Survival Into Service: The Night a Dog Changed Everything

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)
There's a moment in this conversation that I keep coming back to. Karen is 12 and a half years old. She saved up enough money on her own to take care of something that no child should ever have to take care of. And then she goes and finds her dog, a stray that she named Boy, and she tells him everything. This was a really touching moment because before Karen became the woman who runs a foundation, who speaks to trauma survivors, who cared for the very parents who hurt her,

who finally at 57 understood why a dog walked into a bedroom and grabbed her arm and led her to a river. She was just a kid trying to survive something that should never have been hers to carry. Her story is very heavy. It's layered and it's a lot, but so is she. And what she's done with all of it, the way that she's turned survival into service and silence into a book, a dark night by a river into a life built on love. That's the whole reason.

that I do this and have these conversations.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (00:58)
And as I raised the knife up to my father he was asleep, my dog came in the room and grabbed the arm and he stopped it.

Matt Gilhooly (01:10)
You're listening to the LifeShift Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Gilhoolie. This show is built around one simple idea, that sometimes a single moment can change how we see everything. Each week, I talk with someone about the moment that shifted their life and how they learned to live differently after it. These are not stories about having it all figured out. They are stories about what it looks like to keep going once the story changes. Thank you for being here. Here's today's story.

Matt Gilhooly (01:41)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Karen. Hello, Karen. I'm pretty, pretty decent. I just got back from a trip in New York City and got to see a bunch of shows. So I'm happy to be home and I'm happy to be talking to you despite the the weight of the story that that you're going to be sharing today. I there's so much power in these stories and the hard ones are

Karen Diskin-Dickson (01:46)
Hello, how are you?

Matt Gilhooly (02:07)
just as important to share as the super happy ones that people like tend to lean towards because that's what most of us were taught growing up is that we don't share the hard things and we just celebrate the happy, you know, birthdays and promotions and things like that. Did you have a similar thing where we had to keep everything quiet in your life? And that's part of your story too, right? Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (02:23)
Okay.

yes, very much so.

Matt Gilhooly (02:33)
Well, I appreciate you wanting to be a part of the Life Shift podcast. I have talked to over 250 people now about these very pivotal line in the sand type moments and all of them are so different, but also the human feelings around these moments seem to be very similar. And it's been a nice refreshing, going into year five now of being reminded of how common

our humanity is and how much that we can go through and very resilient human spirits that I get to now call kind of friends of being able to talk to everyone. So I appreciate you just wanting to share your story in this way, in the matte way on the life shift. Are you sharing your story a lot these days? Yeah, because you just put out a book fairly recently.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (03:18)
Yeah.

We are, yeah. We ⁓

put out a book in 2019 and since then, I've been doing quite a bit of public speaking and volunteer speaking and trying to help trauma survivors.

Matt Gilhooly (03:36)
That's

fantastic and very noble of you. So thank you for doing that for the world. And just for listeners, if you listened, I guess a few weeks ago now, you heard Karen's sister as a podcast guest for the Life Shift. So that was a great conversation.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (03:51)
Yeah,

Kathleen's my older sister.

Matt Gilhooly (03:55)
and she mentioned you a few times, so you'll get to hear that. Yes. So before we get started and we get into your story, maybe you can tell us who Karen is in 2026. Like, how do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (03:57)
Okay.

I show up as a retired individual that is a grandmother and a life partner who's wonderful. I have four grown children.

run a foundation with my sister called Remarkably Resilient and wrote a book back in 2019, Remarkably Resilient Community Matters. So really enjoying retirement finally and then enjoying the work that we do to help others their trauma.

and healing journeys. I'm also a practicing Reiki master, so I enjoy that work as well. So always helping, always full of joy trying to find the next best thing.

Matt Gilhooly (04:52)
Yeah, well,

it doesn't sound like retirement to me. It sounds like you're you're doing you're doing some work. But it sounds like it's very meaningful work and something that probably fills your cup more than other types of work. Yeah, it's so important to find these spaces that we can relate to and help others in the way that maybe only we can because of our own experiences. So kudos to you for

Karen Diskin-Dickson (04:55)
It's busy. Yeah, it is. It sure does. Yes. Yes.

Right.

Matt Gilhooly (05:17)
helping so many people that maybe had to or felt like they had to be silent in the traumas that they were facing. Very beautiful. So not so beautiful. Maybe you can kind of paint the picture of your life leading up to this life shift moment and you can go back as far as you need to, but give us a sense of who Karen was in the before this main pivotal moment that we're gonna talk about today.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (05:22)
Yeah, yes, very much so.

the Karen before the main pivotal ⁓ moment was a very quiet, complacent child, a twin, an identical twin, in a family of multi-generational incest, abuse, and neglect. And I happened to be the one that was picked on the most.

Matt Gilhooly (05:52)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (06:04)
and really thought that I was the child that was saving my sisters from the abuse, both from my father and my paternal grandfather. So, I was that child that just tried to comply, tried to be good, had to be silent out of fear, and still a very good student, loved dogs, loved to be around pets, and...

just tried to survive basically. So that was the Karen before my moment.

Matt Gilhooly (06:32)
Yeah.

Well, I

am so sorry to hear that. And I kind of knew that story after talking to your sister, but I can see how kids are going to feel differently. And it's interesting that you said that you felt like you were the one kind of saving, if you will, your sisters from this or other people from this. Do you recall a time in that earlier life in which you felt like

a kid, like a kid, was there ever a carefree moment in your life before that that you can remember?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (07:07)
I don't remember that. I don't remember feeling carefree. I always felt full of worry, full of concern, reading the room, always afraid of what was next. So no, I don't remember playing. I don't remember any of that. was very, very intense for me.

Matt Gilhooly (07:26)
Yeah.

And the dog thing you mentioned, was that like...

Karen Diskin-Dickson (07:29)
Oh yeah, I was one

of those kids that if I saw a dog on the way home and it looked like a stray, I was going to try to get it to come home with me. Yes, it was. It was.

Matt Gilhooly (07:37)
Yeah, well that was probably, you know, that your way of sharing the love that you had somewhere and probably

finding it in return from the dogs because we don't deserve dogs, you know, they're just like the best.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (07:46)
Mm-hmm.

Well,

they find you and they're amazing And we were lucky that we had horses at the end of the field where we lived. And so my twin sister and I would sneak down there and spend a lot of time with horses. so animals were really a refuge for me growing up.

Matt Gilhooly (08:07)
Yeah.

And you mentioned too, in this time, you had you felt like you needed to remain quiet because otherwise you might get in trouble. Was that quiet with everyone not even talking to your twin sister or or

Karen Diskin-Dickson (08:14)
yeah.

No, my twin sister and I apparently had our own language when we were little, so we only understood one another. But yeah, we talked about regular life things, not about hard things. So no, nothing was shared in terms of the experience.

Matt Gilhooly (08:32)
Okay. Yeah.

which is just so heavy for,

how old were you? Or this was your whole life.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (08:42)
Probably four

is the soonest I can remember. So yeah. Yes. Yes.

Matt Gilhooly (08:47)
Wow, that's a lot of responsibility to put on a child. And the unfortunate

thing is, now we know you weren't the only one in the world to be going through this, but I can imagine how that feels because that's all you know of life is, is that we, did you ever look at kids in your class or people around you that had this quote unquote normal existence as a five, six, seven, eight year old?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (08:59)
Right.

I did,

did, and I didn't understand that their life wasn't as much like mine because my norm was my norm. So I knew that they seemed happy, I knew that they seemed loved, and that was like something that I desired, but I didn't feel surprisingly as left out as one might imagine.

Matt Gilhooly (09:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (09:41)
And I really liked school, so I just immersed myself in school and I was a very good student and tried to find the joy in those things.

Matt Gilhooly (09:52)
Yeah. And

the reason I asked that question is because I was eight when my mom died and I saw all the people around me with mothers. And so for me, but I also had more of an understanding of what that before was like, whereas yours was always that way from your memories. So for me, looking at other people, there was this weird like jealousy, but also like, am I happy for them? like, you know,

Karen Diskin-Dickson (10:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And,

yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (10:20)
it was clear

to me that I was now different. was the kid with the dead mom. And so that's where that question came from. But I guess if you just don't understand what normal should be, your normal is normal.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (10:25)
Right.

Yeah, know.

Yeah, you know you don't like it. You know you're not enjoying it, but that's your norm. So.

Matt Gilhooly (10:38)
Yeah.

So this experience just continued to go on and I'm guessing it leads to what your pivotal moment is or just like take us a little bit further.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (10:44)
Yeah, we,

well, we moved from, we moved from Denver, Colorado, or Littleton, Colorado to Kansas when I was 11. When I was 10 and a half, my twin and I were attacked by our grandfather. And that's where he happened to live in in that small town in Kansas. And then my mom and dad decided to move us there.

we were 11. So that was really hard for both Sharon and I that we did have that shared experience. And then from then on, you know, I was not only, you know, in fear of my life from my father, but also from my grandfather. So when I was 12 and a half, my grandfather raped me and I became pregnant. And I had to fund my

own abortion. had to be quiet about it. So I was working as a waitress including motel rooms surprisingly at that age because you could. I went ahead and went through that experience and almost didn't make it. It was not good.

So that was a summer that found my dog named Boy, and I named him Boy, and he was a rescuer for me. he went everywhere with me and followed me around town, and I told him all my stories. he was the one that I look now back at that time, and I realized I was depressed.

and I wouldn't have known that because I had no reason to know that. I was surviving barely. And then one Sunday morning, I went upstairs when my mother was gone and my dad was home and I heard him in the bedroom with my older sister. And so for that reason,

I just, my life shifted. I realized that I hadn't saved anyone and I snapped, I think, in all sense and decided that I was not going to that day and neither were my parents. So I chose a knife and I chose to.

memorize their room and decided I would go around town and kind of silently say goodbye to everyone and all the things that I loved. And I snuck into their room that night after they were asleep. And as I raised the knife up to my father while he was asleep, my dog came in the room and grabbed the arm and he stopped it.

And I remember just being frozen and then him tugging on my arm, taking me out of the house literally. And I used to sit with him across the street at a river and he brought me over there and just sat with me. And I just cried and I cried and I cried. And I decided right then and there that, you know, my life would be different.

and I heard a voice that was not a voice I had ever heard before and it was so distinct. It said, you are loved, you must believe that you are loved and you will spread love the rest of your life. And it was such a calming thing that I stopped crying. I sat there and said, well, what that means is what I said was the universe. I called it the universe.

we weren't allowed to believe in God, we were supposed to be atheists. And universe told me to be loving and to keep doing that and that I would survive all of this. So from then on, literally, as bad as it got for me, I chose love. And somehow that helped me survive the rest of the abuse that occurred clear until I graduated.

And I just decided life would be important for me and I would love others and I would want to understand this behavior. It became a mission of mine to understand why do people act like this and what happened to them.

And so early on, I wanted to be in the Walton's family on TV. so Mary Ellen Walton was a nurse and I just loved her. And I decided I would be a nurse and I would go help people. And I also loved all the EMT shows and I would be EMT. And that's what I would do. And

So I actually was the first one to leave the family in terms of when I went to college my freshman year, I enrolled to be a medical physician. But my father as normal, I came home for spring break, he knew I had a serious boyfriend and he always broke everything up. So he tried to break that up by telling me that I would be coming home that summer.

home and I just couldn't do it. So I pretended like that's what I was going to do and then went back to college and without my twin sister's knowledge or my older sister's knowledge.

talked to my boyfriend and said, I had to tell him what had happened with me, which was hard. And then I just basically said, I'm going to be leaving. I don't know where. I don't know if I'm either going to leave or end my life. I was at that point. I didn't want anybody to feel sorry for me. He...

Matt Gilhooly (16:14)
Hmm. Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (16:32)
promptly said, no, that's not what's going to happen. We're going to get married, and then he'll leave you alone. And I seriously thought that's what was going to happen. So we did that. And it turned out to what was supposed to be a private wedding. The night before I got married, I did call my mother and say, mom, this is what I'm doing. Now I basically want left alone.

And dad didn't see it that way. So he came after me and I found out through a friend that he was going to come take me. So the police had to get involved and we ended up leaving the state and I left college.

and the fear was so great that we started a new life in Iowa after that. So I didn't complete college and life happened after that. So, and my family thought that I had just gone crazy my dad still really controlled everyone in the family. So he controlled the narrative. And so I was without my entire family for...

Matt Gilhooly (17:26)
area.

Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (17:44)
five years became a young mother to one child and then a second child. So I would say the first shift definitely when I was 12 and a half, the second when I had to name what was happening.

Matt Gilhooly (18:00)
Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (18:01)
I was 19 years old and decided to go on with life. And I think that the important part there was I was forced into therapy myself because as my son started to mature, he was only, I believe he was 18 months old, I realized that I didn't know how to parent. And I realized that I also did not know how to play.

didn't know how to play with him.

And so I thought, I better learn how to do this because children learn by playing. And so was one of those things that I said, well, go into therapy. So I was lucky to have a really good therapist for four years that really helped me get through a lot of that trauma and helped me understand who I was, where my power was, what kind of parent I could be.

Matt Gilhooly (18:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (18:58)
And I just thank her so much. She got me started on the right track. So, yes.

Matt Gilhooly (19:00)
Yeah. That's that's so challenging, like, trauma

after trauma. I mean, you lived trauma day in day out till 19. But then the trauma stayed because there was so much fear built up in this experience. And I mean, I'm so sorry about the when you were 12 and a half. I mean, that's like you shouldn't even have to be thinking. Well, first of all, you shouldn't be thinking of the abuse that you were

Karen Diskin-Dickson (19:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. yeah. yeah.

No.

No.

Matt Gilhooly (19:29)
encountering, but then to become pregnant in that way. Like, I can't imagine another 12 year old like having the wherewithal to even know what to do next.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (19:39)
Yeah, I had to figure it out. So it was very difficult and I did my best. No, no. Yeah, you had to find somebody and I luckily lived through it, which I probably shouldn't have. But I did. And yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (19:42)
Yeah.

and abortions weren't a thing, like they weren't, you had to find a way to have something.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad you did because yeah, no, it's,

your story is one of those cases in which someone hears one part of it and it's like, I don't know how you survived that. And then you tell another part and it just layer after layer and here as you describe yourself happy and joyful and finding that space, that probably took a lot of work and I commend you for that.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (20:16)
Mm-hmm.

it took a lot of

again, I think that deep need to understand really helped me. And then I did go on to become an EMT and then eventually nursing school. And as I learned through therapy and through my psychology classes, I started to understand what had happened to my father and why my mother was so afraid.

Matt Gilhooly (20:29)
Yeah, but even still.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (20:48)
And it didn't excuse anything, but it made me understand that there was some kind of a cycle that can be broken and people need to get help.

Matt Gilhooly (20:50)
Right?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (21:00)
and may not even realize that help is out there or that they can change. And so it became just this huge desire for me to be very understanding, to give grace, to listen, to try and point individuals to help when I could. I just always had this real strong belief that no one was born evil.

and there was good in everyone. And that's kind of what had driven me all along. So people are like, don't you hate your parents? But I didn't feel hate. I did not feel hate. I felt like I wanted to help and I wanted to understand. So more than anything, I probably felt grief for the childhood I never had.

Matt Gilhooly (21:40)
Hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (21:53)
But then watching my children play was so freeing. And I got to see children be children and I knew that I would never let anyone hurt them. And that was healing in itself as well. So.

Matt Gilhooly (21:57)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would imagine

too, I'm thinking of when you took back control as far as like, seeking therapy and all these pieces that come along with finding out who you were deep down and who you could be and all the things that you weren't really allowed to explore as a child because of your circumstances. It almost feels more freeing and more

I don't know, empowering, then the thing you thought you wanted to do to your parents and yourself as a teenager, where that could solve one problem, but create a whole other thing. And here you are, like, I'm going to take care of myself and, and others in that way. And I don't know, I just, I know a lot of people that have experienced depression and really dark moments in their lives.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (22:50)
Great.

Matt Gilhooly (23:07)
myself included, it's so much easier to stay in that. So that's why I commend you for focusing on the good and that there is good in people because I tell you, that's the hard road. That's the hard road.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (23:07)
Thank

I never understood that moment and I had been embarrassed about it for years and kept it hidden from everyone I talked to a pastor when I was 58 years old.

And I remember I told her my story and I told her that story and I said, I've never really understood that moment. I'm so grateful for it because I could have not been here. I could have been incarcerated. And she just looked at me and she said, you know what, Karen? And I said, what? And she goes, sometimes God comes to you in a form that you can recognize. And I went, wow.

Matt Gilhooly (24:02)
Hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (24:04)
He was that for me. And I recognized the form. I have a firm belief that that's what happened. And super strong for me. So it was nice to understand that finally years and years and years later. And then to be able to tell my sisters and relieve myself when we were writing the book of that guilt. So those were pivotal times for me.

Matt Gilhooly (24:12)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I want to ask you about the moment that you had to share what happened to you with your boyfriend at the time, or I don't know if you were fiance yet, but like, was there power in that was did you feel different when you had told this to to someone else in this way?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (24:31)
Hmm.

I

felt I felt guilty that he might choose to rescue me. I did not want to put that burden on him. He assured me that that was not the case, that he loved felt dirty.

I felt ashamed, I felt scared, I felt all of that. But I knew my father and I knew that if we did not get police protection, it was gonna be bad. So did not want any of that to happen. So I had to tell the police why they needed to protect me and made sure I told them I didn't want anyone hurt, that we would be willing to.

leave the state if they escorted us to the border and just go hide. And I just wanted a way at that point. I just wanted to be away.

Matt Gilhooly (25:34)
Yeah.

So

there was no relief for anything for you sharing that? Like getting it out of you with someone else or had you shared it with other people before that?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (25:44)
there were

No, no, I had not. I don't think there really was relief in that because the fear was still there. He was still alive. Luckily, my grandfather was dead at that point. So I carried that fear. And it wasn't until the therapist helped me confront him, I was 24 years old, that the fear left. And my life really...

Matt Gilhooly (25:55)
OK. Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (26:14)
changed in the sense that someone wasn't chasing me, you know. So, and I did confront him, yes, I did confront him. My then husband, which was the young man that I married, was very angry that I was going to go do that. He was very fearful for me and did not want me to do that. But I knew I had to, so I drove myself.

Matt Gilhooly (26:19)
Yeah. Did you confront him? Oh, okay.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (26:41)
back down to Kansas and confronted both he and my mother and just basically told them I'm not afraid anymore and if you ever touch me this time I will end your life and I meant it and I felt like I needed to say that and he backed away and said you know we can open up the wounds and bleed again or

recognize that they're there. And that was the only apology I got, which isn't really an I actually did. My mother first, with my children, I eventually let her see them and had an on-again, off-again relationship. My father not till years later,

Matt Gilhooly (27:15)
Did you maintain a relationship with them or no?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (27:30)
Then after my nursing education, I ended up, when they became elderly, taking care of both of them. had gotten divorced and again, people are like, how could you do that? And I was like, well, in my mind, they were elderly, vulnerable individuals that needed help. well.

Matt Gilhooly (27:50)
You are a bigger person than so many of us.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (27:53)
Well, and then for me, and it wasn't necessarily for my twin or my older sister, I felt the to hear their stories. And I felt the need, particularly with my mother, to have a mother. And she hadn't been one. And so I took her in and actually taught her to be one.

you know, as she was older. And I remember she would say, you know, good night, whatever. And I'd say, well, you meant to say good night. I love you. And she'd say, yeah, I love you. And then I'd say, you might have meant to even give me a hug, you know, and she and she would learn. She would watch me parent and she would learn. you know, I took probably

Matt Gilhooly (28:29)
Hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (28:44)
the first three years before I felt like I was finally getting a mother. But then we became close. And I was able to put aside the things that I needed to put aside. because my desire to have a mother was stronger than my desire to retaliate. So.

Matt Gilhooly (29:02)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of goodness

in your heart. And I don't know that a lot of people would have chosen the road that you did and created for yourself. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's beautiful. think it's should we all be so resilient in this way and move through the world? I mean, if we're if I don't know if this sound this will sound right, but I think if we're lucky enough.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (29:12)
It was the one, yeah, was the one I needed to, it was the journey I needed. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (29:32)
to find that space of reflection and self-awareness and understanding of the circumstances that we were in don't necessarily make who we are in the long run. And I say lucky enough because sometimes we can't, many people can't get past that barrier because of one thing or another. And it's just, like I said before, it's much easier to stay in the darkness than it is to find the light in everything. And you're like the epitome of like,

Karen Diskin-Dickson (29:43)
Right. Right.

Matt Gilhooly (30:01)
Finding that light and creating something that you need slash want in your life To make your life better now. I mean just love that

Karen Diskin-Dickson (30:07)
Well, think for me,

yeah, I think for me, since childhood was so dark, I really did want the light. I really did want to find joy. I, if anybody, know, anybody you talk to about me will tell you that I find joy every day in something. and I'm really, you know, I really do enjoy life. And I...

Matt Gilhooly (30:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (30:32)
Yeah, I was so lucky to have good counselors along the way and incredible strong women around me, an incredible shaman that taught me a lot. And I've continued to go into therapy when I need to. That's probably one of the most disappointing things for me is I always thought I was at a point where, well, you're better. You're past this, and then something would trigger.

Matt Gilhooly (30:48)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha.

Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (31:00)
something in me and I'd be like, you know what, you need to do some more work. So that's...

Matt Gilhooly (31:05)
Yeah. How does the

how does the joyful part of your journey in all of its forms? How does that change your relationship with your sisters? Because I know you did this with your family, but did that did that create better relationships? Did it push people away? Did they want to be mad? Like how was what were those dynamics like being

Karen Diskin-Dickson (31:25)
Well, I

mean, the dynamic again really shifted when Kathleen learned about ACEs and told me and said, you know, hey, it's not what's wrong with us. It's what happened to us.

And we all knew, I mean, we all knew, but we didn't talk about it. And so that's when the conversation started in our late 50s. And they weren't easy conversations. Kathleen and I both wanted to write the book first. My twin sister came on later she needed to work through some things. But...

Now very, very difficult to tell each other some of the things that we needed to tell one another and yet freeing in a way that they were no longer hidden.

Matt Gilhooly (32:10)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (32:13)
For Kathleen, I know it's very difficult for me to tell her things because she was my mother and she had to listen to her children, she considered to be her children being hurt and she didn't realize that we were hurt and that violent things had happened and.

Matt Gilhooly (32:27)
Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (32:35)
I know in her heart of hearts had she known she would have done something about So that was hard because I knew I was hurting her heart. But we got through it and for my twin sister and I, we just, we had to talk about the things that made us mad and talk about the things that made us sad and then just really rely on

Matt Gilhooly (32:41)
Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (32:58)
the bond that we had as twins to get us through. So all were in the same household, but we all experienced things differently. So it's amazing how people think it would be the same, but it was very, very different.

Matt Gilhooly (33:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, no. And I think that's important. The more conversations that we have about these things, maybe the more people we can help speak up earlier or do what they need to do earlier. And I think maybe the time period didn't help that when you were going through this, because the society was very secretive in general anyway. And but nowadays, it feels like people are

Karen Diskin-Dickson (33:24)
absolutely.

No, not at all.

Yes. Yes.

Matt Gilhooly (33:41)
I mean, people like yourself bringing them up later in life to share, you know, publicly out giving that quote unquote permission to other people that they can also share their story, they don't have to keep it a secret anymore. Not to normalize it, but to normalize that there's all almost everyone has something that they've kept inside. And I don't know, there's something very freeing about being able to share

Karen Diskin-Dickson (33:54)
Right. Right.

absolutely, absolutely.

Matt Gilhooly (34:10)
how you actually feel instead of what you're supposed to, by your parents, you're supposed to feel this way, or you have to be an atheist, like in your case.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (34:10)
⁓ very, very freeing.

Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly is. So you you get the chance to say, here's the piece that, you know, I would change. Here's, here's the part of me that I wouldn't and explore all of that. So it's, it's, it is very freeing and just the knowledge that we started learning about neuroscience of trauma and what it does to your brain and how it changes you and then the things that you need to do to

Matt Gilhooly (34:32)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (34:47)
better help yourself and that you're not your responses. And then you look at your coping mechanisms and say, which of those are most helpful now? Which ones can I put in the backseat, so to speak? So it's a constant learning, I would say to anyone that's been through something difficult,

Matt Gilhooly (35:02)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (35:08)
read as much as you can and listen to podcasts and go to conferences and learn everything you can learn because it opens up a world of possibilities for yourself in terms of your healing journey. And I think that's important, very, very important. And we were lucky, we had a community where we could work when we were young. I could afford.

Matt Gilhooly (35:31)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (35:34)
to take care of myself because I had money from working. kids can't get a work permit, I think, till they're like 16. So we were able to afford saving up the kind of money that literally the night I graduated from high school I left. we had a community. No, no, no, but we were able to. And I think about what if we weren't?

Matt Gilhooly (35:53)
but you shouldn't have to work to do what you needed done. ⁓

All

Karen Diskin-Dickson (36:02)
able

to or what if we didn't have a good community? What if our school system wasn't good? What if we had some of those other aces like, you know, violent community or, you know, something like that, but we were lucky that we had a nice little community to be in. And although we didn't talk about what happened to us and we were all straight A students and people were quite surprised when we wrote the book.

Matt Gilhooly (36:07)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (36:27)
We were supported in ways that no one knew they were actually supporting us. By the way the teachers were with us and other community members and I think that's what helped us become as resilient as we were.

Matt Gilhooly (36:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, because it wasn't all, it wasn't every hour of your day doom.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (36:46)
Yeah, we weren't right

exactly. Exactly. So, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (36:50)
Although, I mean, I can't imagine that that

doesn't. I mean, I'm sure it helps in its little bit, but it's you can't overcome all that. As a child, you don't have any tools and the people around you. I had two questions, one being, do you do you think that I mean, this is kind of a silly question, but do you think that you went into these fields that were all helping others because you kind of wanted to help that child version of you and your sisters?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (36:55)
Mm-hmm. No, no, no. Right.

I think so, yeah, definitely. think that, well, a lot of the individuals that I've met, even on EMS or in nursing professions, have also had difficult times. So I think you gravitate toward making life better for others. it makes you feel good that you helped. Yeah, I definitely think so, yes.

Matt Gilhooly (37:36)
Mm hmm. Yeah, it feels some feels some kind of cup.

And I guess in a small way, like doing this podcast, I think of like, had the eight year old version of me heard the 45 year old version of me like living a good life and being okay. Now, maybe it would have been a little different, you know, eight to 20 something, where I was really struggling. But you know, so I try to think of that as I have these conversations of like, what if there's just someone out there that

Karen Diskin-Dickson (37:55)
parts.

Matt Gilhooly (38:05)
that feels like they're the only ones going through it. Because it definitely feels like that in the moment. It feels like no one would understand because no one would ever feel this way. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people that have felt a lot of similar ways to the way that we have felt despite living completely different lives, which is really interesting. I was thinking, you said you listened to your parents later in life when they were older. Did you uncover things that

Karen Diskin-Dickson (38:05)
Right. Here it goes.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (38:34)
made them make more sense in their own lived experiences.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (38:38)
I did. In my mother, just became to understand that she was very timid and she fell for my father and individuals who have a personality like my father tend to prey on folks like that.

And so once she was in the marriage, I think she felt trapped and nowhere to go. so she actually just kind of disappeared into her own world and pretended like nothing bad was happening because that was her way of coping. Even though she knew, she very clearly knew.

She just chose to act like nothing bad was happening and that was her way of coping out of fear as well. My father surprisingly was Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde. I was, I describe him as the person who could be my rock.

Matt Gilhooly (39:19)
Yeah. Out of fear, I'm guessing. Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (39:36)
and then the person who was the absolute worst nightmare anyone could experience. So taught me a lot about life and a lot about this world and a lot about coping in the world and then it would all go dark. So it was one of those really weird relationships, but then learning about what had happened to him from his father.

And then what had happened to his father from my grandfather's mother made me realize that, you know, there was a lot there before they even had children. So ⁓ that they never got help with. It doesn't, but it was, it was, it helped me understand how it was spread. Yeah, ⁓ I can't imagine, but I...

Matt Gilhooly (40:08)
Hmm.

Alright. Doesn't excuse it, but yeah.

that you didn't want to continue it.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (40:30)
You know, my dad was an alcoholic by the time he was 14. So, you know, he drank to not remember. And so, know, he had his vices, so to speak, you know.

Matt Gilhooly (40:41)
and not just,

Yeah. And,

and you, I mean, it, again, it doesn't excuse anything, but you kind of just start seeing these cycles and then someone, you and your sisters, or you break the cycle and stop this from happening and admitting, mean, as sad as, it sounds, admitting that you wanted to seek help so you could be a mother, like you could be a good mother and

Karen Diskin-Dickson (41:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (41:13)
help your children play and learn and do

Karen Diskin-Dickson (41:13)
Yeah. Yes.

Matt Gilhooly (41:16)
all those things. There's so much beauty in that, admitting like, because I think sometimes people are like too quote unquote proud to ask for help in those situations. But like how beautiful that is because you knew how important that was to you, but also to your kids.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (41:19)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I did. ⁓

yeah, I did not want anything. I didn't want to have anything to do with the way I was parented, but I didn't know how to change it. And I didn't know what the right course would be. So I knew I needed help. Thank goodness, actually. So I was very, very, yes. Yes. Yeah, very much so, very much so. Well.

Matt Gilhooly (41:47)
Yeah. Yeah. Did you enjoy motherhood? Or do you enjoy motherhood?

more or less than grandmotherhood.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (41:59)
I mean, I love it all. I love it all, but it's just, you know, I wish I wouldn't, I do wish that the 20-year-old knew what the 50-year-old knows. Because I do think of times when I was dysregulated and would raise my voice or say something that shouldn't have been said. And, you know, I never hit my children. I never hurt them or anything, but I just, I think that I'm a better version now than I was then.

Matt Gilhooly (42:00)
you

Karen Diskin-Dickson (42:26)
And I kind of beat myself up for that. And yet, when I talk with my children, that's not their perspective. But that's why we teach regulation now. I think everyone needs to recognize when they're becoming dysregulated and what can you do about that, and that you have the power to work on those types of responses. And you can learn how to change and grow.

Matt Gilhooly (42:41)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (42:50)
So it's like, yeah, just, I would love for no child to ever go through the things that caused them damage, you know? But it's my utopia world. Tough battle is right, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (43:00)
Mm-hmm.

It's a tough battle, right? Yeah.

And speaking of that, how did you get into the work that you're doing now with your nonprofit and like, like what, what, what pushed you into that side more?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (43:17)
Well, after we wrote the book, we got involved with Johnson County Mental Health in Kansas City. And Kathleen and I had had several conversations about some of the things written in the book, like the power of regulation and responses and understanding can do, you know, and help you learn, change, grow. And we always thought somebody was going to teach that.

And then we didn't find that anyone was teaching it. so Kathleen called me one day again and said, I think we need to bring this forward. I think we need to help individuals understand on a basic level what this means because

You can read about it in a book or you can go to therapy, but even in therapy, mean, I didn't know about ACEs. I didn't know about dysregulation. I didn't, and I'd had a lot of therapy. And so it's like, and Kathleen has a son with persistent mental illness and she had a lot of difficulty parenting him because she couldn't access the system. He was either not bad enough or whatever. And so she wanted to learn some of these things.

she and he were dysregulated with one another. So we just decided to just start learning again and put it down, pen and paper, and make a simple way for individuals to understand some of the things that are not hidden from you, but you can have access to to learn more about yourself and your behavior. So that's what got us into it. And we've just continued along the way.

try to do as much work as we can with individuals that have had trauma in their life or are incarcerated. particularly fond of helping those that have been incarcerated because probably 90 % of them have had significant trauma in their life. the 12 and a half year old could have gone to juvenile.

detention as well and then some. So I feel like it's important to spread that knowledge around. And I feel like, like I said to Kathleen, we went through what we went through in order to be strong.

Matt Gilhooly (45:26)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (45:39)
and be able to help teach and spread information and spread the love and the understanding and give the grace. Otherwise, none of it makes sense to me. I think you have to kind of make sense of it too. So it is. Yes.

Matt Gilhooly (45:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's really challenging to to think that. I mean, it's very

big of you and very very evolved of you, I guess, as a human to to see that and I, I have a hard time saying it. But I also see it in my own journey. If my mom hadn't died, and my dad and I struggled through that. ⁓

years of that, then I wouldn't be this version of myself. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't have access to empathy, you know, like, I just wouldn't have these, these things had I not gone through all of that mess and 20 years of failing at grief is my what I call it, you know, and, then when I when I figured it out, everything else made sense. And, you know, you get to the point where like, well, if I went back and changed any of that, none of this would be this.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (46:26)
Yes. Yeah.

I know.

right, or who would I be, or what would I know? And so, of course you would. ⁓ It's one of those situations where you're like, yeah, I'd give anything to, I still, I'm not a perfect person. I still see children playing on the playground and think, ⁓ man, could I just have a do-over, you know? I have grief, and I have times when I cry or whatever, but I also just,

Matt Gilhooly (46:46)
Right. But I would want to change that because I wouldn't want to go through it. So it's, it's very, you know, for you too.

Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (47:14)
then think, well, who are you now? And who can you help? And because of this, that's why. And so I tell myself a different, give it a different narrative, you know?

Matt Gilhooly (47:24)
Yeah,

it's a dichotomy of feeling, you know, like, don't want to ever happen. But also if it didn't happen in that way, you wouldn't have this version of your life. You wouldn't have these kids, you would, you know, like all the things that come along with it.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (47:28)
It is. It is. Yeah.

⁓ yeah, and I don't want, exactly.

And I don't want people to think that I am perfect that way because I know that individuals struggle and I struggle. struggled COVID with the mask. I had to go back into therapy and I could not wear one. I just couldn't.

Matt Gilhooly (47:43)
no.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (47:55)
So I tried and I failed and I had to decide that I just had to stay inside and not wear the So there are some decisions that you have to make that you do your best and that's the way it is.

Matt Gilhooly (48:09)
Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think it's I think you're doing a damn good job with with the joy and the things that could I mean, just one of the experiences that you had could derail a life completely. Right. And you had so many stacked upon and and you've created this in which your life is all about helping other people, including yourself and your children and your sisters and the people around, including your parents.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (48:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I did.

Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (48:37)
you know, after all that. I thank you for showing up in the world in the way you do because so many people are benefiting because of your resilience and strength. It's no doubt, not a doubt at all. I like to kind of ask a question, but I don't know who to ask. But if, you knowing what you know now, is there anything that you maybe, maybe when your dog brought you out to that.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (48:46)
I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. I hope to think that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (49:07)
river and you were sitting there. Is there anything that this version of you would want to say to that version of you?

Karen Diskin-Dickson (49:14)
Mmm.

I think that the person now would say to her, it's not your fault. You didn't know that you could fight back. You were afraid. I'll take you into my heart and protect you. And you are protected now whenever you feel vulnerable. I think that's what she would say. And that she would also say,

You felt the love of God then, and has been the one that has carried you through in all of your darkest moments. And there's a lot of times when I just say the universe, because I talk to the universe all the time. I don't know out there, but.

Matt Gilhooly (49:59)
Yeah.

Someday we'll all find out.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (50:02)
Someday we'll all find out and I'm so grateful for that moment. I'm so grateful. I can't even tell people how grateful I am that I'm still here. And even when I go through really bad times, I've had 23 abdominal surgeries and all kinds of things, but I tell myself that tomorrow will be better. The sun will come up and you still want to be here. Because what if you miss this or what if you miss that? And for me,

Matt Gilhooly (50:06)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (50:32)
I'm also grateful that she had an innate curiosity about the world. And I've continued to have that so that I bring on experiences that challenge me all the time and teach me. And I keep learning and growing. And I'm so grateful for that, part of my personality.

Matt Gilhooly (50:40)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're creating a legacy now of like-minded folks. You're with your children and with your grandchildren and that's on purpose. mean, you're doing it with the heart, with full heart and creating a better world for the rest of us because of that. And then all the people that you're helping through your organization and your book and going on podcasts and sharing your story, who knows who's listening right now that hears something and feels

Karen Diskin-Dickson (51:01)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Matt Gilhooly (51:22)
compelled to take a different step or feels less alone or feels more empowered. We never know how all this works out. And so I'm just so grateful that you wanted to have the conversation in this way with me.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (51:24)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Right.

yeah, thank you so much. I think that the work you're doing, the work that many people do around the world is just so enlightening and the more we know, the more we can learn, change and grow and help others do that as well.

Matt Gilhooly (51:49)
Yeah, so important.

Yeah, and I'd love to encourage people to check out what what you're offering to the world. So if people are listening, they feel really compelled, they either want to send you a message and just tell you their story or ask you a question or go to your website or what's the best way to like find you learn what you're bringing to the world or just send you a message and say, Hey, thank you for sharing this.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (52:02)
Yeah.

They can send me a message

at karen at remarkably-resilient.com. That's my email and a lot of people do and I'm happy to have those conversations. And then www.remarkably-resilient.com. And then of course our book is out on Amazon and that's Remarkably Resilient Community Matters. there is.

Matt Gilhooly (52:36)
Will there be a link to that on your website? There must be.

Perfect, yeah.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (52:40)
Yes, and then there's videos

they can watch and we just try to help out in every way possible.

Matt Gilhooly (52:45)
I love that. Well,

I will include your website address there. That's the one stop shop where they can kind of find everything and they heard you say your email. I'm not going to put it there. So everyone will in the world will be clicking on it. But I encourage anyone listening. If something that Karen said like resonated with you or hit you in a certain way, I highly encourage reaching out. I think that there's so much power in telling our stories.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (52:53)
Thank you.

Yeah, sure, sure.

Matt Gilhooly (53:13)
in whatever way that feels most comfortable. It doesn't have to be in a podcast. It could just be in a quick message. It could be just out loud in your space and no one's around, you know, but getting it out feels quite different. At least for me, things are really messy in my head, but when I say them out loud, it feels all palatable. It feels like the papers are in order. So I highly encourage listeners to reach out to the guests because I think there's so much value in the connection and

Karen Diskin-Dickson (53:16)
Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, isn't that the truth? Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Matt Gilhooly (53:43)
sharing our stories with each other. So do

that and they'll go to your, check out your book and check out your website and do all the things that they are called to do. And I really appreciate you sharing this time with me, Karen.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (53:52)
Yeah, I agree.

All right, well, thank you so much.

Matt Gilhooly (53:59)
Well, thank you and I will thank our listeners as well. Going on five years now and I am so grateful to be able to have all these conversations and to have all of you listening. So thank you for supporting what I do and with that I will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Karen.

Karen Diskin-Dickson (54:04)
now.

awesome.

I was gonna...

Uh-huh.

Matt Gilhooly (54:18)
Thank you for listening to the Life Shift Podcast. If you wanna learn more, go to www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.

There you can check out all the different episodes. You can check out the blog, some of the reviews for the podcast and the Life Shift journal. Links are there so you can purchase your own copy, whether in digital or print format. Thanks again.