
Guest
Yeah, no, very often they don't know because they don't know what complex PTSD is.
Host
Like the situation you were in.
Guest
Yeah. So they've been to all these therapists and they've gotten all these diagnoses And so they come to me and I, you know, I introduce the wheel and they— the look in their eyes when they see it is just a beautiful thing because it takes away that feeling of this is my fault and helps it become rational. It helps it become logical. And so one thing that can happen with clients is that they try to defend their parents. Oh yeah. That's one thing that can happen. So for those kinds of clients, What I tell them is we can explain this as intergenerational trauma. We can explain why it happened and how your parents were suffering from it too. But what we can't do is we can't excuse it because you were harmed. So we can, we have to find that gray area of, you know, I still love my parents and I want to be connected to them and they hurt me. And that can be really hard for people that are in that black and white thinking.
Host
You need support. If you're able to acknowledge the gray area, you've gotta have support.
Guest
Yeah. So I think helping people learn how to even get to that place that they can, they can fully accept what happened and not be in denial of anything. You know, for example, radical acceptance is another DBT term where what it means, radical acceptance, is that we fully understand all of our current reality. It doesn't mean we agree with all of our current reality. And I think that can really mess some people up because they think, well, if I accept that this happened to me, that in some way I'm agreeing that it's okay. And that's not the case. It's simply that once we can accept that it happened, we're on a much better footing to be able to pick where to go next. Because we're, you know, considering the full context.
Host
When you're working with a client and you are at that point of trying to identify what it was, is it more often that they'll identify an incident and then you'll kind of work on eliciting from them, oh, this theme happened a lot, or are they usually identifying the theme?
Guest
You know, often what will come to me for people in the beginning is they'll just be expressing the way that they feel about themselves. And then I will take that as, oh, okay. You know, it sounds like you're really, you know, you really feel helpless a lot of the time. Did you happen to grow up in a home that was very controlling? You know, so it kind of works both ways.
Host
I love the way that you said it though, because it's so, you know, a therapeutic curiosity rather than, I bet you grew up in, you know, it's, it's a, you know, like this, right? You know, let's understand this. And then there, I'm sure there's that wave of, well, yes, yes, I did. Do you know my mom?
Guest
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that a lot. I do. Yeah. Because this tool is so effective. And the reason that I, that I believe that the Wheel of Traumatic Invalidation is not well known is because it's currently the main use for it is for people that are specifically going to a DBT prolonged exposure therapist.
Host
Oh.
Guest
And that's a very small amount of the public who, who figure out that's the type of therapy I want. So people that are presenting with anxiety, interpersonal relationship struggles, depression, they, it's possible that they have complex PTSD, but the therapist isn't thinking about DBT-PE. So this really helpful concept Just is never brought into the discussion.
Host
I'm so curious how many, what like percentage, I'm sure it is different by the day, of clients are actually utilizing this, especially with you sharing that it's only utilized in this particular very specific modality.
Guest
I've never met another clinician that uses it.
Host
Wow. And so you're really breaking through and utilizing this in your practice, is it very much that like an isolated kind of like, I'm the one who's doing this?
Guest
It really does feel that way. And that's, again, I'm so passionate and it's why I'm trying so much to get the word out to help people understand, because people just still don't understand that complex PTSD is about shame and identity. You know, people think of complex PTSD as, oh, does that mean I just had lots and lots and lots of bad things happen? Is that what makes it complex? And it's, it's no, it's, it's about, it's picking apart your identity when you, in some way that makes you carry shame. That's my definition basically of what complex PTSD is.
Host
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Guest
One big one that I think is probably the most common for all people with complex PTSD, one flavor is feeling that they can't trust in a connection. So that's from misinterpretation. So when we're misinterpreted and, you know, if I say, for example, oh, you know, I really wanna help you with that project to my friend. And if my friend takes that as, why are you butting in?
Host
Hmm.
Guest
You know, that if, if that my intention gets lost, then what, what happens is a lack of trust. There's a lack of either I'm not trusting myself or I'm not trusting my friend, but there's something involved where the trust has been damaged. Another flavor is just feeling less than. Um, that one can come, for example, if, you know, if you grew up with a sibling that was like this all-star and you're just maybe a normal kid, then you can develop this sense of I'm less than. There's feeling incapable. There's feeling I'm the one that causes all the problems. So yeah, so they're not fun. None of it.
Host
No, no, they're, they're not great flavors. There's not one I would, I wouldn't want to have to choose one of those flavors. Right, right. But that's really helpful to understand. And just hearing those examples, gosh, like, doesn't that describe so many of the clients who are seeking care? I mean, you could almost apply this to the majority of people seeking counseling.
Guest
Absolutely. In my opinion, and it's shared by Pete Walker, who's kind of one of my idols, who wrote the book Complex PTSD: From Survivor to— from, from victim to survivor.
Host
He's on your website.
Guest
Yeah.
Host
Is that why I know that name?
Guest
Yeah.
Host
Say his name again. Pete Walker.
Guest
Pete Walker, From Victim to Survivor. So he shares in his book that he feels that this, that this complex PTSD is a disorder that's much more prevalent than studies realize. I absolutely agree. In fact, I think that we're all on a complex PTSD spectrum. Because we all know what it feels like to be invalidated. None of us are perfectly seen and heard and accepted all of the time, but it's just how much of it have we experienced? How deeply have we internalized it? How much is it interfering with our connections, our sense of worth? So people with severe complex PTSD are the people that are isolating and terrified that everyone thinks that they're wrong. And what's so sad about these, these clients that I work with is they're the kindest people in the world. These are the type of people that grew up in extremely neglectful, abusive homes and had to just become adults at a very, very young age. Yeah. And yet once they're adults, they feel such intense shame when what they deserve to feel is pride. Another really helpful component of what I practice is get— getting people into connection because we can't really heal in isolation. And the best place that I recommend for anybody with complex PTSD is a place called Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. So ACA, sometimes called ACAD, there's online meetings all the time. There's in-person meetings. It's at adultchildren.org. And it's a place more or less for people with complex PTSD. And I really wish I had known about this a long time ago because once I found it, it was amazing because I didn't, I no longer had to self-edit.
Host
Self-edit. Yeah.
Guest
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, imagine I was 10 when I came back from a hospitalization with all of these really, really intensely severely ill adults. And I couldn't share that with my fellow 5th graders. I mean, there was nobody to talk to about that. And so you can just imagine as I grew and just all of the negativity in my household, all of the, my parents' arguments, their affairs, their, you know, just all the yucky stuff. I was ashamed of it and I wouldn't talk about it. And so when I found ACAD, I found that I could start sharing things without editing out the parts that I felt like I needed to apologize in advance for. Like, oh, I'm sorry that my, you know, my experience might make you uncomfortable, you know? So I found a community that they can handle it and they, it helps them for me to talk about it.
Host
That's so key what you just said, that they can handle it. 'Cause that of all of this, getting, getting help, that's so You know, hopefully people seek out counseling because they are not worried that the person can't handle it. And, and I know myself, anytime I've sought out therapy, I, as a people pleaser, have, you know, okay, can I tell them this? You know, can, can I put this on them? And you have found a group where, you know, that's not even a factor. That's not a thing. I have trouble in all of this, wrapping my head around. I don't mean your experience started when you were 10. I mean that this hospitalization was all the way back when you were 10. And I think you said 2012. Is that what you said was when—
Guest
That's when I graduated from Berkeley with my master's.
Host
And that's when you learned kind of more about this. Mm-hmm.
Guest
Yes.
Host
So you spent all that time— forgive me for like spelling this out for you. Like you struggled for all— All that time not knowing, but
Guest
yeah,
Host
but you did. That's a long time.
Guest
It truly is. And I work with a lot of people that are even older than I am and are just finding out about it working with me. So this is a serious problem happening in society that, you know, in the future, I think a lot more people will understand it. There's going to be a lot of, hopefully a big culture shift. about shame in the future, but currently we're still in this place where people hide their shame. All these behaviors we get into, like in Internal Family Systems, that talks about we can prevent ourselves from feeling shame by being a people pleaser, like you mentioned, by focusing on others, by isolating, you know, different ways. I don't know
Host
who you're
Guest
talking about. And then there's a whole other set of behaviors, different parts of us that take us out of the feeling, you know, that's like with the addiction or binging or yelling or self-harming. And these 2 types of parts, you know, in IFS, their job is that they're protecting us from the 3rd type of parts, which is the exiles. And those exiles are what carries the shame. So the way that it works for my clients to put this into practice, once we've gone To, okay, now I understand what flavors of shame I have. I understand the age that these things formed. I understand who the players are inside of me that get activated. The next step is to interact with them. I actually had to do this last night in the middle of the night.
Host
That sounds kind of scary.
Guest
Yeah. The best time to use this is when you're starting out is to try and find times when you're regulated and just reflect. on, you know, really painting the scene out in your mind. Like, what did my bedroom look like when I was 7? You know, what kind of toys did I play with? You know, and really just try to enter the scene and just in my mind's eye, interact with that, that child from the place that I am now, where I can give her what she needed and I can clear up the shame that she's internalizing. And I can, you know, in my mind's eye, go to her parents and let them have it too. You know, and I can really do a lot with that. And there are some beautiful meditations on IFS, on Internal Family Systems. I don't know exactly his website, but it's Richard Schwartz's IFS website.
Host
We're going to link everyone all of this because this is good. This is gold.
Guest
Great. So he has some ways of getting in there and helping people because a lot of people with complex PTSD, we also, we live cut off at the neck. Because we don't know how we feel. That we didn't have that option. We stopped thinking that that was important a long time ago. So it can be hard to figure out what are these parts and how do I connect with them? But once we get really good at it and we really have a good conversation going, it can be much easier to get in there. And that's what happened to me in the middle of the night last night. I woke up, I'd had some sort of nightmare and I had this buzzing energy. And I was remembering something that happened and I just had to reparent at 3:00 AM and just get in there and love on that girl and remind her that that was then and she's safe now. And look what I can offer her now. And, and with that, I was able to fall back asleep.
Host
Are you open to sharing more and completely do not need to, what more of what that was from the nightmare that you had? Was it actually something that kind of related that did take place? And then what did you tell that adorable, precious little girl?
Guest
Okay. Yeah. Well, so the particular dream I had last night was actually from when I was in college. And when I was in college, you know, I was a mess. I had chronic insomnia at that time. My eating disorder had switched to bulimia. I was always trying to fit in with the coolest people because I thought my self-worth is determined by others. So if I'm connected to these people, then maybe I'm okay. So I tried so hard to prove to myself that I was acceptable by hanging out with people that they didn't care. They didn't care that I, you know, they would complain, you know, I heard you were throwing up, like that's bothersome. And, you know, so like not good friends, not supportive friends. And I had this dream last night that reminded me of that dynamic from college where I felt so low about myself and I felt so misunderstood and so much shame. And I just had to go into that college housing and sit with her and remind her, none of these kids that you're in college with have been through what you've been through. It's really sad. It's not for you to feel shame about. It's for you to be sad about. That's the appropriate feeling here. For you to be sad that they don't understand you and that you are missing out on connection right now because of your trauma, but it's nothing that you should be ashamed of. You're not doing anything wrong. You're suffering and you're doing the best you can with what you know. I woke up this morning and I thought back to that memory and my emotion inside had changed from shame to sadness. Wow. Which is so much easier to cope with.
Host
Thank you so much for sharing that. Amazing that you were able to go back to sleep. That is beautiful, especially that you know what it is that you were able to manage, like the sadness versus the shame, that that's something that you can work with.
Guest
Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of grieving involved for people with complex PTSD. We have to grieve That we spend a lot of time suffering, being misunderstood, feeling othered. Those are lost years. Those are years that we never get back, that we suffered. We were full of shame. We thought everything was our fault. And so when we recognize the full reality, which again can be hard for people to do, is to say, yeah, we need to go back and accept that, that, that's something to grieve. How can we add that, that play into our life now? For example, if we didn't get to play as children, how can we offer it to ourselves now? You know, that's kind of the best we can do at this point.
Host
I love that. I, I want to ask you something that you had shared a little bit about when we connected about coming on the podcast and talking. And I'm so appreciative that you have been so open about your experience. I don't think you really had the option because it's so shaped how, you know, it would've had to come out, you know, how you got to be such an advocate for this. With everything you went through, I know, like you just mentioned grief, and then earlier in the conversation you gave the example of, you know, growing up with a sibling and all those dynamics. I want to pay a little bit of homage to your sister.
Guest
Aww.
Host
If I could.
Guest
Thank you.
Host
If you don't mind, like, share her name.
Guest
Her name was Sarah. Sarah Elizabeth. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. It's, it's so interesting. Um, the way that we grew up, we hated each other. She was my older sister and our parents were always like, oh, you two girls, you can never get along. And as an adult now, I know we were scrapping for the tiny bit of love and attention that there was to go around, you know? And then it became the— with my mother having an eating disorder, then we both had eating disorders. For me, I transitioned out of eating disorders and I went on to have other addictions for a while. Yep. Yeah. But my sister, she, you know, she first developed anorexia around age 11 and she started being hospitalized and she never got over it. And she actually passed away when she was, I think, 33, just before her 34th birthday, of anorexia. She literally died of starvation. And that is exactly the kind of thing that I used to self-edit. Because when this happened, when my sister passed away, I remember telling my, a friend of mine, a good friend, I can't believe my sister died of starvation. And his response was, don't say it like that.
Host
Oh.
Guest
And so I was like, oh, okay. And so I never again said it like that until I found ACAD. And now in ACAD, I can just say that whenever I feel like it, whenever I feel the need, I can mention it. And it's just so empowering to be able to do that.
Host
Talk about being shut down and turned around by your By the way, by your own, something that you are the one to know about your family, your—
Guest
Yeah.
Host
This is, this is so interesting. And again, I'm so, so grateful that you shared this. I, my mind is racing about, you know, every client I've ever come across and, and myself and everyone I, people I know. And, you know, I know you're doing your work. For everyone, for the greater good. But I hope I can say that I hope you're doing it for you and Sarah also, which I think you are.
Guest
Yeah, absolutely. You know, my book was a really, it was a healthy thing to do, to go through my history and identify this is where the invalidation was taking hold. This is how I understand how I, you know, was getting through this period, how I was getting by. how I understand the behaviors I had, and then to throw in the parts work where I can actually step in, go back in time, and kind of work through those things. So it's been a beautiful process, and I really truly just want to spread the word. I think I'm going to give the book out for free, to be honest. Like, I just want people to have it.
Host
I hope I'm not being too familiar by assuming that I know you now, but that is so you, if I may. You know, that's Just from what you've shared and how this happened for you and how you've seen it help so many people, I completely get you saying that. So we're going to make that book link available everywhere in addition to all the resources that you've shared. I especially want to share, I feel like, I think you have 2 different websites maybe?
Guest
Yeah.
Host
And I loved, I immersed myself in both of those. So I want to make sure we share those as well as how people can get in touch with you. So we'll connect on— I know I've got some resources that you've shared with us already, but I want to make sure everyone gets all of them because I feel like some more have come out as we've been talking. So that will definitely be linked to everyone at the end of the episode here. And I can't thank you enough for doing this. There's going to be a part 2 and you're stuck. I know your email address and your phone number.
Guest
Yeah, I literally, I have the book with an attorney right now. I don't want my dad to sue me for telling telling the truth is the, the honestly the reason. So I, I just need to make sure that I—
Host
Fair. Very fair. Something that I didn't even consider that people have to even think about.
Guest
Yeah.
Host
Well, thank you again. You are amazing. I will— anything we can do to spread the word.
Guest
Thank you.
Host
I think I would love for us to connect on possible other things we might be able to do with this to really help as far as a platform to Get you out there because you need to be. You are wonderful. And again, thank you a million.
Guest
Thank you.
Host
I will see you in like 2 days for part 2, the second your book comes out, so I can show it to everyone. Part 2.
Guest
Okay, great. Well, thank you so much. It's been an honor, and I just really appreciate the opportunity. So thank you so much.
Host
And I— you— I will talk to you so soon. And you guys, thank you for listening. I feel like there are going to be really good questions and inquiries and revelations, probably. And now I'm going to go cry about your sister, I'm pretty sure.
Guest
Aww. You know, I—
Host
So thank you.
Guest
Yeah, thank you. And yeah, I definitely look forward to any questions people have. My website for therapy is letthelightintherapy.com. And then the other one that I do that's just to spread the word on resources is complexptsd.com.
Host
Perfect. And we'll make them clickable, so there will be no having to remember. I will talk to you so soon. Thank you again, Anna.
Guest
Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
Host
You too.
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