E.59 A Personal Account On Hospitalization, Trauma, Dissociation With E.Jill Riley

In this episode, I speak to E.Jill Riley. Jill is born in Korea and raised in North Idaho. She went to college in Seattle and met her husband and then moved to Montana. She was a pastor in 3 different churches for 30 years. She shares her story of her adoptive families and how her adoptive mother abandoned her and was a victim of sexual and physical abuse, as well as neglect. She shares her experiences with the mental health system after having a breakdown 7 years ago. She discusses attachment, mental health accessibility, as well as how she searched for safety and a way to express her difficult journey in the mental health system.

Jill's podcast, Post Traumatic Faith, can be found here.

You can also reach her, via her website here.

Transcript

Steve Bisson: 0:01

Hi and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I am your host, Steve Bisson. I'm an author and mental health counselor. Are you curious about therapy? Do you feel there is a lot of mystery about there? Do you wonder what your therapist is doing and why? The goal of this podcast is to make therapy and psychology accessible to all by using real language and straight to the point discussions. This podcast wants to remind you to take care of your mental health, just like you would your physical health. therapy should not be intimidating. It should be a great way to better help. I will demystify what happens in counseling, discuss topics related to mental health and discussions you can have what your theories, I also want to introduce psychology in everyday life. As I feel most of our lives are enmeshed in psychology. I want to introduce the subtle and not so subtle ways psychology plays a factor in our lives. It will be my own mix of thoughts as well as special guests. So join me on this discovery of therapy and psychology. Hi, and welcome to episode 59 of finding your way through therapy. I am Steve B. So if you haven't listened to Episode 58 Yet, I hope you get to it. Susan Rogan Dorf was an amazing guest. She's also known as the swearing therapist. She's the podcast, leader of the rules and just someone I really enjoy talking to. So please go back and listen to that. Episode 59 will be with Joe Riley. Jill is someone I've been on her podcast and I really enjoyed it. She is born in Korea and raised in North Idaho, went to college and Seattle met her husband there and moved to Montana. She was a pastor for 30 years. She's a survivor of sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect, and struggles with her own mental health hope she brings that up. She now writes as well as does a podcast on mental health. So here is the interview. Hi, and welcome to episode 59 of finding your way through therapy and episode nine on the YouTube channel for finding your way through therapy. My name is Stevie. So finding your way through therapy is something that means a lot to me. And I think our guest today really is going to encompass that because I've been on her podcast, she has been very open about her experience in therapy. And I'm looking forward to that. But we were talking beforehand about names. So if you ever want to look up my full name, and I'm going to share this with everyone because it's available anyway, if you look for it, my full name as a French, Canadian or Quebec or a Catholic, I grew up with Steve Joseph Peter Williams be some that's my full name. Wow. So we were talking about her name. And I thought that would be a good start. And I want to share that I'm here with Jill Riley. So welcome, Jill.

E Jill Riley: 2:35

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Steve Bisson: 2:38

So yeah, that's why I say when the names I'm always trying to be very careful. But yeah, that's my full name.

E Jill Riley: 2:44

Right? Yeah, no, I just put the E Jill Riley. So people know I'm a different person than my daughter who also has an E in her first name. So it's just our way of trying not to confuse insurance companies.

Steve Bisson: 2:56

At the end of the day, I don't think that there's many guys with like, what five names? So I think I'm safe. You're probably safe. We'll see after this episode, I will not share my Social Security just in case. But Jill, it's nice to have you on. I've been listening to your podcast for a long time. And I was actually on your podcast, I want to say, Yeah, we're talking about that also beforehand. But yeah, post traumatic fate is a great podcast, we'll get definitely gonna get into that too. But wanted to make sure that people know that that's how we met. And yeah, I ultimately really enjoyed my experience there. So people I'm going to link it to my, my podcast, if people want to go listen to it. It was I thought we had a great time. But how about we start off with a simple introduction about who you are, because I know who you are, but my audience might not know.

E Jill Riley: 3:43

Well, I'm Joe Riley. I live in Montana. And I was raised in North Idaho during the you might find this interesting during the 80s when the white supremacists were all there. And yeah, so it was pretty crazy skinheads marching and putting buildings on, you know, bombs on buildings and all sorts of stuff crosses on fire on lawns, it was nuts. So then I went to Seattle and worked there and finished my education and moved to Montana. I always say I got I got imported into Montana because I married a Montana boy. So and there aren't very many Koreans here. So

Steve Bisson: 4:19

I was gonna say there's what like three of you like the whole state?

E Jill Riley: 4:23

I think somebody told me there's like 93 and billings, and when you can count them, too, so that means there's not

Steve Bisson: 4:32

like that's like, oh, and that's Jill.

E Jill Riley: 4:39

Yeah, it's pretty funny.

Steve Bisson: 4:41

Wow. So besides marrying someone from Montana, what right how do you get to Montana really?

E Jill Riley: 4:47

Well, you know, it's it's kind of a roundabout way. We initially moved because of family but I also had a job here. I served as a pastor for over 25 years. And so I had a job here after I I finished my graduate work. And so that that definitely brought us here. And then so I worked as a pastor for a lot of years helped start three different churches, and then worked as a business consultant and did leadership development and group facilitation and, and all of that. And then, seven years ago, I had a major mental breakdown, and ended up hospitalized for quite a while and began my journey on figuring out my own mental health. And a part of that was starting a blog. And after I did the blog for a while, I thought, well, I'll just start a podcast. So it was just kind of a, a whim of a thing. And off I went. And so that's where posttraumatic faith came from. So I've been doing that now for this is our third season.

Steve Bisson: 5:47

Wow. And I know that you always have interesting guests on.

E Jill Riley: 5:52

I've had great guests, I've been really fortunate.

Steve Bisson: 5:55

I think that that's what I really like about it, I listen to it regularly. And it's always important to me to put on the table, all the trauma, and I know that you're very open about the trauma you've been through. But again, for people who may not know, can you share a little bit with my audience about the trauma that you talked about on your podcast, among other,

E Jill Riley: 6:14

right, well, I was in an orphanage in Korea. And then I was adopted to a family in the United States. And then they abandoned me. And I was adopted to another family. And so before the age of two, if you know anything about child bonding and parental bonding, I didn't really have a chance to do that with anybody. And then I was adopted, and my family was very, very dysfunctional. And my father molested both my sister and I, before we moved at the age of, I think I was five, before we moved, and my sister was older, she was four years older than me. And then we moved to North Idaho with our mothers, because apparently, she was headed to Canada to get us away from him, but only made it as far as North Idaho. But during that time that I lived with her, she was extraordinarily violent, and very, very abusive. And just the kind of abusive, like, I remember looking in the mirror and checking my clothes to see if there was blood seeping through, because I didn't want anybody to know, it was that, that kind of abuse. So she was she was very cruel and dysfunctional. The state didn't take custody, me until I was in high school, I was listed as a runaway while I was actually a senior in high school, but Idaho didn't have an emancipation law. So I couldn't like divorce my mother. So state took custody, and then I ended up in a foster home, and then another home. And finally, she abandoned me and decided she didn't want to have anything to do with me. That was in 1990. And I ran into her once and tell she died two years ago, she never spoke to me again, she just decided that this is my adoptive mother, you know, you think that, that parents who pay for you and wait for you that they really want you right? It's not an accident. And she just decided that she didn't want to have anything to do with us. So. So that is kind of the root of my trauma. And then seven years ago, I lost my sister to drugs. She just couldn't cope with all of the demons of our past. And so that was pretty traumatic, and was a trigger for a lot of what happened after that.

Steve Bisson: 8:29

Wow, where do we go from here? I mean, there's so yeah, I mean, yeah, it's up to you where you want to go. But the first thing that comes to mind is the formative years of our attachments are the first two years of our lives. It's absolutely true, right. And that's really where it causes people to having an anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, so on and so forth. Did that kind of like show up in your life? Later on? Did it show up as a teenager? Does it show up today? I mean, how does that show up in your life, I mean, that's where we can start, it's up to you where you want

E Jill Riley: 9:01

to go with attachment. One of the things that I think is that every relationship that I have, I kind of assume that it's going to end catastrophically like somebody's gonna get mad at me, something's gonna go wrong, you know, something is going to happen really, really bad and every relationship is going to end. So I always kind of feel like, I kind of hold a piece of myself. That's an escape hatch. So in case something does go wrong, I can just like, disappear. And so that's mostly where I see my attachment issues. My psychiatrist, I've had two psychiatrists now that have told me this, they said, Joe, you know, somewhere along the way, somewhere, somebody loved you, and somebody, somebody helped you to be able to understand love and relationship and I'm like, Well, I don't know where the hell that was. But they said, you know, there's no way that you could function as as an adult and a caregiver and service industry. He and a mother. So there's no way you could function as well as you do if you didn't have something in your formative years that was positive.

Steve Bisson: 10:09

And you still haven't figured that one out and

E Jill Riley: 10:11

nope, nope. No, I haven't. And obviously, the first two years, you know, hardly anybody has memories of that. But I have a major dissociative disorder. And so there's a lot of pieces of my childhood and trauma years that that have just disappeared. So that's always a challenge, because some things I remember and some things I don't.

Steve Bisson: 10:36

Yeah. And I think that with dissociation and trauma, they typically go hand in hand, right? It's a survival method if you asked me, right. Do you feel that going through all the trauma that you've been to made? What kinda like you said, you don't know where you got more? Love someone who loved you somewhere? How did you adapt your life in general? Because when you go through that much trauma, you assume possibly that the world is cruel. I mean, that's just right. I'm over generalizing completely. And I understand and I am. But how do we go from like thinking the world is cruel to being able to attach to a husband attached to your kids attached to a community and like three churches is nothing to sneeze at when you start up three churches? So how do we adapt?

E Jill Riley: 11:25

I attribute a lot of that to strong community, both with in my college years, I had some good friends, I had some good therapists. And so I did get some psychiatric help during that time, but it was more along the lines of counseling and less along the lines of therapy. That was the first time I remember somebody telling me that I had PTSD, though, was when I was 17. And I had no idea what that meant. And we're talking late 90s. So early 90s. And so nobody really said, here's a specialist for PTSD. We're learning so much more now than what we used to.

Steve Bisson: 12:02

In the state led Nevermind the stigma. Right?

E Jill Riley: 12:05

Right. Right. And we're still fighting that, right. So I think that I just won a faith community was really positive for me having some really good attachments within the faith community. But you know, I met my husband was 19. So I was in a foster home at 17. I met my husband when I was 19, and got married when I was 20. And so, you know, we're up on our 29th anniversary or something. I don't know. I just think, for me, I feel like God's played a huge part in that. And I've just been, I've just been really fortunate to have help along the way as I grew, and as things became more evident that they were problematic. I've just never been left stranded.

Steve Bisson: 12:51

So when you talk about God, I believe in faith tremendously myself. So I'm a I'm a practicing Buddhists, personally, and I certainly see the the value of spirituality, how did that help you, especially in your early 20s, especially in the beginning, that kind of like have that faith or that belief that's going to help you in the long term, because that's sometimes hard, because it's God's not someone who he or she comes down and goes, Hey, how are you doing? I'm God, here's what happened. Here's the deal. So I think of what how do we keep that faith, so to speak? And how did that impact you in your early years?

E Jill Riley: 13:28

You know, I knew from the time that I was 14, I knew that I wanted to be in vocational work in the church. And so I felt that very strongly when I was 14, so I was always kind of at in my, in my teenage years, always kind of bent on that. And so that's why I went to school for and everything. But I think one thing I thought about a lot is the typical path or some some typical paths of dealing with PTSD and trauma, and all of that addiction and drinking and drugs and all of those things. Because of being in leadership in a faith community. That wasn't an option for me. I mean, it would have been an option, but that that wasn't an option that I took. And so I was a workaholic. But I didn't go down some of those paths because of being attached to the faith community. But I wrote something one time about my faith and God and I kind of described it as a life raft. I just felt like it was a life raft that kind of bullied me through the storms and kept me stable to some degree. I always had, it wasn't quite a Pollyanna view. But I always have this really, this really strong opinion that if nobody else in the world was for me, if nobody else in the world loved me, that at least I knew that God did. I mean, I was raised in the church. I was raised going to the church every time the doors were open. I just my parents were psychotic. I mean, my my dad was the head of the church. toward, you know, my mother was church secretary. So I mean, we were, we were staples in the church, they were just behind closed doors, just cruel people.

Steve Bisson: 15:09

And so that's a that's also a hard kind of like conciliation, right? You have so much to say that there people have faith and believe in that stuff. You had closed doors closed and they're very, very vicious towards you emotionally physically sexually. I mean, this is just terrible. Yeah. Again, I'm not trying to question God here. I hope you understand no more of a conversation here. How do we keep faith in those particular situations? Because a lot of people would be like, really, this is called fake fucking looks like behind closed doors.

E Jill Riley: 15:40

Right? Exactly. Exactly. You know, I don't know, Steve, it just, for me, that was the anchor. That was the way that I could, you know, I kind of imagined it like some of those big oil riggers, you know, that have so much, so much weight on the bottom, and so little weight on the top, I kind of felt like, that was the stabilizer for me, that kept things from going awry. And it's not that I didn't get tipped over quite a bit. I mean, I've, I've dealt with anxiety and depression and suicidality, and I've dealt with things but but may have made it through. So I don't come on here to say that I'm all better and everything was wonderful. And life is a wonderful life I have, I still have struggles, but I do think it kept me from some of the worst of what trauma can do to people.

Steve Bisson: 16:28

I kinda like question, I always talk about how we're all hooked up in different ways to my clients. And once you figure out one or two cups, even probably a third one is going to show up, and it's okay to keep on working on it. It's just probably not as intense as you go along. Right. And I think that what I really like about the faith is that you can turn around to faith because sometimes, like you're crying and you don't know why, or you're angry, and you don't know why, because it's so hard to consolidate in your mind. Do you think that faith can help you get through those hard moments? And how have you mirrored that in the churches you helped create?

E Jill Riley: 17:05

Well, I think it can help you get through hard moments. I also think that if you have a positive I mean, listen, the We the reason why I have attached myself to the church and why I love the church so much is for its potential, it has potential to change the world. We haven't got there yet. And I acknowledge that. But I always have kind of bad on the potential, that if it was good, when the church is good, it's really good when it's bad, it's really bad. And so I don't know if I mirrored that for, for people in the church. I hope so. But I know that one of the things that was preeminent in my brain was the safety of people and the safety of children and trying to advocate for those things, both inside the church walls and people that are outside of the church walls. So I hope that I exemplified that. But I think my life in my witness to what I've been through, speaks positively of what can happen with a life that is following some kind of a faith path.

Steve Bisson: 18:15

And I think that's a little bit of what I wanted to get at is that, for me, my journey has taken me from a very staunch Catholic upbringing in Quebec, to a I was an atheist, at some point, became more agnostic, re-embraced, a little bit of the church. But ultimately, at this point in my life, I'm a Buddhist, and I practice there's no such thing as a Buddhist practice Buddhist principles, right? And I really like Buddhism, because it just encompasses so many different values of the, you know, it does no harm, you can embrace it, whatever religion that is. And by my faith has helped me just really consolidate some difficult moments in my life, whether it's currently or in the past. How has your faith played a part in your life and your development and where you're at to this day, because you've been through so much?

E Jill Riley: 19:06

Yeah, you know, I think it again, it has been a huge piece of my life that has helped me to see the world, again, like it through potential. I was in a psych and trauma hospital for two and a half months. And it was those moments that I felt like it was super dark, and I didn't feel like there was faith or hope or anything. And I've been through deep depression where I just felt like there was no light and there was no way out. I'm stuck in a well, but there's always this little piece of me that feels like I have some sense of purpose. I have some reason for being and not only my faith now my children and my grandchild and those are all valid and important reasons, but I've always felt like there was just a glimmer of light It's somewhere. And even if I didn't know exactly what that was going to do for me, I knew it was there. And so, yeah, I just have always had that little spark somewhere, for some reason

Steve Bisson: 20:14

gets to the point where we talked about seven years ago, you said you had a break down, sister dies of a no. D, you end up in the psych hospital, there's a lot of like dark moments in your life, right? How did you deal with the stressors while you were in the psych hospitals when with everything that went down, because it's not like you go, like, one of the things I mentioned, another podcast with a few colleagues, is that you'll go to a psych hospital. And five days later, you go, gee, the world's so much better. I love it here. It doesn't work.

E Jill Riley: 20:43

You know, this is kind of a funny story. I ended up I mean, my marriage was in trouble. I was losing a lot of time from dissociation. And I was just, I would literally be in the middle of conversations. And I have to stop people and say, I'm sorry, what were we talking about? Like, I just was just losing, I was just losing myself and so much trauma that was going on in the church, we had a lot of people that were disenfranchised, and needed a lot of help and addicts and different things like that. And so, so I was just kind of being swallowed up by all this trauma. So my bosses said, you know, hey, we really want you to go to this workshop on childhood trauma, because we think that that would be good for you to kind of understand how you're reacting to the all of the other things that are going on in your life. And so I went down to this workshop, and it was attached, it was sponsored by this hospital. And so I went to this workshop, and on the third day, I had a major mental break a major dissociative episode, and they said, You really need to be hospitalized. And I'm like, listen, I gave you three to five days. That was it. And I already knew that it was super expensive. Treatment is not cheap thing and our church denomination when they call them and they said because they had sent me to this workshop, they called him and said, we really think she needs to be hospitalized. And they said, well, whatever she needs, we'll pay for it. And I'm like, oh, bastards. So,

Steve Bisson: 22:11

so being so helpful.

E Jill Riley: 22:14

I ended up going in there because of having so many complicated trauma issues. I ended up staying about twice the time that they predicted, but no people you come out of you come out of the hospital, and people are like, Oh, do you feel better? Is everything going better? I was like, No, I feel worse, but I have better questions. So you know what I mean? So I felt like I felt like I was just I was incapacitated and kind of an agoraphobic for about two years, trying to recover from figuring out my life and because of my health, and we had to close the church down. And then that was a huge source of grief for me. And because of dealing with all of the stuff that had kind of come uncorked Complex PTSD and all that I wasn't able to work. So I went from this workaholic to full stop. So that was pretty crazy. But as far as the hospital goes, you know, it's it's true, you don't come out of there and go, Oh, my arm was broke. Now it's better. You know, people, people don't understand that about psychiatric institutes. And it was experience, there was some there was some great things that happened. But it wasn't experience to be sure.

Steve Bisson: 23:25

Yeah, then without being too, there's great experiences and psych hospitals. And there's experiences you'll never forget. And if you can read between the lines, you know?

E Jill Riley: 23:38

Absolutely, absolutely. That's one of those examples of care that I've been the beneficiary of is that at that time in my life was what I needed what I needed for two and a half months. And just that was dropped in my lab, I wasn't expecting that I wasn't expecting that somebody would pay for that kind of treatment, I can't afford that kind of treatment. And so that's just an example of some providential happenings in my life that have been really, really good.

Steve Bisson: 24:09

One of the things you keep on talking about which, obviously, I want to be clear that I understand this association the way I do, and I'm very big on like, there's definitions that are given through a dictionary, and there's the definitions that people meet. So I would love to hear you kind of describe for the audience because people don't understand the association. They think you're going to lala land or your like on Planet Mars when you do that, or something like that. And I think that that's like in some days, right? That's what I mean, but how would you define it so that people can kind of like, learn necessarily, I don't know if relates the right word, but certainly understand it better because I don't think people quite get what the sociation means,

E Jill Riley: 24:48

well, everybody dissociates and it's like if you're driving down the road, and you're three exits past where you you're where you're supposed to be and you're like where was my brain? You just kind of check out or you're you're watching a movie and you realize you're half an hour past what you remember last, it's a matter of just kind of escaping into yourself and into your brain. What happens with a dissociative disorder is it becomes a maladaptive response. So what was a good response? Like it under abuse or under attack you, especially children can learn to disappear into their own brain so they can tolerate what's going on. And, and know what's going on, know what's going on, but but not be really aware of pain and all of that. But as an adult, anytime there's a threat or a trigger, you switch into that dissociative mode that becomes maladaptive. It's no longer useful, it no longer has a purpose in your life. But if there's a trigger, then then you're there for me. I've been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, which people freak out about because that was that was formerly known as multiple personality disorder, and people just kind of just completely freak out when you when we talk about that. But

Steve Bisson: 26:09

these movies, but

E Jill Riley: 26:11

yeah, it still happens. There's still ones that come out. But you know, people think that that is, all of a sudden, you become a different person, your dress different, you show up different, it can be an internal thing, too. So my other pieces of me are all very internal. My therapists know and my psychiatrists knows when there's another piece of me that's really talking so a younger part of me or an older part of me, they know when that's happening. But from when I'm in and I'm triggered by environment, that's not part of my conversational day to day life. That does that. Is that a good complete explanation of dissociation?

Steve Bisson: 26:53

I think it explains it a whole lot. The way I describe it sometimes do you talked about three exits later. I tell people like have you ever been in you gotta get out of work or get out of someone's house that you know, and you drive home? And you get home? And you're like, fuck did I get here? Yeah. And that's the association. I think that the way you just described it is a great way to and I think it's very helpful for people to understand because I, I get frankly frustrated with mental health outs depicted sometimes in the media, and stuff like that. Yeah, dissociation, I come from the school that we all dissociate. So thank you for saying that. Number one. Yeah, we don't necessarily dissociate because of complex PTSD. All of us, some of us do have PTSD and relate to that. Right. But I think it's also important to realize that it doesn't show up the same way for everyone. And it's okay. And it doesn't have to be this, you know, multiple personality disorder shit that we used to see on TV or still media, in

E Jill Riley: 27:52

three faces of Eve, United States of Tara, all of those different shows, you know, what was it? I can't remember, there was another one. But all of these different shows that depict that where there's this big bad evil part of you that comes out and, and you know, kills everybody. It's, it's not, it's not that for me. Now, I do have a friend who has a dissociative disorder in in her world, her escapist world, she has created a whole environment that is very intricate. I think that's really interesting. But yeah, and everybody handles it differently.

Steve Bisson: 28:28

And I think that, I don't know if you're thinking about I don't know if you're thinking about homeland when you were thinking about the other one, but homeland I find as a depiction of bipolar that's actually done fairly well, because people don't get a I have a good friend of mine she she has suffered from bipolar for few years. And it's never quite depicted properly in the media. So that's why I'm I get annoyed, but people look at homeland is possibly that. Now it's she gets into hypomania, and how she reacts to different so but they're like, oh dissociate, that's not dissociation. That's hypomania. And I don't want to get into a detailed conversation about everything that can be depicted negatively in the media. But I appreciate you talking about dissociation. Yeah, dissociation does not need me to be related to trauma, but it usually is, in my opinion, it can be dealt with different ways. And when you go through moments in your life when you're not even, like I'm pretty sure you weren't always cognizant that you're going to dissociation. And then that can be very difficult for people to understand that you're in a different world, so to speak. And I knew

E Jill Riley: 29:38

when I was in high school, I knew that I was losing time. And I didn't know what it was about. I just I found out one day somebody brought something up that had happened three months ago, a really violent attack, and I just had totally forgot. And so I didn't know what at What to do with that? I was like, Why in the world wouldn't I remember that I mean, my mother literally picked me up and threw me across the room. And I, I didn't remember that. And so that was when I first noticed that there are years of time when my kids were little, that I'm in and out, like, I look at a look at pictures of myself with my kids or videos of myself with my kids. I know I'm there, because I see it represented, but I don't have, like physical memory of being there. So I'm detached from that image on the screen, even though I know I was present. But when it came down to having so much stress from working so much, and stress from the church and, and people in the church, I was losing time, like I was driving around half the day, not knowing where I was going, and not knowing what I was doing. And like I said, I was in the middle of conversations, and I would just blank out. And I you know, studying was super hard. And that's a you know, a large part of a minister's job and setting was super hard. My concentration was super bad. And so it was just like these things, everything was starting to come unraveled.

Steve Bisson: 31:09

And getting to a point where you're able to realize all those things, does that bring any particular emotions on your part, like when you really realize all these last moments in your life, so to speak, because of the association? Because I know that for me, I've had clients Express shame around them. And I'm like, well, there's no shame to be had I get where you're coming from, there's no shame to be had. It's not like you said, Oh, I'm going to dissociate starting now. No, you didn't. You didn't. So I don't know if you had brought so many emotions on your part or anything like that. And just want to

E Jill Riley: 31:40

ask, okay, well, you know, being diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder, a dissociative disorder, another type of depression, being diagnosed with all of that, I felt like for quite a while that that was really shameful, that I, I was completely broken, and to know that those things could become better. But they were a part of my life now whether I liked it, and I felt like somebody had branded me and it was, it was just this permanent scarring that happened. I've gotten past that I still, the one thing that I don't talk about is the dissociative disorder, because of people not understanding that too well and takes too long to explain. But I when it comes to memories of my kids, and at times, I just I have a, I have a wish, I don't have shame. I wish that I remember physically being there. I'm glad that I was able to parent the kids. They're great kids. I have four of them. They're fantastic people. I was really fortunate with that. And but I do wish that I could have been more. I was president but more mentally present.

Steve Bisson: 32:57

Right. And I wasn't obviously implying that you needed to have shame is just something that I need like, right?

E Jill Riley: 33:02

No, it's it was there, it definitely was there.

Steve Bisson: 33:06

And I think that that's what I appreciate. I want to thank you for being so honest about everything that you've been through, especially around dissociation because this is not something that most people are kind of like willing to have a conversation because it's a hard conversation to be had. Even if you you've had that diagnosis. But even someone who's never had that diagnosis, they start talking about it, and they seem they can't go into it. So I really want to thank you for that I appreciate this is really the goal of this podcast is to really break down those walls. So we can have these conversations. So I just want to say thank you before we go on.

E Jill Riley: 33:37

Well, well, you're welcome. i It's a learning, right. I've had to learn to learn more about it and and figure out what it's all about. Before I could say, hey, this was a really useful tool that just became maladapted. And we need to work on that. And instead of feeling like it was a scarlet letter, you know, because that's how I felt at first. Well,

Steve Bisson: 34:06

I can't believe in 2022 we still see mental health diagnosis as a scarlet letter. Right? It's it's something that I My view is that you know, when you break your leg, someone breaks their arm, how long did it take to break an arm two and a half seconds, but then you got to be in a cast or get rehab for eight to 12 weeks. And that's super acceptable. When you think on a percentage wise, it's kind of really weird that a one and a half second break is going to take eight to 12 weeks. And I tell people in mental health is the same exact thing. We go through a lot of trauma for any type of diagnosis, I say trauma because that's just one of your gonna go through it for a year, six, six years, whatever the case may be. The treatments going to take long, it's not going to just go like Oh, you know, wait six years of trauma. Give me three weeks it'll be fine. I mean, it doesn't work that way. But we're okay with that on the physical health view of the world but we're not Okay with that on the mental health view. So I appreciate,

E Jill Riley: 35:02

here's my premise, I think until we begin to refer to mental health as physical health, we're not going to break down that barrier. It's as if everything from the neck up is separate from the rest of the body. Well, my neck and my body are all attached. And so I think until we begin to recognize that dealing with mental health is as much physical health as diabetes, or cancer or heart disease, until we start to look at our brains, minds, emotions and souls in the same capacity. We're going to be running behind the eight ball.

Steve Bisson: 35:36

It's something that I talked about in a previous podcast with a another guest there was a police officer. And he was saying, How can we can talk about this down here, now that I have video, I can show you that. And then anything that's up to here, we can't and they said it's even weirder, because if I had like a big mark in my face, you'd be relent. Like, it'd be like, I don't know if I can bring that up or not. But if I had it on my arm, you'd be like, Hey, what's that on your arm? That's how bad it is talking about whatever is up to here, because even a facial deformity, whatever you want to call it, we wouldn't talk about but if it was on my arm DBA What the hell is that? So yeah, I think it's really screwed up that we think about it, like your definition of how we need to see it as equal and not separate.

E Jill Riley: 36:19

Right? Yeah, I think until we do that, we're gonna be more than behind. For sure. Well, I,

Steve Bisson: 36:25

I tell people, I have a therapist love my therapist, and I have a doctor with my mother, she's an NP and PPA, I don't want to insult her, she's great. But I would never give up one or the other ever. I need both. Yeah, and I'm not going to be shamed ever into having both. So it's something that we need to kind of lift that stigma to,

E Jill Riley: 36:46

you know, the other thing that I had a lot of shame and challenge with was medication. You know, I'm on 11 different medications a day from depression and anxiety, and anti-psychotics and all sorts of stuff, and medicine to help the depression medicine and medicine to sleep. And, and I, I really felt shameful about taking medication. And I think that is an example of where the church has got it wrong. Because the church so often equates your spirituality and the strength of your spirituality with the ability to heal yourself when it comes to mental health. And so much of that, I think, is problematic. I agree. Yeah. So I just really felt like I should pray harder and do better. And medication was something that wasn't great. And now I don't see it that way. But that was something that I was very conflicted over.

Steve Bisson: 37:46

I'm pretty sure. I mean, I don't want to speak for any of our spiritual leaders from the past. But I'm pretty sure that Jesus would have let us have a pill that made us feel like we can sleep better or we can deal with our issues better. I'm pretty sure Jesus wouldn't have said, Just pray harder. I again, I don't want to speak for Jesus, again. But I'm pretty sure he was the type of guy hey, if it works, it works. I can see a lot of our spiritual belief systems and you go, man, I don't want to go out, you know, Abraham to get Nash to Buddha to whoever. I mean, I'm pretty sure all of them would have been. Yeah, if it helps you go ahead. I don't think they would go like MIT and pray long enough that they are you didn't look at Mecca. And so I'm not again picking on any particular religion just in general here.

E Jill Riley: 38:34

Yeah, I think in general, in general, faith communities haven't done a great job with this.

Steve Bisson: 38:38

Well, I would argue to that, even in the addiction community, we have a big issue with that too, because I've still hear it to this day. Oh, you're you're chewing your drug. Wait a minute. Well, a mutant keeps me from like going into deep depression during the winter time. I'm not sure you're dragging. I'm just trying to survive. And you see that in the addiction community. You see it even with people like do you really need meds? I've seen medical doctors say that the people because again, the mental health and physical health are seen as, like, why are we shaming people for this crap? I don't understand it.

E Jill Riley: 39:11

Yeah, you know, I have a My psychiatrist right now is really interested in this medication of extra cholesterol, and this medication affects your affects your heart rate, and we need to look at that. And I really appreciate the interlacing of both my physical health and my mental health. And I think that's really, that's really positive because I had psychiatrists that are very interested in my mental health and physical health. And just, it's really great to have somebody who who deals with that intersectionality. And I

Steve Bisson: 39:43

think it's important to interview our treaters that way, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. By my new NP or again, I don't want to say it wrong. I want to say she's an NP I can't remember. One of the things that I said is that I did not need Wellbutrin. This winter, but I do take Wellbutrin for my seasonal affective disorder of PTSD. And the first example was like, I'm so happy I was going to ask you about the hug question. Really, that's even better. Yeah. And so make sure you choose your providers accordingly to me. Because I've seen too many providers, like I have people who call me as a therapist and their medical doctors, oh, I don't know anything about depression, your medical doctor, you should at least know slightly a little bit about depression, or anxiety, or bipolar or schizophrenia, you don't need to know the whole thing. But you should have at least a vague idea.

E Jill Riley: 40:38

Again, because those things affect our physical bodies, because it is all physical. So I think we've got a treat at all.

Steve Bisson: 40:45

While the mind body spirit to me is just the whole, the design of the human body, the belief system, to me anyway, that's how I see the human. If you don't address the body, you don't endorse the mind and you don't address the spirituality. And it doesn't matter how you treat all these things, as long as you treat them as equals on a bigger pyramid.

E Jill Riley: 41:04

Just my thought. Yep, absolutely. I agree.

Steve Bisson: 41:07

So let's shift gears a little bit, because I think that what we're talking about in different ways is that we're talking about some people having the mental health or trauma informed thought processes, and I have seen some movement in that way, in a good way from businesses, from other parts of the world of our culture, I should say. But I still think that there's a lot of different difficulties that come with that. How do we better inform mental health and trauma informed people in general, how do we work on that?

E Jill Riley: 41:37

Well, I think what you're doing and what I'm trying to do is tip of the iceberg, which is we've got to talk about it. We've got to be able to have normal conversations about it. And in a lot of ways, just normalize the conversation. So it doesn't freak people out. Because there's no reason for that. There's no, there's just no reason for it. And I think that's paramount is being able to talk about it and bring it out in the open and not make it so cloistered and closeted. But I think that there are industries like businesses that are dealing with trauma informed care, but I think teachers need trauma informed care, because, you know, information because they they're dealing with traumatized children. I think there's very, I can't think of a place in the world where there isn't people that have been traumatized, that need to have people who understand what trauma is, and understand the some of the triggers and understand how to deal with it. I just think it's super, super important. And I think we are getting better at it. I agree. But I think we have a long ways to go.

Steve Bisson: 42:43

It was a conversation I had recently with someone who works in the medical field, who is by it was talking about being mental health informed. Well, I asked them if they're okay. That's not being mental health and form. And it's you trying to sweep it under the carpet as fast as you possibly can. Right? How do we explain the people to be somewhat curious about mental health, knowing that maybe they're not a traitor, per se, but at least be curious about mental health? Do you have any suggestions for

E Jill Riley: 43:10

that? You know, I don't know, I think it's basically, I would say it's dipping your toe in the water and just saying, Can I have this conversation with you? Can we talk about this, listening to things and reading things that will inform people about the enormity of this problem, and the possibility of treatment and the potentiality of what care can do? I think people have to be willing to be curious. And I think if we're more curious than then we want to we want to know more answers.

Steve Bisson: 43:45

And I think that raising that curiosity level, I think that there's that's going to be part of the long term thing. I tell people, you know, if someone's having a hard time, instead of being gossipy about, are they having trouble in their marriage? Are they having trouble with whatever? How about you be curious about their mental health so they can feel better about themselves? And that you feel like you are truly that's just my view? But I don't know. Absolutely.

E Jill Riley: 44:10

Yeah. And I, you know, what keeps us from that as fear is fear that we're stepping on the wrong thing, that we're doing something inappropriate or untoward. And we just, we just gotta get past that. We've just got to get past that as, as part of our worldview and be able to talk to people.

Steve Bisson: 44:28

And I think that, you know, you hit the nail on the head when we think about trauma and mental health and foreign people. I think fear is the biggest factor because mental halt, we conjure up One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or we, you know, we conjure up these stories, and mental health is me and you. I have zero qualms about sharing that. I've said this on my podcast numerous times. I'll say, I've got a mental health issue. My my therapist recently said like, are you okay with a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder? I'm like, I don't really care what my diagnosis is like. they'll have mental health issues. Yeah. And he's like, that's good. Because most people get upset about the label. I said, if it gets me to help I need and I don't really care. Right? I think that we need to just work on just killing the stigma of mental health and being honest. Like, that's what I love about your story. And that's what I hope you continue doing. And but do we get more people talking about their mental health issues? Or is that just not possible nowadays?

E Jill Riley: 45:26

I think it's possible. And again, I think we've got the ship headed in a better direction than it has been. But you know, I think this is something that my psychiatrists say to me, say, to me a lot is there like this is a rudimentary medicine, we are dealing with a relatively new field, when you think the first DSM came out during our lifetime, it came out in 1980. And that was the first diagnostic manual that they had from mental health. And we didn't even start talking about we started talking about people having manic episodes and people having problems. But we didn't start talking about PTSD until World War Two and the shell shock, right. So that was, that was in some of our friends is lifetime. And so really, we're one generation into this conversation, as it really being open. So I think we also have to be patient with ourselves.

Steve Bisson: 46:24

I mean, when you think about I think about William James, and I think about Sigmund Freud. I mean, my grandmother was alive when they started talking about this, my great grandmother, perhaps, that's not ancient history. Right? This and, you know, we were doing medical treatment, even in the Greek history of Aristotle and all that. So we're really early in our development. Yet, you know, you look at the neuroscience that we've developed over the course of several years, it's been very helpful for us, right? You know, I have a colleague of mine, who always says, where we belong, dad, but maybe one day we'll be able to go. Alright, that's the part of the mind we really got to work on. And here are the techniques to do. So. I'm like, yeah, that in my lifetime?

E Jill Riley: 47:11

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a really good reminder for myself. And for others, it's just that we are dealing with something that's still a little rough. And we're in the refining processes that we will continually be in to figuring out mental and emotional health and regularity. Well, I really appreciate

Steve Bisson: 47:31

your time today. And thank you so much. But what I would love you to tell me is a little more about your podcast, because I know what it is. I've listened to it. But can you tell me more?

E Jill Riley: 47:40

Well, post traumatic faith is really about the intersection, where trauma and hardship and challenge and adversity, meet with faith and hope and steps towards the future. And so we talked about faith, sometimes we talked about, we talked don't talk about faith sometimes. And it's just really about what gives people the will to go on, and the purpose in that they found in the process and what has brought them through. I'm really interested in the journey, not so much the destination and not so much the feeling that I've arrived at all of the things that I always wished I would be, but I'm interested in the journey. And I think that in our westernized world, we're so about the destination and a linear first this needs to happen, and this needs to happen. And then you die. And I just think we have to be more curious about people's journey. Well,

Steve Bisson: 48:36

I think that the journey is actually the fun part. Right? Yeah. And I tell people like that's the fun part where we still don't know too much where we're going to end up. So it's both exciting and scary for people talking about fear. Yep, absolutely. So where can we find posttraumatic freight?

E Jill Riley: 48:51

Well, you can find posttraumatic faith on any of the podcast providers. If you want to know more about where to find out more information about me and get the podcast Jill riley.com. Je ll R i l e y.com is where everything is. Everything in the blog is all kind of centered at haven't been writing regularly on the blog for quite some time, but it exists. I keep thinking I'm gonna get back to that. But it's one of those disciplines that's hard fought.

Steve Bisson: 49:18

I mean, you know, I think that you have what I would consider a blog anyway. It's called your podcast. Yeah. Yeah. But a show notes will definitely reflect that your podcasts obviously, and your website. Awesome. Anyone? Any other way to reach you or follow you?

E Jill Riley: 49:33

No, I mean, I'm on I'm on Twitter. I'm on Facebook, on Instagram. Not on Tik Tok. I have a friend I had a guy who was working with publicity recently told me Joe you gotta get on Tik Tok and I'm like, I am almost 50 years old. I am not going to get on tick tock and start doing tick tock dances to attract people.

Steve Bisson: 49:54

I'm not going to do a tic tac dance, but we could take off here but I've been told to do the exact Same thing from someone else. And I'm actually going to get on tick tock. Maybe by the time this is released, so

E Jill Riley: 50:07

Oh, yes. Well, let me know how it works.

Steve Bisson: 50:11

Believe me, I'm not I'm not dancing to anything in them. I don't even know what the trends are anymore. I'm just an old man myself. So I get it. Yeah. Well, Joe, thank you, I hope. I hope we reconnect soon. I have a couple of ideas that we should reconnect, and I'll talk to you off air about it. But thank you. All right. Well, thanks for the conversation. Well, this concludes episode 59 of finding your way through therapy. Jill Riley, thank you so much, was a great interview. I can't wait for you to join me in my next episode, which will be episode 60. Please like, subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for information, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor or therapist for consultation.