Are you performing your worth? Trauma, Treatment-Resistant Depression & ECT with Simone Bowyer
Notes from the Edge
In this episode of Notes from the Edge, trauma expert and writer Simone Bowyer discusses how traits like perfectionism, hyper-independence, and overachievement are often survival
Key takeaways
- Perfectionism, control, and people-pleasing are often survival mechanisms developed in response to trauma, not personality flaws.
- The nervous system can remain stuck in 'survival mode' long after the danger has passed, leading to maladaptive behaviors in adulthood.
Main topics
- Trauma-informed psychology
- Survival adaptations as personality traits
Notable quotes
"If I can be perfect, then maybe I'll be lovable."
"My body needed to adapt. My nervous system is speaking its own language as a result of the adaptations I've had to make."
Conclusion
Simone Bowyer's journey reveals that self-worth is not earned through performance
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:04) Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir, Notes from a Certified Madwoman. Welcome to the Edge. Speaker 2 (0:33) Hey, hey, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of Notes from the Edge. I am your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations we should have been having the whole time. Guess what? You ain't talking about it. So today we're gonna. And today we have special guest Simone Bauer, and she is a writer, advocate, operations manager, and founder of Light Within Collective, whose work centers around what she calls the language of survival. Today, we're talking about what happens when the traits that we call personality, perfectionism, people-pleasing, achievement, anxiety, even I'm fine, may actually be roles we learned to perform in order to survive. After childhood trauma, addiction, eating disorders, anxiety, OCD, panic disorder, complex PTSD, and chronic illness, as well as years of treatment for treatment-resistant depression, she reached a point where she believed she had exhausted every option available to her. After years of that rollercoaster, medications, therapies, treatment programs, and hospital admissions, she ultimately underwent electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, and began asking a better question. And we are all about the better questions in this place. So she stopped asking what's wrong with me and asked, What did these parts of me learn in order to survive? So today she writes and speaks about trauma, grief, recovery, leadership, psychological safety, and what it means to move from just enduring your life to really living it. Her work includes Chasing Light and The Light Within Collective, where she creates resources and conversations designed to help people feel less alone. which is the whole point of this show. So I want to welcome in to Notes from the Edge. How are you today, my friend? Speaker 1 (2:32) I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for having me. Speaker 2 (2:35) Yeah, I'm excited about this conversation because I do think there's a lot of people, especially now with the loneliness epidemic that we're seeing struggling alone or at least feeling like they're the only one. So you use the phrase, the language of survival. So let's just open up with that. It's notes from the edge. So we dig right in. What does the language of survival mean to you? And what do you mean by that these things become our personality? Speaker 1 (3:12) So, the language of survival is just, you know, a term that I sort of came up with as I've been exploring different elements of my work. And I think so often our language is based on pathology or judgment. So, I'm not enough. What's wrong with me? I'm too much. I'm not enough, etc. And I think the language of survival really looks my... my interpretation of the language of survival really looks at the way in which my body has had to adapt in order to survive. And in a way, my nervous system is speaking its own language as a result of the adaptations I've had to make. Speaker 1 (4:01) examples as to how that could manifest in my daily life. It may be perfectionism, hypervigilance, being controlling, being hyperindependent. And so those characteristics that I have today Speaker 1 (4:28) in my own experience, formed when I was much younger as a way to keep me safe in the world. So I experienced a lot of abuse on a daily basis growing up and my body needed to adapt. I needed to find ways to make myself safe. Speaker 1 (4:56) And so I learned if I could be a perfectionist, if I could be the perfect child, then maybe I would be lovable. If I was incredibly accommodating, never stepping on anyone's toes, then I won't get shouted at. I almost didn't want to be seen because when you're seen, that's the danger. If somebody sees me... then I'm in line for danger. But if I can keep myself hidden and just sort of, you know, tiptoe around everything, around everyone, that's how I'm going to keep myself safe. So I think becoming, you know, very timid. Speaker 1 (5:44) So I learned from a young age, and I now know these were coping mechanisms that I learned when I was younger in order to keep me safe, and they served a purpose. However, as I grew up and became an adult, they became maladaptive. And even though I was safe, technically safe compared to where I was growing up, and the trauma was no longer present, my nervous system... hadn't clicked yet, it hadn't registered you're safe, you don't need to be responding in this way anymore, it's okay, we can learn new patterns. So for me, reading, as soon as someone walks into the room, read the body language, listen to the tone of voice, listen to the volume in the voice. Major, major warning, alarm bells can go off for you with that. The way someone closes the door, you know, if it's too loud, my body automatically interprets that as anger. If I can be successful, then maybe I'll be worthwhile. Maybe I'll be lovable. If I can... Speaker 1 (7:07) you know, it's an all, it's if I can be attractive enough, thin enough, you know, if the eating disorder is enough, the food became a huge part. So what I look like, how hard I perform, do I do well at school, do I do well at university? I remember growing up. Speaker 1 (7:31) when I, you know, that was many years ago when I was at school and we used Speaker 2 (7:35) to Speaker 1 (7:35) do spelling tests and it was normally out of 10, so 10 spelling words that you had to spell and then a mark for each. And if I got nine out of 10, the anger that it would unleash from my father towards me, because that was unacceptable. Speaker 1 (8:00) nothing less than 10 out of 10 or 100 % was acceptable. And so I learned very, and I equated that with love. So if I'm not perfect enough, if I'm not at 100 % all the time, that means I'm not lovable. I'm not worth it. Speaker 2 (8:21) That's Speaker 1 (8:22) a Speaker 2 (8:22) lot of pressure to perform Speaker 1 (8:24) under constant. Well, Speaker 2 (8:27) when did you, when in adult life did you realize, whoa, I'm still operating in my life like I'm that 8, 9, 10-year-old little girl in the spelling contest. When did that epiphany kind of hit you that these were, to use your words, maladaptive now in adulthood? Speaker 1 (8:56) Yes. So it took me a very, very long time, if I'm honest. So as an adult, I also found myself, and I think many can relate to this, I found myself getting into relationships that mimicked the relationships I had grown up with. So getting myself into abusive, toxic, unhealthy relationships. Once again, my thinking behind it was if I can get this person to love me, then I must be lovable. So I would almost pick the most unlikely person to accept me as I am. And it was my goal to, you know, if I can get them to love me, then really I must be lovable. Anyhow, so that carried on throughout my 20s. And then I was incredibly fortunate that nine years ago now, My mom and stepdad were able to once again send me to a hospital admission, but long term, a long term treatment center. And this was for what started off as my eating disorder being the primary reason and then naturally evolved into dealing with all the other aspects. Speaker 1 (10:24) that come with it and it was So that was the first time I learned about codependency, that I learned about being an adult child of an alcoholic. That was the first time I was introduced to schema therapy, looking at the way in which I viewed the world, where these beliefs came from. And because I had put down the substances, the eating disorder, the self-harm, all these things I had used.