Surviving is NOT Your Real Personality (Episode 136)

Your body doesn’t “overreact” for no reason, and your habits aren’t random. We’re joined by Patty Cabot, a New York based author whose story cuts through diet culture and goes straight to the root: how childhood sexual abuse can shape weight, boundaries, self-worth, and the way we show up in relationships for decades.

Patty shares how she spent more than 20 years gaining and losing 50 to 75 pounds at a time, becoming “great at dieting” while still feeling stuck. The real shift happens when she finds a therapist who understands eating disorders and trauma, and says the quiet part out loud: the weight is a symptom. From there, we unpack what trauma looks like in real life: shutting down during intimacy, feeling like you can’t say no, self-medicating to get through dates, and living with a nervous system trained for freeze when fight and flight were never options.

We also talk about the taboo of child sexual abuse, how shame and secrecy keep survivors isolated, and why “normal” can become dangerously distorted when harm is familiar. Patty explains the difference between a trauma mindset and a healthy mindset, and why simple truths like “sex can be an expression of love” can feel like a lightning bolt when your history taught you otherwise. She offers her book, Not That Girl Anymore, to help others feel less alone and to show that healing and love are still possible, even if it takes real work.

If any part of this conversation hits close to home, share it with someone who needs it, subscribe for more honest conversations, and leave a review so more survivors and supporters can find this show.

For a free download fo Patty's book 'Not That Girl Anymore', please visit:

https://www.fatimabey.com/136

If you would like to support her and purchase her book, please visit:

https://www.amazon.com/Not-That-Girl-Anymore-Childhood/dp/B0CKCVQ3VX

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Fatima Bey 0:02

MindShift Power Podcast. This is Mind Shift Power Podcast, the number one critically acclaimed podcast where we have raw, unfiltered conversations that shape tomorrow. I'm your host, Fatima Bay, the Mind Shifter. And welcome everyone. Today we have with us Patty Cabot. She is out of New York and the USA. She's an author, and she has a teenage experience that is so important to talk about. How are you doing today, Patty? I am doing well, Fatima. How are you? Good. Now I didn't say a lot in that introduction because I wanted to come from you. So tell us why are you on this podcast? Tell us your story that led to what we're going to talk about today.

Weight Cycling That Never Stuck

Patty Cabot 0:51

Sure, I'm happy to. So starting in my teens, I started gaining and losing a lot of weight. Like every two years or so, I would gain and lose 50 to 75 pounds. Oh, wow. And yeah. And I did that for more than 20 years. And I will say straight away, I'm a fantastic dieter. I would always lose the weight, but it would always come back. And um I finally got to a point where I was in my mid to late 30s and I thought, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life if I don't figure out why I keep repeating the same pattern. Because again, it wasn't that I couldn't lose weight. It's not like I didn't understand how to keep it off, but I couldn't. And so it was at that point that I started looking for a therapist. And so um I met with several different therapists and I didn't like any of them. And whatever, it's it's hard to find a shrink, but it's really important that you find a good one. I ultimately ended up finding someone that I liked. And this was like I would start, I would stop, I would start, I would stop because I didn't connect with anybody. I finally found someone who um specialized in eating disorders, but it also happened that she specialized in trauma. And when she and I met, and she, for somebody who's has no idea how therapy works, you know, you sit down, you meet with somebody, they want to find out about your background. They want to find out like what makes you you, what happened along the way.

The Therapy Breakthrough On Trauma

Patty Cabot 2:11

And so as we were talking, she was asking me questions and we landed on the fact that I was sexually abused as a child. And so basically she had said to me, she was like, your weight is a symptom of that. And you were never gonna learn to control your weight until you deal with the sexual abuse. And, you know, you talk about a mind shift, it blew up my world because I could have had a hundred years by myself locked in a room and I was never gonna land on that. And that's kind of what led me here. And it really is all about how things happen to you and you don't really understand them, you don't process them, you don't make the connections because it's just so painful or just so difficult that you kind of repeat behaviors over and over and over again. And my kind of message is that until you get to the root cause, you're, you know, unfortunately bound and destined to keep making the same mistakes to be caught in the same loop until you address the real issue. Right.

Fatima Bey 3:09

Absolutely. Now, you wrote a book. What is the name of that book?

Patty Cabot 3:14

It's called Not That Girl Anymore. And um so when I started working with the shrink of who dealt in eating disorders, you know, again, I walked in there thinking, we're gonna talk about my weight and I'm gonna fix it and I'm gonna be in and I'm gonna be out. Twelve years later, it took me 12 years, but I don't want anybody to get discouraged by that. Just because my journey was 12 years doesn't mean anybody else's is.

Fatima Bey 3:36

Right, right.

Patty Cabot 3:37

Um, but I ended up meeting with a lot of different kinds of therapists in that time. And therapy can be very specialized and, you know, not to get too complicated about it. But I did work with this person the entire time. And um, one of the things I shared with you, Fatima, before we started was that I was so closed and really so ashamed of my past. Like I really felt ruined by what had happened to me. And while I had a lot of close friends, I always had very difficult relationships with boys and later men. And um, I didn't tell anybody what my experiences were, including my closest friends. And so when I started therapy, and again, she rocked my world with what we were gonna deal with, because it was we were gonna deal with my sexual abuse, which I had tamped so far underground that it never surfaced, never. And so when we started dealing with that, it was so painful. And I also had nobody to share it with because I was so close that I'm actually a writer, and I would come home after my sessions and I would write down everything that happened because I had no nobody to talk to about it. I had no way to process it or make sense of it. And I did that after every session for 12 years. And, you know, I one of the things that spurred me into therapy was I was desperate to find love. I just I wanted to be in a relationship. I wanted to find the man that I was supposed to be with. And I just somehow couldn't seem to do it. So that was what sparked me into going into therapy. Because again, I was very closed. I had no desire to be in therapy. Um and then um once I started losing weight, and once I, you know, I was looking better, then I had to really deal with dating, which was, you know, very loaded for me and very difficult for me. And again, it's like things that happened to you as a child, it's like you get arrested at a certain point. And so there were things that, you know, things that happened to me as a very little girl, it's like if a man approached me in a certain way, it was like I was right back in that space, whether I knew it or not. Like, so I was always very fearful. And I also felt like I couldn't set the boundaries I wanted to set. So it was a whole process. But when all was said and done, not to be a spoiler, but I did finally meet the man. I mean, it took me 12 years, but I did finally meet the man. But I also had 12 years worth of content about what my experiences were. And I thought, who else has walked this path but me? Who has who has gone down this road and tried so many things to really get what I wanted in the end? And I did get what I wanted. So it was really for anybody, I don't want anybody to lose hope that what you want isn't possible because it is possible. Not saying you won't have to work your ass off to get it, but it is possible.

Puberty Stress And The Freeze Response

Fatima Bey 6:17

So did I have into what you were some of what you were just said, uh saying when you were a teenager, you didn't know your reactions were trauma responses until you met that that therapist. You thought they were just you. That's just me. Can you walk us into uh one moment from your teens in particular, where you now realize your body was screaming something you couldn't name?

Patty Cabot 6:42

Yeah, and I think honestly I could come up with a ton of them. So um when I entered puberty, you know, which is when you really start exploring it, you know, at least that's that's when it was supposed to happen in my day. Um all of my nails fell off. And yeah, all of my nails fell off. And I I have psoriasis, and it ends up it's it's very psoriasis is very often brought about by stress. And going into puberty was enormously stressful for me because suddenly it's like you're going from a child to a woman, or in my case, because I'm female. Um and it was very, very difficult for me to be with boys and later men because I I felt powerless. I felt like I had no, I felt like I had no agency over my body and no right to set boundaries. So if somebody wanted to kiss me, I didn't feel like I had a choice. If somebody wanted to be in a room with me and touch me, I didn't feel like I had a choice. And so I would basically just shut down. I wouldn't really respond. I would I was just like a body. And I didn't want to be there, but I didn't feel like I could say no. And that's definitely because of what had happened to me. I was a child and I couldn't say no. I couldn't walk away, I couldn't leave, right?

Fatima Bey 7:54

So so the sexual abuse trained you, prepped you for being open to bad things.

Patty Cabot 8:02

And accepting them. Accepting them. You know, and and my shrink and I at one point when we had kind of landed on that because it was instantaneous for me. Like I would meet someone. I mean, as an adult, I would meet someone and I would be right back there where I would be like, I felt like I had to go out with men I didn't want to go out with. She's like, you don't have to, you can say no. But I didn't believe I was entitled to say no because I couldn't say no then. And as we had done our work, there were a whole bunch of things that happened. And basically she was like, the body has three responses to like horrible things happening. It's fight, freeze, and wait, fight, flight, and freeze. And so fight, she was like, you were too young to fight. You couldn't fight anybody. And she was like, in terms of flight, you had nowhere to go. You were a child, you couldn't just lead. There was nothing for you to do. So my only option was to freeze, which was to let myself be there in that situation, powerless. And that unfortunately, terrible things happen to children, to adults, to everybody. And you know, when especially as children, when they happen, we grow up and think it's normal, even though it's anything but normal, but we don't know anything else but that. So it becomes our template for normal.

When Abuse Becomes A Normal Template

Fatima Bey 9:13

That was a really great example that you gave. And I know that there's so many uh young women and and and probably young men too, who we're listening that can that can really truly relate to what you just said. Not everybody, but I I, you know, I I don't think most people have ever thought about it the way you the quite the way you just put it. If you're used to being used, I'm gonna word it differently. If you're used to being used and not having not having the ability to say no, or at least believing that you don't have the ability to say no, that makes you prime target for those that want to use and abuse you. So in your case, you're just dating, but someone else would come along and be like, I want to be your pimp. It preps them for that. Um, I love the that the example that you gave because I re I think it really demonstrates that. Um a lot of teens today, I think shutting down, overeating, undereating, perfectionism, avoiding relationships, feeling unsafe in their own skin, feeling too much or not enough, feeling disconnected from their body, or feeling like something is wrong with them. Oh, those things are just their personality. Which of these showed up in your teens for you? And what did you later later learn that you you were actually they were actually protecting you from?

Patty Cabot 10:36

So the first one was obviously the weight, because I really did start gaining and losing massive amounts of weight when I was right around the time I hit puberty. So around 13, I started gaining and losing the weight. So that one was first and foremost. But I think, you know, it's hard because when you're a teenager, you know, you're so insecure, right? Because there's always somebody prettier, there's always somebody smarter, there's always somebody who seems like they've got more going on than you. And I think it's a hard time, and kids are can be really mean. And so I think insecurities run rampant anyway. Um, but I think for me, I was just never comfortable in my body. And as I got older and as I was in therapy, and I realized I couldn't stay at any one weight because I was never comfortable in my body ever. If I was thin or what I perceived to be thin, I felt too vulnerable. Too many men wanted me, and that was unsafe. If I was heavy, I felt unattractive and like nobody wanted me and I was invisible, which was another feeling that I grew up with. Like I nobody nobody cared about me. And I will say too, part of this, not for everybody, but certainly for me, you know, when you grow up in a house where terrible things happen to you and they get to go on, it's because nobody's paying attention. Either nobody's paying attention or nobody cares. Either way, it's not a great feeling, right? So I grew up feeling very invisible and like I didn't matter. And I think again, I was just never comfortable in my own skin.

Fatima Bey 12:00

Can I point something out to the audience for what you just said? You felt like you were invisible and you did not matter. That is one of the other precursors for women, young women or young men. Because it happens to both of them, it just looks different. But young women are young men who go out and become the abused, become the used, whether that's physical, whether that's sexual, whether it's financial, one way or another, when you already feel like you don't matter, then it doesn't matter what happens to you. I'm not saying that to Patty. Patty, I'm saying that to you, audience. I want you to see either yourself or someone around you, because 100% of you, it's you or someone around you. I'm sorry, Patty, go ahead.

Patty Cabot 12:51

No, but that's absolutely true. And I want to actually say something else about that because I think you're being very good about pointing out it's not just girls, it's boys too. And when I wrote my book, and I really because again, this was something that was very deeply shameful for me. So the fact that I wrote a book and I was willing to like kind of declare myself like this happened to me and I could do it without feeling like the earth would suck me down back into it, right? Or that I would die from my shame. I I really started like finding information. And one in three girls and one in five boys are sexually abused by the age of 18.

Fatima Bey 13:23

I want to make a correction there.

Patty Cabot 13:25

Yeah.

Fatima Bey 13:26

The one in five boys figure is wrong. I think it's the same as the girls, and I'm gonna tell you why. They only can give you numbers of what's reported. Agreed, agreed. Boys do not, and I repeat, do not report their sexual assaults anywhere near the number of women that do. And I'm saying that not to you, Patty, but to the audience, because I think that people I keep saying correcting myself and making sure I'm including the boys, because it really does happen to them just as much. And everything you're describing and and you're you're about to go on about, it happens to boys too. But the way it manifests, the way it looks, can be different with girls because of how our society raises the different genders.

Patty Cabot 14:16

Well, and I think too, honestly, like this is still as far as we've come as a society, and I don't want to get on my soapbox, but child sexual abuse is the last great taboo. We talk about everything. We have fundraisers for everything. Like there's a you can't turn around and you don't see something, but this is still the most shameful of the shameful. And you know, it's astonishing to me, and I'm Jewish, it doesn't matter, so I don't want it to make it sound like, but with the church, it's in every religion, it's in every sport, it's everywhere. The fact that we let this go on and we say we care about children, obviously we do not. Like there should be a zero tolerance, not like uh, well, that's too bad. No, there should be zero tolerance for it across every religion, every campus. And it's not, we just let it go on because honestly, like there's too many people who do it, I guess, and we want to protect them.

Fatima Bey 15:08

All right.

Self-Medicating And Dating While Afraid

Fatima Bey 15:09

I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna go on because otherwise we're gonna be here for 16 hours and both of us gonna preach it, everybody. Because we're we're both very passionate about that. We're both very, very passionate about that. Um, and I have some other episodes that I've done and some coming up where I talk about trafficking and uh different aspects of what you just talked about. So you tried when you were when before you got to therapy, when you were a teenager, you tried to fake the symptoms, the weight, the eating, the self-hate, some of the stuff you just talked about, long before you understood the cause, like where it was really coming from. What would you say to a teen right now who is trying to quote unquote fix themselves without realizing that their body's reacting to something much deeper?

Patty Cabot 15:57

Yeah, that's that's a hard one because it takes a lot of self-awareness to get to that point. And I will say too that also starting when I was a teen, you know, because I didn't want to be in certain situations that I wanted to be in, there's like that push and pull, right? Like I wanted to be with guys, I liked them, but they scared me, right? Like, so there's that it's like you have it's a conflict because you want something that you also don't want. And I think that's a lot of it. So much of what's happening for us is subconscious. We don't know it. We don't recognize it. So if you had ever asked me, do you want to be with so-and-so, I would have been like, yes, of course I do, of course I do. Because I didn't understand what everything else was saying. But I will say for me, one of my big signs too was I would get drunk to the point where I was not really there, right? Like I used drugs and I would get really high. I would, you know, I would drink too much, I would do whatever, because it kind of made me more relaxed so that I could be in the situations that I thought I wanted to be in. Because otherwise, you know, my weight was keeping me from those situations. And I think one of the great things about now is body positivity. And you know what? There is someone for everybody, and everybody finds different things beautiful. Doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, though. All that matters is what you think. So whether you think you're too thin, too straight, too heavy, too muscular, too whatever, whatever it is you don't like about yourself, it doesn't matter if the world around you says you're gorgeous just as you are. If you don't feel that way, you won't put yourself out there. And that's what I did. When I was heavy, I found myself, you know, repulsive. So I was never gonna put myself in a situation to meet someone because I found myself unacceptable. So it's like there's all these ways in which you stack the deck against yourself. And and I think people do that by self-medicating, by whatever, and you're self-sabotaging. And it's just like, unfortunately, I think it's it's such a confusing time in life that and you don't, you know, I used to always hate it when people would be like, oh, well, you know, you're young and you don't know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's not that. It's not that you're smarter than when you're older. The only difference is that with age, you have more experience. That's that's the only thing that changes. But experience is what lets you draw connections and learn, right? Because it's like, oh, I've been there before. I I understand what could happen from here. But you have to go through all of that to get that base of knowledge.

Fatima Bey 18:18

You do. And when it comes to experiences, and here's the thing that I think a lot of adults understand when it comes to teenagers. They assume that because someone is 13 that they don't, they don't have enough life experience to understand something. There are some 13-year-olds that have been through a hell of a lot more than you and I put together. Oh, absolutely. Don't assume adults, don't assume that because someone's young, they're dumb and don't know anything. Sometimes they have a lot more experience and and have actually maybe even more understanding because of those experiences. And a lot of times it shouldn't be experiences that they had to go through, but they did. And I have seen teenagers who are far more mature than their than their parents and teachers because they've been through stuff and they made decisions through that stuff and came to mature uh you know, came to mature fast because they had to, because their life forced them to. And and you're right, it's not about it's not about age, it's not about a number, it's about experience. And the older we get, the more experience we have, generally the more wisdom we gain, but gaining wisdom is a choice, not a feeling, and not automatic is a choice. Because some people keep going through the same crap over and over again, and like, I don't know why everything's the same, and I keep doing the same things. Yeah, that's why.

Patty Cabot 19:29

So I I agree. And I will just say one of the things too, and I think you really just hit on it, was that you know, I was always one of those people that was very mature for my age, and it's because I felt like I raised myself. I really did. I felt like I it was me against the world. So everything that I have, I think is because of me, right? And I think there's a lot of kids who are in that same position where it's like there's not really a responsible adult in the house. And that doesn't mean that your parents don't love you or don't want to be good parents, but not everybody is capable of it. Because again, just as we were talking before about like what you grow up with as being normal, if you're raised by people who scream and yell and hit, that's normal for you. So when you have your own family, you carry that forward.

What People Accept As Normal

Fatima Bey 20:11

There's a, you know what? Let's talk about that for a second. Because it it it's it die it's just it's it just dives really deep into everything we're talking about. Before I go on to the next thing I was gonna um talk to you about normal. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of things that our youth are growing up with right now that are not freaking normal, but they think it is. They think it's normal to be submissive to a man that treats you like garbage. They think it's normal to never do what you want to do and always do what everybody else does. They think it's normal to be hit physically abused, mentally abused, or sexually abused. Because that's all you know. They think it's normal. So for the kids out there right now, for the for the youth out there right now, even some of the adults who think that things are normal that are not, what are some of those behaviors that people think are normal but really aren't? Just a few.

Patty Cabot 21:16

Oh, well, you know, it's so funny that you said that. So when I was in therapy and I, you know, I kept making so much progress. So I really did. So like even though it was 12 years, I kept getting happier and happier and happier. And my life kept getting better and better and better. But I had I love that. So I don't I don't want people to be discouraged, but I but I had I had one goal. I wanted to be in a relationship and I wasn't in a relationship. So I kept moving forward. So we kept trying

Relearning Intimacy With A Healthy Lens

Patty Cabot 21:39

different things. And one of the things that we did was I started working with a sex therapist, which is terrifying, right? But I was like, but I don't know, is that what the issue is? Like, I don't, I don't know. And you know, whatever kind of hell I have to go through to get what I want, I'm willing to do it. And so I had met with the sex therapist, and you know, I'll just say to you straight away I wasn't sexually active. In mind or body. So like there was a great big nowhere for us to go in terms of like plumbing the depths of what was holding me back because I just wasn't sexually active in any way. But one of the things that she did think we could do together was like a series of questionnaires and books and you know, whatever. And I remember we were looking, I was reading a book for our sessions, which were a waste of time for me, but that's neither here nor there. Um, and one of them, it just stopped me in my tracks. And it was like it had a trauma abuse kind of mindset and a normal mindset. And by normal I mean healthy. So let's rephrase that a trauma mindset and a healthy mindset. And one of them was that sex is an expression of love. And I just kept looking at the words, and obviously that's in the healthy mindset, but I was like, like I couldn't even believe the words because in my heart of hearts, that's what I wanted to be true, but I didn't think it was, right? That wasn't your experience. No, it wasn't. It's like in my and I wanted it to be true so much, but I was like, wow. And you know what? I have to say, that was one of those mindshift moments for me where I was like, dear God, if that is true, if I meet someone and he loves me and I love him, I can have sex with him and it'll be okay. And it really did. It was like a lightning bolt moment for me where I was like, wow, because I just that just hadn't been my reality.

Fatima Bey 23:25

So you had to have a mind-shifting conversation in order to really get to that point. She had to plant that seed, let you process it, and it can grow into something, a healthy plant.

Patty Cabot 23:36

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I had a ton of them. I had a ton of them. And one of them, too, was um, you know, when I was growing up and I was sexually abused by a couple of people. And one of them was, you know, they were both relatives. And, you know, I was young. I was really young. And one of the people would like jam his tongue in my mouth to kiss me. And I really hated kissing and grew up with an aversion to kissing. And kissing is really the start of everything, right? Like for most people, it's the start of everything. And for me, it was just like I could not pass go. It was just really such a reaction for me. And then as an adult, it was like I was always so afraid to go on dates because how was I gonna be on a date if I couldn't let somebody kiss me? And you know, you want to be open with somebody, but you can't tell someone right off the bat what your what your experiences are, right? You have to get to know someone, you have to have a certain level of intimacy with somebody that you trust. So it was really very problematic for me. And at the time I was seeing this sex therapist, there was a video that went viral and it was called The Kiss. And it was basically 20 strangers who were paired up with each other and kissed. And it was amazing because almost all of them were really awkward and nervous. And there, you know, there was there's always gonna be a few that were like, this is great, let's go. But most of them really, really struggled, and it made me feel like I could maybe do it. Like, you know, like that I wasn't so abnormal.

Fatima Bey 25:04

Interesting. Interesting. People do need to, people, now I wouldn't have joined the whole kissing thing, but I but I understand your point. That's why I was like, uh, okay. But I but I do understand your point about um, your point is valid about feeling not feeling less abnormal. Because when you are go through any kind of abuse and you're raised to feel less than, regardless of how and why that happened, feeling normal is a challenge. It is a big challenge. And we have so many of our youth listening right now who feel so abnormal, and they're really not. They're just trauma responding, uh, which means they're just you know responding to stuff they don't understand. And some of those, some of those teenagers are over 30. And, you know, it it's people don't realize that some of what they think is normal isn't, but at the same time, some of what they think is abnormal isn't, given your circumstances.

Shame And The Damage Of Secrets

Fatima Bey 26:07

You know, you have to look at your circumstances.

Patty Cabot 26:09

Agreed. And I was gonna say, you know, I started therapy in my late 30s, which honestly is when most people really do start exploring very heavy shit. It's like you're finally at a point in your life where you can, because it is, it's so painful. Um so, you know, I mean, I think if if I were to say anything to anybody, I would say, and again, in terms of what you think is normal and what's not normal, and I and I would say this to yourself every single day until you believe it. It's shame more than anything else that in my view is the worst emotion there possibly is. There is nothing more isolating than shame. And for anybody who has been sexually abused, physically abused, mentally abused, where you're told you're ugly, fat, stupid, whatever it is, right? Or you're beaten, or somebody's using you for their sexual toy, whatever it is, it's not your shame, it's not your blame, and it's not your secret. And that is the biggest one. Secrets fester and they poison us from the inside. And you don't owe it to anybody but yourself. The only person you need to protect is yourself.

Fatima Bey 27:14

Secrets are the miracle growth to every problem in life. We'll put it that way. It's like, oh, you want that problem to get bigger? Let's put some pour some secrets on it. Yeah, it really is. It it really is. Um, Patty, if you could go back to your teenage self. Let me rephrase that. Because that's the way I was gonna ask you. I want you to talk to the young Patty Cabbots right now who are out there who are where you were and might not recognize what they're in the midst of. What advice do you have for them?

Patty Cabot 27:47

I would say two things. While I never dealt with my sexual abuse, I always knew it was there. I mean, so it's not like it was not within my awareness. I just chose never to deal with it. And I would say that that is a recipe for disaster. I mean, it's just like things, everything comes to the surface at some point. It might be years later, it might be decades, later, decades later, but it's gonna come bubbling to the top at some point. And chances are it is driving every single decision you make and you just don't know it. So so I have two things I would say, and I didn't do either of these things. The first one is find someone you can trust, whoever it is, a friend, a neighbor, a teacher, a clergyman, whoever it is, find someone you trust and tell them. And if you don't feel like you have anyone in your life, go online, find some organization, find somebody to talk to and let them know what's happening for you so that they can help you. And just letting somebody else in on your world is gonna feel like such a relief because it's not your secret to, you know, it's not your secret alone. It's not your burden alone. So that's the first one that that there are, even though there are people that will hurt you, there are people that will help you if you give them the chance. And then the other one I would say, and I and I touched on it before, it's not your fault. No matter what's happening in your life, it is not your fault, no matter what they tell you. It is not your fault. If you're under the age of 18, it is not your fault. You are a child, whether you feel like one or not. Because let me tell you, at seven, I didn't feel like a child. I was. It was never my fault. Do not assume the blame for somebody else just because they won't be accountable. You didn't make someone hit you. You weren't too pretty that somebody couldn't keep their hands off of you. It's not your fault, no matter what they say.

Fatima Bey 29:33

It's also not your fault because you were in the living room when it happened. And you were at the person's house uh because you were there with family or visiting. Because sometimes situations, uh, people think the situations are to blame as well. Situations might open the door a little bit easier, but they didn't make them happen. Just wanted to add that in there as well. I love that cat, Patty.

Patty Cabot 29:55

Oh, like no, I was gonna say, but that's true, and I mean I definitely have that too. I mean, I think that uh for many years I had one particular moment in time that I was haunted by, and it was because I felt like I put myself in harm's way. But you know what? I was a child. I never should have been in a position to put myself in harm's way, and by putting myself in harm's way, I was alone with somebody. But that's not my fault. It's exactly what you're saying. It's not my fault. I was it isn't, it isn't.

Fatima Bey 30:20

They still made a choice.

Patty Cabot 30:22

Yeah, yeah. And it was and they were the adult. It is it's the blame um belongs squarely with the adult. Always, always.

Fatima Bey 30:30

Yep.

Not That Girl Anymore And Free Access

Fatima Bey 30:32

Um, so this book that you wrote, where can people find it? Um, well, you can get it through you.

Patty Cabot 30:41

I um I'm giving you um PDFs and electronic versions of my book, so you can read it at your leisure if you want to. Um, it's free. I just want people to, again, feel like you're not the only one in the world going through these things. And no matter it is what it is that you want out of life, you can achieve it. You, like I said, you might have to work your ass off to get there, but it's going to be worth it to do it.

Fatima Bey 31:04

Yes. So I on the podcast page, I will have a link to Patty's book. Um, and she's giving, she's allowing you to get it for free. Um, most people don't do that. So that she's tell us, I want you to tell the audience why you're doing it for free.

Patty Cabot 31:23

Sure, sure. And and actually I wanted to tell you too um why I called my book not that girl anymore. And it's because for a long time I really did feel like that girl. I was always gonna be that girl. And, you know, there's if you read my book, there's a part where it starts out, I'm in the landing of my house, and you know, my stepfather comes for me, and it's like it was my moment of damnation, right? And it was the moment where I felt like it was my fault for being there, just for existing, I felt like it was my fault. And I didn't think that I was ever gonna be able to believe it wasn't my fault. And at one point in therapy, I'd said to my shrink, I was like, Can we just try to work on me forgiving myself, even if it is my fault? And she was like, you know, we can try, but I just think you will be unhappy all of your life. Like we have to get you to a point where you realize that it's not your fault. And I didn't think it was gonna be possible. And you know, life is funny, the way it throws situations and circumstances your way where certain things will happen, and even though they may be different, they take you back to the same place. So, like, for instance, if somebody is at war and they hear IEDs exploding, if they're at home and they're, you know, a car backfires, it's gonna trigger the same response in them. It sounds the same, it feels the same, it evokes the same emotion for them. And something happened in my life where honestly it was with a man, but I was suddenly older and I had all of this experience and I had all of this knowledge about myself, and I finally realized it wasn't my fault. And it finally became the moment where I wasn't that girl anymore. Like I could let her go because I finally resolved the conflict within myself.

Fatima Bey 33:02

So, what you told me before we um recorded you decided to make this book for free because it took you 917 years to put it together, and but you felt very passionate about making sure other people had access to your experience so they could see themselves through it. Yes, and I think that is so honorable, and I wanted the audience to know that that this is a a work of passion and truth, it's not just buy my book, she's not even selling it.

Patty Cabot 33:38

She's no, no, and and and truly, uh, and I had shared with you, I felt like this is what the universe wanted me to do. And, you know, I am one of those people. I'm like, if that's what you want, then I will do it. Like if that is my purpose, I will do it. And I do think there is that, you know, it was very freeing for me in a way, too, because I even though I had come so far, it was still something I didn't talk about, right? My close friends knew, but that was it. But then it's like, I'm writing a book. What's the point of writing a book if I don't want people to know about it? Right. Like it really is to help people. So as I started, I started telling people about it. And every, you know, so I'll just share this with you. So when I told people, I got one of three reactions. The first one was, I am so sorry that happened to you. The second one was, I am so sorry, me too. And there are more of those people than you would possibly imagine. And it's heartbreaking how many people tell you that. And the third one was people would just look at me like frozen and with deer in the headlights, like they just didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do, like so uncomfortable. And even though they were good people, it infuriated me every time that happened. Because I thought these are people who have children and think, well, they're safe because I send them here or I send them there. And it's like it's everywhere. You need to open up your eyes to what's happening. This is why it happens, because we don't think it happens to us, but it does happen to us.

Fatima Bey 35:11

So yep, it happens to us, US, especially in this country. That is true. All right.

Final Questions That Challenge Your Story

Fatima Bey 35:20

Well, Patty, I really truly have enjoyed talking to you. Um I love, I love your passion. It's why partly why you're on here. And I also honestly, I love how relatable you are and how you just speak plainly. You just you're just honest. You don't sugarcoat anything or try to find a nice, nice way to say it. You just say it. And that's what makes the difference for people, not the nice, niceness, uh, the real stuff. And so I I thank you for coming on and and being willing to be so open to help others. I really respect that. Thank you.

Patty Cabot 35:51

Thank you. I appreciate that you're, you know, giving us this platform to talk again about childhood sexual abuse or any abuse, and that it really shouldn't happen, and that I hope for anybody out there who, if it is in your life, find some help, know that it's not your fault. And, you know, one of the things that you had asked me kind of at the get-go was, you know, well, people feel like, nah, they're not enough. They're not this. They let people treat them like garbage, whatever. And I would say to you, anybody who's wants you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, don't do it. Don't put somebody else's needs before your own. You're gonna have plenty of time in life where you're gonna have to do that because you're a parent or whatever. But yeah, exactly, exactly. But now, no. Somebody wants you to do something that makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself, do they really care about me? And the answer is probably gonna be no. Look out for you, right? Take care of yourself, do what feels good for you, but don't hurt other people.

Fatima Bey 36:52

And now, for a mind-shifting moment. I want you to think about everything you've been through, all of your life's experiences. And then I want you to ask yourself this question the bad things. Are they still affecting me? I mean, the ones you never went to get therapy for. The ones you never really dealt with, or maybe even said out loud, are they still affecting you? Because you know that was a long time ago. So it can't be affecting you now. Well, let me ask you this That thing or those things that happened to you, have they changed how you trust people? Have they affected how you behave in relationships? Have they affected your trust? Have they affected how you value yourself? How you think people think about you? Have they affected how you handle your job, how you raise your children, how you treat your parents? My point is what you've been through, unless you are intentional about getting over it, you're still under it. And therapy is your way out of it. Think about it. You've been listening to Mind Shift Power Podcast for complete show notes on this episode, and to join our global movement, find us at fatimabey.com. Until next time, always remember there's power in shifting your thinking.