Alle guests on Dr. Donna Bevan Lee’s podcast
This first of three, 20-minute interviews is a thoughtful, even challenging, conversation with a seminal mind in the field of trauma and recovery.
The interview starts at 118 seconds into the podcast.
Dr. Donna: Your parents. You love them initially, you have to trust them in order to survive. So that when you are being abused, then you just accommodate that reality. “This is just how it is.”
Alle: To me, when you say accommodate: in my head, I said, “This is what goes on at nighttime, and at home. In the daytime, and outside of home, I am exactly the kind of child that you want to teach, that you want to be friends with, that you want to raise … I really thought that by being perfect, I could make the rest of it not a problem. When I say that out loud, the logic of it does not make any sense.
Dr. Donna: Well, you were a child. Children are known —
Alle: — known to be remarkably immature!
Part 2 of our interview. Part 3.
Dr. Donna Bevan Lee, now retired, is my dear friend and former therapist. She not only saved my life, she show me how to live it.
While Dr. Donna is unique in my life, I am not unique in hers. As a pioneer in the treatment of childhood trauma, she has helped thousands of survivors. In addition to pioneering the field of codependency and recovery, she advised the WHO (yes, the WHO) on addressing trauma against women in African countries.
She’s climbed some of the world’s highest mountains (literally, professional, and personally) and is a hell of a gal to have interview you.
This will be the first of a three-part interview. Part Two. Part Three.
