Surviving Trauma and Reclaiming Identity: Antonia's Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery

Have you ever felt lost? Are you struggling to redefine your identity? Antonia, the author of 'Underwater Daughter,' certainly has. She shares her journey of surviving sexual abuse, a debilitating bike accident, and a battle with narcotics dependency with raw honesty and a dose of inspiration. Antonia reveals how writing became her lifeline, helping her re-craft her identity and make sense of her emotional landscape.

She speaks to the transformative power of words and the healing that can be found within them.

Moving into the heart of Antonia's recovery, she provides us with a profound understanding of the art of healing and self-discovery. Antonia reveals how she learned to shift perspectives, find strength in vulnerability, and turn her pain into a revolution of love. She takes us behind her book, 'Underwater Daughter,' offering a glimpse into her life and journey. Moreover, Antonia shares the resources that aided her recovery, from enlightening books to empowering workshops and counseling. This episode is for all those who have faced or are facing similar trials; Antonia's story is a testament that you are not alone, and you too can rise from the ashes.

This interview was organized by:
Peter Marchese
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www.playbackproducers.com
917-572-8291 

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Transcript

Bettina M Brown: 0:06

Hello and welcome to In the Rising, a health and wellness podcast for those going through and those supporting those going through cancer. My name is Bettina Brown and I'm board certified in physical therapy, wound care and lymphedema, and you know, for me cancer is very personal. It's affected my friends, my immediate and my not so immediate family, and therefore I created this podcast and fit after breast cancercom to address the multiple dimensions of our lives during and after recovery. Thank you for being part of In the Rising podcast. Thank you for helping this podcast grow the way you have. Today's episode is really powerful.

Bettina M Brown: 0:54

I had a very, very good conversation with Antonia, author of Underwater Daughter, a memoir of surviving and healing, and she survived sexual abuse. She survived a traumatic physical bike accident which changed her entire life and even became, at one point, dependent on narcotics. Antonia's story is so many of us like what could have been or what we've gone through, and her rendition and perspective is really powerful and her vulnerability and wanting to share and help others is powerful, so I'm really eager for you to hear our conversation. First of all, thank you so much for being part of In the Rising and also thank you for sharing a very important story what I have learned after speaking with many authors is they feel there's a purpose. There's like a pull to write these words out to share in the world. What would you describe was your pull or need to share your story?

Antonia Deignan: 2:06

So thank you for asking, Bettina, and, honestly, thank you for having me again. I think the initial pull was a complete disappearance of my identity following an accident. I just had a sort of downward spiraling depression slash, loss of identity, and one thing led to another. The only real thing I could do at that time was write. I'm not a writer by trade or education, but it was the only thing I could do to sort of start hunting and trying to figure out who I thought I was, because it was a real.

Antonia Deignan: 2:52

The accident that I had in 2018 just sort of stripped all my known identity markers. And once I started writing and it certainly wasn't with the intention of publishing, but it was a real outpouring of experiences from my childhood and it came out in a very raw and in a way that was forcing me to really re-perspector respect, perspective, perspectivize is the made-up word that I like to use and sort of try to understand the happenings, not from the situation of a victim or the situation of a very hurt child, but now this adult that has, you know, an opportunity to sort of layer on a more global perspective, a more loving lens, a more understanding and deeper hunt through other people's lenses as well, and so once I got to that place and then maybe some eyes were on my writing a little bit it really became apparent to me that this could be helpful for someone else. This could be, this could resonate, this could be a voice that someone hasn't heard before. That's maybe you know, experience something similar.

Bettina M Brown: 4:23

And thank you for sharing that. That's a very personal, very personal story, and what you talked about is you lost an identity, what some people I've spoken to who've been through similar circumstances that their trauma became their identity. Instead of looking at it from a different loving lens, as you put it, did you feel that you had taken the identity of that trauma into your adulthood and had to relook at that, or were you able to disconnect?

Antonia Deignan: 4:58

I mean, in some ways it's actually both of what you just said, because I became very detached from a sort of simple way of communicating in the world when I was young. I internalized and really buried and dissociated myself from the hard experiences and I funneled everything, all my emotions, all my needs and wants through. Dance is basically what I did. So when I went back and was writing, you know, I think after that many years, you know you'd normalize so much of the burdens you carry right, and so there was some level of distancing in that way that I was just so accustomed to the weight and then, through the writing, realized, oh, it's there still, like it is there and I've just buried it so deeply that you know it's almost like someone else's brain that it's living in. And so the writing finally gave me permission to say, hmm, I'm not going to do that anymore. I need to be a little more truthful about who I am, and so that I can change the dialogue.

Bettina M Brown: 6:17

When I looked at your website, you also post information Like it's also resources, rain, rape, abuse incest national network, the foundation for survivors of abuse, etc. Did you use some of these support services or or some kind of support did you have?

Antonia Deignan: 6:37

So I didn't use any of the more nationally known services. I definitely sought out a lot of books along the way. I had attended at least one from memory workshop weekend. That was Linda Dave, laura Davis, who wrote Courage to Heal, and so at the time that that was published you know, late 80s I think and so she was actively doing circuits at that time and sort of trying to gather in you know people having had similar experiences trauma, sexual trauma experiences and over the years I'd certainly dabbled in, you know, just hiring a therapist, doing counseling, things like that I would say I had a couple of.

Antonia Deignan: 7:26

You know the dance and the ways that I employed sort of navigating so much of my emotional life through my body was a huge life hack for me, which was why the accident kind of shook all of that up. I actually, after the accident too, read Bessel van der Kult's book, which is so even more popular now than it was then Body Keeps the Score, and that had a profound effect on me. One of my daughters just finished reading it as well. That was a tough read because that was one of the first times I felt really seen by this idea of how much I had incorporated my life and childhood into my physical self.

Bettina M Brown: 8:19

And that's a great book. It's a hard read but it is so worth it and it's, I think, important for people. It gives you an acceptance that one person may put their experiences in their body and another person does not, and so you cope differently and how you react, so it's not so isolating, I think.

Antonia Deignan: 8:40

So that was really opening and you know just the way you said that too. It's how many times have you heard like, oh, you know, someone's trying to teach you how to play piano and or whatever it might be right learning how to write, and for some reason, on that particular Friday, that eighth grade teacher or that adult said it in a way that made sense to you. And that's almost the same thing, like what you're saying, like you experience something. I internalized it so fully within my body, whereas someone else could have done the exact opposite, until something clicks right and you know whatever, but yeah.

Bettina M Brown: 9:18

Absolutely, absolutely. So I have another question. You shared how you had felt silenced in your childhood. You looked at the title of the book right, that you're underwater, but not drowning. Share, share this title. What is this? What does this mean for you?

Antonia Deignan: 9:37

Yeah, that's, that's perceptive.

Antonia Deignan: 9:38

So, you know, when you're underwater and you're maybe almost at that point where you're struggling to breathe, like it's hard to communicate, right, people don't understand you when you're trying to speak to them underwater and it's hard to see.

Antonia Deignan: 9:52

I think that you know, I, when I say I was silenced, like I wasn't, you know, sort of framed in a way that you know, I wasn't allowed to speak but because of the circumstances of my childhood, you know, I didn't trust my voice, I didn't trust my know, I didn't trust that that the voice would do anything to change my circumstances, and that was just so much fear.

Antonia Deignan: 10:19

And I think that, you know, certainly, being underwater can, can be a metaphor for that. I mean, the title is is, I think, layered in other ways to. I actually found a lot of solace in the water, in the ocean, you know, growing up, and so it's also like both sides of the coin, right, and I you know my dance background, I ended up writing sort of by accident and my writing was almost like dancing on a page and I'm a very sort of I paint a lot of attention to the rhythm and the pattern and the movements of the words, and so when, trying to come up with a title, coming across the two words underwater, daughter, together felt so like perfect the rhythm of it, and, and then all of the other embedded meanings I could sort of layer on top of that.

Bettina M Brown: 11:11

So I like that perspective, that you dance with the words, and that that has a lot of meaning for you. I also mentioned the word trust just now, that you didn't trust your voice. Do you feel that you have learned to trust your voice and trust yourself?

Antonia Deignan: 11:30

Look at you. It's actually really funny because recently I'm writing again. I'm actually writing fiction, which I was sort of asked not to do, but I've had these characters that I just love so much and I want to write their story. But the working title of that was Trust and it's a really recent contemplation of mine that through all the work that I've done, that's probably been the last piece. It's come in stages obviously, like the ways that I trust my children I'm conditional trust there, right, I mean, even when they effort up or they try to get away with something or whatever, there's still this bottom line I see you, you see me thing. And that's been the hardest thing to really find and sort of let go so much of what I was holding onto in that regard. So yeah, you picked that up.

Bettina M Brown: 12:35

And back to the word trust. You know you talked about your kiddos. You had to also invite another adult into that circle of trust. Did you feel that you were able to do that with bigger, wider, open eyes because of your experiences?

Antonia Deignan: 12:53

Yes, boy, that's a tricky question because you know I've been married a couple of times. So hence, you know to your point, I haven't mastered the whole trust thing and my husband and I are still working on that. You know, like I said, for me to point out my children, you know, a minute ago there was no, there was no. Like that wasn't a mistake, like that has been the cleanest, most sort of intuitive way of me finding that ability. And I'm still working on the other stuff, it's no question.

Bettina M Brown: 13:37

I'm sure sharing that, because I think a lot of people feel if they're not fixed or they're not okay, if it's not just gone and you can take a lot of your experiences and it's a continued work in process.

Antonia Deignan: 13:51

And that is okay. I always say life is practice. I like that.

Bettina M Brown: 13:58

It's a lot of practice. Some days it's a harder practice than others. For sure I would say, looking at your story, looking back, what is one big lesson that you feel there was a silver lining around to you to offer the world?

Antonia Deignan: 14:17

I think I've often wondered about the sort of innate strength I have because, through it all, I was never defeated, I was never going to give up hope, right, and so I don't know exactly where that comes from. But having been through the different experiences that I've been through for me to be able to be a voice that says none of these things are going to define you, I think that there's this bigger picture of all of us in this game, this life game, have our sufferings, our challenges, our circumstances that are open for interpretation, right, and at some point choose the loving lens, the perspective that we all have, this opportunity to sort of shift out of the fear, out of the victim envelope and see the next level where we can all get to. And that's I mean, that's the primary drive here.

Bettina M Brown: 15:36

And thank you for sharing that. What do you feel you're still looking forward to in your life game?

Antonia Deignan: 15:43

My life game. You know it's conversations like these that I love. You know you always get sort of nervous about putting yourself out there. Right, it's vulnerability times a million. And what does Brunet Brown say? Vulnerability is courage, it's bravery and it's learning that just shape shifting the perception of vulnerability will allow us all to sort of, you know, embrace that frailty as a way of revolutionizing love instead.

Bettina M Brown: 16:20

So I have to say this was one of the most powerful conversations I've had, because Antonia has done the work. We don't get to healing by just sitting and ignoring. We have to go through it. We have to literally walk the walk as well as talk the talk, and that is what Antonia has done. I have information about Antonia and her book below and I really encourage you to reach out to her, to reach out to the resources she has on her website to read the book or even pass on this podcast that you feel that someone may benefit from. I thank you so much for your time and let's keep building one another up.