EPISODE 118: CLAIRE

Claire found a glass pipe at home when she was 10 years old and brought it to school. At that age, she had no frame of reference for her parents' addictions. "When other people were like, 'Dude, what's your mom on?' it really started to sink in," she explained to Renée. The violence and instability at home led Claire to a lot of risky behavior as an adolescent, and at 16 she was a pregnant high school sophomore. Spoiler alert: Claire is now married to a supportive partner; she found her career passion; she has a beautiful relationship with her two teenage kids. How did she get there? Well, as you can imagine, there is quite a story in between, and Claire is great at telling it; she is smart, energetic, funny, and vulnerable...everything we could want in a guest! Her openness and intelligence make it easy for Renée to get in there and sort through the clinical content. Claire has done a lot of healing work already and is better than most at self-care, so she is understandably flummoxed by an uptick in her CPTSD symptoms. They talk moms, marriage, money, movement, and more as Renée explains Claire's recent symptom surge, outlines the steps to resolving it, and sneaks in a last minute conversation about the dangers of "self discipline." Plus, she answers a listener question about cheating in the intro!