Sarah Choosing To Be Vulnerable with Sarah Dionne, MSW, LICSW

0:00Welcome to the Trauma Thipper's podcast. My name is Giaming Furson. I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping those who've been impacted by Trauma. Big thank you to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show. Five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have us my guest today Sarah Dianne. Sarah welcome. Thank you. I'm having to be here. Awesome. Sarah is a consultant and trainer with 18 years of experience in clinical mental health. Her work focuses on complex trauma and associated disorders, providing clinicians and mental health practices with consultation, supervision, training, and trauma-informed education. Sarah brings both clinical expertise and lived experience as a survivor of severe trauma to her work. She's also an integrated seminarian and integrated spiritual awareness into her approach to trauma and healing. Alright Sarah, just a little bit about you before we get going share with our listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently. Well I'm

1:03originally from Middle Bar, Massachusetts and I'm there now. I in between that time I've been a lot of different places. I've lived in Florida, Maine, Japan, and I've also traveled to different countries in Europe. I've been around quite a bit and now I'm back in Middle Bar. Okay so how does all this start for you? So I would say that my career started. I was coming out of a very difficult time in my later 20s where a lot of traumatic things had occurred and I had an art degree and I wasn't called to that anymore and so I felt called to help other people

2:04like me. So I started researching that and I found the program at Simmons now University and joined and rolled in that program for my masters. So I had gotten my my bachelor's you know at the typical age 1819 you know and I didn't go back for my masters until I was 29 and I studied clinical social work and graduated there in 2013. I took me I started in 2009 and it took me quite a few years because I was still working through a lot of my trauma at that time. So you know I took a year off and I you know I kind of took it slow with the program and I graduated there 2013 and started practicing. The first place I landed that I was really passionate about was at Longley Elementary School in

3:05Lewiston, Maine and Longley is no longer there. It is in the poorest district of one of the poorest places in the country because it holds an enormous Somali refugee population and Kenyana Siles and a number of different people from various cultures and the school that I worked at was a tiny little school that was a walking only there was no buses. So the the everyone that went there was in this tiny little spot tiny little community that was the poorest and enormous population of refugees and that's all I worked with kids in the school as a clinical therapist and all I did was trauma. I mean it was all trauma work it was a violent community and so kids were consistently being exposed to

4:07traumatic events and racism you know just a real difficult life for those children and I became passionate about that and I loved it and I really thought that's where I was going to focus my career was children. I did tons of training on trauma working with children I went to a conference with vessel Fandicole I hope I'm saying the name correctly and I learned about trauma-focused yoga sensory input for children all types of different trauma work I studied sanitary therapy I and I also I studied I at that time I am EMDR certified I didn't get that at that time but I got pregnant and a lot of my trauma came up

5:09without me even knowing it I didn't know that that was happening at the time and I couldn't do the work anymore I felt too activated to it was so painful for me to witness children going through things that I couldn't stop I couldn't control kids still went back to abusive homes there was nothing I could do about that and I it was just too much for my nervous system and eventually my husband and I moved back to middle-barrow Massachusetts my parents I live with my parents now they both my father is Alzheimer's my mother has kind of a cardiac dementia and at that time my husband wanted to pursue a college degree later in life as a career change and I started working as a social worker here and just did a wide array of work that was all trauma-based including bereavement hospice pediatric palliative care and all trauma you know for the

6:17family if I may just interrupt one second here Sarah how did you you said you know you left art school it wasn't calling to you anymore but how were you met you you said you came out of a very traumatic experience yeah yeah I did how were you managing during that time what were you doing to well that's a really good question because I was receiving ineffective therapy I was over medicated at times I remember going to classes being in a complete like bubble I'm having a very difficult time focusing taking this you know it was and I was still having quite a lot of erratic behavior not erratic but impulsive I was diagnosed incorrectly with bipolar to disorder anxiety depression ADHD OCD and it was extraordinarily difficult how did you know to get help at that time I

7:21was floundering I felt like I was dying and I didn't know what else to do I had had started therapy when I was 20 on my own no one I was so much going on for me and my teens and no one helped me so I did you were you consciously aware that that was the result of what you'd experienced when you were young no I didn't remember what I experienced until my two years ago okay yeah so I had no idea no clue I didn't know what but I was of my behavior through my 20s was impulsive erratic and dangerous so I'm lucky I survived that period time okay so you get help do things start to get better go ahead and go for you no no I have to say that part of my healing is was timing one of that response are today Jane a

8:26practice management software an EMR that comes with something that can be hard defined support that feels supportive when you're choosing the right software for your practice it's worth thinking about what support actually looks like with Jane you can call email or chat and a real person picks up even on Saturdays at no extra costs for a lot of practitioners that makes a big difference Jane also has a growing library of guides and tips plus onboarding and import support so switching is simpler had the Jane dot app slash explore to learn more and when you're ready use my code guy the number one M.O. that's guy one M.O. for one month grace period on your new account my the normity of my trauma I couldn't process I wouldn't have been able to live with and so it had to wait in my body mind to have finally be in a place of safety safety being my parents no

9:34longer were dominant figures in my life that had to happen first and when that happened I remember in a session choosing to be vulnerable I could not be vulnerable I couldn't connect with people even in my marriage there was still I love him and love him and still had a disconnect I didn't understand why people cried at weddings I didn't understand there was so much I didn't understand because I could not be vulnerable and then one session about you know a year and a half ago I made a decision to be vulnerable and this was through life centered therapy in wall fam and they used they use a kinesiology and muscle testing and that was the only reason it worked it wouldn't have worked without muscle testing explain that to our listeners so what's going on there

10:39you so kinesiology is when you use muscles to connect the muscle tension to connect to deeper messages within the body that the mind is not conscious of and it's essentially yes no answers and there's a lot of debate about whether this works or not and I'm really not people can just choose what they choose and that's fine for me it worked right so the reason it worked for me he was because in this you can choose to do the muscle testing on yourself during the session and that's what I had chosen and like in this very subconscious way I chose that to still be in control and it wasn't working it was giving all kinds of answers that didn't add up that we're confusing and I just I was

11:39like well I think I need you to do it to my clinician and she so she started muscle testing and sorry I'm sorry can you get more specific what did they do so you put out your arm and you hold your arm tight and you ask yes or no questions and you pushed down when it's a did this you know and they don't ask things like did this happen like that's not what they're asking they're asking questions such as does this align for you what to what you know things like that that guide the process but it's only a guide it's not absolute then nobody that does this should take it as absolute it's a guide and it answers regardless of what you consciously want to say so the body will through this and on yourself you can you do it on your fingers you make a loop with one hand with your pointer and thumb and on the other hand you put your pointer

12:44thumb through the loop and you pull and if it's loose and pulls high and if it's stays it so it's yes no right tension says no because what the theory is is that the body creates tension when it says no like the hands know and when the body loosens it says yes because it's an opening and you can do this either way you could like your body is gonna listen to you and if you tell the body relaxation is a no it will do it right it will risk so a lot of people say that because that changes but the body responds regardless it can say it will tell you yes or no if we allow ourselves to rest into it so that was what powerful experience for you it was a complete it was so much it was it broke my mind open

13:47it completely it broke me open to a point that I only could have managed in my current life as a 47-year-old woman I that was the only this is the only time in my life that I could have managed that level and I cried and processed for eight months straight it broke me open like in the session that that happened or when you what happened is I felt my whole body tingle and start to go numb my whole body I had no idea what was coming forward no clue didn't know it was there it was in an amnesiac state I felt my whole body tingle and go numb and you know I I have been working on my mental health which I thought I had bipolar which I don't for so long right since I was you know so long and I was finally in a place that even though

14:56I didn't know it was there I could rest into the pain I could allow myself to sit with it acknowledge it and allow it to come even though I I didn't know if it was ever going to end I didn't know if I was going to be able to function the same ever again but I knew that I had to go through and I did seek help the first therapist I had was not qualified to be treating me the second therapist I have now is an expert in complex trauma dissociation and so when I met him my first therapist did have a role and it helped me with IFS but straight IFS is not straight up IFS it can be harmful for people with complex it has to be it has to be modified and all he used

15:57was straight IFS he didn't use anything else and that didn't go well it did open do some things but this current therapist knows how to modify and he knows when to use what so now my healing process isn't it's still going it'll go for the rest of my life but now it's in a place where I'm ready I'm ready to say I'm gonna help the world now I I'm ready to to come out and say this is my story and this is what works and I know it I know it because of my clinical practice and my my own experience that is first of all thank you for sharing all of that and secondly that's a very powerful statement I think you just said and inspiring like I'm ready to come out I'm ready to help others how do you how do you get to that point I don't know I don't know when you say it I want

16:58it's a spiritual process and this is something that people in the mental health community bypass constantly and the reason is is it's often religion and spirituality and religion as a lot of people know are two different things yet therapists just simply aren't trained on how to engage in spiritual questioning and spiritual exploration a lot of people with complex trauma have religious trauma and that is so profoundly damaging to the to a person's whole life because imagine if we have a religious trauma imagine believing that your creator hates you and that's right that's what happens they're taught that they're they're very creator is is demeaning is punishing them watching them judging them

18:01that begins as soon as you enter into the world and you're taught that and you live with that trauma every single day and I catch it in sessions I catch it when someone says oh God's going to kill me oh that's really what they think if they might not think kill them but they do think God's going to be pissed off and how horrible to feel that like God my whatever my version is I don't I don't have any input on that I kept how do you keep going and my spirituality was my saving grace it was all I had I didn't have anything else so what do you do I went to my version my truth and that it's not a religion I really lean most into like a Native American version of spirituality but not exactly that

19:04that's all I had nothing else and that's how a lot of us are there's nothing so where do we go let's talk about the work you're doing now how did you get to this point where you're like okay I want to put together I want to create a business I want to help other people how how did that evolve yeah so I started my own practice about eight eight years ago and that came through this very spiritual experience of opening and recognizing my worth I can't explain it it just happened one day bam I'm like oh I can do this I'm worthy and I did it so I really that was just grace but unfortunately at that time I still wasn't I didn't know about the extent of my trauma I didn't know look like there was just so much unknown and so there was a lot I did that wasn't really aligned with

20:05my deeper self my my wise my wise inner self and so it it was prolific I saw tons of clients but the first place the first agent practice I started was a small practice with two colleagues I started whole health collaborative that's no longer it's dispersed because I no longer I knew that it didn't fit where I was going I didn't know where I was going at the time but I just had inner guidance like this doesn't fit me I don't know why but I know I need to move on and so I did after a few years of that practice and I started Sarah Dion and associates and I knew that I wanted to supervise I knew that that's where I was headed and that's where I could be of most benefits to people but it was planning that out you know because seeing a lot of clients I

21:07can't do it's just my system can't manage it and and I decided to start contracting with preliminary licensed or unlicensed clinician the early clinicians I should say and so that's what I'm doing now and let me ask you to tell me Sarah what gave you the the confidence to say or to think to feel I want to start supervising other people well it started with that initial kind of breakthrough that oh I'm worthy I can do this and there's no explanation for that I have no it was just grace it was just a moment where I was oh here I go but there was so much I hadn't worked through at that point so much so where the confidence comes from is my spirituality my spiritual center only there's nothing else that can give a person that

22:09this and when I say did you want to what to start interrupt what did you want to share with these consultees with these supervisors I wanted them to know how to treat complex trauma and dissociation because so many people don't know and it's not their fault they're not trained and I had so many therapists practiced therapists in the field for 20 some odd years that didn't know what they were doing and they there was a lot of harm that was caused to me unnot purposeful and my my journey was extended enormously because I couldn't find someone that I didn't know but I had one clinician I had an eating disorder from like life threatening eating disorder and I went to a treatment community in Florida that's still there called milestones and recovery

23:11and it saved my life I had one clinician there and she knew and she said to me Sarah you you behave a lot like you have a lot more trauma than you know about because I knew about like a couple little things and she was the only one that ever said it but I moved back to Massachusetts from Florida and I couldn't like I saw her she was self-pay so I could see her a little bit longer but eventually I didn't she was the only one and then that didn't happen again until I had that huge profound breakthrough a year and a half ago and when you say people and I realize this is a large question but when you say a lot of clinicians aren't educated they they don't really know how to treat complex trauma what do you mean by that what do they not yeah what do they not know so that's vast complex trauma you know my trauma started in infancy

24:24and it continued until in various ways until I was 27 years old so that type of trauma isn't grained in you it is part of you you embody it there is no one trauma it doesn't exist it's life and you live it when you're working with someone like that um they there is no one therapy that is going to cover it all and you cannot dive into fast you have got to be slow and you also need to know what to look for what are the hints that this is getting too much what are the hints that I need to slow this down that like people don't pick up on those cues with EMDR with IFS

25:26with other ones slow down because the flooding is that the the huge amount of flooding that can occur can cause people to be traumatized again and again and you can't cover that enormity of trauma with one type of therapy it doesn't work so we have to know how to modify therapies we have to know what to look for we have to understand and be trained in dissociative disorders um that is almost nonexistent I mean there's specialists now but I'm talking about the vast community of therapists around the world there's very few that fully understand how to work with dissociation which is part always of complex trauma so it's a vast question because truly the only thing that can help someone is somatic work yet slow guided and safety first always

26:38building trust allowing them to start to know you and get like kind of feel you out can I can I do this can I trust this person how to be vulnerable in a session but not allow your energetic boundaries to be crossed being open and vulnerable and authentic leaning into them but knowing their boundaries about how what's too close and what should you not do how did you what was that like learning that specific skill for you because that can be challenging right learning when to lean in how to lean in how to be vulnerable boundaries ethics so forth was that did that just come naturally to you it comes naturally to me but not completely it it was fully like I I've been trained in EMDR so I've been I've had a lot of training um in treatment of trauma and so that that was part of it

27:42but I found that I was before all of this like my you know this thing that happened a year and a half ago and all that I was working with two clients with EMDR and one of neither one of them I didn't have a full understanding of how to spot the dissociative disorder at that time so I hadn't diagnosed them yet and I had I didn't know and so I was working I was doing EMDR with them and neither one of them could tolerate it in other words they would start to dissociate in session they would start to flood one of my clients felt dissociated for the whole week and so I backed off I was like I know that this isn't safe so I need more training which I sought out and I can't remember what it was now but I took a training on EMDR and dissociation and how to um modify so I sought information out I'd watch YouTube's I'd watch I'd seek out training I you know I just

28:48was hungry to know and then the the the other important part was my experience in therapy with expert clinicians and how they work and how that affects me and how I respond what caused me to flood what caused me to feel safer um and safety is everything everything even safety is the treatment right just plain old safety so I learned it from my own hunger to understand and my life experience as a client in therapy let's talk about what you're doing now with your work who do you work with who comes to you um goals you have for the work you're doing so um right now I have a very small

29:49practice and I um I only work with clients with severe complex trauma like sex trafficking extensive religious trauma um is so healthy yeah I mean that those things are part of my story yeah so I get it but I can heal like I know that I can move forward and I know that I can help people I know that I can help them but that that's my level of trauma and um I've had um extensive violence sexual abuse um sex trafficking uh religious trauma cultural trauma social isolation emotional neglect and psychological neglect and that lasted from infancy to eight and then on from there was more and more and more like I didn't stop there it just changed um

30:55so I understand it all but look at me like I can I I can do this and I'm not I'm not healed like I'm not and that's that the thing that we need to understand about this level of trauma is that you never fully heal that's not gonna happen because of our mount of grief we grieve we grieve for our mothers and our fathers that we never had and we can't have and we will always love we grieve them we want them that's never gonna go away they're dead and they're alive at the same time hmm so we need to be able to allow people like forgiveness what the hell is that who cares how do we not forgive and heal forgiveness comes maybe yes if there is a freedom in it but that's not my goal that that's that's sometimes absolutely like just not gonna happen and that's okay

31:59so we need to know how to sit with someone that is always going to experience trauma because it's part of their brain it's part of their physical makeup it's part of their DNA so that's my level and that's their level so I get it but I know we can heal right so yeah that's who I work with because I get them and I can hold that and I don't shy away from any of it and I'm okay talking about every detail they need to talk about I'm fine with it because it doesn't it doesn't rest in my body but I still need to heal I'm still in my healing process and so I'm consistently stepping away from clients when I can some clients will be with me for the rest of my life but I because just because of our long long long rapport and I really love working with them

33:06but my system needs rest this system needs rest and so now you talked about the goals my goals are to be nationwide in supervision and consulting I want to teach around the world I want to speak I want people to know my story I'm fine with that and it's a lot it's a lot so I that's where I'm headed building my own my own practice, Sardayon and associate, expanding my clinicians uh and teaching them I offer them free training free supervision because I want them to be great clinicians and they can but they need more they just need more and I want to give more and I am so I'm journeying through my healing process and it's simultaneously I'm ready like I'm ready okay let's do this you know you are amazing I mean you really are you have

34:13it uh uh an amazing and beautiful and inspiring way of not just articulating your story but really articulating the importance of the therapeutic process with regards to working with trauma and not everyone can do that and because of that um I think what you're doing is very powerful I'd love to have you back at a later date I loved yes I would love to talk more specifically about some of the things you were talking about but um wow Sarah amazing really you are so inspiring I really appreciate being here oh no I I'm ready for this I I I'm expanding but now you know uh because I'm you know you know I'm a seminarian so you know I'm spiritual I know the divine

35:18is aligning therapists are showing up people are showing up you know so they're just coming because I'm ready I'm open and I'm inviting it and I want to I only want to be known because I just want people to see what they can do they don't have to do what I'm doing just be a just have a fulfilling life alongside their life story it's not we have to live alongside it we can't we're never going to be able to you know desensitize it all like I don't when I think about my trauma I don't I no longer have any physical response and that wasn't because of EMDR that was honestly because of um spirituality and resting into that being open to my pain and allowing it to move through my body and not at all trying to stop it

36:20but it was also through modified IFS and that being modified to work with someone like me changed my life but it wasn't just that it was spirit for me my version so um yeah I think that's all I have to say about that I don't know if I answered your question you did you you did and and more as we as we wind down here how do people learn more about you and reach out to you what's the best way sure um and can I just talk about a couple things that I have going on right now is that okay yes of course okay so how you can reach me is through um my website um die on uh dash asos.com I'm there my clinicians are there my you know and how to reach me and work with me is there um I also have a guided journal for people with complex trauma

37:24dissociative dissociative issues um uh called unfolding reflections it's available on Amazon I'm going to be writing a book uh that's a slow process it's a kind of memoir-ish but my life is too extensive and fragmented to do it just like a memoir so it's poetry and essays and a lot of different things um and that's something that's in the works uh and I am working on a youtube channel as well but that's still in its very early phase okay um and we'll have all that linked up here the show and page at the trauma therapist podcast.com um Sarah love it appreciate you since you're really sharing your story experience thank you so much for being here oh thank you so much i'm so glad okay we'll be in touch all right thank you