Music.
Everybody, welcome to episode 65 of Waking Up to Narcissism.
I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
and host of the Virtual Couch Podcast.
And finally, at long last, Waking Up to Narcissism, the premium Q&A episode is available on Apple Podcasts.
It is $4.99 a month, that's $4.99, and you will get access to a weekly private episode
where I go into great detail answering the questions that have been sent in,
and I have a lot of questions to go through.
And if you have questions around narcissism, emotional immaturity, how it impacts you,
your family, anything at all, please send that to contact at tonyoverbay.com,
or you can send it through any of my social media accounts.
And that's just a nice way to say as well, if you can go to the show notes
and hit the link tree link in the show notes,
and that has all the links to the various podcasts and a new Murder on the Couch promo trailer
that is, I think, hilarious.
Murder, or True Crime Meets Therapy, that is on there as well, and that is in the show notes,
and you can also sign up for my newsletter, and there is where you will start to hear
about a lot of very exciting podcasts and projects and courses.
But let's, today, I'm gonna try to just get right the interview because I actually was going to sit on this interview for a few weeks.
But it just it just resonated with me and my daughter alex who does the the editing of the podcast she had also shared that that was a really good interview and so i just felt a little bit impressed to run with it so my my guest today
is dana killian and dana is an author she is written a number of books and they're available on audible we talk about that at the end of the podcast i think she is really good insight on her fiction.
But this is a memoir and it's called Where the Shadows Dance.
And stay with me here because we're on the Waking Up To Narcissism podcast.
We're talking about narcissism or emotional immaturity.
And her book though, and if I read off of the back cover, it says,
He Got Sober, I Got Broken.
She said it would be easy to say Where the Shadows Dance is a memoir about a marriage,
but a marriage is simply the setting.
Deanna Killian dives deep into what we do for love, what we do because of love,
how love can break us, how love can save us and how the most important love is the love we feel for ourselves,
because without it, no other kind can be as rich. She says it's a raw, vulnerable exploration of
the damage that secrets and lies inflict. Where the Shadows Dance is a story for every woman who
has set herself aside because of someone else's needs seem greater. So that line right there.
Every woman who has set herself aside because someone else's needs seem greater,
And we can talk about the woman or the man.
And I really feel like this story, even though she's talking about her husband and alcoholism,
that it just so parallels the journey of so many people that are in these unhealthy relationships
with emotionally immature or narcissistic people, whether it is men or women.
But her story just resonates. And as an author, I just, when she sent the,
I got an advanced copy of the book, and it is a phenomenal book.
It's available for pre-order, so you can go to Amazon and pre-order it. Her website is full of
some really amazing and wonderful information, but I'll have a link to the pre-order of the book in
the notes. And you can also reach out to me if you have additional questions. I really enjoyed
having her on and I was really intentional and let her know off the air and then we talked about it on the air.
That i wanted to get to the interview i wanted to be a good interviewer i didn't wanna interrupt too much but i also wanted to really reframe a lot of the things that she was talking about with her battle with her her husband's alcoholism,
and her needing self care need to stand up for herself and i wanted to parallel that with the journey again of so many people that are in unhealthy relationships with narcissistic emotionally immature people.
And I think that you'll just see the parallels fit perfectly and she's a wonderful guest.
And so let's get to this interview with the author of Where the Shadows Dance, Dana Killian.
Dana Killian, welcome to, and as I was sharing with you before, probably the virtual couch,
waking up the narcissism, have a true crime meets therapy podcast.
And I feel like your story is so good, I think that, welcome to the Virtual Couch Network.
Let's put it that way. Thanks so much. I'm thrilled to be here. Yeah, it's nice to have you. And my audience
will know that I really like to just kind of go back and forth, but I actually wrote
questions because I just feel like your story is so fascinating. And there's something that
I actually heard in another interview that you gave where you talked about your journaling
in addition to therapy. So there's a part of me that wants to just ease into your story
by as a therapist, I applaud you for journaling. And I'm curious, what was that process like
And how did it differ from you write fiction novels as well?
I do. Yeah. Journaling was something I wasn't immediately drawn to.
I had a therapist suggest it and my first reaction was horror.
Tell me why. Why? Yeah. What came up for you?
I was still at that place at that point of the fear of being discovered.
My internal thoughts. I was still in the marriage at this point.
I was still going through a great deal of pain and I wasn't ready to share.
And I felt that that journal would be discovered. Oh, I see.
And so it was a scary thing for me.
But later on, I was in a different place. I was in a place of such emptiness that therapy was fine, but it really wasn't getting better.
Loosening up all the stuff that kind of comes up in between,
the things that you can't cover in an hour, the things that were just really for me,
lots and lots of questioning.
So I found a journal and I just started downloading and I don't have any other way to frame it
other than downloading questions, pain,
how I'm feeling without any purpose other than to get it out of my head and out of my heart.
I love that. To get it out of your head, I often find that people are so afraid of, and you can
have all kinds of yeah, buts, the yeah, but it will get discovered or yeah, but it will just go
darker or yeah, but it will make me feel worse. And it sounds like you had those thoughts as well.
Once I actually started journaling, I was really excited to do it. It felt like I'd found a release
Wow. And I was less afraid of discovery at that point.
Okay. There'd been a lot of other conversations and I knew that at that point I needed to worry about myself and I needed to worry about.
Finding a way to deal with the pain and the emptiness that was inside me. And the journaling
was something I was thrilled to do. And did that happen pretty quickly after you
started the process or did that take a little... Okay. I love that.
For me, it did.
I'm going to cut this clip and then send it to every client that I have, everyone I will have in the future.
So I appreciate you sharing that. You talked about that you needed to think more about or do that for yourself.
And maybe that might be a nice transition into, I would love to just hear your story
because part of the, where I felt like this would fit in the narcissism world or emotional
immature world, I often identify this, there's author Ross Rosenberg that calls it the human
magnet syndrome where there's a pathologically kind person who then is with a emotionally
immature narcissistic person, and then it forms this human magnet where you've got the
kind person continually caretaking, buffering, looking for it.
And I'm curious, Dana, and maybe let's just let you tell your story, but I just wanted
you to know that's what a lot of my listeners are probably coming at that from their own
experiences being that pathologically kind or caretaker that is felt in this human magnet.
So I'm curious if that was a similar feeling that you had.
The quick version of my story is that I was in a 25-year marriage to a very high-functioning alcoholic.
He eventually went into inpatient treatment, did get sober at that point.
He had therapy, but not rehab.
While he was at rehab, I then learned another part of our story that I hadn't known.
He had been living a secret life, a life of other women.
Throughout our marriage, an unknown number.
This is kind of where the journaling process comes in. as I was trying to deal with the whys of all of that.
Because he'd gotten sober, he'd gotten sober for me, and now I've got this new hurt, this new problem,
this new crushing blow to deal with.
And journaling became a bigger part of my life at that point.
And through the journaling, yes, I write fiction.
So through the journaling, I began to see that I did have a story.
And that writing that story, at least for me, was a good way to gain perspective on what had happened in my life.
Because as you and all your listeners know, when you were in the middle of trauma and pain, you can't see the big picture.
No, not at all. Step away from it.
And there was so much in that stage of questioning myself and questioning him.
What has been real in my life? Yeah.
And the journaling gave me that opportunity to see that I had a story there,
But I didn't know, and a story that I needed to write, but writing a book is not the same
as publishing a book.
Okay. Talk about that. And so that's how I incrementally got into this process.
So I decided to write and I wrote that awful, dirty first draft as we call it.
And it was garbage and it was full of all this protective language.
I tried to tell the story from the after.
I tried to still, I used distancing language. I used every trick in the book to not face the reality,
of, and not to not say at all.
Dan, at that point, did you feel, was it a, I didn't know what I didn't know,
or I wasn't willing to confront, or were you aware that I am doing this
because I don't want to get that close?
I was not aware that I was doing it after that draft was done, and I read it and went,
Oh no, this is not working.
I can't do this if I am not as real and raw and honest as I can be.
I mean, I can write it, but it's just therapy for me. I'm gonna do something else with this.
And I had to make that decision.
The only way that it made any sense or had any value to me in the long run and to other people in the near term
was that I had to find a way to be as vulnerable and raw and human.
And full of flaws and embarrassment as I could. And I had to tell it from the truth.
I'm probably just making assumptions, but as a fiction writer,
I often assume that someone who writes fiction, there's a lot of their story or truth in those
characters, or is that the case with your regular books? And then was there a point
where you thought about turning this story into a fictional story?
Those are really good questions. Yes. In my fiction, there are small parts of me.
And interestingly enough, there are small parts of that I wish I had. I could make my character a
little more confident, a little bolder, a little more persistent than I was because some of this,
a lot of the most difficult parts of the drinking stage were happening as I was writing these books.
So my real life inched in, but I couldn't admit to that. It's not a hundred percent representation,
but small parts of who I was and who I wanted to be came in. Did I ever think about fictionalizing
my personal story? Not for a second. Okay. I love that. I like what you said a minute ago,
where even though this story is going to be raw and vulnerable and full of flaws, and you will
most likely be open to others saying, well, why didn't you? And I don't know if you've already
had that reaction. I've had. One of the things that, again, you know very well is that there's
there's so much silence around addiction.
Yes, silence that we feel guilt and we feel remorse and shame.
And we're just trying to be silent to protect ourselves and to protect others.
And so as I've begun to talk about this book, you know, and I was no different,
I was very silent about what was going on.
But as I was beginning to share parts of my story with people who knew me,
The thing I heard is, I wish I had known.
I could have helped you. I could have done something for you. But by that time that comes
along, there's so much silence. The story is too big. You don't know how to break it
down. It's almost better, easier for me to say, here, just read my book.
Oh, I bet. Okay. So what I'm hearing Dana say is everyone that has gone there, I mean,
I really would, the journaling process alone, if you looked at it, if someday it would become
a book, whatever it would take, I think, to get that written out, I think is such a good message. That is.
It's immensely freeing.
And that was, that was a wonderful surprise to me.
And as I've spoken to people who have been in difficult situations and who say,
gosh, I I've thought about writing a book. I, I just say, write it.
You don't have to publish it.
Take it in little steps, get that stuff out of you.
How many years into your marriage was that moment where you found out this about the second life?
We were 20 years in 20 years in. Okay. And then you stayed at another five. Is that how
long? Yeah. Um, there were, we made two attempts at divorce. Um, okay. Okay. This is devastating
information in marriage. And I was in this, I was in shock. I was curled up in a ball
on the floor for a year at least. And there was an eventual attempt at divorce, but there.
Was still so much love between us, which sounds bizarre, even as I'm saying it about myself,
but there was, and we hadn't played out all of that love. We hadn't played out all of
the work that he had done in getting sober to try to keep me in his life.
Well, and I would love to talk about that. And I feel like I do, I hear you with that.
And I think a lot of the people on the, I mentioned off air that I have this private
women's Facebook group for women in relationships with emotionally mature or narcissistic. And
I say fill in the blank, it can be a spouse, it can be an adult child, it can be a parent.
And there's that just dance, the trauma bond, the, but there are good times. And so we want
to look at those. So when you say we tried to divorce in that world of emotional maturity
or narcissism, when somebody gets to the point there where they say I'm done, you know, I
feel like, man, none of us like to sit with that discomfort. And so we want that relief.
And sometimes all it takes, I noticed as a partner to say, Hey, I get it and I, and I'm
going to change. And now that makes that person feel better. And then the person who is fed
up feels relief. And I'm curious, was that playing out as well?
Absolutely. I think that when you've had a partner for so many years and the most important
thing, the thing that makes you safest is to be in his arms. How do you walk away from.
Or it's difficult to walk away. You love this person for a reason. And part of being in an
addictive relationship is that you do understand, you're forced to understand the compartmentalization,
that addicts are masters at. And so they put their drinking in a box over on the side,
and the whole of who they are is not the booze. It's not the bad behavior.
Yeah. So of course you're going to look for that, but here's this good. And would that
be the, when I talk about the pathologically kind, I feel like it's in one's nature to,
want to just not focus on the negative, but in you and be the cheerleader and you can
do this and I see you and would you, were you that role at all in the marriage?
I had part of that role, certainly. I think, I think we all do. Again, this is, this is
someone we love. And we know the reasons we love them. And we also have this sense of
responsibility that if I leave, he's going to die. At its bottom line, we take on some
responsibility. But what we don't see is that.
If we stay, we are dying. We're dying emotionally. And it is this dance until one of you breaks.
And it's a question of who's going to break first.
It is. And I talk often about the, there's a book about trauma. I don't know if you're
familiar. It's called The Body Keeps the Score by Vessel Vander Kalk. And that's where I feel
like when the person who is losing their sense of self continues to go back in and say, we can do
this, eventually their body says we can't. So let's give you some anxiety, depression,
high blood pressure, hypertension, let's throw some chronic pain in there and whatever that
takes. But the person says, man, I, but I love this person or we can make this work. So did you
feel ever physical symptoms like that? Absolutely. I had moments where I was passing out.
Oh man. I was losing my hair. I had thyroid problems. Yeah, absolutely. There is there.
You cannot be in a long-term chronic stress situation and not have physical effects.
And I really do believe, you know, I like to say the brain is a don't get killed device.
So it's trying to say, this is not okay. This is not working.
But I like when you mentioned, I mean, it's again, like is the wrong word at times, but
as a therapist that wants people to feel heard and seeing that when you talked about that
compartmentalization and just last night I run a men's group for addiction and we really
have been focusing lately on in that moment when the person says, I will never do it again.
Again, it relieves that discomfort.
Their partner also is so grateful to hear that.
So everybody feels good, but then they will never do it again until they do it again because
once they get out of that discomfort, then that's where the work needs to occur.
And I feel like that's the, but the person feels good now. I'm not, I'm not going to do it again.
And then if the spouse says, okay, but what are you going to do about it?
Then all of a sudden they're caretaking or they're feeling like they're overstepping
their bounds. Would you have those moments where you would, I don't want to say demand, but really ask
him for recovery or what was that like?
Well, for us, there were just, there were kind of two stages.
It was what was happening when I thought our only problem was the alcohol.
And there was never a, I will never drink again conversation.
It was, I will go to therapy.
I'm going to, I commit to doing this. Let me do this on my own.
If I can't make this work, I will do rehab. And that continued and he was honoring his promises.
And of course there's always, oh, there it goes again.
And the drinking becomes secret.
Okay. And we reached a point where he only went into rehab when I said, you have a choice.
You can have me or you can have vodka.
Okay. That's when he went to rehab and he did get sober. So then our second stage was more,
I will never hurt you again.
And that was the sexual behavior. But there were lots of other, I had more guardrails, I guess, around that behavior.
I was far more cautious.
I was far more distrustful. I had a private investigator ready. I had a post-nup.
I had all of these things in place.
And every time I erupted in any kind of fear, jealousy, concern, outrage, whatever it was.
He behaved exactly as he should have.
He was humble. He was contrite. He was empathetic.
There was a shift in him once he got sober and Booz wasn't controlling his brain.
He could then see some of these other behaviors.
So I was still in this back and forth, what do I believe? What do I trust?
What do I want for that five-year period of why am I doing this?
What kind of woman stays with a man who has been a serial cheater?
That was part of it and part of my own self-analysis and professional analysis too.
Well, and I so appreciate your vulnerability here because I know it's going to speak to
to so many people that are going through things like this and they go to the, what's wrong
with me? And then I often just say, man, we don't know what we don't know. And then we
find out, but we don't know what to do about it. And then we eventually do more than we
don't. And then finally we become, and I know that sounds maybe a little bit out there,
but that process I feel can take as long as it takes yet another cliche. But do you feel
like there was a certain point where something just turned or clicked or you had made a decision
or was that more of just this gradual shading of lived experience?
Well, as I said, we made two attempts at divorce. Yeah. The first attempt, I think the way I sum it up most succinctly is there was just simply
too much love.
We had not played out enough of the...
Who are you after? Okay. Is there something that we can, you know, salvage isn't quite the right word, but is
there something that can be made anew?
Is there anything there worth? So it was a cautious stage.
And I went through a great deal of time of having second thoughts, packing a bag, moving
out for a few days. It was torture.
But every single time he did exactly what I would have hoped, he had become a different
kind of man, a different kind of husband to me in that stage.
I'm still in this place of questioning myself. And the big impetus for me to really see how empty I had become was when COVID hit.
There was nothing else in our lives to distract.
We simply were forced to be with each other, no diversion, and to look at, I had to look
at the relationship and my own life and my own self in a very different way without anything
else in the way.
And that's when I realized that although I think I want this relationship to find a path
forward, I was never going to get back to that place where I had adored this man.
I know he's doing everything that he can to try to keep me in his life.
He's doing everything I could have asked of him as a husband at that point.
I see. Okay. For me.
Yeah. But I was utterly empty. I opened my book with a scene where I'm standing from a 13th floor window, looking down on,
Lake Michigan, wondering what it would feel like to stand on the edge of the water and just slip in.
I wouldn't have done it. wasn't dead, I was suicidal. But to even have those thoughts,
because you're just so empty, nothing, You're desperate to feel something.
That was what was the shift and the switch in me that said, this isn't the future I want. Yeah.
I want something better. I need something better for me. Yes. I still love this man. I don't love
him the way I did. And we have played out everything we could play out in trying to save,
protect, rebuild, however you want to call it. Absolutely. A relationship that was really
really largely wonderful.
So, yeah, I love the booze. Right. And I love that story because that really is, that is at the end of the day,
trusting your gut and doing something that is, is scary and difficult because it would
have been easier to just say, okay, I guess I'll remain numb, but at least he's trying.
I mean that, that kind of a, yeah, no, I'm grateful to hear that. Cause I feel like a
A lot of the people I work with are in, they're in some really unhealthy relationships and
feel that same flatness or apathetic state, but then feel like, well, I guess that's just my lot in life.
And the people that have the courage, I think, and that's maybe a strong word, but to go
through with what you went through, I think, how are you now?
What do you, I guess, what advice would you give to somebody in that scenario?
Well, that's part of why I wrote this book because I felt that one, I need personally,
I needed to heal and speaking about everything I'd experienced would help me heal.
But publishing a book would help other people who have been in this situation.
Sometimes we need someone else. We need to see it through someone else's eyes in a very personal way to understand
that it's okay to take a little step.
I have spoken to a lot of women who have had addictive relationships.
And the one thing every single one of them says to me is, I regret my silence.
For as long as I was silent. We do it to protect our families.
We do it for very good reasons, but ultimately that silence destroys us.
So my advice to anybody, whether you're in the relationship still and trying to figure
out if you should stay or you are out of the relationship and still dealing with the guilt
and the regret is start first with how do I give up my silence?
Who can I talk to?
And, you know, a therapist is great.
But a therapist is not the same as facing your sister and having her look at you with
pity and horror and you did what?
They're not what I found as I've spoken to people, people close to me who did not know.
They feel bad that they didn't know. They feel bad that they couldn't help me.
And they are, for whatever judgment I thought might've been there in their eyes, it's not there.
That was just me projecting it. That was me protecting myself. We cannot love another
human being if we do not love ourselves. We can't have a decent relationship with anyone
if we don't love ourselves first. And this for me is part of going back to that place of.
I have to love myself. I have to be healthy myself. I have to be emotionally strong myself.
And then the rest of the world will follow. And coming to the understanding that my husband's bad behavior, his drinking and his sexual behavior, they were not about me.
They were a hole inside of him that he was trying to fill.
And he filled it in terrible ways. He did. And his hole was he did not believe he deserved to be loved.
He didn't deserve my love. And then he just acted it out. He played it out. He made it true.
And there's some...
Comfort for me in understanding that. Because we take it personally.
We do. And, boy, can I ask you a quick question on, I love what you said about, because I
think we are so afraid if we share with people that we will be judged or there will be a
lot of negative comments made. And I will say that to the narcissism or emotionally
immature group, I've done a couple of episodes on what are called Switzerland friends. And,
what that is, is when someone does open up to someone and they say, well, there's two
there's two sides in every story, or I'm sure that, and that's where we talk about, if that
is someone, then that isn't someone that maybe is the safest person to share with. But when
you find someone that is going to say, tell me more, or I wish I would have known, or
I could have helped. Did you run into any of those Switzerland type friends?
I didn't personally, but there are, I understand where some of that came from as I've spoken
other women, particularly when it comes, my husband was a very high functioning alcoholic.
And like a lot of high functioning alcoholics, very smart, very successful, very charismatic.
And so this is not the image that the world sees of him. And so as we began to tell close friends.
They kind of minimized the drinking. They minimized it as that's not the guy I see.
Can't you just stop? It really must not be as big of a deal as you make it out to be.
Yeah. And that's where I like what you're saying, but at some point, you know, you know what you know.
And, and I love that message. I have a couple of things from your book that I want to talk about.
And so that reminds me of one, if I'm going to go not in the order, but where the shadows dance a memoir.
I've read a lot of it and I have to tell you, Dan, a lot of times when I do the interviews,
I want to just do a quick skim, but it's a really good read.
And I think I'm just seeing so many things that parallel this human magnet syndrome,
that are trying to get out of these unhealthy, emotionally immature, narcissistic relationships.
But when you just said when people would say, that's not the person I see, there's a, let
me pull this up. and I'll see you next time.
There's a toward the end, you have a, I should have marked the chapter, but it was where
you were going to see your dad about your mystery boyfriend.
And I just, I love that. So I did, I wrote this down where I, you know, he said, I must have a boyfriend.
Your elderly father, he was unable to comprehend the divorce even years after the incidents
that caused it. And then the quote, you said your father has concocted the only explanation that seems logical to him.
I'm running off with another man. And I would love to hear that, what that was like.
Your sister reacted and said, Dad, you know what he did? And again, bless your dad's heart.
Because I feel like this is what people, you know, we don't know. It's like to sit with discomfort.
So I like when you said he concocted the only explanation that I often say, oh, we create a
narrative to fit our view. But then your dad said, yeah, but that was a while ago. I just don't
understand. So yeah, what was that like? And I mean, that whole dynamic, because it sounds like,
you know, you were there taking care of your dad. What an admirable thing.
Yeah. It was at a stage that my father was very elderly, needing a lot of physical help.
He was a man of the John Wayne era.
I love that description. Where you don't talk about your feelings. And this idea that I must be running off for
another man. And this, to give some context, was after the real divorce and I was leaving.
And not only did I leave my marriage, but I moved cross-country to Tucson.
And he just was dumbfounded.
He couldn't say any of it to me. He could only say it to my sister because again, men of that era don't know how to discuss
emotions.
And if I can't explain it to him in about a two second, maybe two minutes, it just didn't
mean anything to him. So he was just grasping for straws, completely unfounded.
When I sense that in the book, which that's why I really feel like it's the story so well
told because I talk about this concept of this nonviolent communication where we make
an observation and a judgment in an instant to try to make sense of the world.
And so I think that is such a good explanation of that. And I almost feel like that's one of those tests of where you're at as a individual,
if it can be all bless his heart, you know, trying to make sense of that.
Is that, and I felt that that was the case. Exactly.
At that point in his life, you know, he's an elderly man, he's set in his ways.
I was not going to be able to convince him of anything.
Thing. And I loved it. I feel like it must have been, was that nice to see your sister, you know, but you don't
understand. So I feel like you got to see your sister care and your dad bless his heart and you
know, I think I'm good. And I mean, that's what I was imagining.
Yes, that's, that was exactly it. It was at a point in time that all of the hard decisions had been made.
There was still a great deal of healing to happen on my heart, in my heart.
But yeah, a lot of the family expectation and the dynamic of who's going to judge me
and my family, what can I say, what can't I say? I had already shed that. I was firm
in my convictions of what I was doing and I didn't really need them to understand.
That's powerful right there, Dana. I mean, and that's, I think, when I work with people and
whenever that shift occurs or when that happens that it's, you know, again, and I say that's
adorable, like that concern they show and they look really angry and those are a lot of words.
And so, but I'm good. Thank you. You know, and I just, I sensed that in your book kind of going
then out of order. There was another part chapter 19 and I, there was a couple of things here,
rebellion, your 25th anniversary passes. And I love how you said, okay, at first I'm okay.
And as a therapist, I'm so fascinated by some people, they, oh my gosh, this date is going to,
hang forever. And other people get past the date and they think, well, it wasn't so bad. And,
and I love that yours I'm reading. And at first it was like, Hey, that wasn't so bad. And then
418 in the morning. So, and I do have a quote from you that I really thought was good, but
what was that like? I mean, do you remember that?
I do remember that. I remember that very well. It was at a stage where I was caretaking for
my father. I'm in this limbo stage where we are processing the divorce. I'm caring for
my father. I'm in Northern Wisconsin. I don't want to be there. I don't have a home. I don't
know what my life and my future are going to be.
And I was back in this place of caring for another man who needed help, who was frail
and that's right. lesson.
Here I am repeating myself. And my father also had started drinking at that point in his life
in an unhealthy way. So it was a stage where I'm trying to sort through lots of complex emotions,
on my end, also feeling kind of frozen and stuck on where I couldn't move forward in my life yet.
And so my emotions were really a lot of rollercoastering, not stuck in the pain moments
largely. So I'm balancing out excitement for what could be and then, damn it, I'm dragged back into
the past. And like anybody who's in some kind of traumatic, stressful situation, sleep can be
elusive. And to wake up at four o'clock in the morning and go, here I am. Here I am. And if you
remember from that moment, I just, okay, I grabbed my computer and I just started downloading all the
the garbage that was in my head.
Which again, I'm implying all these powerful therapeutic principles on you, whether you
know it or not. And so that's why I love the, I'm okay, now I'm not.
And then I do, because I say constantly when we ruminate and beat ourselves up and what's
wrong with me, we're looking for this certainty we won't find.
So then I always say, yeah, those are noted and now do.
And you did, and you did.
There's a quote that I really liked and you said, they say that time heals all wounds.
Does it heal or simply blunt the pain, the ache instead of becoming a constant road that
we no longer distinguish from the other roars, our roar, constant roar that we no longer
distinguish from the other roars assaulting our bodies and minds?
I can't answer that, not tonight, not on this day. Again, so well said.
And I'm curious now, and I have my answer that you need to say, I'm kidding.
But now, did that time, did it just simply blunt the pain, or what did time do for you?
I think what time did was give me distance and perspective. Time itself, I don't think changes anything if you stay stuck in your pain and your trauma.
And people do that. I didn't know how I was going to remove that pain, but I knew early on that I
was committed to not letting my husband's behavior destroy me. And time for me was,
because it gave me a tool. It was just part of the tool. I couldn't do it alone. Speaking,
writing, giving myself perspective, not only on myself, but his behavior, his addiction,
his compartmentalization, it all had to work together. And so time kind of helps things marinate.
Oh, that's good. I like that. And I want to now, of course, jokingly say that was the
correct answer. You did that correct. I'm asked that question about time and how long,
and then I unfortunately say, as long as it takes and you're right where you need to be.
But I know that that can be helped when people are actively doing. And then people say, do
what? Well, kind of anything at first other than ruminating and thinking. And so I feel
like your book, whether you know it or not, Diana, just laid that process out so well
And I think that it does often take longer than people would like for it to take, but
then when they're through it, then it had to take as long as it takes.
And I don't know if that was your experience as well.
I think that's one of the reasons that I've, or a conclusion I've come to as I sat with
the attempt at divorce number one, finally doing it number two.
So we had this five-year period of being in the middle. And to be honest, I think there was a lot of healing that was going on inside of me,
although inside the marriage, a healing that led to divorce.
Yeah, I know. That makes so much sense. That time and that processing was, I think, essential.
Had we divorced at our first attempt, I don't know that I would have been as healthy about,
it. I would have been a mess still emotionally.
I would have sat with that anger longer than I did.
That right there, I mean, that's where I will maybe go back in and edit me asking a question that sounded really smart.
I'm kidding. I won't because that answer so sums up in my work as a therapist of someone wants to say,
well, just tell me what I need to do and what do you think would be best?
And oh, don't hand me that power because then it will give you the opportunity that let's say, yeah, well, I mean,
I've seen that this is most 90 whatever percent of the time, it won't work and you'll be happier out.
Happier out. But I'm not going to say that because then if the person says, okay, because,
then they'll get out. And now if they don't feel good, the first thing they can do is
say, well, the therapist said that it wasn't going to work. What was I supposed to do?
And I feel like what you just said there about that healing comes in that there's a book
that refers to it as the messy middle. And I think that healing has to come, I mean,
obviously within, but that might be within the marriage. And that is difficult because,
you're around the person that you're frustrated by, but you want to then talk to about the
frustration with the person, which is ironic. Yeah, so much there.
Yeah, there is. And I certainly had a therapist who said, are you sure you want to stay in
this marriage? Okay. Yeah. Right.
And I intellectually knew that was correct. I needed to leave, but emotionally I wasn't
ready to do it. And so I think this whole issue of time and how we beat ourselves up,
The part to remember for all of us is that this is not linear.
There is not one thing and we will do like the addict does, one step forward, two steps
backwards. We'll reverse it. We'll get two steps forward and one step back.
And this is normal and this is okay. As long as there's some progress and some change.
What won't work is to hold on to the pain.
And to stay in that awful place where you regret and you can't even talk about it.
And I'm already running into women who like, I want to give this book to my friend because
she's there and she won't even go near it. She can't even acknowledge that this was part of her
life. Those are not people that are in healthy places. And it's so sad.
It is. And when you were talking before, when we talk about that opening scene and you're looking
and thinking about being on the edge of the water, or I have people that will say, hey,
I'm not suicidal, but I call it the, but if a meteor hits me, that's not a bad thing,
you know, theory where it's that, again, I think the brain is a absolute don't get killed
device. So it is going to do anything it can to get your attention. And so when people
don't open up about things, keep things in their head, then they, I feel like, you know,
unfortunately people start to get to this place of feeling everything from suicidal
thoughts and ideations, and especially not being willing to open up about that, because,
that is a shame-filled process as well. So I just I think your message is really going
to resonate. And I feel like hearing it from people that have been through it, I don't
know what, you know, I think it really speeds up the healing process for those in it. And
as a therapist, I can say all the right words and people feel heard and understood. But.
When somebody has gone through it like you have, I feel like that just that it does,
it speeds up the healing. So I really appreciate you coming on and your book was really, I
I mean, I really like it a lot.
I'm a huge audio book guy, so I've already got your fiction books,
and they're all, can I ask a couple of just nerdy author questions?
Okay, so, okay, and I'll talk about some of this stuff in the intro too, but okay, your books are,
it's Andrea Kellner series, so Lies in High Places, The Last Lie, Lies of Men.
Tell me about your interest in lying, Dana. Tell me about, honestly, sell those fiction books,
because I love audio books, and I listen constantly, So I'm excited to listen to those.
And the memoir is going to be in audio as well. I'm working on that now. Okay, I'm in.
Perfect. So I was starting to write the fiction.
As the heaviness, the worst part of my husband's drinking was happening. And I was starting to find
out what was going on, what had been going on in his life. I made the decision to start writing
before I knew the truth. And for me, writing mystery, what I enjoy is the psychological part,
the puzzle, the why, the how, who's doing it. I'm not into the blood and gore part. I want
one psychological behind the scenes, what motivates people.
And kind of the short answer to the lies is in those books, my character, Andrea,
she could uncover lies that I wasn't uncovering in my real life.
Okay. And now, now I have to listen. And lying is at the core of all of these crimes.
Okay. Well, that's exciting. Okay. Can I get you to, uh, I have a new true crime meets therapy podcast coming out in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, murder on the couch. I would love to maybe have you come on there and let's break down one
of your books. I think that would be a lot of fun. That'd be wonderful. Okay. All right. Dana,
what a pleasure. I really appreciate you coming on. And I think this is going to
resonate with the overall mental health audience of the virtual couch. And then the waking up to
narcissism, I think it's just going to speak volumes to the people that are experiencing that.
No, so thank you. And good. I'll have all this in the show notes, but where can people find you?
I am dana kelly and calm book pages for everything there are links to purchase
it's a bit the book is available pre-order right now and it will be
available anywhere you like to buy books okay and I read some of your online
journal as well and I mean you've got a lot on your website then very good writer so I highly encourage people to go check that out,
all right Dana I hope we will get to talk again I'd love that okay okay Thanks a lot. It was really great.
Music.