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In this episode, the abuse reaches its most relentless form. Access expands. Protection thins. Fear no longer comes in spikes — it becomes constant.

This is the season when summer stopped being a break and became exposure. When responsibility became a trap. When survival stopped feeling temporary and started feeling permanent.

And this is where something inside me changed.

At the height of it, my mind and body chose dissociation. Not as a strategy I selected, but as a survival response I didn’t yet understand. I learned how to leave without leaving. How to disappear and still function. How to endure what felt unendurable.

I also share a present-day truth: his death, my indifference, and the complicated grief I carry for the children we were raised alongside.

This episode explores the severity of prolonged abuse, the cost of surviving it, and the powerful intelligence of a body determined to stay alive.

Content warning: This episode discusses escalating abuse and dissociation as a trauma response.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl.

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Send us a text

In this episode, I continue the childhood timeline and move into the middle years — a period where what had already begun didn’t stop, but quietly adapted.

As my body changed and my awareness grew, the harm reshaped itself around me. Boundaries were crossed more frequently, silence became a survival strategy, and daily life continued on the surface while something very different was happening underneath.

This episode explores how endurance takes root, how roles inside a family system solidify, and how survival can look different for siblings living in the same house.

This is not the beginning of the story — and it isn’t the end.

It’s the long middle, where surviving became a way of life.

Content note: This episode discusses childhood trauma and boundary violations. Listener discretion is advised.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl.

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Send a text

In this episode, I return to my childhood timeline during a period when grooming intensified and survival became something my body learned before my mind could name it.

I share how gradual boundary shifts, confusion, and manipulation trained compliance and silence — and how dissociation allowed me to live two lives at once: one that looked normal, and one that existed in fear.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes more detailed discussion of childhood sexual abuse, grooming, and trauma responses, including the emotional and physical impact of those experiences. While explicit graphic details are avoided, listener discretion is advised.

This is not a story told for shock.

It’s told to explain how grooming works, how survival strategies form, and why so many survivors struggle to identify harm until much later.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl.

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Send a text

Before returning to the childhood timeline, this episode slows down to explain what was happening inside me while the abuse was unfolding — how my body and brain adapted to survive experiences I couldn’t control.

We explore survival responses like freezing, people-pleasing, hypervigilance, hyper-independence, and the impact these patterns had on my adult relationships, work, and ability to ask for help.

This episode isn’t about what’s wrong with survivors.

It’s about understanding how we adapted to stay alive.

If you see yourself in these patterns, you’re not broken — you were surviving.

Next episode, we return to the childhood timeline with new understanding.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl.

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Send us a text

Content Warning: This episode discusses child sexual abuse and its long-term impacts. Please take care while listening.

In Episode 2 of Dissociated, Sheryl takes listeners back to the beginning — before she had language for what was happening, before silence became survival.

This episode explores the world of her early childhood: the man who entered her family with a heroic story that made him easy to trust, the home that looked ordinary from the outside, and the subtle moments where something began to feel wrong. Through detailed storytelling, Sheryl shares how abuse doesn’t always arrive loudly or suddenly — it often unfolds quietly, hidden inside routines, laughter, and moments that are easy to dismiss.

As fear slowly moved into her body, Sheryl learned to adapt in ways she didn’t yet understand: freezing, staying quiet, mapping danger, and trying to disappear. This episode is not about graphic details — it’s about clarity. About showing how grooming works, how a child’s body knows before the mind can explain, and why silence is so often misunderstood.

Episode 2 lays the foundation for understanding what comes next — not just what happened, but how it shaped everything that followed.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl.

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Send a text

Content Warning: This episode discusses child sexual abuse and its long-term impacts. Please take care while listening.

Silence was survival — until the day it wasn’t.
In this emotional and deeply honest opening episode, Sheryl shares the moment her decades of silence finally shattered. A single phone call from her sister pulled the truth to the surface, revealing that the abuse Sheryl endured as a child had now reached the next generation. Speaking out for the very first time became the beginning of justice: her abuser was later convicted on 32 counts of sexual abuse against Sheryl, her sister, and her niece, and is now serving a life sentence.

Through vulnerable storytelling, flashes of humor, and the kind of honesty that only comes from lived experience, Sheryl explores what silence looked like at different stages of her life — the freezing, the obedience, the perfectionism — and how breaking that silence began the slow, painful, and ultimately liberating process of healing.

This episode sets the foundation for the journey ahead: understanding trauma, rebuilding identity, reclaiming joy, and reminding other survivors that they’re not alone, and never were.

CREDITS: Created, hosted, and produced by Sheryl.

Website: dissociatedpod.com

RESOURCES

Immediate Support

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-4673 Website: https://www.rainn.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Website: https://www.crisistextline.org
• Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 Website: https://988lifeline.org

Therapy & Trauma Support

• Psychology Today Therapist Finder: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapist
• Therapy Den — Inclusive Therapist Directory: https://www.therapyden.com
• EMDR International Association: https://www.emdria.org
• Trauma-Focused CBT: https://tfcbt.org

Organizations & Survivor Communities

• RAINN: https://www.rainn.org
• 1in6 (for male-identifying survivors): https://1in6.org
• Pandora’s Project: https://pandys.org
• End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI): https://evawintl.org

Send us a text

There was a time when silence was survival. But silence doesn’t last forever.

Dissociated — Breaking Silence. Building Joy. is the story of truth, resilience, and the beauty that comes after breaking free.

Host Sheryl Brown shares her journey of surviving childhood sexual abuse, finding her voice decades later, and learning that joy can still exist through healing.

These are conversations about courage, honesty, and hope — reminders that even through the cracks, the light always finds a way in.