207. Cassie Nicholas: An Update from the Voice That Refused to Disappear

Yes.

So several things.

I am left with some mobility issues, um, and disability because of the medical abuse that I endured through my marriage.

Um, this is the first time that I've had to actually say it out loud that I have a disability.

This is the first time that I've been physically almost cornered to a point where I've had to deal with it, because in my mind, I'm always like, "It's going to get better," you know, "My body is amazing," which is true.

However, I... w- we have to deal with what is real and what is present, and that is that I do have some of a mobility and endurance issue.

And the people around me have been so incredibly supportive in ways [chuckles] that I often come home from work, I'm gonna cry now, and cry, not because I'm sad.

[chuckles] It is a lot of grief.

It's a lot of grief to have to understand that things are never going to be the way that they were.

But there's so much growth in being supported and learning to accept that, and to do what you have to do to get things done, and to also have room and understanding by people who are just there to help when you need it.

Um, something that I've, I knew was coming as far as emotionally and mentally was, uh, there were so many times when I was living in shelters where I said, "You know, there's a specific kind of PTSD that comes out of not only being homeless, but having lived in a shelter system for so long." And so I'm actually seeing the remnants and the, the consequences of this.

I would love for someone to do a psychological study at some point, or a sociological study even.

But the issues that I'm having are when you live in a shelter system, there are a lot of the same components that happen in an abusive relationship.

Um, intermittent reinforcement, which is where you don't know what the expectations are.

They change from minute to minute, um, depending on who you are, who's in charge that moment.

Um, sometimes they just change the idea, and what this does is it engages disorganized attachment, which is an attachment style also known as anxious avoidant.

Um, and it basically leaves you in a spot where you're always obeying because you don't know what the expectations are, because quite often they change.

It leaves you in a state of confusion, and that is the way that a person or a system is able to kind of dominate you and make you very mal- malleable and to do what they want.

And so some of the behaviors that I had worked through, like constantly apologizing after my marriage, after my divorce, I'm seeing the emergence of that again.

I'm seeing myself...

One of the strangest things is you are taught to be gracious for scraps, and I'm someone who has always, uh, is always immensely grateful, you know? But the fact is, you can be grateful and also understand that you deserve better, but that kind of gets squashed and flattened in a system.

And so I'm seeing myself just doing these automatic things of, uh, that were ingrained in poverty, of just being satisfied with forcing myself to be able to make it through something, just plowing through, or not having enough, but being happy with it.

And again, the support team is like, "N- you don't have to just make it.

Like, we're, we're here to help you, whatever that looks like."

Wow.