Transformation Isn't Easy with Maya Golden

[00:00:00] There's already enough stigmas around women and their sexuality and sex education in this country. And here I was saying, well, I struggled with this addiction. I was exposed to sex very early and this is how it manifested as an adult. What's good?

[00:00:16] I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Maya Golden.

[00:00:30] Author of the memoir, The Return Trip, a story Maya initially tried to pen as a fictional account of her life as a wife, mother and journalist with a deep dark secret no one would suspect.

[00:00:43] The Return Trip is really the story of what happens to a girl when she becomes an adult woman and she's believed her entire life that she's existed for the gratification of other people.

[00:00:54] Maya is the founder of the One in Three Foundation, which provides recovery tools and support for survivors of sexual abuse. An organization she started after she went on her own road to healing through body based therapy. How she's learning to belong to herself.

[00:01:13] Plus why she used her husband as a gauge to determine if she was going too far in detailing her sex addiction. And how she hid behind perfectionism and what she's doing now to give herself grace and live free of shame.

[00:01:28] That and more is next when Black and Published continues. Trigger warning, before we get into the conversation, this episode contains discussion of sexual addiction and suicidal ideation. Please be gentle with yourself and any little ears while listening. Maya, when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:02:07] I think I probably first started wanting to be a writer at a very young age. The book details the fact that I had a pretty vivid imagination and I was fortunate enough to have parents that cultivated reading in my house.

[00:02:25] So I was reading at a very early age and read lots of books they read to me. And I was always enamored with storytelling. So my first step to that was a career in journalism, which essentially was telling the stories of other people.

[00:02:43] And I really enjoyed doing that. The more that I found that I was writing nonfiction for journalism, I found that I still had that creativity that was hoping to create fiction. And that ultimately led me to doing some online posting fanfic, that type of thing.

[00:03:05] They scratched that itch, but it was about five years ago that I got really serious about becoming an author. What happened five years ago that said, you know what I had to take writing more seriously beyond just being an outlet from my day to day job?

[00:03:21] I really think it was the response that I got to what I was posting online. I had a lot of people that were telling me, you could probably really do this. Or if you really wanted to be a writer, this doesn't just need to be a hobby.

[00:03:37] And it was something that brought me a tremendous amount of joy to be able to share with people. Again, I was writing under a pen name.

[00:03:44] I was very big on the Tumblr community and it was just a really great feeling to be able to write and put that out and then receive that kind of feedback of people saying, I would read. Other things that she wrote.

[00:03:57] And so that was really when I first started to say, you know, if I'm doing this already and putting this much time and energy into it, why not really look at taking it from being something I'm doing in stealth and make it a little more mainstream?

[00:04:11] And so then what was your process to make your writing more mainstream? Was it always your memoir, The Return Trip or were there other steps between there? No, it was not.

[00:04:21] Matter of fact, I probably push back on writing a memoir as hard as anybody could push back on it. But it felt like it was a calling to do. I despite having a journalism career really started from ground zero when it came to publishing.

[00:04:35] I didn't even know what a query was about trying to find an agent and putting that letter together as a pitch in journalism.

[00:04:43] I had created such a career that I felt very fortunate that I could say, hey, I have this idea for a story and someone would pick it up.

[00:04:49] So the fact that you had to go out and fight and fend for people to believe in your work or find an agent, I didn't know how to write that letter. I didn't know about the first few pages needing to be as strong as they possibly could be.

[00:05:03] So I would say even though that it started about five years ago, it was really March 2020 when all of our lives changed that I had the opportunity to sit down and take a writing workshop. And because of that writing workshop, it gave me every step.

[00:05:20] It told me what a query was. It told me how to find manuscript wish list, how to find agencies.

[00:05:26] And that was the starting point for me saying so that was really the step that once I became more knowledgeable in the publishing industry and what I needed to do.

[00:05:40] So step number one was trying to learn how to write a great query letter in addition to obviously writing a story that grabs people's attention. I remember when I was querying and all the different agents want different things.

[00:05:54] So then you end up, you have a query letter that you might have a synopsis that you might have a summary. You might have an outline as well as the actual work that you're going to submit.

[00:06:05] And you have all of these different pieces so that whoever asks for something, you already have it. Did you find it daunting trying to distill your work into three paragraphs, 250 words, 300 words or 500 page summary or these different items to express something that was once so big?

[00:06:27] It was difficult, especially with a memoir. It can be hard to be objective about your own story. So it was, I had to start approaching it as if I was my own protagonist, which I am in the story and thinking of myself in terms of being a character.

[00:06:46] Even though this is my personal story and my own journey, I still had to remember that this is a literary work. And so I had to step back from the personalization of it.

[00:06:59] And that's really hard when you're querying too, when someone rejects the story because it's like, wow, this is my story. You don't want to feel that your story isn't good enough, but it's part of the industry as well, which I have more to say on that.

[00:07:11] But I think that trying to come up with a hook was initially something that I struggled with. And then at the root of it, once I found that, once I said, what is it that I'm trying to say?

[00:07:24] And the return trip at the end of the day is really the story of what happens to a girl when she becomes an adult woman and she's believed her entire life that she's existed for the gratification of other people.

[00:07:37] And I thought not only was that reflective of the journey that's in the book, but I thought women everywhere would relate to that. Yeah, because there are so many mixed messages and media and even in the literary world about who we are and the roles that we play.

[00:07:55] And so that was really what I had to get to the root of was what's the hook? What's the core of the story about? So you were always querying your memoir.

[00:08:05] You didn't try to start querying fiction first or try to fictionalize your memoir so as to have some more distance from it, it was always you up front? No, it was not.

[00:08:16] It was in fact, I think I sent it out to probably two agents in the very beginning, the query, and it was very much a fictionalized adaptation of my life. I created a character, my character's name was Stacey. She was a journalist. She had experienced childhood sexual abuse.

[00:08:35] She was an alcoholic, a recovering sex addict and she had this journalism career and a husband and family. And so when I was writing that initially, I was very detached from it.

[00:08:49] And I think I got the feedback from those two agents that I queried that to that said, this just didn't grab me the way that I was hoping it would grab me.

[00:08:57] You can come up with a stellar query, but then if your pages aren't what they're looking for, then hey, great, they would read your query, but you want them to want more of your story.

[00:09:08] So a few months after I had started the writing process and started this fictional adaptation of my book, and it was a struggle. Writing this book was one of the hardest things that I've ever done.

[00:09:20] But the feedback that I've gotten from it, from survivors or other women or people who are caregivers or loved ones, mental health professionals for survivors has been so tremendous that it makes all of the strife that I went through during the writing process worth it.

[00:09:40] OK, so you are the second person and probably the second person that I know in life to be a black woman who struggled with sex addiction.

[00:09:51] The other woman is a woman named Katherine Garland, who lives in Florida where I live, and I published her memoir about sex addiction late last year. And I didn't know your book was about that because the flap copy just says addiction.

[00:10:06] Sex addiction was the furthest from my mind and your candor in the book is so moving.

[00:10:14] Were you afraid to be that honest, even though you knew that you had to tell the story that you wanted to tell that the fictionalized account of Stacey's life wasn't going to get it? Absolutely terrified for a number of reasons.

[00:10:30] Probably first and foremost, a lot of people didn't know this about me, which is the story of a lot of addicts. But as I said, I had a journalism career and have been on broadcast for 20 plus years and working in media for 20 plus years.

[00:10:45] There's already enough stigmas around women and their sexuality and sex education in this country. And here I was saying, well, I struggled with this addiction. I was exposed to sex very early and this is how it manifested as an adult.

[00:11:01] But I think what also helped me through was I was really looking for a book that was in this vein, that was this honest and this candid about it.

[00:11:10] Someone else's experience and not necessarily a how to or a workbook or self help, but more so just feeling that someone else related. And the more that I was looking, the less that I found, especially from a black woman's perspective.

[00:11:27] And because of that, I was really pushed to be honest going too far into it, especially there's a chapter where I talk about being nine years old in my first exposure to pornography and how that ended up being this Pandora's box that influenced the rest of my life.

[00:11:46] And so I was very fortunate to have with me, not just my publisher and the editor at the publishing house who was with me during the developmental process. But we had proofreaders, sensitivity readers. I also will be honest and say my husband was a big gauge for me.

[00:12:05] If it didn't really bother or faze him then, and I say that not meaning the emotion part of it, but just being able to separate me from that part of the book.

[00:12:15] But if he was able to listen to what was in it or read what was in it and was not, then I felt that I was on the right path.

[00:12:23] But yes, it was so difficult just because people didn't know that about me because of the stigmas around sex addiction. And then again, I was outing myself in a lot of ways.

[00:12:34] But one of the people that's in the memoir, Tanny McCarty, who was the counselor at Shades of Hope Treatment Center that I entered for my addiction.

[00:12:43] When she read the book, she said, I have not read a story where it shows so vividly what happened to the child from sex abuse and then the woman and how those connected. And she said, I really think this is needed.

[00:12:58] And so for me, that was validation because she's worked with so many thousands of addicts. I'm not going to lie about that. It's still, I have some kind of wintzing reactions when people are like, oh, I got your book.

[00:13:11] Because some people are my son's teacher or their principal or these are very personal intimate details of my life. But I give them the caveat before they get foreign and say it's very trauma heavy. They're strong language in it and they have all been really supportive.

[00:13:29] I think that's part of the beauty of it. As difficult as it is to share this, I think more women relate to it than we think don't relate to it. Yeah, like your book came out November of 2023. Kathy's book came out September of 23.

[00:13:47] And I had never read any stories like this except for the two of you. And I'm just like, it makes me wonder how many women in general, but black women specifically, are hiding so much of themselves behind a veneer.

[00:14:01] And yours was literally the veneer broadcast where people know you're invited into people's homes and on the sidelines and these other things. And you have this shiny TV news anchor face and smiling voice. And then you're dealing with this on the inside and in private.

[00:14:17] As far as your publication process goes, you talk about your editor and your publishing house really walking you through telling this story. What was that like to have that kind of encouragement around something that had been so shameful?

[00:14:33] I think to have them be women and maybe not have related to the story as survivors, but just empathetic to the story. They didn't ever try to deter me from some of the places that things touched on.

[00:14:50] If anything, I think the only area where they probably encouraged me to dig a little deeper on and I was hesitant to do this. And I think a lot of black women can relate to this as daughters.

[00:15:02] But I was hesitant to touch on the relationship and the role that my mother played in my perfectionism, particularly.

[00:15:10] I mentioned that in the book and I shared a couple of things, but then we get to a part where I'm in treatment and they say, we understand about your mother. And my editor said, well, we really haven't, what are some of the conversations?

[00:15:24] And so I already knew those parts. I had them written and I had tucked those away. And I was worried, obviously about our relationship or how it might come across as being her depiction.

[00:15:36] But I had to have a conversation with her and just say, this is from my memory and these are from my perspective. And I know we probably have different memories of how things happened or different views of how things took place.

[00:15:50] But I just had to have that conversation. And so once I was able to put that sort of to the side, you still worry a little bit. I didn't let a tremendous amount of people read the book, as you said before it went out.

[00:16:04] My husband didn't read it until it was published, even though I shared excerpts with him on things that I wondered if it was too much or too graphic or anything of that matter. He didn't read the full book until it had been published in November.

[00:16:16] So I think that was probably the best thing about having an editor with me was someone that can say, hey, dig a little deeper. Maybe you don't need so much detail here. And what is it?

[00:16:31] What is it that you want to say and what do you feel that you're holding back on and why? And then talking me through that. And that's the beauty of working with an editor who gives you grace and understanding.

[00:16:42] It was beautiful that I had within that deadline time to flesh out the rest of the story. I could take my foot off the gas some days and you need that. You need that in memoir, especially.

[00:16:55] That was my next question because the book details a lot of the treatment that you went into initially to get well and then what you've done afterwards. But in writing this book, were you re-triggered and re-traumatized that you had to be like, you know what?

[00:17:09] I may not make it to finish the book if I keep writing. I absolutely was. And that's what made it so difficult. And that's why I have a body of work that's very candid and authentic and true to the experience.

[00:17:23] But in doing so, no one was trying to force me to bleed onto the page, as they say. But I was doing so in the name of how is this going to help somebody? If I'm holding back, that doesn't help anyone.

[00:17:39] Because there were days I was like, why am I putting myself through this? And I had done the work. I have done the body-based healing and the cognitive therapy and all the acronyms for trauma healing.

[00:17:51] And I sat down and I started writing this book and three weeks in, I started having nightmares. And then it wasn't long after the nightmares that I started having panic attacks. And I didn't know what was going on because I really truthfully had never had panic attacks before.

[00:18:09] The book deals with complex PTSD and me being a high achiever. So I'm used to operating under stress and duress a lot, but I started having panic attacks and that was new.

[00:18:20] And I had a counselor who I was already working with, but it started to become where I would text her and say, today is a struggle. And can I come in?

[00:18:32] And then eventually it became not just me texting when I needed it, but it was we're going to have set therapy sessions. Sometimes it was just having that outlet to say this is difficult things to relive or when you write so vividly and with so much candor,

[00:18:48] when you relive in those smells and the sensations and you're seeing the images. One thing that I learned with neuroscience and with counseling is your body, when you're writing something like this, your body doesn't know that you're not back in that period of time. Right.

[00:19:07] As I'm writing something so vivid and forcing myself to be in that moment, my body doesn't know that I'm not five years old anymore. And that's where the panic attacks started coming.

[00:19:17] So I had to ultimately go see a cardiologist just to make sure that my ticker was OK, because we were concerned that it might be a heart issue. He actually said, no, it's you writing this book.

[00:19:30] And he gave me a beta blocker because it had gotten to that point where whenever I sat down to write, I had to do that. And I had to sit down and take something so that I could write so that I could finish the book.

[00:19:44] And even now that the book is out there, as I said before, it was terrifying to put this out and to have people in the community read this or people who saw me as a community leader reading this information about me and these secrets.

[00:19:59] So I had to work through that again as well. So there's a whole slate of issues that can go with it. And there's still that feeling of, oh, I don't want people to know this, but I'm living without secrets. And that feels so beautiful and so free.

[00:20:14] OK, because my next question is going to be like you said earlier about deciding to publish the book and make it personal and make it honest and make it your true story and about bleeding on the page. Nobody is asking you to do this.

[00:20:28] As another writer told me, nobody is looking for your book. Like you write because you want to. You hope people buy it. But nobody's like, oh, I want that book that has not been written that this writer is thinking about.

[00:20:40] And they need to go ahead and do this. So then the question I think I come back to with everything that you've said, especially going through the

[00:20:47] retraumatization of it and the panic attacks and having to get your heart checked and take a beta blocker before you write is why? I think even though, as you said, no one is asking me directly, saying, Maya, you have to be the one to write this book.

[00:21:02] I still felt a responsibility in my healing journey to write it because I was looking for this story. I really was looking for someone else to say to me, you know what? I experienced childhood sexual abuse and it turned into perfectionism, sex addiction, alcoholism.

[00:21:22] It turned into dissociative disorders. You feel like you're on an island and I felt so isolated. So that's all the way in good or bad. All the way. Exactly. Sometimes to my detriment, yes.

[00:21:37] But I think for sure once I decided I was going to do this again, I said to myself, if I'm going to write it, I'm going to write it the way that it needs to be told. And there were definitely times where I said that to myself too.

[00:21:52] If I'm having a panic attack, it was why am I putting myself through this? But also there was an understanding as well that I still was holding in so much of that trauma and that pain.

[00:22:06] As much work as I had done, I think that writing this book was also an exercise in therapy as well. And it's not that I wrote it for the sake of it being some kind of cathartic release for me because it's not really what happened.

[00:22:20] It was more so that as I revisited, I began to see how much hold the abuse had put on my entire life and all of my relationships and how I wanted to change that.

[00:22:33] And so I really hope that if it ends up in the hands of someone who again maybe didn't ask for this book, but has a similar experience or cares for someone who has been on this journey, is in a relationship with someone that has been on a similar journey.

[00:22:50] That it helps them get some understanding of the ramifications of that trauma being embedded at such an early age. All right, so then let's get to the book and you read something from The Return Trip and then we can get into some more details.

[00:23:06] Maya Golden's memoir, The Return Trip, details how she grew up in East Texas, keeping secrets from her parents about the abuse she suffered at the hands of a family member and how that early and warped introduction to sex led her into the depths of sex addiction and a despair so deep she wanted to end her life.

[00:23:26] Here's Maya. And this is actually from chapter five of the book and the title is The Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name in 1991.

[00:23:38] An 11 year old crammed on a pew with at least a dozen other people, most of them bathed in too much perfume that itched my nose and made it hard to breathe. The remnants of the stained burgundy crushed velvet cushion under my backside had lost any plushness years ago.

[00:23:53] And the hard wooden back of the pew wasn't adding to my comfort. Yet another Sunday afternoon, two hours into a far too long sermon. Like most black girls in Texas my age, I obediently sat through that grueling marathon at our Baptist church.

[00:24:07] Even if the air conditioner had been on, it would have been sweltering because of all the bodies tightly packed into the pews. There wasn't a single clock in the sanctuary and I wondered if this was on purpose.

[00:24:18] So the congregation's only squirming would be from the sting of the pastor's words to a sinner's and not from restlessness. The only time we could count on the benediction, the dismissal from church, taking place as close to one o'clock for the 11am service

[00:24:33] was when the Dallas Cowboys had a noon kickoff. No preacher in the area wanted to risk holding everyone hostage through the start of the second half of the game. I neither loved going to church nor did I hate it. Our pastor's booming voice read Matthew 1810 with conviction.

[00:24:50] Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven.

[00:25:00] My pastor looked out into the crowd of attentive faces and said, every child is protected by an angel. My shoulders hunched towards my ears and I felt my entire body grow hot. It was a burning from my core that rose like lava to the crown of my head.

[00:25:16] Rage. Where in the hell was my angel? I couldn't tell you a single word that came next in that sermon. I knew as I sat on that rickety church pew that I had spent the last six years of my life molested by my cousin.

[00:25:31] As I sat beside church ladies waving fans with images of Martin Luther King Jr and John the Baptist holding his hands over a white Jesus in the river, I remembered how I had been prayed upon, touched and rubbed by a multitude of other boys as well.

[00:25:45] I tuned out what the preacher was saying and focused on the question as I see with anger confusion. Where was God and why wasn't he helping me?

[00:25:56] Thank you. I want to go back to the beginning of the book because you start the book with the day that you are planning to die. And then in that chapter, you say on page seven, when I was a teenager, I had gotten it in my head that 23 was a good age to die.

[00:26:14] One, that's a hell of a way to start the book. Why begin there? Because I almost feel like the return trip is as the title is a metaphor for a return back to your life and it truly being yours. Can you talk more about that?

[00:26:29] Yes, that's a great point. But the first chapter of the book does start with initially what is I am driving home to my parents' house in my hometown and I have made up my mind that day is going to be the day that I take my life.

[00:26:48] And it was not just a suicide plan. I had prescription drugs to make it happen. I had brought the alcohol to make it happen. And when I woke up that morning, I was bound and determined. And I think part of the reason why I started the book there was as much as this book is about the journey again to sanity and wholeness, it also depicts the despair.

[00:27:15] That comes from depression that comes from PTSD that comes from years of wrestling with mental health and being weary and tired and just worn down from it and feeling like there's no goodness in the world for you.

[00:27:33] And as painful as that is the first line of the book is today is the day that I'm going to die. And I know that's obviously an attention grabber for a lot of people, but at the same time, unfortunately, I think there are all too many people who have had moments where whether it was worded that way or not they may have related where they just felt like this is the end.

[00:27:57] And it's not just a plot point for the sake of shock value, or it's not a plot point that is there. Just to show well this is where our protagonist was and look they become healthy and happy by the end of it.

[00:28:12] Yes that's part of the journey but I don't know if anybody who has had those thoughts can truly understand that level of despair. And so I think it was important for readers to meet me Maya as a character the protagonist of this book at my lowest moment.

[00:28:32] And then wonder why is this woman so convinced that this is where her life is going to end and then you start to get the backstory.

[00:28:40] And to me that was really important to depict again the despair and the hopelessness that my life had reached after years of battling with my own mind.

[00:28:53] You starting your book there. Yes it's shocking no it's not just a plot point but I again I think that goes to what I mentioned earlier about wearing the mask but then also what you were saying as well about being an object for everyone else's gratification that you don't feel like.

[00:29:10] You are the main character in your own story so you feel like it's fine to end it because no one's going they'll just go find another character another person to fill that role actually say.

[00:29:21] On page 73 I didn't know who I was I became what everyone wanted me to be in his case as with so many other men I became his arousal and you talk about being that kind of object from the time that you were a child.

[00:29:37] Do you feel like you belong to yourself now.

[00:29:41] I think that the publication of this book has put me on the journey of understanding who I am a lot more and having a better relationship with myself and understanding what I'm willing to do and what I'm no longer willing to do.

[00:29:56] But it also it helps me prioritize putting this book out there has really allowed me to take a step back from a lot of the demands of life and to be more vocal in saying.

[00:30:11] Today is a tough day or this event that happened earlier in the day has sent me into a bad mood and I'm working through it giving myself permission slips as my counselor calls it to.

[00:30:25] Have some self care time or to not feel like i have ninety things that I have to do to say hey if I did the laundry and I got groceries today.

[00:30:36] That's all that I did I did something and that's enough some days is bright it you hear that a lot with mental health you hear people say hey if you just got out of bed and you brush your teeth you're doing great.

[00:30:48] But I don't think we really understand how much of a struggle that can be sometimes and I think for me that's the been the beauty of this is just finding that grace in discovering who I am.

[00:31:01] And realizing I will laugh and say that I realized I'm much more introverted than I thought that I was and I think that's one of the things about being a writer i'm not sure who the exact quote comes from is but it said.

[00:31:17] Being becoming an author is a profession for people who want to tell you a story but not make eye contact while they're doing it.

[00:31:26] And I thought that's exactly it i've really enjoyed that part because i've gotten to be more in tune with that and i've gotten to to step up.

[00:31:35] In those other roles some days it's not a balance and I can understand that some days I have to focus on foundation and being an author my kid is the number one thing that I have to take care of.

[00:31:46] And not feeling guilt about that so i'm still working on myself I would love to be able to sit here and say I put this book out and I got my stuff together.

[00:31:56] If anybody can at any point in life can say that about themselves I would love to sit down and have a conversation with them and meet them and ask them how because. I think as a woman, especially a black woman there's just so many demands on us.

[00:32:10] And there's so many there's so much stress that's put on us and their stigma is about what we can and can't do and how strong we have to be.

[00:32:18] And i'm learning that it's okay to not be those things to not fit that veneer and not fit into that mold and to speak up for myself, even if it might hurt somebody's feelings my no protects my peace.

[00:32:33] You talk about everything that you were going through as well as being a wife and a mother and navigating your traumas and your addictions while married while mothering and trying to do your absolute best.

[00:32:47] Do you think the pressure to be perfect in those areas made what you were struggling with even worse and even more shameful because you're trying to fit this mold.

[00:33:01] And no one tells you that no mother no wife has anything figured out there everybody's just winging it out here and throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what works.

[00:33:12] Yes absolutely i can honestly say that i believe that if i had not become a mother and gone through postpartum and gone through hitting that rock bottom that i'm at in chapter one.

[00:33:23] I don't know that i ever would have gone to treatment and ever sought true healing for i had sat on a therapist chair.

[00:33:32] And couch for 20 years doing cognitive therapy but had never done deep trauma work and i felt so helpless having a child because as i said in the book that i was gonna mom the hell out of mommy.

[00:33:47] I was like Martha Stewart on steroids or something where i was just trying to like theme the bottles and breast feed and make the handmade.

[00:33:55] Baby food and by the cotton diapers that don't have chlorine like all the decisions like it was gonna be perfect and my child wasn't gonna want for anything and then i had a newborn.

[00:34:15] It took me a very long time to understand though that babies cry and sometimes they cry just for the sake of hearing themselves cry it does nothing to do with.

[00:34:23] What you fed them or how much you tell them or cut a time or time to time or any of those things that sometimes that's just what they do and.

[00:34:32] I feel that i think because of my own childhood because i had been hurt and i have been harmed and that is to no fault of my parents.

[00:34:41] I kept the secret from them and i learned to keep secrets very well but because i had kept that secret from my parents there was a part of me that felt like i wasn't protected so i was.

[00:34:53] In this mindset that my kid wasn't gonna want for anything gonna need for anything that i was going to be this just glowing mother that was so proud to have my child my son and.

[00:35:05] This tremendous love would just booey me through being tired and girl no like that's just you just want to go back in time and say to myself.

[00:35:15] I didn't lean into community as much as i probably could have because if i had talked to other mothers i probably would have had more of an understanding that's not how this is gonna go.

[00:35:25] I thought i was going to be this perfect mom and my child would be content and again never be hurt and i would shield him from everything.

[00:35:33] And that my own trauma history made that worse i ended up going to treatment and getting help in part because i did want to be a better mother.

[00:35:41] Because i wanted to be alive for my son i did not want him to grow up without me but he already was growing up without me because he wasn't getting me and i think that was part of.

[00:35:54] The disconnect in our relationship and why i have such a great relationship with my son now in that he gets. His mom in a way where she communicates feelings and talks to him about his feelings and that's healthy and.

[00:36:10] that's a huge step that would not have happened if i hadn't have reached that breaking point.

[00:36:16] They talk about going to the deep therapy and shades of hope because of your son and wanting to be better for you, but in part for him as well as having community reading the chapters about the six days of intense treatment have me like girl with.

[00:36:35] Like why are we in the woods why is this lady calling you out in these meetings what is happening, why are we measuring food I was like this is i'm lost.

[00:36:46] Not lost, but I was like i've never heard of anything like this so it's very unconventional and you laid out in the book that it's not always covered by insurance and that the methods are not unproven, but.

[00:36:58] Are just different from what insurance companies will fund how did going through that experience give you the strength to now do what you're doing with your foundation to help.

[00:37:12] Other women who need that level of intense treatment but find themselves like you were, to some extent, largely unable to access it. I think that was the biggest takeaway from it was that I felt.

[00:37:27] A calling while I was there to bring this back to my community and to other survivors, especially black and brown women.

[00:37:35] Who often don't have access to mental health care who face the stigmas of mental health care because of Community religion, but when you have addiction and you have trauma that is truly body based it's in our bones. I felt that I wanted others to have that capability because.

[00:37:53] It is disheartening when you've gone to therapy for years and you don't feel like you've had that unlocking and be able to say and to give that community as well to say we're survivors we understand how this impacts your relationships how it's impacted your love life how it impacts you day to day.

[00:38:10] And that was important for me and starting the foundation, but also an offering something beyond just talk therapy giving community giving body based healing methods to help deep seated trauma.

[00:38:24] So then bringing that back to your community is one thing that you do with your foundation writing the book to get it to a larger audience is another what is one thing that you want survivors of some of these similar experiences that you have lived through to take from your story.

[00:38:43] I want them to take away that it is possible to get better because and that sounds like such a simple statement but again when the book starts I am convinced that my life is going to end.

[00:38:56] And there is I'm so numb to the world around me and so full of despair and just darkness.

[00:39:06] And to even imagine myself laughing and having a good time or introvert that I am wanting to go out and be around people are wanting to go to a coffee shopper.

[00:39:17] Socializing or wanting community and friends and bonding at that lowest point where I was and then to see the vibrancy of life now that it's not an easy transformation by any means.

[00:39:33] But we deserve it and we're worth it and it is possible to feel better that those dark moments they really aren't going to last tough times don't last always but it's the truth and when you're in it it can feel like it's going to go on forever or you can feel just like one catastrophic event after another so I hope that there's encouragement inspiration.

[00:39:57] And just the knowledge that yes you can feel and get better. So now I want to move to a speed around in a game for let you go for the afternoon what is your favorite book.

[00:40:10] Oh wow I go back to being in school and another Maya that that really was an influence but I really have to say my angel is I know why the cage bird saying is definitely one of the most influential books it's not something that I've probably read a million times but even her story of being a survivor that's included in that.

[00:40:31] Yeah it was the first time that I read something where somebody talked about that and I felt very seen and I think that had a tremendous impact on who I am as a as an author and as a journalist as well. Who is your favorite author.

[00:40:46] That's awesome gosh.

[00:40:51] I would still probably stick with Maya on dilute but I will say another book that was heavily influential to me was in the author is Chanel Miller who wrote the book know my name she's only written that one book so far but I follow her and the work that she does as an advocate and I really have tremendous respect for her.

[00:41:13] What is your favorite song. I am a prince fan so. I'll talk about Prince all day long that's that strong Jim and I energy but the beautiful ones by Prince.

[00:41:26] I love that song if money were no option where would you go what would you do and where would you live.

[00:41:32] I would probably go vacation in Santorini where I've heard that they have the most and since an Arians in the world most people that have lived to be over a hundred I don't really know if that's what I aspire to necessarily if it's so peaceful there that people are living to be a hundred plus that means they got good food.

[00:41:49] I have jokingly told my husband that one day we are going to go move to New Zealand in the middle of nowhere and just have supplies air cargo to us and drop down to us and just go off the grid.

[00:41:59] It just live nowhere that is able to be found so that would probably really be it I would just write books and email them to an editor and then disappear yeah. I love that so much names three things on your bucket list.

[00:42:14] Three things still on my bucket list are. The sky dive I know that's crazy. People say skydive and I just I don't get it but I get it but I don't get it it's a perfectly good plane why are we jumping out.

[00:42:30] Well it's funny you said that because the other thing that's on my bucket list is to fly and like an F 18 or something of that they'd like.

[00:42:40] To fly in a fighter jet so not only do I want to jump out of a perfectly good plane I want to go and like a ridiculous speed in a plane. The jack button okay two for one two four one got it.

[00:42:52] The jack button okay two for one two four one got it.

[00:42:58] And then, probably the last thing that I bucket list is I have always wanted to go to Egypt and growing up my parents took me a little Ramsey is the second exhibit when I was probably six or seven.

[00:43:12] And that was just like the worst but best thing they could have done because I've always if I wasn't a journalist and a writer, I would probably be an Egypt ologist I love it so that would be another thing in my bucket list I don't know that I would probably choose there to live, but I want to see it so bad.

[00:43:27] yeah now it's probably not the right time to go to Egypt. But just table that for a few years. Yes, ma'am. Now is not. What brings you joy. The first thing that popped into my head was flavor hot Cheetos bring me joy.

[00:43:44] That used to be my lunch like every day in high school two bags of flame of hearts and three soft chocolate chip cookies with a fruit topia or guys or water judge me not that's how I got through high school lunch. But see we could do that then.

[00:43:57] Right. Now working out three days a week and eating salads. What brings you peace. My son laughing. Laughing. Got the best laugh in the world honestly that's the corny mom thing to say, but it's the truth.

[00:44:15] It's not so then other than your son's laughter what is your favorite sound. Is print still on the table. That is fine I have my favorite artist to so Prince can be your favorite sound.

[00:44:26] I would actually say probably not just Prince although I did have the fortune of seeing him live rest his soul but I would say live music concerts just there's just something music is great.

[00:44:38] I always have music going but being at the show especially when you know the words and they get to that banger that you were hoping to hear that bop yeah that's I think live music. You are my people. Amen.

[00:44:53] So the game is called rewriting the classics name one book you wish you would have written. It's a classic but it's a modern class I would say the whole hunger game series I wish I had.

[00:45:04] I wish I had come up with that concept I know it's dark but it's like it's just so riveting of the concept of this dystopian where we've gotten to that where our children are put into that situation so I just think yeah if I could have.

[00:45:17] If I could have come up with an idea like that then I feel like I would be a pretty good writer. Name one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it.

[00:45:29] Gone girl when I read it and I read the end I literally threw the book when I read the end somebody would get caught is all I'm going to say about it I think it's just that.

[00:45:42] It's good that nobody does in a way but at the same time it was just like you went through that whole journey for this person to end up in this situation and I threw it in a I'm so done with this but in a good way kind of way like where I was just like I couldn't believe that she got to get away with it so that's.

[00:46:00] And then the final question for rewriting the classics name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why. I gotta say I know that toll keene's Lord of the Rings books are really like thought of as.

[00:46:15] Influential classics and they're taught in classrooms and held up is these great in the mood I like the movies because I like fantasy stuff but.

[00:46:24] I tried to read the book and I didn't get past the first 50 pages of the first book of the trilogy so i'm sorry I know i'm probably going to have hate mail from.

[00:46:33] The Lord of the Rings fandom but I couldn't rock with it it just wasn't it wasn't my vibe but it's great that it is for other people.

[00:46:40] Alright, so my final question for you today when you are officially dead and gone and among the ancestors what would you like someone to write about you and the legacy of words and work that you left behind.

[00:46:53] I think that I would like for someone to look at the legacy of what i've left behind and say that I was an inspiration and I hope. That in some dark times, I was a light for them.

[00:47:12] Big thank you to my golden for being here today on black and publish make sure you check out my his memoir the return trip out now from rising action publishing collective.

[00:47:23] And if you're not following my follow her on the socials she's at good as golden on instagram and Maya underscore golden on Twitter.

[00:47:34] that's our show for the week, if you like this episode and want more black and published head to our instagram page it's at black and published and that's be LK and published.

[00:47:47] There i've posted a bonus clip for my interview with my about her next book a novel entitled the Senator make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

[00:47:57] I'll highlight y'all next week when our guest will be crystal Wilkinson author of the memoir praise song for the kitchen ghosts.

[00:48:06] I think that we return to food because it's a source of power, even in the course of households and even in my own household as a poor single mother at.

[00:48:19] Various points in my life that was what I had control of right, I was in control of how those ingredients were put together and. That was something even when there was hardly anything that I could give my children like I knew there was something almost magical in that.

[00:48:36] that's next week on black and published i'll talk to you then peace.