welcome back to another yet another, and
Another, and another. And there'll be
more others. Yep. Episode of Come with Casey. We are your host. I'm Dr. Casey Sanders. And I'm Carrie Sanders. And before we begin, We I'm gonna take like the tone down a little bit. Sure. Cause I wanna, I said it sound we take some topics that we discuss very close to heart, and we wanna make sure that our audience does the same. And whenever we do have something that becomes more sensitive. Intense, yeah. Intense. We want you guys to know about it.
We would never spring anything on you that we don't, you could handle if you go through this episode and feel like there are any, anything that you cannot handle, uh, but maybe discontinue your listening and reach out. Yeah. Reach out
to us or go back to a time where you can let it process. Maybe you need to take this episode in increments and instead of like diving all in at once. That's totally okay. And then the guests that we have on will actually be able to help you with this. Yes. So what are we discussing?
So today we're gonna actually be discussing sexual trauma and we're gonna be discussing what life after sexual trauma looks like for a person. We really want to use this episode to empower people to reclaim their power to reclaim their sexuality once they've been through a, an event that can be so life altering, so conscious, altering. Uh, and so in, in order to. Talk with us about what that looks like. We have Miss Liana on the show today. Liana, how you doing?
I'm great, Casey. Thank you so much for having me here. And thanks so much to everybody who's listening. Even tuning into this podcast might be a little bit scary, but you're brave for being here, so thank you.
We haven't, honestly, I don't think we've done anything like this before. No,
but it needs to happen.
This is something that really needs to happen. Yeah. Every, everyone needs, yeah, people need this. Cause we get these questions all the time. We have couples, we have singles that come to us. They're like, listen, you guys talk a lot about like kinky lifestyle. You guys talk about like tying each other up. You guys talk about like polyamory, you guys talk about fantasy, all kinds stuff. Cannabis, bdsm, all these things.
But I, but they will say, you know, I'm not the person that can access this because I get. Triggered. Or I become, or I'm just afraid to I'm so afraid of what could happen. Or I just, it, I'm scared, like I don't know what to do. And so we thought this was a perfect time to dive into the subject, and so we want to give you just a few minutes, uh, Leonna to, to introduce yourself. Tell us about who you are and what you do and how you help people that are in this sort of situation. Reclaim
themselves. Yeah. Yeah. So my name is Leona Cure. I'm a relationship and sex therapist in Colorado. I do virtual therapy and I work a lot with couples and individuals, relationship systems and individuals. And I specialize in a lot of things in the sexuality realm. Most of what you mentioned kink, B D S M, polyamory, queer issues, identity issues. But I also have a significant. Number of people in my caseload who are dealing with sexual trauma as it relates to reclaiming their identity.
And so this topic is incredibly close to my heart. I do workshops on this. I've done several podcasts on this. I love talking to people about this particular topic because it feels so taboo, which is. Bullshit. It shouldn't, but if we're going to reclaim it, it starts with our voices. And so I'm very passionate about helping people reclaim, but also teaching them that I'm not the one reclaiming their sexuality, their identity.
They are, I'm just there in their boat with them as they paddle upstream against a heavy current, because I know that's the work that we live in.
Man. So that's already a starting off with powerful statements. Fuck. We are so happy to have somebody like you on the show today. And, uh, I wanna really start this off by I, I don't have a ton of experience in the discussion of what constitutes a person's sexual trauma. But what I do know is I have talked to people who God, this I don't want this to come up sound like offensive or anything.
I don't want this to come off as sounding too heavy, but, With people that like try to, that almost downplay their own experiences. Yep. I, what I went through wasn't as bad, wasn't as bad as could the person that been went through a situation X or situation Y. So I therefore don't it's almost like they, they've lost that. Like they, they don't even see the ability that they should be trying to, uh, address it. Yeah. So is this something that you see often?
Absolutely. I call it the pain Olympics. And it's, you know, whoever's first in that pain Olympics, they actually get to complain. But everybody who comes before them has no right to take the stage or do their own healing, especially in front of other people. I see it a lot and so we have to learn how to do it differently because it's so painful to sit alone in your pain. It makes it worse.
Have you found like situations where people open up and share to you and you introduced them to trauma that they didn't realize was trauma?
Oh yeah, that's, uh, probably my least favorite part of the therapy day when I, of course, that's the
first thing I bring up.
Oh, no, see it's not a problem. I've actually told my clients anytime a client says, fuck you to me. I know it's that I hit on you hit the nail
on the head and they're like, oh, fuck you. Yeah, absolutely.
I actually I said to my therapist the other day, that is irritatingly brilliant. There you go. I was pissed, but it was valid. So yeah, I, uh, we talk through things and I'll ask, you know, what do you think of the word trauma? And, you know, they get that suspicious side eye and they're like, why the hell are you asking me this question? So yeah, it happens and sometimes introducing people to the sides of themselves that they've closed off.
It can be illuminating and it can also be so beautifully freeing because it's a part of them that's always been there, but you know, that's a room they've never walked
into. Yeah. I mean, you're like this fucking investigative Sherlock Holmes. That's like literally helping people love that. That's always something that's been so curious to me. Because I'm like, if somebody walks into your office and they don't realize what they've been through or they're like gaslighting themselves or they're just telling themselves that what they went through was bad, wasn't as bad, wasn't bad, it could have been worse.
And they sit down with you and you end up telling them you uncover something that they didn't even know that they went through that is, that's a powerful thing to have
occur. Yeah. And for. For me to be the one admitting it is less scary than for them to come to me and say, lay this problem down at my feet, because I'm the one saying that this is a reality that they're living in. So, and I'm the authority in the room. I try really hard to reduce power differentials, but I can't in, in every form. But I'm the authority in the room saying, this is what I think happened to you.
And they're like, oh, it's safe for me to own that because this fully qualified adult brain wizard is telling me that I'm okay to own that. Yeah. Well,
because sometimes we need to be told that we are allowed to feel how we feel and you know, unfortunately a lot of us were kind of grown up in, into that environment de depending on your age the get over it, the. And so I'm curious, do you see like an age gap or an age difference between people that like, can own their trauma versus like maybe someone that was raised where, you mean
like maybe like millennials versus Gen Z or something
like that? Yeah, exactly.
Have you found a difference in, in that age group to say yes, I can admit my
trauma? So I think it's a really interesting question. I work with clients. I have a lot of friends with teens and stuff like that, but I work with clients who are generally 18 and up. I've seen clients who are in their seventies or eighties, I've seen clients who are just barely on the cusp of adulthood.
When we're talking about older populations, the people who can get the early bird lunch and all of that stuff, hear them say something like You know, it, uh, the way that he touched me, I didn't like it, but I let it happen. And when you think about people in one generation above me I'm a millennial. I don't know the generational lines or the names. I don't really fucking care, but love that my, my mom's generation. She might say something like he hit me or he abused me.
My generation, we might confidently say I was raped. Gen Z is capable of saying, I've been physically abused, I've been emotionally abused, I've been sexually abused. That's the world I wanted to live in. Yeah. That's the world. I'm so. So, emphatically trying to create. And that's what's coming, I feel is Yeah. Us being able to admit the depth and the quality of the trauma that we've experienced. But yeah, as you go up that line, it is harder to say the words I was raped or I was abused.
To the point where it's scary because how am I gonna get abused as a result of admitting my abuse? Yeah. Is generally the question in the back of the mind.
Wow. See, I'm already like, wow. Okay. So, so client clients come to you. They sit down and they. At some point, you guide them to either A, being able to, uh, give themselves permission to claim what's occurred to them, or they come and sit down and they already, they're like ready to spit it out, and eventually they get on the I would hope that they all get on the same page of they have this admission of something that occurred and they become moved to that next step. What does that look like?
Like once, once they've admitted it and they're ready to move on what happens
next? Yeah. So, not picking apart your words, but I hate the idea of admitting it because generally when we think of admitting it, it's admitting a wrong that we've done.
I appreciate No I appreciate you part taking apart my words cuz I wanna be able to
learn. Yeah. And I think once we've been able to take ownership of a part of our story, that was really scary to look at. I have two processes I have defining and I have undefining. So defining is what happened to me. I don't need clients to tell me specific details. I don't need to know what it taste, looked, felt smelt like in order to know how much it hurt them. Sure. But the detail, they're comfortable going. I'm like, help me define the event or events.
Help me define the pattern or the story. And then let's unine literally everything you were ever taught about how to think of your body. After it has been traumatized because the reality is we live in this echo chamber of What were you wearing? Were you drinking? Did you flirt? I was once told by somebody at Chick-fil-A that 30 year old man when I was 15 years old, did have a right to ask me to come back to his house to give a massage because I wore my hair in, in braids and I smiled a lot.
We live in an echo, echo chamber of it was your fault and I can come up with a million reasons why. So we have to unine that. There's about to be a cat. There's always cats. That's
five. There's always cats. That's the fifth cat. I love this lifestyle. Y'all all love cats? No, we have more cats on video than anything. I don't think we've had one damn kid. But cats all the
time. I've got four. So you'll have nine by the, we have three, so
I get
it. Thank you. So in, in the realm of undefining, there's that, there's unlearning the cultural echo chamber and just letting your voice and sometimes my voice, the an influencer in there. But then there's uncoupling. So one of the things that is so horrifying to clients when it comes to reclaiming sexuality is that the thing that they're coming to me for was sex. But in reality it was not sex, it was abuse. It was violence. It doesn't belong under the sex umbrella at all.
So we have to uncouple that so that any time my clients come to me with any kind of trauma they're able to say. That trauma is not the sex that I'm trying to have. It doesn't even live in the same room. Because so many clients come to me and they're afraid of sex because in their brain, sex is that abuse that they experienced previously. Yeah,
no, honestly, that makes a lot of sense because it's hard to almost disassociate the two, you know? Yeah. That was a sexual, I mean, quoting air quotes, that was a sexual act that was done to me, but it was trauma. It wasn't a consensual act. It was something that was enforced upon.
I love that you say that because even through my sexual trauma I've never really thought to separate out the two, because you just think of I hate to break it down, down to like your organs in a sense, but it is like, Touched it is happening. And it would be not the exact same way, but similar to the same way as if my partner was to then touch me. So I love that you say that and you're separating out the two and to say, and to stop saying that I was sexually abused, maybe just I was abused.
Yes. You know, and taking out the sex out of it entirely. I really like that. And that resonates with me, so thank you for saying that. Of
course. Yeah. Yeah. So,
and to kind of continue on with what Casey was saying, like they have exp expressed their trauma. What are some ways that you coach them through. Uh, navigating that or rewriting their own, like personal narrative.
Yeah. So it's funny you use that word. I'm a narrative therapist. So the work I do, I see my clients like a whole entire book where what's written on the first page is of that book is definitely gonna come up later in the book, right? You've got Chekhov's Gun or whatever. One of my favorite
terms,
so I ask my clients how many people wrote that book before you were even able to read? And what's so tough about that is we have so many voices in our head. Don't lock me up for saying that so many voices in our head that are informing how we think and see the world and all of that stuff And sometimes those voices tell us stories that don't fit anymore. And especially when it comes to trauma, I am handing you the pen.
I'm saying, write your story, and I'm gonna be here and I'm gonna try to pick apart the pieces that I still think are being influenced by those other people. But I don't want my clients to feel like I'm writing their story either. But changing the narrative starts with saying, what happened. But it had nothing to do with me. It had nothing to do with my behavior, my story, my wants, my needs. Even if I have, uh, my own. Slew of sexual trauma.
And one of the things I often struggle with is I had an orgasm. That's the most confusing thing in the world. Yeah. But we have to uncouple again, we have to uncouple the pleasure of orgasm from the pain of assault. Yeah. So, it's essentially saying, what are you writing down in your storybook and what does it mean to you? Is it self-critical? Is it judgmental or is it compassionate and validating?
And. Generally speaking, I pick apart the bullshit that other people put in our heads to control us. Especially forgive me for saying so, but especially people who were raised as women. There's such a, well, and I, you know, I hate to qualify it that way because people who were raised as men were raised to feel entitled, raised to feel like it was acceptable for them to want sex or need sex from other people. So in reality, I feel like I'm going on a long haul here, but in
Please do, by all means,
in reality, everybody who either experiences or perpetuate sexual abuse learned from somewhere. It is written in their story somewhere that it was okay. That what happened or what they did. It was okay. And that's what we have to rewrite. So long answer to a very short question, but the next step is for me to ask my clients what's next? Of what's your next goal?
What do you wanna get to from here, and how can we make sure it's just me and you in this boat, and that you are at the helm the entire time. Yeah.
So good. So there's big thing, there's already big things there because we discuss on our podcast and to our clients and everybody else is, we talk a lot about their sexual narrative. We talk a lot about like, where they came from. We talk a lot about how they learn the things. Where did those, where did these families come from? What were the influencing factors? Everything from family to friends, to organizations that built them up to where they are today.
So even the fact that you're talking about, uh, their, this, your client's sexual narrative and where that sits as it is already speaks heavily. And the fact that we love to touch on what you just said, like it's, I'm handing you the pen kind of thing. Right. This is your ability now to take where you were and almost say fuck everything that you've, that has happened to you. This is your time, this is your chance. Spotlight is on you.
And you have the ability to moving forward to create everything that you want. Yeah. And you have the power to do that, like you are in control of this. Just giving them that message is so fucking powerful.
Yeah, and I think for my part, like it's hard. I. In equal measure, it's hard to give that pen. It's just as hard to take it back. So when when I notice like a client that I've been seeing for a long time start to slide back into those old patterns of thinking, I then have to say, hang on a second. I need to take your pen and I need to cross out this entire chapter you just wrote. Yeah. Because you are using this person's voice to write this chapter.
And I already said, I don't like to have power in that room. I don't like for them to defer to me or see me as an authority, but that is my job. You know, my job is to take up space when it is relevant to do so. And Casey, one of the questions you asked me was about gaslighting. Yeah. You I'm not sure if I'm jumping too far ahead
and starting. No. Good. Go right ahead. No, yeah, please go right ahead.
So Casey, one of the questions you asked me about was gaslighting and so frequently The people we keep in our lives, once we start to get to a healthier place, are not engaging in that gaslighting behavior, but so many who came before them did. And that creates an internal narrative of gaslighting. So we have to be as a professional or in, I guess in my line of work, let me start over here.
As a therapist, I have to be really careful about using terms that are buzzwords right now and culture, right? And gaslighting is specifically right now of buzzword, so huge. Huge buzzword and a lot of people are using it to describe a lot of things. But if I'm going to specifically define it, actually Googled the definition just to make sure I had a solid one. A form of emotional abuse that minimizes one's experience by implying that thoughts and feelings are crazy, irrational, or unreal.
Yep. So gaslighting at its core is emotional abuse. And when it comes to when it comes to the social norms around sexual wellbeing, We are basically born being gaslit. If something somebody does makes you feel uncomfortable no, it's flattering. If something somebody does, makes you feel unsafe, you're being too dramatic. Like these are the kinds of messages that we get before any type of sexual trauma actually occurs, whether that's physical or emotional, sexual trauma.
We already have that narrative implanted in our, uh, lexicon long before we actually experience anything. And then whether it's the perpetrator or the people you reported to afterwards being asked something like, why were you at that party? Or were you drinking that is gaslighting? Yes. Or it's, let me question what you are telling me. What happened by telling you it's your fault?
I said this to a client, it was an absolute mindfuck the other day, even for me to be saying it out loud, that we are raised in a machine that teaches us that if this happens to you, it is your fault. And then it happens. And then we re-traumatize ourselves by telling everybody the entire story because we're so desperately hoping that they'll tell us we are the exception. Yeah. To that rule that they set. We are the exception, so we're gonna tell them every detail.
Well, I wasn't drinking and I didn't wear my mini skirt. I actually specifically put on baggy pants and I wasn't walking alone. And I wasn't talking on the phone. Yeah. We're looking, we're seeking for that validation that we are not the exception or that we are sorry. That we are the exception. And when we don't get it, then we start to gaslight ourselves. Yeah.
Yeah.
What I see most here is that a client is in a healthy or as healthy as it can be at that time, relationship with somebody who's not sexually abusing them, and for whatever reason, they may be laying down in bed with their partner and they can smell their breath, and that breath is a trigger. As soon as that happens, we're like, stop it. You're being irrational. This person isn't trying to hurt you. You're being dramatic, you're crazy. We question everything.
And that is gaslighting that comes from an internal voice. In both of those cases we have to be willing to challenge the voice. So we have to say things like, if somebody is gaslighting us, we have to say things like, Just because you didn't mean to, cause it doesn't mean that it, the feelings didn't happen. Yeah. We have to be willing to say things like, actually I'm speaking about my experience and my feelings, which you don't get to refute. You can't. Right. Right.
And then when that internal voice comes up, we have to be willing to explore the why. Why am I telling myself I'm irrational when I can feel my hands shaking? Who am I protecting? A lot of times we protect people we care about from our narrative. We say things like, you know, I can't hold you responsible. It was somebody else who raped me. Well, it was, but this is the person who's there. I actually I've been talking for a long time.
Keep going. I No, please. No one's stopping you doing great on me. No one's stopping you, I promise. Yeah,
You're doing amazing. I mean, you're bringing up very valid points because as, uh, someone has personally been sexually abused multiple times to some of my best friends that I've had that have told me it you're right. We're always saying, well, if I didn't do this Yep, that, then that wouldn't have happened. Or had I been more aware of this person beforehand, then that wouldn't have happened. And it's always putting the blame on ourselves.
And so I love what you're saying and then the point that you're bringing up, because I think that everyone needs to hear it. And I don't give a shit how old you are. This is such an important message that it is, it's not, I'm not gonna go as far as it's responsibility to understand it, but. To feel it and to feel that those feelings are okay when you do get a trigger. Yeah. And to be able to communicate that.
I mean, that's one thing that I love about my partner is we've been through experiences before. Even if it was something I wanted and I'm like, yeah, please handcuff me, tie me up, let's do this. And then he does, and I'm like, yep. Oh my God. And just like all of a sudden, like the ceiling's collapsing, the walls are crumbling down and you're not understanding why you feel this way.
Yeah. And so one thing as a person that has experienced trauma and then still putting myself out there, like I can communicate that with him and he is okay, immediately going into like aftercare mode okay you're not doing okay, let's, what can we do to fix it? And I think it's really important to be able to communicate that.
So if you're a listener and you've gone through this and I'm gonna say this on my end, and then I want Casey to say it on your end, but I, oh, I definitely wanna give a perspective on that too. I think it's so important to share that, even as scary as and intimidating as it can be. I think it gave him insight into who I am and why. I can't explain why something might come up, but if it does, I'm gonna tell you.
So case I'm asking this to you, how did you feel being on the receiving end of me, almost like being triggered?
Uh, do you want first experience
or one since then? Yeah, no, honestly, first experience because that happened so long ago and before we started really getting into this like sexual comfort with one another. So yeah I would be really
curious. The first time that it ever happened was a, was definitely a, uh, an anxiety inducing experience because it's really difficult to not feel some sort of responsibility for it. Especially cuz I remember the distinct instance you're talking about. Is that you, we had been like playing around, fooling around. I think you had asked we I bound carrie's wrists, like grabbed her wrists and bound them together with my hands. And that immediately was a triggering response.
Okay. Yeah. So in going through that, I remember being like very, uh, high anxiety cuz I was like, I don't wanna cause you harm, I don't wanna do something to you. So that first experience was very stressful. But the realization came later that. It's was nothing that I did. It was noth uh, I take that back. It was nothing that was of my own causing. It was an internal experience of your own and realizing that I, it was, I was not to blame for that was important to me.
And then also realizing that there's a lot of things out there that can trigger a person. Uh, that was a big one for me. I had up to that point, had not realized, and this is something actually, Leona that you said earlier as you talked about, like the way things smell, the way things feel, all of that is that at the time I had not taken into account all of the variables that can go into a person feeling triggered, engaging all of those senses. And so being like, oh, wait a minute.
It might be the temperature in a room that can actually trigger somebody. It could be the way the lighting in a room. It can be the way things smell, the way things feel. So much of it goes into it and. I had that realization that I just needed to be the partner that was there to support. Whenever something triggering like that happens, it goes into I. Take care after care mode yeah. All right.
We're, so say that we're doing something like shibari, we're ty I'm tying you up or something, and you go into it and you call out blue light or something like that. Yeah. And I'm able to, so for listeners that don't know that we use the light system. We have our green light, yellow light, red light, and then we also use our blue light whenever an emotional trigger occurs. That's a point where I'm like, switch into like parenting mode almost. We're gonna go into aftercare.
I'm going to swaddle you. I'm going to, yeah. Do anything I need to make sure that you are feeling comfortable and that we can start to bring. Your heart rate down that we can start to deescalate the situation. Yeah. So, no,
And I love that you say that. So I kind of brought up like my side and then I, we heard Casey's side. So from your perspective what would you suggest to a couple or an individual that is ready to engage but then does get triggered in the moment? What is the best way to handle that?
Yeah. Would it be okay really quick if I just spoke to why those triggers happen? Yes, please. Sure. Okay. So this I don't know if anybody out there is like really invested in neuro structure or anything like
that. I am, he's massively into neuro
structure. Okay. Well, I'm gonna aggressively over oversimplify two structures in the brain to help, uh, create just some understanding about why triggers happen. So you have your amygdala and you have your hippocampus. The amygdala is largely responsible for processing fear and evaluating experiences as they relate to fear. Hippocampus is largely responsible for learning and, uh, containing memory.
So when you have an experience go through the amygdala, if the amygdala flags it as a fear-inducing experience especially a traumatic experience, that thing gets a big fat red flag on it before it goes to the hippocampus. And things in the hippocampus that are red flagged are stored at the top. And the problem is that when something gets triggered, it's not that the exact experience that's in that memory is replicated, it's that there's a small similarity.
Is it okay if I speak towards one of my triggers? Yeah, sure. Please, if you're comfortable, please. Absolutely. This is an example I give a lot in kink as well as in survivor workshops. I enjoy being tied up and there was this one time where I asked to be handcuffed. I was on my knees on a couch and my face got buried in the couch and my weak ass did not have the abs to lift my head up off that couch. Well, when I was sexually assaulted, my mouth was covered. That's all it took.
Yeah. Red flag memory, mouth covered, totally different experiences, but I was triggered. And as a result of that trigger, I had a full-blown panic attack with a partner who hadn't even been given the information that I was raped before. So when you asked me the question, I. How do we deal with triggers? It starts with talking about the fact that they might happen.
Yes. It starts with creating awareness because if you have no idea that a trigger could happen, even if it's it's not like I could say Don't cover my mouth, don't breathe on me, don't smoke cigars, don't like, I can't list all of the things that would trigger me. Sure. But I can sure as shit tell you that there is a possibility that sex will trigger me. Yeah. Not a likelihood. Not a probability, but a possibility. Yeah. And then I have a lot of different dialogue formats.
I love that you use the light system, so fantastic. I use a system called trauma trees. And I, this is a brain trust, right? Came right off the dome. My clients love it. So basically you have a whole entire tree that represents an experience. The roots are the original trauma that happened. The trunk is all of the formative experiences that you have that reinforce the fact that trauma was okay. So if you're talking about child abuse, things like spare the rod, spoil the child, yeah.
Children are to be seen and not hurt, those kinds of things. The branches on that tree are other individual experiences that might exacerbate the original trauma. And then you've got the leaves on the branches. Those are the things that your partner might interact with. They might rip off a leaf. So for me, one of my leaves was that my mouth was covered. Now my partner didn't plant that entire tree. But they sure as shit ripped off one of those leaves.
And as a result, I was triggered, my partner can then take responsibility for the leaf without having to take responsibility for the entire tree. I think that's what can be so divisive in a sexual relationship, is that if you trigger your partner, you then see yourself as a perpetrator and your partner now sees you as a threat. But if we can take away that experience by identifying the trigger identifying the original trauma and then separating the experiences accordingly.
Then you're dealing with one minor component rather than the entire red flagged memory. Does that make sense? Oh yeah,
it does. Ab absolutely. This is something like, this is something we've talked about a lot in the past, uh, because we can sit back and discuss how a lot of these triggers they don't come from the conscious mind. They don't come from something you're thinking about. These are automatic responses. These are from your autonomic nervous system. These are things that.
I think one of the biggest things, I love the fact that you bring up like neuro mechanisms within the brain because whenever we start to look at, uh, even just proximity with nerve centers and we start to look at how things are activated through your various senses and how that can activate something like your limbic system, your emotional responses, how. That can affect your conscious mind.
And you don't mean for it to be like, you're not sitting back and saying oh, here's my partner and my partner did this, and therefore I'm feeling like this. It's no my brain without my permission. No, we don't want these triggers to happen brain without my permission. Yeah. Said, you are feeling stressed right now.
And it activates these various areas and we see this like things, you have books like uh, the Body Keeps a Score or you have books like, uh, one of my, one of my favorite ones that I went through more recently was was adult. Adult Children of emotional, I mature parents. Yes. Where they discuss these various mechanisms and how they occur. Yes. And so just the fact that you even bring that up allows us to, to have a deeper look and having the conversation with your partner early on.
I don't know how early I would love to get your perspective as a professional on how early, uh, a partnership should discuss sexual past sexual traumas within their lives. But to me, sex is so important in a relationship that. It should be an earlier conversation.
Oh, for sure. There's a, there's actually a book called Tongue Tied. I wish I could think of the author's name, but if you search for it, there are two books called Tongue Tied. One describes that little stringy thing underneath your tongue. The other one talks about talking about sex and relationships. The one that's about sex actually suggests. That this should be one of the first conversations that happens in a relationship.
And it doesn't always have to revolve around trauma, but if you can establish early in a relationship that we will be talking about sex, it's so much less scary to bring up sex later. Whether that's the feedback, discomfort, safety, whatever it is. So I personally, I mean, I haven't dated in 20 years, but personally I think that we should be able to have these conversations very early.
Yeah. When it comes to sexual trauma, I think letting somebody new know that you have trauma, even if you're not giving details Yeah. That you have trauma that may become relevant to your i your inner workings of your relationship with them. I think is really helpful. Yes. It establishes an alliance instead of isn't it so much easier to go to a conflict with arm in arm with somebody who you trust instead of seeing them on the other end of that battlefield? Yeah. It's just
better fucking loosely. That's why we always tell people that if you're gonna argue to grow, not to drive a wedge, hell yeah. Don't argue to be right. Argue to grow together, right? Yeah.
Right. Cause except when you're right like me all the time. Cause I'm literally right all the time. I mean, having a vagina gives you that, right? Oh, I get
two more points to the argument every single time. Cuz my amazing vagina
absolutely reasonable. I'm, uh,
marrying well, I agree with you. It's amazing.
I'm marrying a woman, so we don't necessarily have that right, but it's fine. We
So y'all are even.
Yeah. Yeah. All
those vulva points.
Ah, yes. I want that. I want it. If, uh, if anybody's listening who can come up with the vulvar equivalent to balls to the wall please let them know. I got you.
I was about say, I mean, he's great with words. You probably, you just
pieced an interest. I write and I'm a songwriter and I do all that kinda stuff. Love it. I got you. Gimme a few minutes. I'll come up with something.
So we do have to end fairly soon, but I just have
one more question. We do not have to end fairly soon because we have, I have an interesting question too. No, both mine's better.
Go
ahead. Nice. Both points. Both
points goes first. So I have an experience and I had permission to ask, but I definitely wanted to save this for this interview. Yeah. I had an experience with a client that said, after listening to your show, I never knew. That I was not having consensual sex with my own partner, with my husband over years. She goes, I did not understand that consent was a thing and that I was allowed to revoke that consent even as a wife.
So through that she experienced a lot of trauma acts that were not given consent and then happened over years. Yes. So one of the reasons, one of the things that she asked that really stuck out with me is there was an act that happened forced on her that now after she got out of the environment, she's really intrigued by and she now wants that act to happen. So it's kind of a two-part is that common for you to receive a sexual act that you weren't expecting? Not that you.
Sexual act without consent. You liked it. That is not what I mean. Understand what I'm saying? You had something, you didn't give consent. Now you want to give consent to that. Is it common to experience something in that way? Yes. And then after you answer that, what would be the best way for her to then go about proceeding?
Yeah. I'm so glad that you asked that question. I appreciate you trying to rephrase it so that sex wasn't a part of it, because like I said, that's the uncoupling. Yes. Yes. Uh, it's incredibly common for survivors of any kind of abuse to have that experience and have it be such an integral part of how they see the world now. And then the brain. Wants to turn that into a fantasy instead of a horror film. So it's a form of reclamation in and of itself.
I can tell you that some of the shit that was done to me when I was younger was, could have been defined as kinky or uh, deviant. And I didn't want any of it. It wasn't consensual, whether I orgasmed, whether it felt good at the time. Whether I made it look like it felt good, it didn't, and I didn't like it. Well, now I'm a kinky motherfucker and I'm not sorry about it at all. Own that shit. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm very proud of my kinky self.
I own it and I use it as a vehicle for clients to understand that. What you're doing is you are reclaiming something that always belonged to you. Somebody just scratched their name on it in Sharpie and you're wiping that sharpie off and you're saying, Nope, this is mine and I love it and I'm gonna support it and explore it. Yeah. Now, of course as you explore it, those triggers now become more likely. Right, right. Because you're doing the thing that was done to you.
So we have to be more explicit. If you were to go to a dungeon for example, and asked to be tied up and whipped and called dirty names or whatever you're gonna wanna disclose to them. I was tied up and whipped and called Jody and it was awful. So if I get triggered, I need you to have, here's my four step plan. For what you are going to do as a result of my trigger. Okay. That's called co-regulation.
When you are going into a scenario with somebody and they know prior to that scenario occurring that they have a four step plan to follow, that's gonna make you feel safe again. You're walking onto that battlefield arm in arm with somebody instead of meeting them across the field from you. Exactly. So I, I hope that to some degree answers the question, but I think that trauma-informed kink especially, is so common and so, so beautifully helpful to survivors.
Because you can control the circumstances. You can say, I want you to tie me up instead of being tied up. Yeah. You can say, I want you to hit me this hard instead of, you're gonna hit me and it's gonna feel the way it feels. You have control, you have power, and you see yourself as a dominant, whether you're sub or dom in that particular narrative. You are dominant. You are powerful in ways that you didn't get to be in those moments.
Sometimes it's, I wanna relive that scenario as though I were in control. Okay.
I love that. Bam.
All right. What was your question? That was better than mine. You
give me chills with that response. I love it. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Mean we've talked about this so many times in the past and we've had, especially, we had our, one of our shibari experts on a couple weeks ago who was talking about his clients coming in and he was like, I demand, have an aftercare. Like discussion. Yeah. And what that looks like. So if they become triggered, I know that this person likes to, wants to be wrapped up like a burrito with a blanket.
Yeah. And this person wants to have their hair stroked and this person needs candy or what, whatever it is. Whatever. But I love that having that four step plan. Yeah. And that transcends just specific acts. That should be into any relationship that is sexual. If you are have had anything, you should have that discussion. This is what it looks like to have aftercare, even if it's as simple as I like to be cuddled after sex. Yep. That's still a form of aftercare and it's important.
It too many people neglect it Yeah. To be like, I'm gonna get mine and then I'm gonna roll over and go to sleep. Yeah. As opposed to engaging in these careful acts. Exactly. Thumbs up. So to, to finish this up, my, my question was going to be centered around something you had said to us about that you like to do, and this is about designing your ideal sex life. Uh, would you mind just giving us a few minutes of.
Kind of talking about what that is and how someone can go about beginning to do it, and if they need a resource, maybe directing 'em towards some of your stuff.
Yeah. So to start off with I think I maybe you naula maybe y'all have talked about this on the channel before the six Principles of Sexual Health with Doug Braun Harvey.
I know them well. We have not talked about them on the show, but I know them well through thanks to the Sexual Health Alliance.
Hell yeah. I've done two podcasts on the six principles of sexual health with two separate creators. And essentially for your client who didn't know anything about the abuse that they were dealing with it's probably because from the way that person was educated, Uh, yes. Meant yes and no, sometimes meant yes too. Yeah. The Six Principles of Sexual Health is a beautiful resource for understanding what healthy sex is when you go beyond what yes means.
And I think that it's also important to recognize that no does not mean fuck you. I hate everything about you. Yeah. It just means no, I don't want, uh, I don't want sex. In my work with clients, I call that an alternative. Yes. So first, empower yourself to be able to say no. Don't get drunk with power on it. Sometimes it can be really fun to just say no. When you're a child or whatever. But empower yourself to say no, but then recognize the ability to give an alternative.
Yes. No, I don't wanna fuck right now, but can we cuddle? Yeah. No, I don't want to be tied up right now, but we could watch some porn where somebody else is getting tied up. Like there are a lot of different ways to connect, cuz most of the time when somebody approaches you for sex, they're not saying, can I put this thing in you for a while and leave it there? Like they're saying I wanna connect. And there's a lot of other ways to connect than just sex.
So that's step one is the six principles of sexual health. But when we're talking about reclaiming individual sexuality, it starts with saying, my body is mine. And fuck everyone else. If they don't agree with me, my body is mine. Yep. And taking ownership of that means you get to say who does what? You get to say where they put it or don't put it, or what they touch and how they touch it. You are empowered to do that, which then means you can investigate what that looks like.
An ideal sexual story includes a sexual self or sex with self. How do you touch you? How do you pleasure you? And I'm not just talking about how do you pleasure your genitals, what feels good on your whole body, because if you know that you can teach your client that. For survivors specifically, there are a couple of resources. Casey I will. Send you probably my favorite one. There are a couple resources that walk you through sensory triggers. All the five senses.
What has the potential to be triggered within that sense? Because you were talking about, didn't even think about s smell possibly being a trigger. Yeah. There are a lot of things that can trigger, trigger olfactory senses. Same with like words you might hear or tastes you might have. So walking through that chart and being able to say, well, I don't want this in my sex life. I don't want this smell. Don't drink beer before you kiss me.
Those are the kinds of things that can empower you to be in the driver's seat, but also empower your partner to know before they go in. So it's not a complete shock. Work a lot with clients on something called body mapping. I, it's. Famously pictured in 50 Shades of Gray with a, with some lipstick where he draws on his body where it is okay to touch. Red lipstick represents a boundary line for him, it was on his chest.
If you can highlight for your partner in a fun and creative way don't touch me here. Yeah. Yeah. If saying I'm drawing you a roadmap and everything except this destination is fair game, but if you're going to that destination, it's because I'm driving. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, limits and safe words. Of course. Absolutely.
I think we should be raised with safe words, not for kink play at six years old, but because if your sibling won't stop punching you in the face and you have a safe word, then maybe they'll stop punching you. Yeah.
Maybe if you can teach them to like, recognize this word, like they'll be like, oh shit, that's the, I did the thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's the big button. Oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah.
So I think safe words are vital to any sexual relationship, in my opinion, but most absolutely. Especially those in the BDSM and K realm, especially those in the survivor realm. So I guess those would be my quick tips for designing your ideal sex life. I hope that was helpful.
Yeah, very helpful. Especially like all the talk that we had about like masturbation may and learning yourself and Yeah. And everything else we've gone through in the more recent times, so we appreciate that. Well, this has been a great interview. I don't want it to end, but we have to. Yeah, I really don't, I'm
like, there's some more questions that I have, but this has honestly been
really maybe we can eventually call this like a part one.
Yeah no. Yeah, I would love that. I was thinking the same thing
I have, so I can't believe how fast the time has gone. This is bullshit.
Great. So we will call it like that. So, uh, Leona if people wanted to get in touch with you, like clearly, uh, you're a very intelligent person. You clearly help a lot of people and you're gonna have some people listening to this going, well, I want to, I wanna work with you. What would be the, uh, initial point of contact for them in terms of maybe social media, email,
anything? Yeah I, so I'm the owner of Break the Mold Therapy in Fort Collins, Colorado. I'm actually all over Colorado cuz I'm Telehealth. You can find me on my website there. You can email me at layana at break the mold therapy.com. I'm absolutely shit on social media, so you won't find me anywhere on there. But I also do a, it's trying to be a monthly uh, workshop series called The Effing Truth. Lovely. And my next, uh, my next workshop is actually on sexuality after abuse.
So that's gonna be on July 12th. It's virtual and in person. If you happen to live in Colorado or when you travel to Colorado, hey, it's a great, we really need to go to Colorado's great legal. There's lots of pretty mountains. The sun will burn you. But other than that, it's great here. But yeah, uh, the Effing Truth is a series that I've been working on a lot this year. This one is the one that's the closest to my heart. I've cried several times while making this.
That was probably more information than you needed. No, it's all relevant. And then if, yeah, if any, anybody listening has any questions or any needs for a sex therapist please email me or reach out to me through my website and we can get in touch and connect whether you can be my client or not. Yeah,
absolutely. There it is. Find out if it's a good fit. Yeah. Well, in that case for another episode, I've come with Casey. This has been a fucking blast. I was like we've covered some intense topics. Yeah. And so we just encourage anybody that has listened to this episode that has been like, Ooh, I'm feeling like those emotions come up. Yeah. To reach out to us. To make it known. To tell us who you are to seek. Let help. Let us guide you in some way, shape, or form.
Yeah. Even if it's just through a conversation. So again, I'm Dr. Casey Sanders. And I'm Carrie Sanders. I'll see y'all next time on coming with Casey.
Thank you.