Transcript: Episode 298
298. Guest: Kirsten Stach, MA, Dipl, MIACI (Part 2 of 2)
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
We are continuing the interview with Kirsten Stach.
*Conversation continues*
[Note: Podcast host is in bold. Podcast guest is in standard font]
In the States here, we have had recently some—I'm trying to say it appropriately—some very intense political years recently, and also a renewed focus on historical trauma. For example, I live near Tulsa, which had its own like race massacre 100 years ago. And so locally, where I live, that has been a big topic, and it has been on the news nationally here. And people are talking about this thing that happened 100 years ago that was never taught in schools, and covered up, and pretended it didn't happen at all, but really impacted people. And those people are still alive even. And so our family has been studying this, and talking about it, and went to the museum that's nearby because we have biracial daughters, and because we want to know, and because we want to be supportive and learn from this. What do you think as someone who is there in Europe and grew up German, and now living where you live now? And in your-. What have you seen about historical trauma and how to learn from historical trauma?
Yeah. Look, you know, I, I think, you know, from my very limited knowledge I have about the US, which I have from my colleagues there and when I travel for the conference, and what I hear of course, I went, I was fairly and still very interested in the destiny and the fight and you know, the life of Native Americans. So when I was a child, I read so many books. I was very very passionate about it. You don't have a comparable situation in Germany or in Malta here or in Ireland. Anyway, each of the countries has its own very severe historical trauma. And what I would observe, as you said, you know, the, what happened in, you know, in your home place that was pushed under the carpet, of course you have ice in these situations everywhere, where the history is not completely processed. And when it is not completely processed, people are doomed to repeat it. It's the same like on an individual level.
I can, you know, probably talk a bit for myself about, let's say, unfortunately, daily live racism that you have in Germany and Ireland and Malta, similar towards refugees. It's what is called, it is not massive, it's probably more a little bit under, you know, it's an underbelly there. There, you know, these events like what you described, has, you know, has not happened. I mean, apart obvious from the big thing, this World War Two. But this would be a total probably very complex subject on your side. So I can relate a bit because my partner is from Iran. So he came as a refugee with his parents, and he was a child. And things he told me how he feels he sometimes would experience not nice things. It's not always, it's not common, but it has happened.
And, yeah, I would say, coming back to World War Two, that it has not been fully processed. And I can see that from working with clients on a regular basis from Germany, from Russia, Romania, France, English people. So basically, great, great grandchildren. So usually young people from all different sides who were involved in World War Two. And not to forget Polish people, obvious. And how it affected in an intergenerational way all of them. Yeah? The good thing is we can talk very openly about it. And they sometimes quite, you know, in a funny way, quite sarcastic. And when I talk to my Russian clients about World War Two, and I'm German, so but I think we have a very good way to discuss these things. Yeah. And I hope when we can address family history from the background, from birth too, that all together it will help, you know, to process things a little bit better.
The land where I live, the government, the federal government of the United States, just declared after a court case, that the land where I live is still Indigenous land. That they did a bad contract, and that the contract was wrong. And it's the first time the government has said that. And it really has changed the feeling in the air with the people. There's a lot of Indigenous people where I live. And they have been, if you were stereotyping them, they will be very poor and not enough resources, but mostly get their health care through the Indian Clinic. And, and that's, that's what it's called, the Indian Clinic. Otherwise, I would not say Indian, but that's what they call it themselves, the Indian Clinic, the Indian Hospital. And these different Native American tribes, at the same time, have a lot of resources and make a lot of money from the casinos and other things where white people go and give them their money back, basically. [Laughter] And these different things.
But it was a fascinating thing to sort of see just the lifting that happened. I don't know how to describe it in English. The lifting, the uplifting, or what is the word? The uplifting, where just because they were acknowledged formally, and just because someone said out loud, “Oh, yeah, this was wrong what we did, and we are sorry, and you can have your land back.” Even though, really, I mean, it's still right in the middle of the United States, literally in the middle. And so between that and this race massacre from 1921 that they're talking about for the first time even as a nation now, and, um, it has been a fascinating thing to see just the, like, you can see, like, talk about somatic therapy. You can see, literally, the lifting of their heads a little bit and, and a different feeling in the air, just because it's been spoken out loud. And I can't help but ponder this, as someone who works with trauma. And as someone, as a survivor myself, you can't help but recognize these layers of the trauma that we work with individuals that's really family trauma, and see how that plays out in communities and entire countries or nations.
I would completely agree, you know. Therefore, you know, I, it was really very, very hopeful subject, you know, from the conference, this intergenerational, historic, cultural trauma. I was, I was very impressed with, you know, the presentation from the, you know, Native people there from the community and the Native Indian people from Utah. It was, it was really great to see that, you know, for me. Then I was, as a young child, always, you know, in these books. And they, they're not novels. I read a lot of historical books about Native American people when I was small. And it was so good to see that something is adding up in a good way, you know? That something gets done. So that's really nice to hear. You know?
I think it's such a powerful thing. And even just what you said earlier about just being open and being able to talk about things openly, that there's so much healing that comes from that, just in saying, “Here's what happened. Let's talk about it.” Or having conversations normally instead of acting out that secrecy again, or pretending that we've not been hurt or impacted even generations later.
Yeah, this, you know, when I was a child, I was basically, nobody talked, my grandmothers, my old aunties obviously learned about World War Two, World War One and World War Two in school. And nobody talked about it. And my grandmothers, I know the granddads had died in the war, or shot after the war, but it was never addressed, you know. And the interesting thing is if they ever said anything about it, they would say to me at the age of 10. So because somehow they felt safe to say things to me, even sometimes offered things, you know, which may not have been so child appropriate. I at some stage came to the conclusion because my grandmothers caught at least a tiny bit, bring out a tiny bit about all these things that had happened, you know, to me, I probably became a therapist here later because somehow they felt safe despite I was a child. So I think that was a good start, you know, for me to go up with all the things say towards me about their life that they would never tell to anyone else. You know?
There's something about cleaning a wound and being able to tolerate even the pain of that, that we never could tolerate in other settings. But when we are saying something out loud to bring healing to it, there's something that is painful, absolutely, but also something that is empowering in a way that increases that window of tolerance somehow to make the healing possible.
Yeah, it's, you know, the positive thing is that I found when I started working and ‘88 in Germany that there, you know, around this time, there was a shift from towards positive attitude towards psychotherapy. And, you know, what it could do for people. Yeah? I mean, it was incredible what I could see working in the clinic. But then eventually then the shift took place. Yeah? So before, I mean, when people can talk, and it's, you know, society trauma, which nobody talks about, the shame of being German, you know, this awful feeling that obviously a lot of people at that age had, and then not being able to get any kind of help or support for that. Yeah? I guess, you know, that they're probably people who took the these things in the grave, you know? They were never put out. So yes, I think it was, it was a huge change so in the, from the mid ‘80s when psychotherapy became a serious subject.
You said that example of the shame of being German in reference to like the war? You mean, the war? Yeah. So, so when we talk about that, and anyone who's been in school who has studied the war understands what you're referencing. But at the same time, there's all that trauma that came after that has nothing to do with shame because the-. I mean, even without those pieces, then we have your grandmothers who, regardless of the war layers, had the rest of their lives without their husbands. And you growing up without your grandfather, or how your parents and their experiences of growing up after that. So even the besides the layers of the war itself, there's new traumas that happened after that, that because of the first trauma almost like it doesn't get addressed.
And I see that with the racial things that's happening here. And the Indigenous People things. And there's so many layers of that, of “Yes, this was a trauma.” Or even being able to say, “This piece was wrong,” or “This was a bad thing,” or “This hurt a lot of people.” But also, “This also hurt over here,” and “This piece counts too.” And there's so much hurt. And so much of that, those layers that we hold as shame in different ways going back to trauma. All kinds of trauma.
That is, you know, I think it's probably you know, you could illustrate, or I could try to illustrate probably really what happened to my old nanny. I mean, she was not related to me, she took care of my sister and myself while my parents they were working on their careers. And she was the most decent, lovely human being, despite all the suffering she had gone through with losing her husband in the war, having typhus, tuberculosis, starving, being bombed out. So she still believed in, in the good in human. Yeah? This was incredible. How she held that together, you know, was really amazing. And she was very, she wanted to become a medical doctor, but the parents she came from, a working class family, they had no money to send her to a higher education. So, but she had so much common sense and she told me her husband was an aeroplane engineer, and may have heard about this aeroplane factory in Germany. You know, the obvious they build aeroplanes for the world, normal it was the civil aeroplane thing. And she said, because she was in this, in the company, they only made him go into the war at the very end because he was important for the industry. And she said, you know, he had, he was a higher person there, he had, he had the weapon that she owned, and he was supposed to carry in the workplace. And she said, she had the feeling, he would not come back. And she was thinking for a moment, I could take his weapon and I could shoot him in the legs, then he would be crippled, he couldn't go to the war. And I would not lose him, but they would put me and my children in a concentration camp. So this was the, you know, she was very scared. She didn't want to have anything to do with the Nazi. She was scared of this attitude of the real, you know, people who lifted, who they're totally convinced of it. And so, you know, she was between a rock and a hard place. So she didn't do it. The husband died in the last days of the war. And she always said to me, “He never wanted to do any harm to anyone, so he probably deserted.” And she's convinced they shot him in the back. And she never saw, she never got the dead body or the thing they had, this metal thing that they had to be identified. Yeah? So yeah, it was, you know, really, really awful story.
What a choice. What a lack of choice. Even that piece itself is its own trauma.
Yeah. This was, you know, was extremely traumatizing. I cannot, you know, obvious put my feet into that. And this is probably a very good thing, because, you know, I hadn't go to these things, but it is, it is very heartbreaking. Yeah? And to spend, to lose your husband in your mid 30s, and to live the rest of your life, on your own, with your children, you have some friends or neighbors. But you can't even express these things. So that is, you know, it’s a very, how to say, on an individual level, it's, it's pretty harsh.
That's it’s just, it impacts so many people in so many ways for so long. It was not just a one-time thing in the past and it's over. These are real people's lives that last decades and decades, and it all keeps playing out.
Yeah. They, you know, I think her two children and the grandkids, I'm very sure in one way or another they will be still impacted by it. You know, and this was, you know, was a very good, decent person, so, who wouldn't do anything to anyone. She was very, you know, how to say, was very strong, and she would say what she says, but she would never do any harm. Yeah? She had a huge sense for justice. And you know, what you can do and what you can’t do to people.
So and her husband, while he was working in the aeroplane factory, they have prisoners of law from Russia, and he saved the life of a Russian men there. There were two basically, wardens, who were, you know, really, really bad to people. And they beat him up for whatever reason, and because he was in a higher up position, he stepped in and he got those people to be punished for what he did. And he saved the life of these men. And the man had stomach cancer so he died. When he was freed and could go back home to Russia. He died on the transport, which was very tragic. But he sent a painting to him. He was a painter. So he sent a painting that my, my old nanny still had on the wall, which was a beautiful landscape in Russia. So yeah. That was, he wanted to do something good, because, you know, this man tried to do, tried to save them as good as he could.
And even the painting, just a painting on the wall, tells such a story.
Yes, yeah. This was very when you think about, you know, how much, yeah, how much the one painting will tell you.
I appreciate your vulnerability and your sharing. I had no idea this is where our conversation would go. But it's so powerful. And I think it impacts so many people all over the world.
No, it's, you know, I'm perfectly fine, you know, with saying that. Because over my lifetime, I was, you know, I was lucky to have, you know, good colleagues, good, you know, therapists, good supervisors, and so on that, you know, I could process and talk to them about all of these things. Yeah? Because, as I thought, you know, when you were a young child of the age of 10 or maximum 11, it's a lot to take in. Yeah? When somebody tells you all of these things, you are not even able to understand it completely, you know, the impact it had.
It's, it's so much, and goes back even to that developmental trauma of caring for your caregivers. And in your case, it was not an abuse situation, like some of the clients we work with, but that same thing of to help my caregiver, and because I love them, and because I'm here, and these sacred moments. Like, it spends time. It's not just that one moment.
Yeah. This was, you know, of course, yeah. If I look at it from the outside, as a professional, of course, you know, in this regard, I took care of them, but you know, they took care of me most of the time. And they took great care of me. And so, that was, I think that was perfectly okay, even from my viewpoint today. I would say, no, still, I'm fine with that.
I think that there's something important about it, though. Not, not in traumatizing children, but being honest about things that are hard. Our family has six children that have all been adopted from foster care. And so the trauma level in our home is already, the acuity is already very high, because so many of us have been through so much. And I don't tell them details of my childhood or specifics about like gory details of what was awful when I was little or something. But there have been times where I said that when they were wrestling with a specific issue where I could disclose very generally of, “I get this. I understand what you're saying because such and such happened to me,” very generally not in detail. But, “This happened to me and it's so important that we talk about it, and it's so important that you understand this was not your fault and that you don't have to carry this alone.” And modeling how to handle really hard things.
And something like World War Two is really a big thing to be able to talk about and know how to find words for. So really, it also has that context of that beautiful modeling, not just in healing and not just in making them feel better in the moment, but literally for you as the child. You are the, you know that the passing on from woman to woman to woman. You are the next generation of growing up, know how to talk about these things, know these words. Like, really, it's such a beautiful thing instilled in that context as well.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, I consider myself in a way lucky that I had them, you know. It was very important. Despite all of the, you know, the content of it. Yes, it was probably, you know, therefore, I choose my job that I wanted to be, and I'm still in the job, and I'm still very, very content with it. So I think, you know, that laid down, you know, the baseline for me. So it is definitely looked at my own history. Yeah, it's a very important thing. You know, I think that I'm where I am now, you know?
And I had, in Ireland, I'm still friends with some families, and my best friends, their big family has five sons with nine grandkids. And unfortunately, the husband of the family died from cancer in 2017, which was very, very tragic. And he always said he was a hard-working man all his life. He had not a lot of formal education, but he read so many books, and he educated himself. And he was, for instance, at the Navy in South Africa as a young man of 17, trying to save a black men from getting beaten up in the park from the staff. And finally being arrested for this. And the captain had to free him from the prison in South Africa after a day. So he has a great, great sense of justice. And he always said to me, “Look, it's not the gender, not the age, not the race, not what people believe, it's only the person what counts. It doesn't matter where they come from. It's the person who, you know, how this person acts, and about how they are with other people, this is everything what counts. It doesn't matter. Anything else is not important.” And I think, you know, that in very simple way put in what it really is, you know? So, yeah, I found that very, how to say, very enlightening, you know. From somebody who has seen a lot of things as a very hard working person, this, you know, not much money, but a huge heart, you know. So that was, you know, another really, really, very positive example for me.
I feel like that message that you've shared with us that you got from your friend is sacred. You have touched my soul. Thank you for sharing and passing on his words. And thank you for talking with us today.
Yeah. Look, you know, my pleasure. It was, you know. I didn't know how the interview would go. But you know, I think it was even, you know, for me was a really nice experience. So that's fine, you know. So I enjoyed it as well. And yeah, look, thank you for inviting me to.
Absolutely. I'm so delighted to get to know you better and to get to hear your story a bit. Is there anything that you wanted to share that we didn't get to? I want to respect your time as well.
I think, you know, for now, I mean, here in my place it short after midnight, which is fine. It's my usual nighttime. I'm a late, late night person. But at the moment, I couldn't think about something. It would rather be a wish, you know, that I only hope and wish and fingers crossed that the whole situation that is that currently is in the world that it would not lead to another disaster. This would be probably my biggest wish. So otherwise, I'm a happy person here, you know. So I enjoy my life and 30 degrees of heat and sunshine every day. So, which is lovely.
Thank you so much, truly, truly. And I Look forward to getting to work alongside you with ISSTD, and getting to know you more now that we're better acquainted. And I so appreciate you sharing with the podcast as well.
Yeah. Look, you know, have all the best for you. And I guess we will talk soon again in some setting anyway. Yeah?
Yes, thank you so much, truly. I had no idea that's where our conversation would go. But it was so beautiful and really, really sacred. Thank you so much for sharing.
If you please let me know when it will be available. Because, some of my clients with DID listen to your, look at your podcast anyway, because I recommended it. And so they want to listen to it, you know?
Oh, that's so kind. I didn't know.
Yeah. You know. I kind of recommend it sometimes when they, you know, want to get to know other people. Like, they go on the website from, you know, an Infinite Mind. And I recommended your website and the podcast as well. So there are some people who, you know, who definitely may want to listen to it. So if I know when it is published would be nice. I let them know that.
Absolutely. It is scheduled out about a year in advance, actually.
When it gets basically published then that I know and I can let them know.
Okay. I think I can get it in this fall. Last year was a very, on the podcast, it was about a year and a half ago for me. But it was a very intense and difficult year, which we decided to go ahead and share about carefully. And this summer is kind of reclaiming back to a safer place. And so I need to let that play out. But in the fall, I think I can get that in instead of waiting till next year because it's so beautiful. I don't think I can hold it in that long. I, like it's interesting to me. I'm sorry, it's so late. It’s fascinating to me about you sharing about studying Native Americans as you were a child, because I studied everything about the war in Germany. I studied families and books and, and so it's funny that that overlapped for each of us. That's just interesting to me.
Look, you know, when I know, I send you an email within the next days about some really, there are two really good books about the intergenerational trauma written from normal people. Yeah? Not textbooks. But you know, these are basically books. One man is a young journalist who digged into his family history to get to the bottom of his depression. And he got there successfully, and he wrote a book about it. So you know, this is, what is good that is addressed now. That now people can talk about it.
That's amazing. So I look forward to it.
Yeah. I can, I can send you the title of the book. I don't know if it was published in English.
Okay. That's okay. I actually, um, I, yeah, I have cochlear implants. So I cannot listen or speak as well, because I'm still learning English for listening and speaking. But I can read some German. I studied and lived in Germany briefly. Okay. And so I can read and write a little bit.
That is brilliant. That is good. So I can recommend it to you anyway.
Absolutely. Thank you. I will let you go or I will keep going. I'm sorry. I will respect your time. But thank you so much.
No, no. You are, don't fall away. You are perfectly fine. I will go on my balcony now and watering all my plants because it's so hot every day. So and that's a good thing to do before I go to bed, you know, because it's very calming.
Oh, I love that. I love that. And then I will see you in meetings. [Laughter] Okay, thank you. Bye!
Bye bye.
[Break]
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