21 - When Normal Feelings Make You Sick —with guest Dr. Claudia Luiz

Anne and Alison talk with Dr. Claudia Luiz,  a New York-based psychoanalyst about the nature of mental illness, emotion dysregulation, trauma, and how normal feelings can make us sick. Claudia makes complex mental health topics accessible and conversational. This conversation is not to be missed. You will feel less alone in your crazy world after hearing Claudia's vulnerabilities and wisdom. 

Dr. Claudia Luiz

Dr. Claudia Luiz, a clinical psychoanalyst, is the first-place winner of the 2006 Phyllis Meadow Award for Excellence in Psychoanalytic Writing; a 2008 Writer’s Digest Award; and is an NAAP 2019 Gradiva Award nominee.  Her book, “The Making of a Psychoanalyst” (Routledge, 2019) was reviewed in the Journal of Modern Psychoanalysis as “arguably the best lay book written on modern psychoanalysis,” and at New Books in Psychoanalysis as “poised to create a seismic shift in consciousness.”  Dr. Luiz practices in New York, and teaches at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and the Academy for Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis.

00:00 Intro by Anne and Alison
27:00 Interview with Claudia Luiz

Claudia's Website.
Claudia's Instagram.
Audio engineering by Josh Collins.
Theme music is "One Cloud is Lonely" by Proxima Parada.

Show Notes:

• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler book
• The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease by Marc Lewis, PhD, book
• Our episode with Tamara - Ep8
• Tamara Hanna Grief Recovery
• Hidden Valley Road book - family with 12 kids, 6 had schizophrenia
• Our episode 18 with Julyan about priest abuse
• Procession on Netflix
• Flu during pregnancy and schizophrenia
• The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog by Bruce Perry, book
• What Happened to You? by Oprah and Bruce Perry, book

Interview:

• Claudia Luiz
• Paul Sheftel
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
• Lobotomies
• Yellowstone, show
• Claudia's Instagram

Episode Transcript

Imperfectly made by Otter.ai

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

claudia, people, feel, trauma, book, family, brain, hate, feelings, talk, therapy, dysregulated, fucking, rage, schizophrenia, parents, hear, happened, messy, story

SPEAKERS

Dr. Claudia Luiz, Alison Cebulla, Anne Sherry

Alison Cebulla  00:05

All right. Welcome To latchkey urchins,

Anne Sherry  00:10

and friends, I'm thinking now okay, I'm Anne Sherry and a little like, all these fucking patterns you establish, and I'm like, oh,

Alison Cebulla  00:21

but last time I didn't do the pattern and you called me out.

Anne Sherry  00:25

I know well, who's that? Like somebody is wanting a pattern or we just pattern pattern people are creatures of habit we are, I think industry on how to change your habits, create good habits break old habits, like

Alison Cebulla  00:42

I think it takes less energy to just do the thing that you always do.

Anne Sherry  00:47

Yeah, it's the parts that are just, Oh, it does path of least resistance. That's got to be like, back to the times that we started to become Homo sapiens or something probably, like, the ones that survived just use a lot less energy. Right, right. Right, right. Or something. I'd aggressed friends, I'm gonna figure out how to say friends once in

Alison Cebulla  01:13

okay, you're doing great and Okay, thanks.

Anne Sherry  01:18

I don't know why everyone has to hear every fucking thought that's in my head.

Alison Cebulla  01:25

So okay, so first off, we just want to acknowledge that our episode last week last time episode 20 was like pretty heavy. Yes. So we're like still processing that. I'm like already tearing up, you know, um, I have done some writing about the loss of Kevin. I published that I'm on pieces connection where I work yesterday and that felt like, you know, vulnerability hangover. And you've been feeling some vulnerability hangover from talking about John.

Anne Sherry  02:01

I do and I'm noticing I'm already deflecting because I want to talk about how you do vulnerability hangovers. So I'm already noticing that talk about how I do it yeah, I might just feels messy i i know i am just for the listeners. This is a big chapter that's coming up in therapy and has been there just grief work period and I had put John in such a category of like, for so long that but I also preach this other thing of like oh, we must you know all parts are welcome. So if that's true for internally, like all our messy stuff, all our unpopular stuff all the stuff we don't want anybody to know about but in order to heal we really need to make space and I do think our our interview this week talks about that your your aunt Claudia talks so excellently about making space for everything. Really, yeah, she Oh my god. And I was like, I want an aunt Claudia.

Alison Cebulla  03:12

I feel super lucky. So today, our interview is with Claudia Louise. She happens to be my my aunt my my dad's brother married her sister in the in the 90s. And it's been great getting to have the chef towel family as like a bonus family. And so Claudia has been just a great teacher and mentor a feelings feelings mentor, teacher, yeah. Over the years because, ah, I was a mess. And then Claudia is like, such honesty, especially in this interview about all of her messiest phases of life. I just was like, my jaw just was like, How are you so good at just admitting how after you are that that that we all are like, How are you so good at this, but

Anne Sherry  04:00

you're good at that. That's something I've always appreciated about you.

Alison Cebulla  04:04

Maybe I got it from Claudia. You're really

Anne Sherry  04:08

I really admire you for admitting that I talk about i, i My strategy was not to be messy. I think I'm very interested in messy but just as a like, anyways, yeah. So working on it. I know I say fuck a lot. I probably look very messy. In a present day, whatever. I don't I don't care about stuff or the that's fine. I don't have opinions. I obviously I do have opinions, but just it's like, everything's fine. It's fine. You think that that's fine. So there's benefits to that, but I also it's like delving into these, what is my actual preference, or what do I actually want or what I want to reveal. And so I think last time there was a lot of revealing and I certainly this week, I've been like, Oh, lots of people knew John, lots of people I have made it look like I didn't feel that way about him. You know, when I posted his sort of obituary or I haven't spoken in that way about John.

Alison Cebulla  05:13

Okay, gotcha.

Anne Sherry  05:14

I didn't know that. Yeah. So. But I chosen a field that is all about trying to understand fucking messy people. I think that's I think a lot of therapists. I think that's kind of one of the characteristics of a therapist, they likely were heroes in their family, and they're trying to figure out what a lot of us are, like, what happened. If I can fix everybody else, maybe that will even out the playing field or something internally.

Alison Cebulla  05:42

I don't know, either. But, um, I applaud your courage to go there. And I also acknowledge that sometimes it feels like a betrayal to be honest about how complicated people are, especially if they're dead, where I'm like, well, Kevin's not here to defend himself, John's not here to defend himself. And I'm like, are we throwing them under the bus? You know? Yeah. Um, or like, it's, I mean, it's freeing when people pass away that like, oh, we could just say whatever we want. And I feel some guilt around that. I really do. I'm already I'm like, feeling my body kind of tighten up. It's like, yeah, I don't know. It's important to be to, to be respectful. But I also find that I have such a big commitment to the truth.

Anne Sherry  06:30

Yeah, well, and that's what I keep going back to what Tamra said in our grief episode. Like you have to be able to tell the truth. And I think that's right. Sharpie often is like, and what is the truth of each of our parts too, so I don't even know if there is one truth. Right, this is what feels true at this time. So 15 years ago, the truth would have been different. So I'm reading Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. And she's the main character of that it's an total apocalyptic, awful, awful, awful shit going on. But her she's creating this, really, I guess it's a religion, but called God seed. But God has changed. She's like, that's it. God is change. Interesting. Cool. So it changes.

Alison Cebulla  07:22

I want to plug the book here, if anyone wants to check it out. If you are someone who struggled with addiction issues of any kind, this book is called the biology of desire, why addiction is not a disease. And I don't actually care whether addiction is a disease or not, I understand that, that languaging helps some people and doesn't help others. But this book, I listened to it. In the fall of 2016, I'm seeing that it came out in 2016. So that's really lucky that I found it. He his whole main point of the book is that you have to tell your life story. You have to tell it, you have to get in there and tell the whole life story if you want to heal. And that was so huge for me. And it was very, very, very healing. So highly, highly, highly, highly recommend, yes, book, the biology of desire.

Anne Sherry  08:12

And that that does plug in I know a second Tamra plug that recovered the grief recovery process is about writing the story, the whole straight, you know, like you go through the series of steps of what you want to grieve a living relationship, a dead relationship.

Alison Cebulla  08:25

I want to do everything with Tamra. She's running right now. Yes, I'll do the next one. I'll do the next one.

Anne Sherry  08:33

But we're, we're gonna put Tamra stuff in the show notes. You'll need to keep an eye on this grief recovery process because I don't know. I feel like some of the feedback you got we were sort of opening up. People were saying you're You are I feel seen I feel I resonate with that I know somebody that's my experience about about Kevin you mean or Kevin or mental their own mental illness or so yeah. Family like I've had people contact me privately. Can you help me help my sister? who's struggling, you know, so? Anyways,

Alison Cebulla  09:11

yeah, the need is there to help just to kind of Yeah, come back to like our last episode 20 and John and John and Kevin's of the world, I have been getting messages. Yes. I got a message from someone I don't know. Who was like, This is my story. And I'm getting the therapy and I'm trying and it was kind of broke my heart a little bit because I know how hard it is. And but then other people like oh, I have a loved one. I'm trying to get them checked in somewhere. It's there's not a lot of options. People saying thank God we have health insurance, that sort of thing. It's like yeah, yeah. And my heart goes out to all of you. Whether you're you're experiencing it firsthand, or you're watching a loved one. These are this is just this is hard shit, man. Yeah.

Anne Sherry  09:53

Are you developed a Persona and Persona of nothing's wrong? I'm perfect. That was a trauma. response. I know and we're gonna have, we're going to interview somebody that's going to really delve into that. perfection and parental FIDE state that lots of kids looking forward to that. Yeah, to me, too.

Alison Cebulla  10:10

I'm so Okay. Last episode, I mentioned the book Hidden Valley Road, which is about that family. So with so many kids with schizophrenia, so the thing was, I had finished like three fourths of that book, but I just hadn't gotten to the end, because there was so much sexual abuse in the book that I like, had to stop and put it down. It was so intense. Um, but I was like, You know what, let me finish that. So I finished it yesterday. And there was a surprise, surprise ending that I'm just going to give away. Like, I guess, if you don't want to hear it, just fast forward, you know, 30 seconds or so. But they make a big deal on the beginning about the family being Catholic. So guess what the surprise ending is? Any guesses? Like, they

Anne Sherry  10:55

just need to go back to church or something? Oh,

Alison Cebulla  10:58

girl for religious and that's where you go, I love them for you.

Anne Sherry  11:02

Oh, they were all sexually abused

Alison Cebulla  11:04

by a priest. They're like he said, the author, the author does a good job of just kind of built showing the story, he unfolds it as the characters learn, which is really lovely. So you have so there's 12 Kids, he sets it on, like, here's the parents, the dad is a veteran here, dada, they moved to Colorado, he works in the military or whatever. And they have 12 kids, six of them get schizophrenia. And six of the boys, the girl, there's two girls, they don't get they don't get schizophrenia. And then there's four boys don't get it. But you see that one of the brothers is molesting the sisters. So you kind of see that. And, and he's trying to say, well, we just don't quite understand what happened to these boys. Like we don't understand what the trauma was or whatever. And then at the end, they bring back this priest character that they had introduced with beginning and he was he was molesting all of them. And and we so you know, definitely check out our episode 18 with Julian because he talk we talk about him. Yeah, yeah. Um, but it's so pervasive. Can you?

Anne Sherry  12:21

Wait a minute, there's also a movie out that has that a men's group. I think it's on Netflix. I listened to the moth podcast, and he this the guy who made this movie is up for an Academy Award, I think for a short film, but it is these, this group of men that were all abused by a priest as boys that they are, it's kind of flushing out their story. They're telling their story, they're working together. So I going to find that, or we'll post in the show notes or

Alison Cebulla  12:55

hosted the show notes. Yeah, yeah. But it's,

Anne Sherry  12:58

it's about that.

Alison Cebulla  13:00

So yeah, um, that's great. Um, so the book goes on to say that they were able to find the genetic piece of of it, there was a gene that, that this, you know, that this family had, that other families didn't have, or whatever. But you know, it takes that environmental component as well. But it was interesting to hear. And I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand schizophrenia, because he goes into the whole whole thing, and of the history of the research of the disease. And so one thing he found was that if moms take this is research that came out pretty recently, if moms take a whole bunch of choline supplements, it's like a caucus colon. Yeah, let me look it up. Hold

Anne Sherry  13:49

on. Okay. That documentary is called procession. Thank you. You're welcome.

Alison Cebulla  13:55

So choline is a nutrient says similar to B vitamins. It can be made in the liver. It's found in foods such as meats, nuts, beans, vegetables and eggs. So it's a it's a micro nutrient. And that they that it can prevent, they weren't able to compare it with schizophrenia, per se, but they're able to do some sort of test that could predict for schizophrenia. So moms that took choline, like the kids were able to do better on this test, you know, or something. Yeah, super fascinating. It's like one nutrient could could really set off this thing in the brain. I know. I know.

Anne Sherry  14:34

I mean, that's like, folic acid, right or something. But exactly. Yay, science. Yay, research. Science is good. Science. Research is your friend.

Alison Cebulla  14:47

Um, yeah. And then and like when I was in high school, taking AP Psych. I still remember them, telling us that there was a correlation between moms who got the flu in the second trimester and schizophrenia. So that what the book was saying pretty much confirmed that is that stress, the stress happens in the womb? Yeah. And then it's a lot. It's a whole lifetime of events unfolding, that leads to mixed up brain that doesn't work, right. And they put bipolar and schizophrenia on the same spectrum. People are on a spectrum with those things, and they're related to each other.

Anne Sherry  15:30

Yeah. What do we do about that? I mean, I think some of this, you know, some of the, it's been like, oh, like I had said, we had sort of have these ways that we throw people away, or we don't understand it, or we're so mad at it, or things where we don't understand we're mad, and we're just like, it's too messy. don't deal with it. But if we things can get against the early stuff that early, early, early interventions before all this shit pile Exactly.

Alison Cebulla  15:59

That was before the collusion of the book was like, you have to prevent it. Yeah. Once it happens, as you can see with our discussion, man, I mean, we tried everything with Kevin, we tried. Everyone tried everything. There's so many, like, I had one of his high school friends, Mom reached out to me, and she's like, I really wish you know, I could have scooped him up, and he could have come live with me. He had love. He had so much love. Everyone wanted to help him. We just couldn't, we couldn't, there wasn't enough love to give it was like a black hole. Right. Right. Right.

Anne Sherry  16:31

Well, and again, I think you had that quote, like, you can't love somebody out of it. Right? It's actually it's interventions, it's I think you have to, I don't know, you're at some points of just having to witness this. And so how do you you This is where the grief work comes in. Right? Because if you don't do the grief work you like I am noticing, which is very complicated. Then you stay in places of disconnection and hate. Like, right, right, exactly a survival mechanism.

Alison Cebulla  17:03

That's so important. So I have been trying to get myself the actual time to grieve and just feel the sad feelings instead of going, it's okay, it's okay. Which I could tell that I might, my body wanted me to just be like, it's fine. You know, but then it's like, I started to feel like tension in my shoulders that was getting a cue and all sorts of things where I was like, I think I'm not fine.

Anne Sherry  17:27

You know what fine means right? Like, this is it when people say they're fine. It stands for fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

Alison Cebulla  17:35

Oh, that's me. That's me all the time. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So, um, one other book that I want to recommend to our listeners is Bruce Perry's book, The boy who was raised as a dog. Have you heard that one?

Anne Sherry  17:50

I have not read that. But I know the book. It was okay. When was it written?

Alison Cebulla  17:55

It was like 10 years ago. I

Anne Sherry  17:57

don't know. Okay, right. Yeah. Um, okay.

Alison Cebulla  18:00

So he co wrote the recent book with Oprah. And oh, what happened

Anne Sherry  18:05

to you? Yeah. Oh,

Alison Cebulla  18:09

um, okay. Yeah. Boy, who was raised as a dog is 2006. And this book helped me understand Kevin, more than anything I read. Because Bruce Perry is a child psychologist who works with or a psychiatrist. He might be a doctor who works with MD Yeah, no, no, I Oh, yeah. Let me see.

Anne Sherry  18:35

I just remember. Listening to the Oprah book. I was pretty

Alison Cebulla  18:40

sure. Yeah, I think he's, I think, yes, I think you're right. I think he's a psychiatrist. Okay. Okay. Um, so he works with like, the worst cases. So like the Waco cult, children, he worked with those kids. Wow. Um, the boy who was raised as a dog was actually one of the better stories in the book. It was a boy who's actually raised with dogs, like in a dog kennel.

Anne Sherry  19:07

And, yeah, like he was abused that way. Like, he

Alison Cebulla  19:12

wasn't a beauty. The story was that like his, he was being raised by a grandmother and her partner. And then the grandmother passed away and social services dropped the ball. And they didn't realize that this person raising this kid had was like, had mental deficits, like not bad. He wasn't malicious. He just was he just didn't have his whole. I don't know what the term for that is anymore. You know what I mean? He wasn't all bad. Yeah. And, um, so that guy was really good at raising dogs, but he didn't know anything about raising kids. So he was like, well, I'll just raise him like he's a dog. And he actually did a great job and the kid was fine, but they're huge. Talking about how all the ways that his brain did and didn't develop that

Anne Sherry  19:58

it ooh, I'm deaf. Okay, I'm gonna put that one on one of my ever waiting. Allison is reading 52 books a year and I and my, my number of books I'm reading keeps going down each week. 48 books this year Oh, don't be afraid to make adjustments and amendments. It's okay. Okay, so

Alison Cebulla  20:23

okay, that's this. This book helped me understand how a serial killers happen. Yeah, it's like this book really opened my eyes to that. And when people say, Wow, the two brothers were raised in the same family. So how do you explain that because this other one's not a killer. He he goes in, he explains exactly how that happens in this book, is you don't have the same mom for each kid, you know, the same family, you don't have the same circumstances. And so one thing could, um, one thing could really change a family. And so what this book helped me realize is that there's a set of essential essential nurturance things that have to happen from in the womb, until especially, let's say, especially until three, you know, wounds to two or three, the earlier the trauma, the more amped up and irreversible your brain is going to be so like, for example, for your brother, John, it could have been that your mom had a really stressful pregnancy for some reason or another with him. That didn't happen for you and your brother. And he missed some essential nurturance ingredients very, very early. So that even though you all had the same childhood, something went awry. Oh, way too early. Yeah. And same with Kevin and you know, Kevin's mom was an alcoholic. So there were some missed sessions of for him to be held and rocked and sued and CUDA and to have her look in his eyes and mirror his emotions back to him. There was a lot missing there. And that could do a lot of permanent damage. Yeah.

Anne Sherry  21:59

But I do want to plug in hope, like trauma, like Bessel Vander Kolk, there are ways that we're doing trauma therapy that are very somatic and learning how to the fight flight or freeze, we understand way more about how the nervous system works, right. And it's yeah, no magical thinking, here. This is just teaching a lot of that regulation, right? So that exactly not that you're fucked up forever, you can actually be trauma can be this, like, amazing opening into perhaps even a kinder person, a more in touch person in many ways. So there's been huge advances in the field of therapy, we know to work with the nervous system, you can't just talk your way out of things like talk therapy, sometimes might be just an expensive conversation you do have to do, there's many other things we need to do with the nervous system and body and they're just continued to figure that shit out. So that there's some amazing shit going on there. And it's not magic. It's just working with the body and the nervous system.

Alison Cebulla  23:06

Um, and that's, uh, you might have great. Okay, that's a great segue.

Anne Sherry  23:12

Great, you're gonna interview there's this research study. No, no,

Alison Cebulla  23:15

no, that's a great segue for our interview with Claudia because I think Claudia's like such an ideal therapist to have because she's gonna say, hey, let's get in there with the messiest messiest emotions. Yes, and figure out how they're running the show or whatever and see what we can do. And

Anne Sherry  23:36

one big takeaway that I am digging and I'm already using Thank you, Claudia, if you need to sit you may need to send me a consultation bill or something because I'm stealing your shit lady is just what I love this piece about how overwhelmed how we were so betrayed by our emotions early. So your ability to lock that shit up and not feel them is really could be could have been a lifesaver, right? Like is a lifesaver lock it down. So but that's because there was no one to help you process it help you feel it help you so we just don't want to serve you know, these people that are like, Oh, just be friend and just feel your feelings make space for your feelings. It's not it's not that simple. You really really slowly and use your compartmentalization and lock it down. So it's been helpful to create for me a way to that feelings are gross. They are they really are. They were at that time and they had to become gross and you had to get away from them. So I'm really appreciating but you do have to come back into them if you want to. Kind of do this thriving life rather than surviving life. So the aim feel gross like just putting that out there. Stay compartmentalized

Alison Cebulla  24:57

and I want to say it was an On on Thursday, so happy birthday. Thank you so

Anne Sherry  25:03

much. I'm so fucking glad it's over Yeah, a lot of pressure to have a good birthday. So

Alison Cebulla  25:14

did you eat cake?

Anne Sherry  25:16

We did a fair amount of chocolate. Yeah. Oh, good. That's why it was fucking up all night bus. Yeah, nice. Don't eat cake. Don't eat chocolate cake late night on your birthday. Or I don't

Alison Cebulla  25:27

I don't eat chocolate at night because I like to sleep.

Anne Sherry  25:32

Do my best podcasting listening 3am So, anyways, okay,

Alison Cebulla  25:37

we digress, we have one correction supporter before we enter the interview, um, a couple episodes ago, you were like, talking about how everyone should go listen to the episode with Heather. Yeah, and you were like, it's episode five. And I was like, No. And I was so sure that it was episode four. And and, and I guess I need to learn to love the parts of myself that are so sure but wrong, rather than hate those parts because I'm like, Oh, I hate that part of myself. I was so sure. I was like, No, it's four. It was five. So I just wanted to, you know, for my to get my ego back and check to let you know that you are 100% Right. And I was but not only was I wrong, but I was like so I was like so. You were I don't know. I was like so sure

Anne Sherry  26:23

you know, confidently wrong. Yes. Yes.

Alison Cebulla  26:29

Exactly. Exactly. So I just need to hold myself in check on those moments, you know,

Anne Sherry  26:34

and just for the record I'm like okay, whatever it's fine.

Alison Cebulla  26:38

Yeah, this is for my journey.

Anne Sherry  26:40

That's for Allison's I even asked her I was like you don't need to do that it's fine it's no problem she's like no must hold myself Yes for me holding myself accountable and yeah, it's my day, but if that confidently wrong part shows up, I will always defer so just so you know, my partner it like Yeah, man. See, I

Alison Cebulla  26:59

need to be more responsible with my confidence. Okay. Okay. All right. Amazing, amazing interview with Claudia. Okay, we're so excited. We are here with my my aunt, Claudia Louise. Now Claudia is my bonus aunt. Her sister is married to my dad's brother. So we're not blood relatives. But basically, you can choose your family though you she's my chosen family choice. And Dave and Gigi made the choice for us. But then we kind of that we chose to choose each other. And, and so let me just read Claudia's bio. So Dr. Claudia Louie's a clinical psycho analyst is the first place winner of the 2006 Phyllis meadow Award for Excellence in psycho analytic writing a 2008 Writer's Digest award and is a an N double A P 2019. Grand diva Award nominee. Her book The Making of a psycho analyst was reviewed in the Journal of modern psychoanalysis as arguably the best lay book written on modern psycho analysis. And at new books and psychoanalysis, as poised to create a seismic shift in consciousness. Dr. Luiz practices in New York and teaches at the Boston Graduate School of psychoanalysis and the Academy for clinical and applied psycho analysis. We are so excited to ask you about all of this

Dr. Claudia Luiz  28:33

other bio now?

Alison Cebulla  28:35

What was the other? Is that not the right one?

Anne Sherry  28:38

Claudia Louise? Oh yeah.

Alison Cebulla  28:45

Tell us that one. Cuz Our first question is like, basically, we want to hear about all your trauma, like just what's tell us the whole story about the grandfather, the trauma.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  28:58

But you know, the whole question of, you know, whether you have mental illness as a genetic thing, or when was trauma. Yes. So sometimes if you're really lucky, you get hit with

Anne Sherry  29:16

called winning the lottery. Yeah, lottery. Right. Yeah. Okay. So,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  29:21

a lot of times, you know, like, you know, I like to think of it as I won the lottery because I have a chance to study both in myself. Yeah. And get to study all everything I inherited, which was basically violence, because I had violent ancestors. And then I had a violent upbringing. So yeah. That's my real bio. That's the inside bio. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I

Anne Sherry  29:51

say that with clients. You know, I never wish trauma on anybody. I would never say gosh, this is so great. You have all this trauma because so much can come out of this So much compassion a deeper understanding who would wish that yet? I think we'll get sounds like we'll get into this today but if you do if you are able or have enough capacity to kind of transform it be with it be in relationship learn from it. There are the gifts I guess that come out of it comes a mountain you scan Yes, yes you know what's not to love that love that. Oh, yeah. Okay, so on that statement,

Alison Cebulla  30:30

you and Claudia were born in in Italy. Your dad got a Fulbright love your dad love Paul love. Sorry. My, my, my bonus grandparents. Yeah. And so they were kind of they were kind of like wild partying musicians, you know, hobnobbing it with people and all around Italy and Europe and that you and your sister were born and like I just love these stories from you. Tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  31:00

Well, they you know, they were touring. And in those days, if you didn't get a good review, you were screwed. Oh, they went from concert to concert on the pressure was on so they were tense. And you know, they had had their my mother was raised by a violent, very bipolar person. She had to have an ovary removed because she'd gotten punched in the stomach so many times. Oh, yeah. You know, this Sally. No, I

Alison Cebulla  31:30

didn't know

Dr. Claudia Luiz  31:31

that. No, it was bad. Eventually, it was lobotomized. He went from

Alison Cebulla  31:36

no, get the fuck out.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  31:39

No. Was Yeah. What year? What year? Was that? The it was like in the early 60s. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla  31:46

Holy crap. Did

Anne Sherry  31:46

you see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Alison?

Alison Cebulla  31:49

I did. Like, like, I don't know, anyone who's been lobotomized. You know, that's just so intense. Okay.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  31:57

I don't know, they still doing it. Are they? So you know, they, my parents would my father went to Paris when he was 16 doing the piano. And then his dad died when he was 18. So you know, they were both like just doing their best to stay afloat. And, and try to make money. And then my mother started working for the UN and had to go to Geneva all the time. And they would leave us and we'd cry. And they didn't want us to cry. So they stopped telling us when they were leaving, they stopped telling us when we were coming back.

Anne Sherry  32:34

That'll solve it.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  32:39

And then to boot the people, they left us with the Italians they left us with, we're just, you know, like, if they want you to come with them somewhere, they just grab you by the hair. And just, you know, come with me or if you weren't eating, they shove the food in your mouth and you'd puke. So we had you know, starting at like, seven and nine my sister nice, were really really, you know, not well, and I won't speak to her, but I started hallucinating and I was just, you know, well, I lived in an alternate reality i i felt like i was really belong to a family of gypsies, I had like a whole story in my head of who I really belong to. And I had this boyfriend and I and my mother noticed it. Well, you couldn't not notice it, we'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming basically. And so she she realized that we needed help. She got us the fuck out of Italy, which put a stop to their concert career, put a stop to everything. And we all live together. And we started you know, seeing psychiatrists and all the rest and and you know, she she saved us when she got into therapy and started dealing with all her own stuff. And between her I mean she and my father was much a healing agents as the therapists which is why I do family therapy because parents when they're trained to be our power and so are partners, spouses. That's why I love family therapy, couples therapy, because there's no better healing agent than somebody that's already in under your skin.

Anne Sherry  34:24

Yeah. matters. Yeah, so often parents will I see mostly adults, but they will just beat the shit out of themselves for all they've done wrong. And I'm like, the best thing you could do is what you're doing right now which is healing that this is stem if you're bringing in a different understanding and repairing like it matters, you know, rather than just like bury it and pretend like you're a great parent, you know? Right through it. Yeah,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  34:53

you know, it's a fine line between having the courage to know what you fucked up. Yeah, and being so ashamed Have it that you go under a great point. And you know, it's like you put all your hope and being a better person. But the flip side of that is that you hate yourself. That's right. You know, and how do you negotiate? I mean, I'm a big believer that shame is basically a way out of it's a recognition that there's something wrong. Right, right. Oh, it hurts to have that shame. It is a way out. It's a hope. Like, if I was better, things would be better and all that so right. It's necessary, but

Alison Cebulla  35:34

oh, yeah, really crippled a culturally

Anne Sherry  35:36

where we're, I think we're getting better. But culturally, we still I mean, we've got Brene Brown out there. We've got you know, go to therapy, this sort of American thing, but still think down into. Yeah, if you don't latch somehow find that road or that glimmer? Or find some people that are like, no, really, it'll work. You can do this, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's good. I

Alison Cebulla  36:03

want to, like, I want to hear more about childhood and that sort of thing. But then, but also, like, I have this question that kind of pulls away from that, which is like, Claudia, like, when your clients come to you? What is the thing? What is the thing that has happened in their life that makes them go like, I need help? Like, what? What is that? What's happening?

Dr. Claudia Luiz  36:27

You know, what's happening is that normal feelings, like anger, grief, disappointment, make you sick. Mm hmm. So, you know, like, when you're healthy, you've got all your feelings, and they work for you. They have to work for you have to know when you're angry to protect yourself. You have to know when you're disappointed grief is love. But if you had too much of any feeling too soon, it's like, if you watching porn when you're three years old. Yeah. You know, and you're feeling too big, then anger becomes murder. Yeah, disappointment becomes rage. Grief becomes a desire to die. And the normal feelings just make you ill because your brain predicts that something overwhelming is going to happen. You know, what the synapses that fire together wire together. So that anger will feel devastating. And when people come to me, it's over the dumbest things.

Alison Cebulla  37:35

Tell us what is it?

Dr. Claudia Luiz  37:38

Well, you know, he, he knows I like to have a clean car. I vacuum it every Saturday, but he insists on leaving his coffee cup there. And it left a terrible smell all day long. And I have to live with that and know that he doesn't love me. Like it did. He loved me. Yeah. Every time I go in my car, and I smile that I feel so much rage that he would do that, again, like how many times do and it goes on and on and on. And if you feel the intensity of the feeling and you want to say it's a fucking cup of coffee, give it up. Right? You really do want to say give

Alison Cebulla  38:27

the same thing sometimes. Yeah.

Anne Sherry  38:29

Tom and I do say that, but we're well aware where it's coming from. I'm his mother. He's my absolute father. You know,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  38:41

you're woke Yeah. But you know, it, it it hurts. And your mind is organized to say this person is giving me this feeling. And that's really satisfying. But to have a relationship, you sort of have to give that up. And again, you've got everywhere you turn, there's no place to win. Because you know, it's a lose lose. either. You have to open yourself up to the fact that you're ill spiritually There's something's making you ill, which can fill you with shame and get you down. Or you have to feel you have a terrible partner who's doing this for you and you might end up destroying the relationship. So it's a tough road. It's a tough road. You know, eventually to know your illness, so to speak your spiritual illness to know that a feeling creates a reaction in you that you can't manage that has to happen with self compassion. Yes. That has happened slowly it's it's not a mental process. Yeah, it's a slow healing from the heart. You can't tell yourself it's okay I'm I'm spiritually ill. I see everything as murder. Or I want to kill everything is elevated. You know, you can't telling yourself that

Anne Sherry  40:00

well, Alison and I are writing or we talk about writing our book or one of the chapters when writing it. Yeah, yeah, I write in my head. But why did why do I hate everybody? Like why? That's that was another deep. I mean, I've been in therapy so that's my 20s on and off, but I got so curious like, Why do I hate everyone? That is weird. You know? Like, why do I hate?

Dr. Claudia Luiz  40:24

Not weird? I'm weird. I hate everybody to you know. Exactly, exactly do you to our team? Hey,

Alison Cebulla  40:35

everyone. last person on Earth

Dr. Claudia Luiz  40:47

Kind of hate comes from the prediction that you'll be invisible. Completely. No.

Anne Sherry  40:54

Great, yeah, that's making

Dr. Claudia Luiz  40:57

me know where you can trust anybody. And and it's proven because you're so fucking crazy. When you're mad. You're not just mad, it's making you ill. So so you're screaming or you're, you know, falling apart is high drama your fucking your kids up. And yeah, at that point, you do hate everybody and yourself for having that feeling. Because it's so hard to get on top of and it's so slowly coming into a feeling and starting to get okay with it. So it doesn't make you ill. Your consciousness has to expand into that feeling slowly and slowly over years of like talking about it and you just grow a little bit and you grow a little bit. Right and and then one day you wake up and you can be in the room and just be angry and not. Hey, Claudia, our next chapter

Anne Sherry  41:53

is are you gonna say this Allison? After Why do I hate everybody? His feelings are gross. So right, because I hate everybody feeling gross. Keep going. Keep going as what you're saying. Right, just keep going.

Alison Cebulla  42:05

Right. But I wanted to I wanted to say about about Clark. Okay. Let me just say this because Claudia, you taught me one of my best lessons on my personal growth journey of feeling my feelings. Because I was in New York, I lived in New York for a couple of years, like 2013 to 2015. And so I would get to see you pretty pretty often during that time. But I was my mental health was really suffering. i The main problem was that I really wasn't making enough money to live in New York. It's like a very expensive city. But I wasn't really getting that dude. I mean, like, I didn't quite I hadn't done the math to realize that like, oh, like you're probably making half what you need to be making to like, Just live your life without being stressed all the time. So my mental health was just plummeting. But I also hadn't worked on my trauma yet at all. And you said to me, you don't have to, you don't have to fix your feelings, you can just feel them. And no one had ever said it to me yet in a way that I could hear it. And so when you said that to me, I realized that I was really caught up in that really toxic American thing of like, make yourself better, make yourself better, make yourself better, hustle, hustle, hustle. That's, it's just so toxic, and transform your feelings. And you were like, just feel your feelings. And so I started to be friend, my loneliness. And that did wonders for me. Every time it started to come up, I noticed that I was got agitated, I wanted to run away, I wanted to move to a different city, I wanted to go out drinking, I wanted to go do something. And I just laid on my bed and felt what my loneliness felt like. And for a moment, I really felt like I was gonna die. Like it really did. And I just sat there with it. And I was like, oh my god, I could I could do this. Like, I didn't die. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  43:59

Remember, you know, you gotta, you've got to know and that like basically it like our family gatherings. At some point in the night, Ali and I are gonna huddle in there and like, everybody just knows. There they go. And what I remember about it was what I thought about your positivity at the time was this kid really wants to live. I felt like wow, you know, she just she is so proactive reading and like just wanting to have a good life. And I felt like I tweaked it in such a way to make you even embody more of that in yourself. Because I felt like you were having all the right feelings. You know, it was yeah, it was you know, I and we were talking about what they were and I was like you're right on with, with all like this is what you should be feeling Yeah, but it's hardest to be positive about the feelings that make us sick. Like, how are you supposed to be positive about this? sickening feeling? Yeah. I really don't believe in accepting your feelings by the way.

Anne Sherry  45:15

Tell us say more. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla  45:18

I think that accepting

Dr. Claudia Luiz  45:18

your feelings. Totally bypasses how sick they can make us feel. So good

Anne Sherry  45:26

Claudia.

Alison Cebulla  45:27

Thank you for saying that. Yes. Perfect.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  45:29

You know, like, talk about them. uncover them free associate to them journal on them. Mm hmm. Try to

45:39

dis pry.

Anne Sherry  45:41

I have people practice anger. I'm like, Just practice. Just see what it you know, like, practice it.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  45:46

I love that. Yeah, normalizes it. It's comforting. They can hear them it's beautiful. I love that. Mm hmm. I think

Anne Sherry  45:56

curiosity my favorite word right? Yes that by the way just thought I would just for our listeners because Allison I say it enough feelings are gross both Alice and I are welling up with tears when Claudia

Alison Cebulla  46:11

we are feeling are feeling you it said Allison wants

Anne Sherry  46:13

to live that's just beautiful. I get an open about just that we do have passive suicide.

Alison Cebulla  46:21

Passive suicidal ideation. Yeah.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  46:25

Force and alleys of force. You know, yeah, you're gonna have strong feeling she

Anne Sherry  46:30

is. I can confirm that.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  46:34

Some people are born with big drives, and some people are born super Mel. Ellie and I are intense. That's why we have to let the family know true. Everybody else is great.

Anne Sherry  46:47

Yeah, yeah, we're

Alison Cebulla  46:49

like, we need to talk about the dark shit. Immediately right here.

Anne Sherry  46:56

Well, being a seven on the Enneagram I hitched my wagon to Allison because I have it. I want to know, I am curious. But I like she, she she is my She reminds me what to read. And now I rock. Oh, I was like letting go a little bit of the structural trauma of America. I was like, I just can't do it. She was like, Don't read this book. One day, we'll all just wake up. She's like, No, I'm stressed. And I'm growing my capacity to be with all that. So appreciate it. You got to do it with somebody. Like if you're just in your court, you know, just reading it out by I do think this community of people you need to be with community is and that's also gross. We've discovered like to because we hate everybody. Right? Right. Oh, I

Dr. Claudia Luiz  47:53

know. It's terrible. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla  47:56

So Claudia, so we, you know, we really wanted to talk to you about like emotion, emotional regulation, emotional dysregulation. Could you tell us a little bit more about your journey from hallucinating child to you know, someone who can't can regulate your emotions well enough to teach others how to do it? What did that What about healing process look like for you?

Dr. Claudia Luiz  48:22

I feel like I've had several lifetimes. Like I went from having a you know, a completely secret life. And lying and stealing. And shameless I was really shameless. Then I went into I was just incredibly promiscuous. Looking for for connection in all the wrong and you know, you have no shame when your feelings disturb you because you don't have connection to any totally, totally fine, you just do whatever, whatever you want. And that freedom is your only sort of solace. Totally. Then I went into addiction for a while. And that was an impulse, a very impulsive time I started to loosen up. So it was a step up from being in a kind of a totally lonely position to be having a dependency. Yeah, so that was growth for me. And then when I got cured of the dependency, I went into just being a fucking psycho rage raging bitch, which was a huge improvement. Like God

Alison Cebulla  49:37

is so healing to me. Yeah. Thank you. Okay.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  49:47

I was gonna absolute horror, couldn't keep a job, couldn't keep a friend couldn't get a man. And then I went into modifying my behavior Because I developed you know, I had some very close relationships, then I went into like years of behavior modification where I can very repressed

Alison Cebulla  50:11

Okay, okay? or something but like I

Dr. Claudia Luiz  50:15

had enough of a brain to know I had to correct this. And I put the destructive I learned to recognize how I was destructive. But I was never whole in my power yet. My power was still over there my impulses, the destructive ones, I kind of judged them still, but that's what I needed to do because I had children and I had a husband and I didn't want to destroy it I had destroyed so much. But I was kind of depressed so I climbed from that raging thing into a decade long kind of low grade depression a lot in that depression a lot I raise kids it was it was an important place to be and and then I started to work on the on the depression because I was very sexually tamped down you know, your your tamp everything when you're totally, I wanted to come back into joy. And I felt safe enough to experiment. My kids were grown and I done a good job of apologizing to them for when I was dysregulated. And, and that leads me to where I am now. And the interesting thing about where I am now is that the crazier I understand I am, the more free I am to be hold that

Anne Sherry  51:40

quote, I can see it that's coming up. I see.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  51:46

Yeah, yeah, feel my disturbance. And no, of course, I'm feeling this, the better I am. Oh, I forgot to mention the stage coming out of the depression, which was panic attacks, gotten waking up into that energy. I mean, it's all energetic.

Alison Cebulla  52:05

I was okay. I was gonna ask you if that's what happened, because I've been working on my depression. And that's, that's what happened for me. I was like, Oh my God, there's like a whole sea of anxiety under the depression. Right? The Depression keeps the anxiety and the panic attacks just hack down soil. And there's all these like, you know, so I took the depression out and and have been experiencing anxiety for the first time in my life. The last couple of years that chelation Thank you actually, it does feel like gross to be honest. It really does. Because I'm actually feeling things. Yeah, sickening.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  52:41

It's, I mean, it for me, it was so in my body. And that's when I really felt I never feel more ill than when I'm having a panic attack. Absolutely

Anne Sherry  52:52

worst I've had I had a mentor describe anxiety, which has seemed to help but it's an undifferentiated fear. So if you can, I don't know if this works, but just is it a past fears? It's something in the present? Are you freaking out about the future? So if you

Dr. Claudia Luiz  53:10

are saying this, yeah, the essence of psychoanalysis? Tell me more. Tell us more. Yeah, this place here. What is it? We're at that question, What the fuck is this? What

Anne Sherry  53:26

fuck is this? You know, and

Dr. Claudia Luiz  53:31

it's her press rage. It's, you know, what I found for myself, and for all of my patients is we all have a story. Yeah. And we, nobody, I keep thinking like, oh, this patient I've seen this before. And then they tell me a different story. Totally. Some one person is able to love another person isn't able to love. This person experienced their parent this way when you unpack your story. And you start to recognize how you reacted to your family of origin, how you reacted to what's happened in your life. Then you find the what language for your own condition and until you discover your own words for what it is you cannot borrow anyone else's word. So I tell you that if you're having a panic attack, and you're saying oh, this is rage, this is repressed rage, it's gonna make it worse. Or else you say around feeling invisible. You know, you can't have access to your higher brain when you're dysregulated Yeah, yeah, build the access over time by finding language for what the fuck this is. That is just like it. Fear. You know, for me the words that came up was just feeling afraid. But then at a certain point, you get to a point where you do not even you cannot describe it to another human being I'm going to tell you this is red, you know, this is red right here. But you're seeing the same color. I am totally, totally. So at that point, you just have to know yourself and know something about it. And then you can ride the panic attack. It's like you have your control center back, you're like, Okay, this, this is what this is. And miraculously, just by finding your own words for it,

Alison Cebulla  55:29

if I'm right, right, right, right. Well, yeah, I would I had read that like, putting words and labeling your emotion can help move your brain, you know, where input to the rational part of your brain is what you

Dr. Claudia Luiz  55:43

want. Because these feelings that disturb us when anger is is hate. And when disappointment is I want to kill myself on when you know. Yeah, yeah. When we become into that disturbed zone of murderousness and wanting to die and because it's too big. You know, the, the words for it are kind of fail us.

Alison Cebulla  56:08

I want to come back to you, because you've talked about murderousness a few times. And I I shared in our episode with Tamra that when I started to access my rage, which was under the depression, I found, I found a murderousness part of me that like one especially for like, people who had, like, assaulted me in the past or whatever, I have a lot of sexual trauma. I, all of a sudden, I started to feel like this murderous rage where these things started to flood me where it was like I wanted to murder them. And that really scared me a lot. And I think that in our society, that we don't allow people to have to admit that they have a lot of the dark thoughts that we have. And Claudia, I have heard you talk about this, how you always make it safe for your clients to have the whole spectrum of thoughts and feelings that they're going to have and how important it is to just allow them. And that always has stuck with me when some of my darker stuff comes up is that I think about you and I go Claudia says it's okay, if this thought comes up, and it helps me. So a little bit about that.

Anne Sherry  57:19

Go murderous thoughts.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  57:21

You know why? You know why I celebrate you? And you know why I just like, I want to pop a bottle of champagne or just celebrate. When you know it, you're safe. Yeah, that's when you're safe.

Anne Sherry  57:35

Oh, that's so good. You know,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  57:36

a lot of times when we're dysregulated. We don't feel our murderousness. We just feel that invisibility that rage. And then the more you get to know Oh, this is where very possibly I want to kill someone, which is really self destructive. Actually, by the way, a total mess is really, it's really self hate. Because, yeah, when you are dysregulated you lose your dignity. Yes, yes. And you don't get anything you want. So you know, that's the irony of it all is that you want to be seen. And that's your power, this murderousness, but it defeats you. And you know, that's been the hardest struggle for me is my murder snares. I'm still getting to know it.

Alison Cebulla  58:27

Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  58:30

Away from people who arouse too much of it, you know, I was never able to do that. I always just thought I had to, but there are certain people who just ignite me. And I, and I'm still not, not yet you know, it's just a never ending journey.

Anne Sherry  58:46

Yeah, I think too. I mean, would you say that, that, you know, if we bring it to this horrible polarization that we're in, in this society, are we ever gonna bridge this chasm that it's been exploited, like, hate other people and really hate them? You know, like, it's okay to, there's a difference between like this, the parts that hate yourself so much, but somehow it's getting exploited, like, we're just in two camps, and I don't I just remain curious of how are we ever gonna know when trial this polarization? Yeah,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  59:19

he came into power. He is He leads by impulse. Mm hmm. And he married a Playboy bunny, for all practical purposes. And he's publicly talked about liking pussy. And,

Anne Sherry  59:35

you know, shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue and not shoot somebody up. Right. And it

Dr. Claudia Luiz  59:41

has just brought up the raw impulsiveness in the country. It's brought up the racism and it's all just he's very revolutionary in what's happened and it's quite a threat to our democracy because we protocols has become second to impulse. And we're seeing a lot of you know, the the ends justify the means, whereas democracy was all about the means. Right? So it's a it's a frightening time just like in therapy you It's frightening. It is your software. We're in a very, very frightening time because we don't have our heads on straight yet. Both have very left wing and the very right

Anne Sherry  1:00:28

wing of greed are are not able

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:00:31

to talk. Right?

Anne Sherry  1:00:33

Yeah. I mean, personally, I entered that outrage addiction, it felt so good to Facebook outrage, and I was right. You know, I was like, rah, rah, rah rah rah rah. And I was like, this is like, empty calorie candy stuff. You know, I never feel good. I always feel and I was like, shaky even when I would type up things that I was like, write about United that don't be racist. You know, I was it. But I was just enemies. I was just playing into that polarization. I had to pull way, way, way, way back,

Alison Cebulla  1:01:07

you know, and there were a couple of comments. I left on Facebook where after I typed them, I went, Wait, am I a troll? I have an inner troll. You know, I deleted them. I was like, Holy crap, where did that come from? But just the past couple years. I'm like, Oh, my God, I have an inner rageful social media troll in me that comes out.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:01:30

I was so challenged by my trump supporting patients. Yeah, tell us. I was so hard for me to get over myself. Mm hmm. And listen. Yeah, no, I mean, kudos to us. Kudos to us.

Alison Cebulla  1:01:45

We are trying. I really believe I mean,

Anne Sherry  1:01:48

when you the way that you describe all this, I mean, we are there is a human underneath layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of trying to deal with these. No doubt, tons of trauma that just rushes you. Right. That's an it's got to go somewhere. There's Do you watch Yellowstone, somebody just told me one of our listeners said you got to listen to it that a lot of what we're saying is in there. Anyways, there was a line from that because the main care one of the main characters, the female of the patriarchs, family was hated by the mother love, just hate it. And she the mother died tragically. And she in this brother go at it all the time. And he they came to a place of where he said, if you need to hate me to keep from hating yourself, I'll be there for you. I was like, that's because I hated my older brother. He was hated him. He's deceased now. But it was a way of like, because he was just so chaotic. And he brought so much shame to the family. I know,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:02:49

father of modern psychoanalysis says, that's why we married that's a reason to be married to hate someone other than

Anne Sherry  1:02:59

Oh, yeah, there have been times where I've just, you know, you want to be dead, didn't you? I was like, kinda, I did kind of hoped you Yeah, that we're trying. I know.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:03:14

It does, until it doesn't, or you've reached a point where your you've had enough of somebody that can hear you, that you no longer feel invisible when you have real power is when you can finally give, you know, because it's a way of like both egging. You're so I'm so glad I hated for so many years, because it is the life drive. I

Anne Sherry  1:03:48

say no, I'm 53. And finally, there's some compassion and feminine. Yeah,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:03:55

that's your hormones. It affects chemistry your digestive system.

Anne Sherry  1:03:59

Yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla  1:04:01

But it's like hate, like you're saying where it doesn't feel good, but it kind of does. It's like eating a whole box of cookies. I had a sugar addiction for a while, and then I quit sugar in 2016. But I would so I would have a reaction at work. It was it was a lot of workplace stuff. And then I would go drive to Whole Foods and buy a box of cookies. And then I would sit in my car and I would eat the whole box and I would just inhale, I would shove the cookies in as fast as I possibly could in my mouth. And then at the end. I felt terrible. Like it did like I did it to make myself feel better, but then I felt worse. And that's right. That's what an addiction is. And that's kind of hate to write like, it feels so good to get mad at someone online or get mad or tell your partner and you left those dishes out. You left that coffee cup and you don't love me and you feel so good. And then once you finish then it feels like the worst possible feeling. Feeling like people don't get addicted to see Yes, yes, exactly.

Anne Sherry  1:05:01

I have a way I was right after tamaraws Grief class that I spoke, I was starting to feel like really get that sense of I need something like, and what came out and I think I read this on Facebook, but it was like I really needed a hug. But what I actually said was, why is the kitchen a fucking wreck? You know, but I was able to put those two things together. It's like I'm about to ask for a hug. Why is the kitchen a fucking rack?

Alison Cebulla  1:05:29

Not gonna get it. There's the rage.

Anne Sherry  1:05:34

Right? Yeah,

Alison Cebulla  1:05:35

exactly. Thank you.

Anne Sherry  1:05:37

But to be able to pull it up, but it'll at least live in that those be in the same spot was so helpful and moving. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, by the way,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:05:47

your date not cake or whatever that was that sugar free cake is legendary.

Alison Cebulla  1:05:57

People post the recipe I will people still do tell me you always

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:06:02

have to replace the addiction with something else you can never give up if you replace it. And what happens in therapy is someone's hearing you you're not invisible. It's okay to be where you are. And slowly, that power gets replaced by that connection, where you know what you want to connect and have sex with your partner later, rather than enjoy this righteous feeling of being right. If you have a good partner, who doesn't want prefer you when you're fighting, which a lot of partners do

Alison Cebulla  1:06:40

Oh, right. That is a whole thing. That is a whole thing. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:06:43

And that kind of spiritual growth is hard with two people that are both trying to be heard and totally both have rage and all

Alison Cebulla  1:06:55

that. I definitely did. I mean, after I gave up sugar, I had a mental breakdown, stay in a psychiatric hospital, and then entered like a pretty emotionally tumultuous relationship with someone suffering from schizophrenia. So, um, I did a lot of healing in that relationship too. But it's but it's interesting, because it's like I gave up the sugar but then it was like, You're right. Like I needed some more. I needed some more emotional waves to ride you know? Yeah.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:07:25

You You You realized when you gave up the sugar how empty you were?

Alison Cebulla  1:07:30

Oh, absolutely.

Anne Sherry  1:07:35

sugar sugar has the empty calories too, though. Do you know that those foods often that are just there's an emptiness and yes, quick, quick fix of I guess. I mean,

Alison Cebulla  1:07:46

it's absolutely devoid trance. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:07:49

Why isn't? Yeah, I've heard it. Man. Does it feel good? Just like rage? Yeah, rage rage her to to not being ratchet yourself down. But man, does it feel good. But you have to have some access to your higher brain before you can get yourself off of that high.

Alison Cebulla  1:08:08

So for someone that may be listening, and is still tackling the part of themselves that wants to eat a box of cookies, because I know this is a very common thing or or you know, you may be drawn to salty snacks, and maybe a whole bag of chips and guacamole. You know, and I know it's a lot of people because I worked as a health coach for many years. And it's a lot of people that are struggling with this. Or they keep getting in these addictive fights that feel kind of good when their partners are saying what's Yeah,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:08:33

here's the thing. Here's the thing. This is the most important thing. Do not treat the symptom. Remember thought treat the symptom. The symptom is a symptom. There's a deeper problem. Yeah, maybe it's emptiness, right? Maybe it's a feeling that disturbs you that you don't have language for that you have to defend against see defenses keep us out of that hospital. And so we need them and they're good. So we don't want to fix defenses. Yeah, we we want to replace them with something so you don't need them. And you what replaces them is access to the higher brain which happens with words. So you just have to talk. You just have to shut down. Most people are just not that interested in themselves. They're impatient with themselves. Even if they seem self absorbed. Don't mistake that for self interest. That's just your but like to take the time to actually pay attention to yourself and focus and do that people really have trouble with that. That's why they stop their faces and make make yourself a little more important. That's my advice.

Anne Sherry  1:09:50

That's kind of Maria was saying our last interview she's a trauma based therapist and just she's like just include all of it just either why I meditate why don't meditate like it should just this curiosity almost like a scientist just study everything, you know, everything. Why would I react like that? That's so interesting, you know, I that my thought

Alison Cebulla  1:10:11

kind of is scientific detachment, right? You're not judging yourself all the time. What right, let me get interested in myself, let me is right. On it.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:10:21

Yeah on yourself, you know, we have such a reflexive brain, our brain is habits. It's just habits of the mind that are very experienced something we immediately predict based on that. I mean, neuroscience is teaching us so much. Yes. And the main takeaway that I've gotten from that, by the way, is that no one person is like any other. There's no story. There's no consciousness center in the brain. They can't find it. There's no storytelling center of the brain. It's all the wiring. It's all the synapse. tivity Mm hmm. Wow.

Alison Cebulla  1:10:59

Yeah, it's

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:11:00

amazing. Wow. That's why you got to go deep into every person. Yeah, hear the story.

Alison Cebulla  1:11:09

I'm glad that you said that. Because I work in I work for a nonprofit that does some, some trauma, storytelling that helps people understand the science of how childhood trauma leads to different health outcomes later in life. And we do and we do this work so that we can help like different communities and organizations like apply for funding, because if you can understand the health science, you can say, oh, you know, if we change this about Child Trauma, you're gonna less people end up in the hospital and that sort of thing. So we're doing some storytelling. And I think that there's this inclination that we have to get to some sort of one truth where it's like, if your mom didn't hold you for five hours, if she only held you for three hours, when you were zero, then this is going to happen. And this is going to happen, and this is going to happen. And it's just never true. You know what I mean? Every single how many humans are there in Earth 7 billion or something? Right? Each one it's like a completely different story and a completely different wiring. It's, it's incredible. I mean, you can see the trends, but there's no one like

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:12:08

that. But disturbances are like ghosts that haunt us. Yeah, you can't quantify a disturbance. You can't name it, people will tell you story. And it'll sound normal. But the same story in another family will be bonkers. Yeah, because there's something that you cannot quantify about a level of disturbance, babies feel it. You know, my first daughter was born under very difficult trying conditions, I got pregnant with a man I barely knew. And we didn't know what we were going to do. And the second daughter was born in an in a committed relationship where I was very secure in every way. And they have their, you know, how can you measure? Right and the different space I was in? Yeah, know

Anne Sherry  1:13:04

what people do that, that, you know, the phrase compared to compares to despair, like so? Because it's like, my sibling, it's so amazing. I came from the same family. It's like, No, you're, you're you, you know, with this thing that was happening and this and your chemical makeup and an introvert in a family of extroverts or, you know, just so the Yes. Just

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:13:28

have transferences to their kids.

Alison Cebulla  1:13:30

Yeah. Yeah, Mitch, I just have to say though, Claudia, your daughter's My, my, my chosen family, cousins. They are just such wonderful human beings, you you raise such such amazing kids, I just love following their journey. They have such big hearts, and they care about doing work that makes a difference. And one

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:13:54

thing seeing third generation people who've been analyzed because like, my mother was analyzed, and I was analyzed. And so I'm at a point with even though they were traumatized by my dysregulation, or especially early in the marriage, yeah. And, and it was a, it is a difficult marriage. It was a lot of conflict. And they've got a couple of points on the aces. Yeah, but, but I was able to say to the children, this ain't right. Just so you know, this ain't right. told him you need to know it, and you'll do your own work on it. And even being able to say that rather to give them a narrative, yeah, for for they grew up knowing that there was going to be more work to do and you know, they have the same DNA, but they did not get hit. Because there was there was language for the ship.

Anne Sherry  1:14:52

Yeah. Yeah, I Tom and I've used sort of an analogy with August is like August. It's our son. He's nine Um, whether it's really passing a baton, and we tell him I like I already see Self Reliance traits in you, but I'm, we're gonna pass you the baton and you're gonna carry it as far as you can, you know, and it builds this compassion that my parents when I, when I got out of the hate with my parents, like I get enough attention I was raised in the 70s. And I was like, could move out of that and be so much more curious like they grew up in rural Alabama. There's this going on and this going on, you know, but it is it but I think sometimes people will come in and they want to start there. I can't say anything terrible about my parents. They gave me everything I needed, you know, kind of like, like, a way to honor your parents and be with the impact of the 234 year old that you were, you know, well, yeah. And actually brings you to a much deeper understanding and much bigger compassion place with parents. It doesn't have to be this managerial like no love, honor thy father and thy mother. I was like we actually can we actually can honor that commitment commandment or whatever the fuck it is. Ma'am. It Yeah. Commandment. Yeah. Commandment. I hate that word. You know. But I think but, but I think we can actually really get you there rather than this. Like, Command.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:16:18

I think that's about I can't believe I was I've been thinking about this a lot. There's almost like a vilification that happens when, when families can't talk about difficult feelings. And it's like if your child does something, it's like they're a villain. Yes. Or like if your parent if you think that your parent did a little, it's like, you've got to keep all that under wraps, because it is so frightening.

Anne Sherry  1:16:45

Yeah, hmm.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:16:49

I've got a family that.

Anne Sherry  1:16:51

Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:16:52

And this is this is, you know, I, I do, by the end of treating somebody that the I get to treat the family, and it's really deep and really important to see all the transferences and reactions and this family came to me the father found me online, because I said that a strange family should come have one narrative. And when they can find that narrative, they don't have to be in strange, like families, like strange to have all different narratives, yelling them. Yep, yep. So they came to me with their narratives. And it just was devastating to the mother, that the daughter felt like a few things had gone wrong. absolutely devastating. And come to find that she told her father finally, what he had done wrong. And two days later, he had a heart attack. And she was convinced that she killed him. Once like being with his family, and slowly unpacking why they can't talk about a fucking thing. I mean, literally, it's like all peaches and cream. It starts to become clear. And the mother's fired fired me. Because she said, I wasn't doing the family any good. And I was just bringing everything destroyed. But the father stayed with me. And I thought, What am I doing wrong with this family? That because I had told her just open yourself up and listen, and she can't do it? Yeah, so I've really made a mistake with this family. It just went way, way, way too fast. Way too fast. And I slowed everything down and sort of tried to understand where I went wrong, so that I can keep them talking. It's delicate. It is,

Alison Cebulla  1:18:42

yeah, for sharing that example. That gives me a lot to think about.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:18:47

You know, you got to go slow. By

Anne Sherry  1:18:51

that. Well, there is that saying, right? If you want to go really, really fast, really, really fast, slow down. You know, because people because people have those parts, like they don't want to be with the pain or the feelings or anything, right? So they're just bypassing, bypassing creating more hurt, I think, or more distrust or something. I don't know. But if you slow it down and saying oh, hard, yeah. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla  1:19:13

But when I was doing like, after I got out of the psychiatric hospital in 2016, and got a therapy, a really, really good therapist in Austin, Texas. She I would just come in and just cry like sobbing crying the whole time. I actually cried for four straight months. Because it was the first it was actually just like the first time I was actually able to see my trauma. I just wasn't seeing it before. I was 31. And I couldn't stop crying. Because I had really blamed myself for everything that had gone wrong in my life, like the drug addiction and everything. I just hadn't seen it. I thought there was something defective I couldn't stop crying. She would say you know, um, Wow, you're really taking on a lot right now. It's like you maybe don't need to take all of this on. I decided like, I didn't. I didn't know how to. There were some times like, I don't know, like, once it was open, it was just it just, it just was there. I don't I didn't know how to slow it down. You know? It was like I just have to look at it.

Anne Sherry  1:20:13

Yeah, sometimes I think you get flooded and I got a break. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla  1:20:20

Yeah. Oh, so um, we will

Anne Sherry  1:20:26

everyone knows how to regulate right? Got it.

Alison Cebulla  1:20:29

Claudia tell tell our listeners how to frickin regulate or what could what steps can they take on their way to getting a therapist because therapists out there you have got to manage

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:20:40

your your shame over because it's not your fault. It just means there is not enough access to your higher brain yet. And you've got to expand your consciousness by talking until you connect some kind of understanding to this behavior. You can't do CBT on that particular thing, you can only do CBT once you have mastery, once your higher brain is available exam you can start changing patterns and bring that in. But if you're dysregulated, you don't have a brain, you've lost your mind. Exactly. So you just have to know that you have to keep talking. And slowly through that you will understand what is happening inside yourself with compassion for yourself for your parents for everybody. Yeah. And you slowly, slowly, slowly built mind. That's how it happens. So keep trying.

Anne Sherry  1:21:38

I love that. I think of the phrase like What if you lost your mind? Yeah, I have.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:21:49

Right? And what makes you lose it and being able to say yes, in this moment. You know, I mean, now that I've had glimmers of health, I can look back and say that there were large areas of my life where I was crazy, all the time where I was just disturbed, is painful, and really, really sad. And yeah, I feel so good that I'm at the top of the mountain now. And even when I feel disturbed, which I do, I can treat myself properly. Yeah. So to take care of myself so that I can stay connected to people in community and get the love that I need to heal myself.

Alison Cebulla  1:22:38

I mean, so for listeners who may have be have have trouble finding a therapist, because it's it's hard to find the right one. And and it's and then with the pandemic, like a lot of therapists are just full, you know, they're not taking new clients. But I noticed, you know, on your website, and I've I've I reviewed one of your courses. And you offer some you offer some courses to take online. And so maybe you could tell us about, you know why you offer those, you know why that could be a good first step and what people should maybe look for when they're looking for an online course to kind of jumpstart their healing? Well, the course to be aware of

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:23:17

that the course of introduction has filled unfortunately, I guess there is a waiting list on that the Marriage Course which has 17 little modules that help you think about that one light of marriage and kind of unpack what the projections are is for sale on there. And it's little modules with handouts that get just get you thinking, I charged for what I would charge when I started out my individual sessions, one marriage session, and I see it as like a prep for thinking, you know, opening the hood, and just taking a look under the hood and seeing like, why do you feel so bad? Why does your spouse accuse you of this? Why does your spouse feel blamed? Where's all the negativity? So, you know, it's a different kind of marriage course because usually they're behavioral or trying to help you communicate or get intimacy whereas this one is like, where you're at the point where you're wondering if you even should get your own apartment. Available on there, and then there's some free stuff on there. And,

Alison Cebulla  1:24:26

and this is Claudia Louisa comma, we'll link to it in the show notes for everyone listening.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:24:31

Great. Great. Great. And follow me on Instagram.

Alison Cebulla  1:24:35

Yes, we'll put so Claudia has the most amazing Instagram does need

Anne Sherry  1:24:42

her Instagram. Like an hour. That's

Alison Cebulla  1:24:45

awesome. just immediately go on over there. Is it Dr. Claudia Louise's out? Yeah. DR. CLAUDIA Louise will link to it in the show notes. Just I just I just love your little bits of wisdom, you know that you just have a little thought You just explained it so well you make a lot of these really concepts that people feel are difficult just really like conversational. So everyone just needs to go over there and follow up

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:25:10

to my ears. That's my rant on catcher alley. Yeah, that that is seriously like that is what I'm living for now is just to bring this stuff home and you nailed it and I want to cry now hearing you like yeah, that's what I want to do. That's we're doing

Alison Cebulla  1:25:28

it you're doing it I'm seeing the people commenting like you're reaching people. Like you're reaching and you and like watching a couple of your videos, I think Did you have one maybe on narcissism or I don't know maybe another mental another. Another mental illness? I can remember was a while ago, six months ago or something? Yeah. Where you set it in such plain matter of fact terms, that it's just feels so important to demystify some of this stuff. It's like no, it doesn't have to be hard. It just can just be easy.

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:25:56

Yeah, we all lose our minds period.

Anne Sherry  1:26:01

Lost your fucking mind.

Alison Cebulla  1:26:04

Yeah, so frickin Claudia. So much. Wisdom I grew in this hour. I always grew and I talked to you. So I love you. I love you too, Claudia, and hopefully I'll see you soon. So thanks,

Dr. Claudia Luiz  1:26:23

and thank you. YES.