Impact of language trauma and systemic oppression

Marina Crane (00:01.404) good morning. This is August fifteenth and it's Saturday. It's a bit nippy out. And again, I what can I say? The air quality is still in the yellow stage. My podcast today is going to be a little bit of scattered, but I guess you're as you're my audience here know that it's a bit scattered. However, there have been some things that usually happen after I meet with people or I have some sort of epiphany on what I'm gonna put on my podcast. So most people I think and I hope that are listening when I talk about recovery and and mental health And and I look at people who like say Daniel Smith who doesn't have the concept of addiction and recovery. Or maybe she does, maybe it's a fringe thing, but but I think people need to really look at people who've recovered and and their skill set and how they did it and and even their their approach to the way they see life in general. I like I just get totally fed up again with non-Indigenous people and they're usually white who who come into our communities and and sort of practice like they come in with these big, you know, like they get this big amount of money, over a hundred thousand maybe you know, really outrageous. And and so yes, they have a mountain of experience, but they they what's that word I keep on grifters, grifters, grifters. You know, I I just found out like this one grifter got fired. He you know, he was employed within my community Marina Crane (02:02.254) lasted a couple of years and then and they found out like that he wasn't looking after his mental health. And yet that's part of his practice was to to help with programming and stuff. And and the pro and the job required, you know, like there's a mental health worker that comes in every week to to help decompress staff because of the high stress level. Yet this individual, you know, just it sort of like abandoned everybody and just took it upon himself to not look Look after himself. Okay, because his parents had passed away, health conditions. You know, I when I talk about indigenous people and like how many times we grieve when someone passes and people like white people look, my goodness, you poor thing. But the reality of it is like, come on. You know, this this guy, yes, you lost your your family members and I mean, I I could go on there was a lady that in her thirties she lost her partner after they'd known each they'd known each other from high school and then I guess they lived in p a relationship for about six years. He passed away from some sort of brain injury. And and she went on she'd started her own podcast, Instagram, social media, got gonnered about maybe 70,000 followers, all because she's grieving. Now, it's one thing when you come to work in a indigenous community and yes, you're human and you grieve, but the reality of it is like what did you think you were doing? You come here with this One of one of my one of my late parents, friends, his son, was talking to me and he says, You know, my parents they they just have this religiosity Marina Crane (03:56.003) He says, you know, they sleep in separate bedrooms and on Monday my s my mother would go with the girls and she'd get drunk, come back late at night, you know, when we're all asleep. She says, but that's how the marriage was. It was just a marriage it's one thing you have a married couple who have a difficult time with intimacy and yet in public present themselves as a religious, God-fearing couple. trying to promote mental health when they are having crisis in their own private home. Again, white privilege or or savior complex, some some notion like, I don't have to deal with my addiction or I don't have to deal with my mental health because, you know, these people don't know me, they just see the whiteness of my skin and you know, that old theory of like, well we're smarter than most people. Like people have bought into this colonial mindset that that when you have different skin color, it automatically reflects your brain capacity. it it it's it boggles my mind and it gets me upset every time I hear a white person comes into our communities either as a social worker, mental health worker, some work and and what are they doing? They're pretending they're pretending to be mentally well and and and so, you know, they yes, of course you give them the benefit of the doubt and they work for a while, but you know, it's a snowball effect. All the all the all the pieces started falling apart. And and now like this individual, you know, like the huge amount of income is finally is taken away. How much more devastating is it? He had years to go to therapy on the job site. Marina Crane (05:43.873) And chose not to. That completely boils my like boggles my mind, especially when you're taught that you're coming into an indigenous community and you're supposed to be there to help the indigenous people and instead what's happening? We're helping them. Not in terms of anything that we have to offer in the healing modalities, but in terms of financial gain, which really pisses me off. Because again, that's what they call it a gift shit. Grifting. Grifting. Ugh. No, it it's it's amazing. It it totally amazes me. Now the other thing that I want to talk about too is is a little different, but again too it it it in the same genre too like you know when when people ask me to come and talk about art or like how my perception or how my understanding of of like say the concept of water is life or sovereignty over our water rights sovereignty and in how before colonization like what what did it look like for indigenous people and the relationship with water. you know, the the reality of it is like I and I can only talk for the seven council fires of the Oshati Shekoi, which is Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, because I was raised in that culture that Marina Crane (07:17.59) Everything is tied to water. Even WiiA is associated with water. The language itself is around water. Sweat and sundance is all around water. The whole concept like this is our life. it's it's it's amazing how it encompasses everything. And yet and yet our whole value system in terms of school curriculum, even how people have accountability for spirituality. one One time my late mother and her her Indian residential school childhood friend her brother was having Sundance in British Columbia. Now my mother's older, okay, and of course they were sitting by the campfire, we're all sitting there having a cup of tea, and my mom and her friend th poured the the tea that was, you know, just the bottom of the cup on the ground. And and there was a white woman who started to mansplay my mother and her friend who were elders. This is a w arrogance of white women. And she says, You're not supposed to throw water. On the ground. And my mother and her friend Muriel, they just looked at each other just like because this is Mariel's brother's sundance. And we have a white woman who's supposed to be there helping volunteer, you know, mansplaying, explaining to Dakota elder women, thou shalt not. See, that's th to me to me that's the the critical or the my take on people who come into communities and really feel like they have the privilege to mansplay us as if we're so savage like Marina Crane (09:02.978) I mean they don't really know that they're doing it and bless their hearts. I've always been around white people and sometimes people say to me, Well, why don't you say something? I'm going, No, no, I've learned a long time ago that if they're going to create this narrative, let let them stew in their own fat. Let them suffer in their own ignorance. Because at some point karma hits them like a ton of bricks. And karma has to do with action. So when you go around poking up someone's philosophy or way of life and you're applying it to your life, but yet there's no collective and holistic approach to it or even history, then it's gonna bite you. It's gonna bite you where it hurts the most. Anyway, that's my little rant from the beginning of like my podcast. And I and I and I'm sorry that I ranted and raved, but but it it's just the notion that you spend so much time talking to white people, both men and women, and and then what happens is they twist it around for their own pleasure. They y like Like some of the podcasts and the TikToks that I've been listening to, as well, like there are discoveries of female anatomy, different things that that women in terms of healthy sexuality i is normal, but it but because it's all around the science of men, it stresses women out psychologically. So now women are sort of coming to this epiphany and going, my goodness, I didn't know. But yes, you know, when you think about it and you go, I like the Company of women because we're set up that way. Psychologically, we're set our our our hormones are set up that way. Men are different, but you know, try and convince a man that that it's different, especially especially when a a man thinks like he's really hut shit, you know, like he you know again. Marina Crane (11:05.406) I can't change the way women look at certain men. If women look at a man and think that he's attractive, that's their opinion. But th the reality of it is like some men like they just go, Yeah, I I know I'm attractive. I know women look at me. And I'm going, Yes, from your perspective, because men ha their their testosterone and even how they have pleasure is based on that. Whereas women really don't you know like don't need it. there there's a TikTok that I'm going to play of this this lady. She talks about it and I I hope you get the gist of it. At least all the information we have on our biology is from a male body. Two, when they did study our bodies, they found that the female nervous system regulates to oxytocin, not dopamine. So while males feel regulated and grounded and whole in getting things done and pushing and succeeding, women, female bodies, feel grounded and whole and regulated through Pleasure through co-regulation, through connection, through relational dynamics, through touch, through beauty. Number three, and this is the kicker. Dopamine actually depletes oxytocin in the female body. Science found that the more female bodies push and run dopamine pathways, it depletes oxytocin, pleasure, love, connection. So if you are a woman who feels that the harder you try, the worse you feel, listen to this. It is so imperative for every woman and man to understand and prioritize replenishing oxytocin in the female body. Marina Crane (13:07.502) And I've seen this so many times in myself and in my female clients, when you start to move from a dopamine pathway into oxytocin, the thing that you are going to hit up against is shame. Because we've all culturally valued dopamine and success so much, men and women need to both understand that dopamine in excess in a female body is making us sick. It's making us crazy. Feel disconnected and alone. The easiest way for a woman to start to shift out of dopamine and start to prioritize and habitualize oxytocin and pleasure in her body is with other women. We burn through the shame together. We can validate and relate and mirror each other in these new pathways. One, the female nervous system with So again. We're set up different and so even when you're thinking of matriarchy, that that's historical. You know, I I it's again when when I talk about the female and male anatomy, I'm going, where's the G spot? Now even that even that I'm not a guy, so you know, I don't have the body parts. But but you know, t tell me if I'm wrong. Sometimes people say the G spot is between in the scrotum, like it's between the scrotum and the anal the anus. and inside. So that little p pleasure part there it it it stimulates. However, another critique was that the G spot in the men is at the inside the the tip of the penis. Okay, so again, anatomy. mean I spent two years drawing anatomy at art school. Like it was just like drawing nudes. And and I always used to wonder, why why why in art school do we have to draw nudes? Sketch them like you have three minutes, bang, you sketch it out, you know, and the the model moves and Marina Crane (15:10.85) You know, I always wondered w why why so the thing is like because you're you're you're using formation, you're doing the lines, you're focusing on what's happening on the piece of paper. You're not looking at the anatomy and getting any type of arousal, it's just the focus on on drawing. And and again too like form and shades and stuff like that. So again too like when when women are are together it it's that connection. Connection. There's a connection and there's company, like you feel connected, like you belong to a family. And and again, the shame and guilt. I think a lot of times when men or misogyny hate women, they really feed into that disconnection and they really want the woman to be alone. And and like the lady says, it drives women crazy. But yet, you know, men want to say, she's hysterical, like in art history. there is a whole whole de dedicate there was a whole lesson about artists, male artists who just painted and s were focused more on the dis the hysteria of women. It it it's amazing to me the coercive control throughout history that men have had over women. And a lot of things too that that I didn't really understand too until like until the female nervous system was not until well like I started thinking about men who cheat and okay so here's the first the the last tape was from Anna v Vila V I L L A that was her on on Instagram. Now this next one sh her name is end coercion Dot so it's N E N D underscores coercive C O R E R V I C I V E underscore C O N N. she's explaining coercive control traps. Marina Crane (17:26.614) Now, why am I talking about coverse con coercive control traps or coercive ways of control is because because when I've talked to women who've had affairs And and they think it's like true love or like the the wife did not give a damn about her husband. He was sad all the time. You know, just like n there there there there is a re like I what can I say? I think a lot of times as women we got hooked into these things. But here's listen to this. You've probably heard coercive control referred to as emotional abuse or psychological abuse. And coercive control does include the emotional and psychological weapons, the quicksand model names, but the term coercive control is more all encompassing than emotional and psychological abuse. And the framework of coercive control was designed to point the court in the right direction. When emotional abuse or psychological abuse are raised in court. Assessments turn away from the coercive controller's actions and to the target's state of mind. Questions turn to the target's credibility, and the target's perfectly rational fear from living in the quicksand of coercive control gets reframed and recorded as instability or alienation. Coercive control looks elsewhere. It looks for the pattern of the perpetrator's coercive and controlling conduct. It names what the coercive controller did over time and what they stole. Marina Crane (19:17.174) Autonomy and liberty. If you have been assessed instead of believed, if you've been asked what is wrong with you instead of what was done to you, that was all part of the coercive controller's strategy to make you the focus so they could keep you trapped and prevent your escape. The words emotional abuse don't make the quicksand visible. But the framework of coercive control does. Coercive control moves the professional's eyes off the target and onto the coercive controller. Professionals, if you use it in your notes, your reports, and your testimony, you can help stop the harm, hold the coercive controller accountable, and hand the target back their freedom. I just like when when I talk about facing your perpetrator, especially in court, and and you stand there and you say, You hurt me. See it's one thing it's one thing to be afraid of them. But it's another thing to actually face them and and say to their face, you thought I enjoyed what you did, you hurt me. Not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually, everything like like you you like this is the because again, this is a time when when you're given a voice and and you're being validated by the courts because the person has been found guilty. It's the victim statement. And and so you're breaking free of this co coercive control. And and the thing is like even if like I've never been married, I've never been in a relationship where I've had a like I've been a better woman. No, I haven't Marina Crane (21:16.47) The reality of coercive control is something that I believe as women, like for me as a young as a child, a teenage a child like a teenager and a young adult, and just seeing the relationships of women and their and their partners, like that that it was s assessed as being normal, normalized. So coercive control even in the sense of like it's okay to to that you know, you're consenting. Yes, it's one thing to consent to have an affair with a married man. It's one thing to consent to having children with this married man, but at the same time, this married man has a partner who also has engaged in having children with said partner. So you look at the man and you say conversive control. And then who's participating in this control scheme? That that's a really hard pill to swallow, especially if you're a woman and you've taken part in such manipulation and control. let's see here. I don't know if this You've probably heard Yeah, so again I'm let's see what this is. Feminism is not a Western invention. Feminism was not invented by American women, as many people think. No, feminism embedded in the culture and in the struggle of all women all over the world. We have to liberate women economically, social, psychologically, physically, religiously. So our feminism, we call ourselves historical, that's the slogan of our group, historical socialist feminist. Because we studied history and we understood that the oppression of women is not specific of Egypt or Arab people. It is historical. It is everywhere in every country. Women were rebelling in all religions in India, Egypt, under Indian, under Judaism, under Christianity or Islam. Women were fighting for their right. And we call ourselves socialist. Marina Crane (23:35.458) Because we are against class oppression. We are against capitalism. Because capitalism is linked to patriarchy. We are against patriarchy, not men. We are not against men. We are against patriarchy, the patriarchal system, the domination of men in religion, in economy, in culture, everything in science. That's why we call ourselves historical social instruments. And and and this organization terrified the men in power, didn't it? Terrified, yes, of course. It terrified them. That's why they banned it. And in fact, it was we were about to create a revolution. Because we had forty percent men. We were not all all women. Men were joining too. We had forty percent men and young men. Very enthusiastic about these points. Why were they joining? Why were men joining? Because they felt that men are oppressed by Patriarchy too. Marina Crane (24:40.832) No Feminism is not that's on Instagram and it's the spearhead. That's their handle, their social handle. And the lady who is talking, her name is N A W A L Capital L E L Capital S A A D A W I I So When when when I talk about like when I'm talking from an indigenous point of view, that's just because I'm indigenous. What she's talking about is all women. And so the generalization of like what oxytocin, doplamine, just the study, like the whole science of physiology and medicine was based on the male body instead of the female body. So the more women became educated and the more they started talking about what they've lived through and what they know about their bodies, you know, has to strike a chord with people. Again, because the woman, the first five years of every human life is based on the relationship they have with their mother, the imprint. And so if the mom is is under patriarchy, she's ra that child is seeing that. Or if the mom is matriarchy, the child also experiences and sees that. So so a lot of this deconstruction of self-reflection in terms of trying to like the historical parts of what makes you who you are today is important not just for women but also for men. So so that's why when I talk about when I talk about eliminating self-defeating behavior it It it's it's a part of that too because, you know, we we we we tend to have the self talk like I always do this or you know, the repeated language of certain vocabulary that we keep on in our minds. And so how do how do we deconstruct that? And there's so many gurus and mental health workers and you know, people who've come out of recovery and you know, I Marina Crane (26:56.534) I had a meeting about water and the one lady said to me, she was a an American citizen, she says, Well this lady said that, you know, they collect rocks by the o by the river and and I said, well that's her I said that's her way of healing. So you have to respect that. So what like I said, the practitioner or the individual who has found a stepping stone in healing, that's her journey. And if it works for her and she wants to share that modality or that process, then then you know, honor that. Because again, however she is in terms of of like engaging with other women, that's her process. I know it's it's really difficult too for me because sometimes like I talk to my sister. I haven't talked to my sister in decades. She's a very staunch Mormon. And and I made a comment to her one time about women. Like I enjoy being around women. Like in in terms of of the intimacy of just sharing. Like that again the oxytocin. I was like that's my experience. I wasn't talking about sexual physical stuff like like like when I when I talk about fantasy and then I talk about like like we'll call it limerence, there the the fantasy part is is is healthy. Okay. The limerence part isn't. So so as a woman, if you're if you're around like you're fantasizing and you're sharing the fantasy with other women, then it increases the oxytocin. Limerenance, however, is is more of the destructive side of of like obsessive, compulsive and like there's a difference because the fantasy is like just Marina Crane (28:53.834) having a fantasy of say having sex with person X. Limerence isn't about having a fantasy about having sex with X. Limerence is obsessing strategies to seduce, covet, manipulate, own and control X. Which again is based on fallacy because that person is unobtainable. And and the more energy that's put into constructing like this building block of strategies, the deeper the limerence is. That's why it needs a professional to help the individual who's constructed this fortress. Like they have to the individual themselves has to dismantle it bri by brick. If it's not guided and if a person doesn't understand it, they're going to attach fantasy with that when they're ac like the difference is the fantasy you're not acting on it, but the limerence you are. So, and again, I'll use the analogy of psychology 101. There's a very hard premise to understand, but this is how it was explained to me in basic psychology. A human being thinks of a child and thinks of having sex with a child. Is that sinful? Is that evil? Now, a person again thinks of having sex with a child and then actually does it. Is that Evil? Is that sinful? What is forgivable and unforgivable? So forgivable is the fantasy or thinking of having sex with a child. It's the action that is unforgivable. When a person goes from steps from this one construct into the next, that's the shift that I want to talk about, and I try to explain the difference with limerence. Fantasy is the thought. Marina Crane (30:56.384) Limerence is the action or the need to have create your own karma. And and that's the danger of it. Like because it can be s it it's so overwhelming. When when I was sexually active, I I I found it really discomforting when young men who I never even had sex with who would be obsessed with me. And I'm going, Why? You don't know me? Like I sometimes, you know, I've had to be just straight with men. And they w they propose to have an affair and I'm going, Why? I said, you know, you don't know me and I don't love you. I'm going to use you and abuse you and I'm going to twist you all out of shape if I have sex with you. And they and they're looking at me going, No you won't. I said, No, I will. I will like hello. I know myself. I know myself as a woman. I know what limerence is. I know what fantasy is. As long as I'm in this fantasy part of my life, I'm safe. But but if I'm going into this limerence stage where I there's no love, there's only coercive control involved with me or the that person, it it's not going to be a healthy, it's going to be a traumatic bond. Whereas whereas the fantasy part is is healthy because it's a bond. It's not based on trauma. And again, it's based on on open communication with boundaries and assessments from both people. That's why sometimes when when I talk about mental health workers or people who've studied psychology who come into indigenous communities at with this with this notion of fantasy and like, I've got this magic wand, I'm going to heal you here, tap tap tap go around tapping everybody as if he's healing or she's healing. And the reality of it is like they're they're living in the fantasy. And yet they're not looking after their mental health because in their private life they're in limerence. You know, it's it for whatever the addiction is, like a a white acquaintance who ghosted me said we're all have addictions. And like Marina Crane (33:12.374) s some can rationalize it away. for myself I try not to. I try I try to stay on with my feet on the ground. and I think I think for that, like I said, I enjoy the company of women because I get to talk to other women and and and either we jokingly talk about the fantasy or th there's something that like we're producing that oxytocin. Whereas men, I think men it's more it gets into the the more dangerous parts like of of pornography. And like it's I was a university researcher addicted to porn for fifteen years. This is how porn destroys your brain. First of all, pornography is a supernormal stimulus. There's nothing in this world that matches the level of stimulation pornography provides to your brain and body that causes four specific changes. Number one is desensitization. You build a threshold or a tolerance, and so you start to watch more obscure content and stuff that you never really thought you'd watch. Number two is sensitization. Okay, this is where you get cues and cravings. From things that are ordinary to a regular person, but to you, they trigger porn viewing. The third is a reduced stress response. Your capacity for stress and life in general plummets because your brain is being worked by pornography. Number four. Is hypofrontality. Okay, this is reduced circulation to this part of your brain, responsible for self-worth, self-esteem, long-term decision making, and all of that stuff. Now the good news is that all of these effects can be reversed. I know it personally, I've been cleaning porn for 10 years, and I've used some very specific tactics to help 1400 plus men quit pornography. If you need some help, follow my page from See, and this guy, his name is S A T H I Y A. Marina Crane (35:05.23) M-E-S-A-M. Okay, and so that's again, again, a male perspective. So I've been cleaning porn for 10 years. I've helped 1,400 men quit pornography in the last eight. And here are three ways that you can rewire your brain from pornography. Number one, you need to optimize your technology, turn off notifications, get rid of social media, news, any of what I like to call kind of the gateway opportunities, anything that you know eventually springboards you into doing the thing, get rid of it. Okay, get rid of it or tone it down significantly. Number two, talk to somebody, okay? The longer you suffer in silence and isolation, the worse this problem gets. We all want to think we can figure it out on our own and then we'll tell the story. You gotta tell the story first and then you figure it out after. Counterintuitive. Okay? Number three, charge your phone outside your bedroom. The most popular time to view pornography is between 10 o'clock at night and midnight, and 91% of porn viewership happens on the phone. So by charging your phone outside of the bedroom, you literally stack the odds in your favor of having a clean night, and more importantly, rewiring your brain from this terrible, terrible substance so you can be a clean. Now, if you're looking to go beyond just the initial rewiring, you want to live a life of freedom, check out my page I post daily and So again he's promoting himself, but th it's the basic premise of things and strategies to find like to balance your central nervous system. And and like I said, it it it's a you you sense it and you see it in people, especially like when people grieve, like you just your body just heats up. And and because if you're involved in addiction and and your central nervous system is is not balanced and it's and it's irregular, when when stress hits Marina Crane (37:02.474) when life hits and and you don't have the the like you're not balanced, it it it j it just triggers your central nervous system and and you're like in this flight or fright response. The the whole point of of finding somebody to talk to and again all this has to do with finding people you trust and talking it out with the individual. I know some people for me, I know when I start talking they get uncomfortable. with men and my talking to men, it's like I'm in a relationship. A and for me it it's like no, I've gotta tell you this because I don't trust you. So so for me it's like a process of like I've gotta trust this person, so I've gotta talk to them. Not and and the thing is with with this is the practice amongst women, when we're talking to other women, you know, we're we're we're establishing trust. At the same time too, we're also gonna be guarded, but but no matter how extreme or how fantastic or The fantasy is the reality of it is like I'm coping with this feeling that I have. It's natural. I just need to. I'm like it's like a roller coaster. You're at the top of the roller coaster and you're going down into the gully, and to be you know you're gonna be going back up on the hill again. So, like again, the roller coaster of oxytocin, it's it's the part where you've got too much dopamine for women. that that it that you know we we become unbalanced. Whereas with men, it's the opposite. They become more balanced with the more dopamine. And that's why I think when it comes to pornography, it's it's it's so addictive too for men. Now I'm not too sure if there there are some things too that I that I did put in here that had to do with other other topics. But I'm hoping Marina Crane (39:13.953) Some of the topics that I did post will resonate. So what happens when a target of coercive control finally tells somebody? Well, the coercive controller has spent years camouflaged to appear credible to the very people that they approach for help. Some call this the smear campaign. Now that term names the outcome, but not the pattern that created it. In the quicksand model, it's called the double team, and it includes the coercive controller's entire pattern, not just their final attack. Long before the target reached for help, the coercive controller presented themselves to friends, colleagues, and family as the caring one. In their false narrative, the targeted victim had a problem, and the coercive controller was patiently helping them. None of it happened in front of the target, so the targeted victim ends up defending themselves against false accusations they didn't even know existed. If people who once trusted you have gone quiet, and if you stop talking about your experience because everyone reacts badly, that was part of the coercive controllers strategy. Quicksand was made to look like solid ground. But once trapped, the harder a targeted victim struggles to be believed, the deeper they sink. That is what happens when you're defending a war you didn't even know you were in. Professionals, if you examine the coercive controllers' conduct as closely as the target's account. The record stops the war, holds the coercive controller accountable, and returns the targets dignity and freedom. Beyond the bruise, our newly updated free guide for professionals is available in our bio. Now, again, this is why it bothers me when I get non-Indigenous therapists or social workers. Marina Crane (41:29.184) is because they don't know they're also practicing converse covert or cursive control because they're they're blindsiding their own clients. See it it's so subtle yet yet at the same time like there are therapists who go to therapists because because there has to be there has to be some form of like how do we deal with stuff. How do we deal as healers, how do we deal with things? Especially The language that we use around sex, getting fucked, railed, drilled, boned, the fact that all of this language is incredibly violent and and graphic in this language is intentional. It's about creating the understanding that sex is a defiling act towards women, that when a woman has sex, she has been defiled in some way, she has been her her value, her worthiness has been damaged in some way. And it's about maintaining this order where men do benefit from sex, where men's dominance is protected as being the ones that are able to create that defiling that by a man sexually engaging with a woman he has hurt her tainted her in some way with this understanding women can't fuck if we are thinking about it in the sense that sex is something that is defiling women that through this current world order that we have patriarchy men's dominance whatever women are not have not been given the social cachet or the leverage necessary in order to be the ones that can like administer Defiling or degradation to men through having sex. And if the term fuck is like a proxy for that, then it isn't logical then to say that like women can't fuck. Women get fucked, which is seen as decreasing her value, hence a shaming around body counts and an obsession with virginity. Sex is seen as a defiling act, which creates the obvious conclusion that a woman would never desire sex. Why would you desire your own undoing? There's a desexualization that happens to women, an assumption that women would never desire sex independently, autonomously, because sex is defiling. Marina Crane (43:30.608) So like I said, why would you desire your own undoing? It's this weird way that we both hypersexualize women and desexualize them, where we see women only through a sexual lens, but then also don't allow women to have a independence sexuality. I'll quote. My new substack essay The language that So the her handle is P A Paris Prz Paris W E N D W A. That's P A R I S W E N D W A. When I was in my twenties, I attended a gender studies course at a university and it was a group support for just young women. And the majority of women that were there, at least like I'll say there were ten or thirteen of us. Out of that group, half were engaged. you gotta understand this was a Mormon university too. So again, this whole notion of finding a husband. Now why am I bringing that up is because even with gender studies, and again, a lot of this ritual abuse and coercive control o over women and children i is historic. Okay, so you have to you have to sort of deconstruct what ritual abuse is and you have to also deconstruct gender gender roles. Okay, that's why like when we use the baseline as bisexuality, that's deconstructing our gender roles. So when we when we in theory try to do some self-reflection as well as understanding like as this lady put You know, sometimes just talking about women having fa sexual fantasy is is a taboo. Like because, you know, we we're not supposed to feel, we're not supposed to masturbate, we're not supposed to, you know, engage in s you know, our bodies. Again, what the hell? Marina Crane (45:34.07) When I did the d gender studies course we had to do words like how many words describe women? Bitch, slut, whore, you know, like you know, like all that shit. And then when you d like and when you have to define men, what? Bastards? You know, like when when we lined up all the the words, socialized words There were there was more degradation, more of oppression of the gender of females in in just the language itself. So I really appreciated this young woman talking about this because, you know, it's it's one thing to make sex sound dirty and and for women to just like I can't talk about this because i I only have sex with my husband or or like it's like the control or coercive control over like you should not be talking about this with other women. Like like I said, when I so said to my sister that I enjoyed having discussions with women because I felt safe. Now at the time I thought maybe it was because I had been sexually assaulted like decades before, but my sister turned it around because of religiosity and said that I was gay. Now Understand this it even I'm so naive when it comes to bisexuality and I've been like when I say I haven't been sexually active in in fifty years I Like I'm I I'm not kidding. I didn't even understand masturbation or pornography until the pandemic. Like that's how naive I am. And that's the more critical thing because now I'm going this is it this is what our children are exposed to. Like like there there's a there's a catalyst of why I do this podcast. Because like I've been cloistered or sheltered all because of coercive control. Like here's my sister wanting to p have put me in a Marina Crane (47:40.362) Little slot because I'm not married, I'm not sealed in the Mormon temple. Like it's just outrageous that that, you know, because in Mormonism it's it's a taboo to be homosexual. Again, constructed criticiz like constructed a const historical, the history of of oppression. And it's not just, like I said, not just me, it's all women. That's why the things that cre give us some balance our energy, our central nervous system energy is the oxytocin, not the dopamine. So the more we connect as women and the more we talk about our sexuality, we become healthy. We c become healthier. And the more we we understand why men have this drive this like like I said, this I I didn't even know that you could get porn on the internet until like I said when until the pandemic. Why is it so hard to heal from borderline personality disorder? As a psychiatrist, the way that I explain it is it's because borderline personality disorder is not one thing. It's more or less three things. So a process of healing in borderline personality disorder involves a process of healing each individual thing. The first thing is a person's concept of self. To understand this, we have to think about a person's earliest life. Oftentimes, people with borderline personality disorder were brought up in a very invalidating environment. Not just invalidating, not consistently invalidating. But inconsistently invalidating in a very unpredictable way. And this was going on in a person's earliest life when they were trying to define who they are and how they relate to others. Therefore, they developed a very unstable sense of self, a very unstable self-image. Because it was hard for them as a tiny child to stabilize their identity relative to the stable identities of others because those others in their lives did not present a stable interactive front. So when someone is trying to heal from borderline personality disorder, one of the things they're trying to do is in some way stabilize. Marina Crane (49:49.696) Or solidify that concept of self. The second thing that they must heal is the way that they pattern their interactions with others. In that earliest life, when somebody has such a difficult environment to cope with, they learn to survive less than to thrive. And it becomes a game of threat detection. Now, when you're dealing with a threat, you want to immediately categorize it. Is it all good or is it all bad? If it's all bad, I need to cope with it to save my life. And that's why relationships for people with borderline personality disorder can be remarkably unstable, because their brain is automatically categorizing others as. As all good or all bad in order to protect themselves from the possible downside of getting that judgment wrong. That is a developmental foundation of something called splitting, or black or white thinking, which is a hallmark of borderline personality disorder. So part of the healing process is learning that nobody is all good or all bad, and that's a really, really hard lesson to learn. The third massive healing effort that a person would be making is distress tolerance. One of the hallmarks of borderline personality disorder can be self injury, self harm, or explosive and unpredictable behavior. But folks come by this Very honestly, because these are honest attempts to react to the true volume of emotion they're experiencing, which again came from an early life necessity to survive. It takes a lot of trust and effort to try other things, to rely on other people, to develop an entirely new system of distress tolerance that is safer and more taken together. This is why healing from borderline personality disorder isn't like healing a cut. It's a bit more like trying to build a house of cards on the deck of a ship during a storm in the middle of the ocean. But the beautiful thing is that. That the process of building that house of cards is the process of quieting the storm. And as a psychiatrist, it's a privilege to be a part of that healing every day. But as always, I'm interested in learning from you. If you or a loved one have been through this process of healing, what was it like for you? What helped and so that's Dr. Adam Howard, and that's his handle. So when I talk about limerence and I talk about because that's like the the the borderline personality disorder, it it's not as frightening when you say limerence. because because you can you can you can relate to to infatuation. You can relate to fantasy. But like I said, when when it bec when that fantasy becomes limerant, when it becomes an obsession, whereas whereas with with fantasy it's more of karma because it's an action, but it's a healthy action in terms of developing a safer a safer self. So so when I worked in Utah and I and it and the Marina Crane (52:19.246) thing is like I I don't want to say I accidentally stumbled into it. I'd been working with youth as a university student in northern Alberta and the reality of it is like there was so much promiscuity with the youth and this was like decades and decades ago and and the youth had to and see the the the youth could talk to us because we were younger too but they didn't trust adults because the adults were sexually abusing them. There was a a 15-year-old, tall guy, like must have been about six foot at 15, who was ha he he was having an affair with a mom like in her 40s. There was a young girl who I think she was twelve. She was, you know, like again having a being sexually abused by a twenty five year old. All these things these children talked about, but yet but yet for us as workers to even try to get, you know, to to how how would we say it, we couldn't press charges because again those children were tr we're establishing trust with them. And so whatever discourse or whatever they felt that they needed to talk to us about, there would be no support system in place once we left. Okay, so so like I said, it it was a really difficult environment to work in. And and as a result of that, I ended up that some that next that following fall working for Utah State Hospital with high risk suicide girls. And and a and and the an understanding like trying to understand this this whole point of Marina Crane (54:08.546) things that that like what like when I talk about identity and the self and like it's like it's not something with a magic wand that all of a sudden you're healed. The this is this invalidation of the self. And that's why when I talk about Indian residential school and I talk about trauma and genocide, I talk about oppression and coercive control. People who were taught this in Indian residential school, even when they were trying define themselves and get some validation, those those white people, those those people who were actually sexually assaulting the kids made a very unstable environment. And and those children were were had no definition of self. And again when I talk about balancing having the ability to balance your central nervous system based on thought. I don't I don't know y if you've seen the show what is it called Doom D-U-N-E where you have w fractions or planets that that are fighting for this this spice, that full space. There's one planet where they have these these logical pe people. They're they're sort of like the consultants for these leaders and and so they they're always st clicking and calculating. And And so why am I bringing that up is because they're they're basically trying to they're tr basically training themselves to s you know balance their central nervous system so that they could help logically help people who are in distress. I mean it seems obscure because it's a science fiction but it but it has some parallels to to this whole way of of thriving or we're not thriving and and what like the all all good or all bad scenario because that's what it feels like Sometimes when I'm talking to women who are so unregul who are so dysregulated because there's so much dopamine in them. I mean I've had to I've had to s ask questions like, what are you doing today? Or what you what are you doing what are you doing right now? Just at the moment they can't even comprehend on what they're doing at the moment they're talking to me. And I'm saying, okay, listen to me. I'm gonna ask the question again, what are you doing right now? Marina Crane (56:34.548) And and and you know, they have to think about them going, No You like are you are you do you have a cup of coffee in your hand? Like what what it what are you doing right now at that moment? 'Cause 'cause they've been s just just to actually sit and regulate your central nervous system and take a deep breath because you're so overwhelmed with this dopamine because you're looking for oxytocin, okay, as women. You're trying to find somebody that's going to help you and guide you through this maze of of de of like s like like looking at yourself. And and so again, who to trust? Like like again, this whole like it's it like I had the analogy in terms of mental health. One of the analogies like h this guy used the analogy of like trying to make a house out of a deck of cards in on on a on a ship that's being tossed around in the ocean. Like that's how difficult it is to to actually, you know, get like focus on your own narrative, your your the self reflection of childhood. So sometimes when I talk about accountability or consent, we have to look at the age groups like from five years under from five to fifteen, like d like in decades or or even in five five years. Like so the deconstructing of the self and understanding what you know what happened to make you who you are today. Marina Crane (58:08.788) and and the support system that you have in place. A lot of times when I listen to people who talk about limerence, especially women, on TikTok, I find I find that it's so easy to sell to think like, okay, I have the solution. And this you know, apply to this, apply to that. It's not that easy. Like really, I wouldn't trust anybody who's on TikTok who's promoting themselves about limerance. This is a very highly technical Process that needs skilled people, people like mental health workers who are not coercive control freaks either. You know, the the like I try and say to people, you know, they don't teach this in college or university. I said, but but you know, once you get like if you get your degree in in social work or psychology and then you want you have to get a masters to, you know, be practicing, a lot of times they weed you out in the masters program and and they and like they don't tell you. Mind you, you know, throughout my academic life I had I've had people, coercive people, trying to say to me, Well, you wouldn't be a good therapist. Not that I wanted to be. I am and I'm not, okay? It's just the whole notion of like that like I said, the Psychology Association of Canada is poo-poo, especially when you have indigenous people and black people trying to publish Papers about systemic racism within the mental health health construct in Canada. so anyway. Marina Crane (59:53.846) My my whole point in in all of this is like you have to shop around and you have to understand too, you there there there's more to to limerence or eliminating self defeating behavior or even tackling like like like a another analogy would be I've used a couple, but another analogy would be having a broken leg and walking on on it for a mile to get help. It's painful. The whole process of sharing your most intimate feelings, desires, fantasies with another human being is if you can do that and you can find trust and safety with that individual, hats off to yourself and that other individual because damn it it's so hard. Life is not easy when it comes to dealing with especially if you're a dopamine addict or an oxytocin addict. In other words, especially if you're male or female. just the brunt of it. You just you just have to deal with it because sometimes like everybody's got full of good intentions but when the good intentions are doing more harm to to the people you love and the people you care about you know what what can you do? a lot of times it it takes invisible helping hands to to get you to a place where you feel comfortable. And and throughout my life I've had that, but I strongly and totally believe that the reason I've had so many invisible helping hands for me is I made a decision. Like when I was twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-three, I just said, no, whatever behavior I'd already established in my life of of being controlled coercively. or being targeted and just being sexual female and people trying to oppress my sexuality. Whatever that sexuality is, I said that's why I say the baseline bisexual. If you have that as a baseline and you're deconstructing your identity, then that helps you have some clarity into who you are. Because we are all different. We are not the same. And and sometimes it it's scary. Marina Crane (01:02:17.494) It's scary when you see somebody and you realize, My goodness, what kind of life did they live before you met them? And that's just a stranger that you happen to bump into and happen to trust. Cause that trust opens up a whole Like it's like a like a a magic lamp, a genie in a lamp. You rub the you rub the lamp and this genie appears. And and and you're like, I didn't know that was in that lamp. Again, I think if you do a lot of self work, a lot of s like understanding of yourself, your identity, what defines you in life, how things in life changed you And and again, how from being stable to like again defining your life as stability. Unstable is you're unable to do that. When you find yourself unable to do that, you have to have trust in someone to guide you. And and that's why I think it's so important for for people who've gone through these things, like like hands-on hands-on experience, that that it helps in the recovery. It helps in the recovery because there's another human being that doesn't have all the laureates of PhD, bachelors, all that. They don't have that. They are just human beings who are gifted with healing that can help you. When I talk about invisible helping hands, when I talk about being indigenous, when I'm talking about the whole notion of of our life that has been handed down in our cultures to help us, to feed us, to nurture us, it's validating. It's validating and the more people you trust, the better you have in s in in your life. Marina Crane (01:04:12.882) I'm I'm grateful that I've grown up in a indigenous community that that throughout my life I've known so many people, hundreds of people, that I've grown up in my community. And and for me, when I left and I and I'm was in the United States, it was so hard. Because I was ripped from my community and I did it deliberately so I could get an education. Not understanding, you know, exactly the forces that were dra bringing me back into my community. The understanding of the self is so vital. And and for for those reasons too, when I listen to indigenous people, young people who are advocating, who are activists, who are promoting an un an understanding and trying to educate themselves as well as others about systemic racism. It's empowering. It's empowering to know that we're all coming from the same platform. There are indigenous men who are who are fighting to self-determination of what they will not tolerate. Some indigenous young men have never touched alcohol or drugs. You know, some like for me, for not being sexually active, it's like it's like that. I just like What what's the matter? Why why don't people want to accept th you know what what we as human beings have decided how we wanna live? Because we don't fit the norm. We don't fit the norm of like, well, you know, you should be having an affair with a married man or you you should be you should be with a woman or you shoulda, woulda, coulda. It's hard, it's not easy, I tell you, it's not easy. For me I'm grateful for this podcast and I called up a friend of mine the other day and I said, I have to go to Costco. I Marina Crane (01:06:06.698) And it might seem ridiculous to you, but for me, I'm handicapped, okay? So for me, I have to get on I have to get in my car and then I have to take my wheelchair out of the car and then I get groceries and I have to have somebody help me put my groceries in my car as well as my wheelchair. I have to come home t take out my my groceries and like I'm like it it's it's a chore. It's a chore. So I'm like so when when I call my friend I'm going, I had to really really t taught not talk myself out of not going because it because I know how hard it is for me being handicapped. When when I wasn't it was you know, I didn't have to fight myself to do something. So that's that's why I'm saying the relationship we have with ourselves and other people is important because then they know what your struggles are and they know what your capacity is. So again, this whole notion of trust, I think I think for me, I spent most of my life just trusting people who were mental health workers and realizing, no I had to start trusting people who didn't have that background of being therapists or psychologists or social workers. I I don't know why I gravitated to people like that, but it but because of that and I and I'm not saying like they weren't helpful to me, but I put it I did a lot of work myself. And and that's that's the whole point is like i you have to do the homework. You have to do the homework, not in the sense of getting the instructions from the individual. You know. You have your gut feeling and you know what you have to work on. Marina Crane (01:07:59.264) Okay, so I I I don't know if I have any more videos that I want to funny 'cause I did a cla Okay, here here's this this is this this woman here is interesting too because here funny 'cause I did a class called Trauma is a gateway, kink as a bridge, right? So trauma shit, that's a good title. We need to pause on that for a minute. Trauma is a gateway. King is a bridge. Trauma is a gateway. Could could you just explain the title and what that means? Yeah, so for some folks, trauma can be a gateway to kink. Whether or not something that happened to you, you later on found that same thing turned you on. Whether or not what happened to you, you're now navigating that through kink as a way to now have some control. Whether or not something that happened to you, you're now replaying that same thing and re-traumatizing yourself, right? Because what I found is that when we were wanting to destigmatize kink, and a lot of it's like, okay, people who are kinky are not more traumatized than others. Valid. That does not mean that sometimes those two aren't connected. You don't want people to begin to think that it's trauma that's causing kink, but for some people it does. And we don't want to minimize that experience because we're trying. Not to, you know, we're trying not to re-stigmatize. So that was the reason why I wanted to have this conversation. For those people who does, you still matter. Does that mean that you're less kinky? Because it's data, it's just fucking data. We don't have to make it something else. We just get to know that this is a part of your story. Now, what do you want to do with that information? It's funny because I did a class called trauma as a gateway, kink as a bridge, right? So trauma. So that's That author or that social media is D O C Y U R O C period Y U L I N D A R E N E And again that's with TikTok I think. Yes, so trauma's a gateway. Kink is a Marina Crane (01:10:14.04) Let's see, trauma's a gateway, kink is kink is a bridge. So it's it's an episode called B-O-U-D-O-I-R after dark. Bordeaux after dark. So and s so it like comments instead of like instead of being afraid of situations that hurt you, your brain made it sexy so that it doesn't hurt you. one of the reasons indeed you never Yeah, it's just like some people I'm sorry, but I'm gonna use you know, it's just like she says, one of the reasons indeed you never n you're you never fucking know how people get where they are. jeez, so says like here, not not me wanting a five fingered necklace a few years after my abusive ex and dad on two different occasions tried to hurt me in the same way. So again and recognizing and options whether you show signs or your choices before. I hope like like I don't know, I just find it's interesting that like again, however you get well say your kink on by talking about it, it's important to trust the person that you're talking about your kinks. Because the kinkiness of your sexual life is the bridge to wellness. That's why I'm saying it's important to trust people. And there's so many invisible helping hands. That's why I said I think once I once I started talking about Marina Crane (01:12:09.28) or releasing the the narrative of why I was warning people about Nathan Chasing horse changed my narrative in the sense of trust because because there were so many people who lateral like in terms of lateral violence that I think I gravitated more to like social workers, therapists and psychologists because I could trust them. But the reality of it is that kink this lady's talking about, we need that kink. Especially if we we've come from a place where we've had trauma. Now, I'm I'm not trying to minimize my trauma. I'm I'm just saying there are things in my life that that haven't been very debilitating. There there are things in my life whereas I've seen met white women who've like I couldn't even comprehend how as a child they could have gone through such such things, such secrecy, such naivete about the self. And and then to want to help and be a therapist. It it it it just doesn't hold water to me. And and again, for me when I say the kinkiness about it is like th for the individual white woman it's it's the volur like voyeur the voyeur of of my talking about my kink and their like looking in without without ever having experienced that connection as as a whole human being because they've oppressed it. They've oppressed that trauma in their childhood. That's why I say when you start going into you want to be a therapist, they're gonna weed you out when you're in your master's program. And and worse of all, if if there's white systemic racism in that, you know, you don't even bother. Don't even bother. Go some go to some university or some other place where they will validate you because you're a minority. Go you know, go and seek out like Marina Crane (01:14:13.592) Like again, you know, just now, 2026, we have a Lakota doctor, a Lakota physician who who is trying to establish a medical school for indigenous students, so we can graduate more indigenous doctors. Why why do we have these things? Because systemic racism. Sometimes sometimes even when I I'm invited to talk to a group of people in in the art community and I start talking about identity and and what it is to be indigenous and and through ritual and ceremony for not just five hundred years, I'm talking ten, twenty thousand years. A and rather than being domesticated w like with the cows and sheep and you know, like stuff that Europeans had to live through, all the dark ages of unsanitary you know, like fleas and rats and plagues and even that hundred years where they had no drinking water and they all drank ale and so many generations of FASE and then they bring it into this world here where we've never had domesticated animals, we were we we chased our prey down. We we were we were hunters and gatherers and through ceremony, through understanding kinship, through collective and holistic ways of healing, we have developed and we became natural blood donors, O type donors. Our bloodline is so rare. That's why I'm saying the first one five hundred years ago, the first one hundred years, they killed five generations of our children because our bodies biologically were not set up to deal with all those diseases that were brought into the Americas. You even can look at historical radar maps in the Amazon of the thousands of civilizations that were killed off and annihilated with the jungle, you know, just eating it all up so you Marina Crane (01:16:18.488) You can't see it. All the pyramids in the Americas, all the oppression. Like if if a lie based on a lie makes you feel like you're great and that you've always been great and you want to keep on oppressing and establishing systemic racism without without understanding the root cause of why you were so intimidated by another like a way of life. We're living on a planet where a lot of things that we've sort of domesticated. I mean I'm talking European patriarchy is is is is dangerous. Look at look at the data centers and all the water it's going to use. Look at look at the oil sands in northern Alberta. Look at all the forest fires. Our our forces are brittle because of the dryness because our groundwater is being soaked up. Think about it. The eight billion people on this planet that that have to be fed because of domestic because we're domesticating our food, it comes into so many conspiracy theories, it's it gets sickening some it gets sickening. And and for me as as an elder woman who has actually grown on the land, who's actually had to kill animals to eat I I can't even comprehend our young people. I I the the the lack of critical thinking. I'm and I'm not saying just children. I I know trauma creates like a a barrier in terms of critical thinking. That's why it's so important to heal, so important to to tr like to s sensitize yourself instead of desensitize. It's important to feel. Even even to have fantasy. Like it it's important to live your whole life as the best way you can. So but I enjoy doing my podcasts and again I didn't realize like I have so many people that I that I meet that have been letting other people to come and listen to my podcast. So again it's Saturday, it's August, I can hardly see the Rockies, but yet I'm just glad that at least Marina Crane (01:18:39.052) I've had my breakfast and my tea and I'm gonna sit back and watch a movie and hopefully go and see a movie in a theater today. So with that, I hope you're doing well. take care of yourselves and remember there are you'll meet someone who's going to be a catalyst that's going to turn your life around or even help you nudge you in the right direction.