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On the outside, everything looked fine.

I was working, going to school, building relationships, and following the path I thought I was supposed to take. I was doing what was expected of me… and doing it well.

But internally, I was disconnected.

In this episode, I share what it looked like to move through the beginning of adulthood while dissociated—functioning, achieving, and showing up, but not fully present in my own life.

I talk about the quiet impact of trauma, how it shaped my relationships, and the ways I learned to mimic emotions I didn’t fully feel. From feeling like an imposter to struggling to connect, this is an honest look at what survival can look like when it follows you into adulthood.

Because sometimes, you don’t fall apart.

Sometimes… you just aren’t fully there.

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 Fan Mail

Why didn’t you leave?

Why didn’t you tell someone?

Why did you keep the peace?

These are the questions survivors hear every day.

But they assume something that isn’t true — that leaving is simple, and that telling the truth doesn’t come at a cost.

In this episode, I’m unpacking the reality behind those questions.

Because when abuse happens inside a family, the choice is rarely just about staying or leaving. It’s about what you risk losing when you tell the truth.

For me, silence wasn’t just about fear.

It was about love.

It was about loyalty.

It was about not wanting to lose my mother, my siblings, my nieces and nephews — the family I had spent a lifetime showing up for.

And it was also shaped by what I witnessed when my sister tried to tell the truth at sixteen… and was labeled a liar.

In this episode, I share:

• Why survivors often keep the peace
• The real reason “just leaving” isn’t that simple
• How trauma, attachment, and family systems keep people silent
• The impact of watching another survivor be punished for telling the truth
• What trauma bonding and dissociation can look like in real life
• The signs many survivors carry into adulthood without realizing it
• And the devastating reality of what can happen when the truth finally comes out

This is not just my story.

It’s a deeper look at why silence exists in so many families — and what it can cost to break it.

If you’ve ever judged yourself for staying…

or struggled to understand why someone didn’t leave…

this episode is for you.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of childhood sexual abuse and boundary violations. There are no graphic details, but 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 us Fan Mail

In this episode, I revisit the season after dissociation became my survival strategy and share a layer I hadn’t spoken about before — the moment I stopped only enduring and started pleading.

I talk about trying to protect my siblings, parsing language for safety, and the quiet shift that happened when I realized fear didn’t belong to me alone. I share what it looked like to leave home without truly escaping, how self-sufficiency became my shield, and how trauma quietly shaped my understanding of love, safety, and authority in early adulthood.

This episode explores boundary setting after childhood sexual abuse, the cost of silence in marriage, and the complicated space between survival and autonomy. It’s about holding a line for the first time — not perfectly, not loudly — but clearly.

And it’s about the awareness that follows.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of childhood sexual abuse and boundary violations. There are no graphic details, but 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 us Fan Mail

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 Fan Mail

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 us Fan Mail

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 us Fan Mail

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 Fan Mail

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