Peace After Trauma, Resilience in Life and Leadership Episode 056

Stephanie Olson discusses her journey to peace after trauma, starting from her early life marked by her father's abuse and abandonment. She recounts her struggles with self-esteem, eating disorders, and alcoholism, and her experiences of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Stephanie emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, both for others and oneself, in the healing process. She highlights the long-term impact of trauma and the need for resilience. Olson's message is that peace after trauma is a lifelong journey, not an overnight achievement and that recognizing one's worth and not blaming oneself for past traumas is crucial for healing.

Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean, and how do we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, an expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma, and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries and, sometimes, a few rants to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way and want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!

https://stephanieolson.com

Transcript

Stephanie Olson: 0:00

Welcome to resilience in life and leadership with your host, Stephanie Olson, CEO speaker, author and sexual violence and addiction expert, we're glad you're here. Hi. I'm Stephanie Olson, and I have to tell you, I am so glad to be back here. Now I've said that a few times. I have loved doing podcasts. I've loved sharing information with you and just learning so much myself, but I had to take a pretty long break, and a lot of the reason for that is because of the work I was doing with the set me free project. We have scaled to a national level. I've been speaking on a monthly basis around this nation, and so it's been a busy time, not to mention, I have launched my third child out into the world, and officially an empty nester, which is very exciting. So I bring you the first couple of podcasts back, but they are previous things I've done for conferences, and so I just wanted to share them with you. And this first one is called peace after trauma, and it was the peace after trauma summit that I spoke at. And here you go. Hi there. My name's Stephanie Olson. I'm with Stephanie Olson speaking and consulting. I'm also the CEO of an organization called the set me free project, which does prevention education on human trafficking and sexual violence and healthy relationships. And I am so excited to be here. I first want to say thank you so much, Karen for this opportunity to be with you, and I appreciate being able to be a part of this very important summit. Peace after trauma is not an easy thing, and it is something that is not overnight and actually, frankly, it's not something that is actually completed. I believe in our lifetime, it's a journey, and it's a journey I've been going through all my life, and something that I can say, for the most part, I have that experience of peace after the trauma I've experienced, but again, not overnight, and have not arrived, and I think that's an important thing to say. And I start my story. I want to share a little bit about my story with you, and just talk about that process and that healing from what I experienced. And I start my story when I was born. Don't want to scare you, but that's where it starts. And I was born into a family of a very young woman and a very abusive father. Now he was very abusive to my mom. He never was physically or sexually abusive to me, but he did coerce my mom to neglect me through those early, early years. Now I was very fortunate, and so is my mom, because she escaped from that relationship when I was only a year old. Now that sounds like a really good thing, but my biological father never did anything to let me know that I existed, frankly. So there were no birthday cards, there were no Christmas cards for me, there were no phone calls. And when that happens and you have that extreme abandonment of a parent that is extreme trauma. So not only did I witness abuse, even though I don't remember it, you know, when we have trauma in those very, very early ages that really affects us, and even though we might not have a memory of that trauma, that trauma can really impact our daily lives going forward. And so I was, in fact, there's a story that my mom tells that I was crying one day and he would not let her come to my my rescue as a little baby, and after many, many long minutes, I think she's said hours, actually, and I was still crying, she finally did go check on me, and my head was stuck in the crib. That was before the days where there were safe cribs. And so not only did I witness abuse, even though I don't remember it, but I did experience neglect, and that kind of trauma. And the abandonment of my biological father was very impactful. And I thought, Well, gosh, if my own. Own biological father doesn't think I'm worth sending a card to or calling. I must not be very worthy. And if my own biological father doesn't love me, I must not be very lovable. And those were things, those were the traumas that followed me through my life. Now, when my mom did leave my biological father, we moved in with my grandparents, and that was a very good experience for me, and I was very blessed to have supportive grandparents. And even though my mom was very young and not really ready to be a mom, I still had the support of incredible parental figures in my life, and then when I was six years old, my mom met and married my dad, the man who adopted me when I was six years old. And I do make a definitive difference between my biological father and my dad, because anybody can be a father. I guess any male can be a father, but it really does take a very special man to be a dad. And so I was raised by my mom, who grew up quite a bit, and my dad, but I always felt that abandonment from my biological father and and that really followed me through my days as a young kiddo, as a young adult and as adult, as an adult, I went through a lot of things, like eating disorders at a very young age, I found alcohol, and that was what I thought at the time, the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me feel funnier. It made me think I was prettier. It made me just more sociable. And the truth is, it numbed me, and so I was able to feel none of that pain and none of those things. And throughout my my junior high and high school and then college, I really struggled with insecurity. I struggled with self esteem. I didn't feel good about myself. I decided, you know, eating disorders, by the way, are all about control, as many of you, I'm sure know, and so I was doing everything in my power just to have a semblance of control in my life. I was drinking a lot, and I always drank a little differently than my friends, I always looked forward to that drink a little bit differently. And throughout my high school time, I had a boyfriend, and this is really where the sexual and dating violence began, and my boyfriend was this, you know, amazing guy. He was an athlete, all of the things. And it started real subtly. It started just with a little bit of control. I was a cheerleader, and, you know, there he would have problems with my cheerleading uniform, even though that wasn't something I could do, he didn't want me hanging around my friends anymore, and it was just these very subtle moves of control. Now, when you're in, you know, a junior in high school, even when you're an adult, sometimes that feels good, that feels you know, I'm I'm I'm special, I'm loved. He, he, he's jealous, and that's a positive thing when, when we know that that really isn't, it's not a positive thing. We dated for a very long time, and during that time, he, at one point in time, raped me, and that was my first experience of sexual violence. Now I really kind of blew it off. In fact, looking back now, I remember saying, You raped me, and he apologized. But for some reason, my mind turned that into that was my fault. I made that happen. If I hadn't have been fill in the blank, he wouldn't have done that well, moving forward, after about five years of dating this guy, I did break up with him and went on in my college years to dating a lot of different people and. Um, but also drinking a lot and just an unhealthy time in my life, very unhealthy. And during my college years and then my young adult years, I was raped several more times. Now these weren't as classic in my mind, mindset of what you would call rape, and so once again, or three times again, I blamed myself. I was drinking. I shouldn't have been there. Whatever it was, it wasn't somebody else's choice, that they did that it was my fault. Fast forward a little bit, and I met and dated this amazing guy, drug dealer, actually not the best catch. And what I have learned is that maybe don't meet your partner in a bar is actually really good advice, just gonna say. But I met and dated my husband now my ex husband for a whirlwind of a year, just tumultuous dating time, it was really just ugly, unhealthy, and although it wasn't as abusive as it got later early on, there were definitely red flags that were all over the place, and because I told my dad that we were maybe going to move in together, and he said, This will kill your mother, I decided to marry him, not the best plan. But again, it's really important to know that all of that abuse really can be very internalized, and all of a sudden we look at ourselves differently. You know, I work with education and curriculum on prevention, education of human trafficking, and we talk about the grooming process quite a bit. The grooming process is something that when the person goes into the grooming process, it's never really the same person that comes out of the grooming process, and it is something that not only happens in sexual violence situations, but it can happen with romantic partner violent situations, and it may not even be intentional of the individual who is the abuser. It might be, but it might not even be intentional, but it is a part of that process. So the grooming process, they target an individual, they gain trust, they fill a need. Now, if you're looking at just those three things, that looks like the honeymoon phase, doesn't it? You may not realize you've been targeted, but that gaining trust can look like a whole bunch of amazing stuff. Like, oh my gosh, you love dogs, so do I? We have so much in common. This is amazing. And then they fill a need, and that could be, you are everything to me. You are beautiful. Now, in my case, I needed to hear the things that I felt like my biological father didn't give me. I needed to feel like I had worth. I needed to feel like I had value. I needed to feel like I was loved, and at that time in my life, I didn't realize that I had an intrinsic value that couldn't be changed by anybody else. I thought at that time it had to come from somebody else, and it doesn't. So anyway, the grooming process, they isolate and then they sexualize or exploit you, and they maintain control. Now, if somebody does those first three, well, those last three are much easier to do, and again, the person going into the grooming process is never the same person who comes out of the grooming process. So at that time, I wasn't feeling like I had worth value. I wasn't feeling like I could be loved. And so all of those things, those lies that I would tell myself, were just etched in my. Brain, you're not good enough, you're not worthy, you're not pretty enough, you're not thin enough, you're not enough, you're just not enough. And so this relationship that I had with my now ex husband, I was prime for some of these things that I thought I deserved. So got married, and it was two years of nightmare. Now, the majority of the abuse that I experienced was verbal and emotional, and I really think that it's important to think about domestic violence not as physical. Only that violence can be so many different things, but that verbal and emotional abuse that is something that sometimes we just make excuses for don't we? We just say, Well, you know, he didn't mean that it is, it is so much easier. Now I'm not saying it's any worse or less. There was physical abuse, but it was so much easier for me to shove that emotional and verbal abuse aside, because those were just words. Those words went deep, but in my mind, that's not abuse Now, throughout these two years that I was married to him, it got pretty bad, and I finally got to this place where I was just exhausted, and also an alcoholic. Took a bunch of pills, no whiskey chaser, because I just wanted to sleep. I think sometimes when we get to this place of of abuse and trauma and it just it wears us out, and after a while, sometimes we just want to sleep. Well, that wound up being one of the best things that happened to me, because, of course, they didn't think that I just wanted to sleep. They thought I wanted to take my life, and I wound up in the hospital for a week, and it was probably one of the most important weeks of my entire life, because although I was still married, I was safe. I was safe from abuse, I was safe from even being able to harm myself. And it was a time where the healing began. I was able to see an incredible therapist therapy, by the way, amazing thing, but I was able to see an incredible therapist who I saw three times a week, and I remember him saying to me, Stephanie, do you see yourself married to him, sitting by him in a rocking chair when you're old. And I had to say no, and that was the moment that my healing journey began, when I said no, and I made the decision, I need to leave now. It wasn't an easy process. And and I think as we know when, when people are leaving abusive relationships, sometimes it's at that time of leaving that it can get even more dangerous, and so it's important to have a plan, but when I left, he wiped out my bank account, and he continued to, I mean, he was stalking me. And it wasn't always, like scary stuff, but it was, it was relentless, and during that time where I was kind of finding my own way, I was able to really press into my faith that I had kind of just shoved aside for so long, and really press into that, really press into the community of support that I had now during the time of my abusive relationship, my parents were almost like not present, because he wound up telling my parents, you know, she's this, she's that, she's crazy. She needs help, whatever it was, and so my parents. Parents really viewed me as the problem, him as the amazing person. So that time was so challenging, but I was able to regain all of that support that I had put aside, not felt like I had, or the ability to grab a hold of, you know, abuse does really, really tough things to our mindset and even the people that might be around us or might might be that support it is so easy to to allow them to go away because of what we believe. Anyway, that was the beginning of my journey of healing, and it took a lot. I had to really dig in and figure out what was my part in it. Now here's where I think it's really important, not that the abuse was my part, that I I did not ask to be abused, but I had to forgive people in my life, like my biological father, because forgiveness is like hanging on to that stuff and or unforgiveness, It's kind of holding on to that stuff in an AA, and I got sober finally, much, much later, but I've been sober now for 21 years, and there is an old saying that unforgiveness is like drinking A bottle of poison, hoping the other person will die. And that is true that when we hold on to that unforgiveness, it really doesn't hurt that person, it hurts us. So I had to forgive a lot of people in my life, but the biggest person I had to forgive was myself, and I had to allow that forgiveness of myself and that recognizing that it wasn't all my fault to heal me, To start that healing process now I wound up marrying an amazing man that took a long time. Healthy attracts healthy. And although that was by the grace of God, because I wasn't quite there yet, I've been married now for 26 years to an incredible man who does honor me, and I honor him. But what was really interesting for me was I have been running the set me free project for 10 years. I have been speaking on human trafficking and the dangers of human trafficking and what it really looks like. I have been speaking on sexual and domestic violence all over and one day I was in a presentation, and it was me and a trauma therapist, and I don't even know what she said, But she said something, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh my gosh. I was raped many times in my past. You see all of that time that I had gone through that, and my abusive husband and all those things I had still told myself that it was my fault, that all that happened to me, I didn't call it rape. I didn't call it sexual assault. I called it my fault, and even though I had been speaking on this topic, these topics, for years, and I could tell you that you weren't at fault, I could tell you it wasn't your fault. I could tell you that you aren't to blame. And I could tell you that's called rape. I could not tell myself that. And I remember being in this presentation and Whoa, it hit me like a ton of bricks. That's what that was. That's what that was the. Those, those four times, that's what that was and and even though I had said those words to my boyfriend back in the day, I had told myself for so many years it was my fault, more healing that was just like four years ago. So that healing journey is a process, and I think that's where peace begins, that that peace doesn't come overnight, that peace doesn't even come all the time. It may come and go, but when we are able to say, Gosh, it wasn't your fault. You did not deserve that, that trauma you experienced, whatever it was, was not your fault. When we can do that, that's when our healing begins, and that's where the peace comes in, a peace that passes all understanding. Because where should that come from? I don't know, right, but that's when you want to grab a hold of your faith. That's when you want to grab a hold of your support system. That's where you want to grab a hold of the fact that you are not to blame. There is peace after trauma, and it's not easy, and it's not overnight. Sometimes it's a pretty tough journey, but when you allow yourself to feel that, when you forgive yourself for whatever that may be, not even something that that you did wrong, but sometimes we just need to tell ourselves that. And it is amazing what God can do after that, because when that happens, that's when we can start healing and then maybe giving back. And I'm not even talking about giving back in big, big chunks, just one person at a time, that trauma that I experienced from one to five years old, and then later on in my Life, that does not go away. And there are times that it still hits me, but that work that I did on myself, working to recover from the eating disorders, working to recover from alcoholism, working to recover from the fact that I thought it was my fault. That's the healing. And I really believe that we all have it in us. That's resilience. That's two steps forward, three steps back. But I am here to tell you today that whatever that trauma is, it's not your fault, and you can have peace beyond the trauma. Thank you so much for more information on my journey and what I do, feel free to reach out anytime at Stephanie olson.com I would love to be a part of your journey in any way. Thank you so much. And Thank you, Karen for this opportunity. Thanks for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed it. Please share freely. You.