When you're dealing with grief and trauma, the brain breaks things apart until

they're boring. I'm starting to wonder

how much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked

on top of each other. I am a Southern

California native, and so, you know, live by the beach, travel to

Hawaii often, and I wanted something that

covered the things I wasn't yet ready to show the world.

All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record because that feels right.

Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop! Hi

everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different

Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that—

that there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and

the reality is you're just different, and that's fine. I've talked about this a

little bit, I've referenced this a little bit, but a couple weeks ago my mom

was in the hospital. She's fine now. Mostly it, we, we

honestly still don't know what it was. She just got like very acutely ill one

day and we let her wait it out at home for a while at

the instruction of her doctor really. And after

several hours I contacted her cuz I was working the whole day. It

turned out that she wasn't feeling any better and we really thought that she would

be feeling better by then. So I went over to her house and kind of

assessed the situation and I really couldn't move her. And so

I called an ambulance and I, I felt kind of silly

calling the ambulance because she was technically ambulatory. She

was technically able to get up, but it was just me. You know, she had

this horrible stomachache. The car was just far enough away

that she was gonna have to go downstairs to get there. I wasn't sure I

was gonna be able to get her across the street. It was like a whole

thing. My husband couldn't come help me. There was nobody else around who could come

help me 'cause my brothers weren't nearby. And so I was just like, I

gotta call the ambulance. And so I called and

they were great. And I really felt like we were kind of like, I don't

wanna say misusing it 'cause we definitely needed it, but like, it wasn't the kind

of emergency where we needed them to come resuscitate

her. The dispatcher said, "Turn on the lights on

the front porch. If she's safe to

leave, go stand outside and flag them down so that they know what house it

is. If she's not safe to leave, and you can leave the door

open, do that. If not, you know, they'll figure it

out. So I was kind of running back and forth between her

and, uh, and I was also on the phone with John, my business partner, because

he's an ER doc and he was kind of just walking me through like what

to look for, you know, when to intervene

more, more thoroughly, et cetera. I was calm. There

was no problem. I was calm. I knew she was sick.

Truly, at that point, I didn't know how sick she was. And I don't say

that because things got so much

worse. I just— she was talking, she was

upright. I just physically couldn't move her. I couldn't

do the transport. And so I needed help. Typically, when you're calling an

ambulance for a family member, you're so panicked and scared. And that

wasn't the case here. It just was what it was.

And so they did get there and

it was already dark out, so it wasn't exactly the same, but

I saw, not through the window, but I must have gone up to the front

of the house and I saw the ambulance lights on and I was like,

okay, they're here. And so I left her where I could and just let her

know, like, please don't move. I'm going to go flag them down. And so I

went outside, they were already unloading, and I went to

say, to explain what was happening to the guy that was standing there. And

I like, nothing came out. I was like, it was just very,

very strange. Everybody listening to this,

if this is your first day, hi. I doubt it's your first day. Talking is

not my problem. There are very few situations

where I can't find something to say. It's like either my greatest skill or my

worst trait is that like, it's very rare you throw me into a situation and

I can't find a way to run my mouth. It's like my thing. But I'm

standing on the porch and all of a sudden I'm just like, I couldn't get

words to come out. And the guy looks at me and he says, are you

okay? And I finally said like, yeah, I'm fine.

And he asked where she was. And I said,

she's in there in the bathroom. But I like genuinely felt paralyzed. I was like,

I don't remember feeling scared. I wasn't, I

truly, and I don't say this to be negative, I wasn't worried about my mom.

I really genuinely felt like she was gonna be okay. It wasn't like I was

worried that she was so sick that she wasn't gonna recover. I

just needed help transporting her and I could not. And so it

wasn't that. I'm standing there, the next guy walks up and

he's the one who has to get all the information. I just, not an

exaggeration, started sobbing, totally sobbing,

couldn't turn it off, gulping

for air. And again,

this was not a crisis situation. I was trying to

explain to him who she was, where she was, where she was. And I'm, like,

gulping for air trying to get out. And he finally says to me, just like,

take a second. It's okay.

Walk me to where she is. So I walked them in there and there were

a bunch of them and they were all very

lighthearted and jovial, which in the situation we were in was

appropriate. It was a way to keep the temperature down. It was a way

to make sure that my mom knew she was in good hands. It was a

way to make me know that they were, you know, that they were friendly and

approachable and we could talk and I could tell them anything. It wasn't a tense

situation at all. And I'm sobbing.

We go to walk into the bedroom, and my mom's front

door leads to a long hallway. There's rooms on either

side, and if you go immediately to the right, that's her

bedroom. And then you take the next open door to the right and

that's her bathroom. And that's where I had her sat. But I

realized that what was

happening in that moment didn't matter.

I was communicating with them, I was giving them the instructions, but I was not

reacting to that morning

in February of 2026.

My body was there. My brain was somewhere else

because I was standing in the spot

where I called an ambulance for my dad

9 and a half years ago. And I walked them

down the same hallway

to the same place.

9 and a half years ago.

And my confidence that my mother was

going to be fine, and I truly, again, I

was confident in that. I was not worried. I was worried that she was sick,

but I wasn't worried that she was dying, had nothing

to do with the reaction that I was having.

As far as my nervous system was concerned,

I was taking this crew of very, very similar,

very lovely first responders, I should say, who were just as

lovely then as they were this time, into

a room

the exact same room

where my dad had

waited long enough to make eye contact

with me one more time before he died.

And I knew my mother was coming back home.

My dad did not come back home. And it

didn't matter that intellectually

I knew that I was standing here safe

and taken care of in 2026, and that these

nice people were going to haul my mother off to exactly where she

needed to be, and that we would get her taken care of, and

that she was going to be fine. It didn't matter

because as far as my nervous system was concerned

It was August 21st, 2016,

and I am not a person who

remembers every detail of a lot of different situations. I'm just not.

I remember every single second

between walking into my dad's bedroom as we knew that he was

crashing and watching them take him away,

praying it wasn't true but knowing I was never going to see him again.

And I might as well have been watching myself

walk into that room 10 years ago as I was walking

in to get them to my mother again,

intellectually repeating to myself over and over and over,

everything's fine, this is fine. And I kept saying— I said this to the guy,

I was like, I'm I'm so sorry. I— there's nothing wrong right now. I understand

she's sick, but there's nothing wrong. I am literally having a

reaction to something that happened 10 years ago in this room

that I didn't realize was gonna happen until I walked out on that porch.

And this very, very sweet first responder

looked at me and shrugged and said, meh, I've seen weirder. And I was

like, is that a challenge?

It's been 10 years, 9 and a half years. It'll be 10 years in August.

We have officially reached the point of this timeline where the year

we're in has the same last number as the year he died.

And I never thought it was possible to get this far out there. I never

thought it was possible for this much time to pass. I never thought I would

have this much, this many stories and this much life without him in it. It

just never occurred to me that there was 10 years to live and

even obviously more without him

right there. It's not that I didn't know it was possible, 'cause there are lots

of moments that are just a punch in the gut outta nowhere and just render

me to tears. And I'm like, how could that, how could this just, this isn't

new information. He doesn't keep dying. He did it one time. It was

rude enough that one time, but it's not like he keeps dying. But

like, this is not new information, but

that is the mechanism of grief. And we have

talked about this before, how the brain breaks things apart when

you're dealing with grief and trauma. It breaks things apart until they're boring.

And that is not a linear process, and it's not a process that happens

quickly. And even 10 years later, it can still be

happening. And so my brain,

up until that night 2 weeks ago,

had never thought about what it would be like—and why

would it?—had never thought about what it would be like to be standing on

that porch in that

location with

that experience and

have such a similar thing happen.

I had never deconstructed what it was like to have

paramedics come on the porch again. I had never deconstructed

the fact that the sound of the monitor

that they put on him that showed he had no heart

activity, I'd never processed the fact that that sound

still lives in my head and I can hear it. And I'm not

usually good at conjuring those things back up, but I can hear it at any

time. I know what it sounds like. It is, like,

deeply ingrained in my soul. And I

had never broken that part down because I had never been in a situation to

break that part down. So I got

my mom to the hospital. I cried,

and I stopped trying to stop. I think that was the difference. I

stopped trying to stop. I am not the most unhinged person

these paramedics have seen that day and I'm not getting in their way and I'm

not causing them problems. So I'm just gonna cry and that's just gonna have to

be okay with them. And it was, they were super cool about it. But I

stopped trying to stop because my body wasn't ready to stop.

I went through all of the steps. I got her out the

door, I got her house locked up, I got her dog taken care of.

I talked to her neighbor so that, you know, her neighbor asked if there was

anything that we needed and I talked to him and I got his phone number.

I got into my car, I drove to my house, I grabbed my stuff. I

was sobbing the whole time. My body

wasn't done yet. It was involuntary. There's nothing I can do about it.

I sat in the car at the hospital until I

felt like I had it back together, and then had it

together for the entire time that I was at the hospital. Also,

for the record, the doctor, when they ask you if

your mother lives with you, you're supposedly not supposed

to say, oh God, no. That's not the response they

want. I don't know what response they do want, but that is not the response

they want. She actually laughed. That was shocking. And then also, when

they ask if you'll hold all of her jewelry, you are not supposed to say

that yes because you can pawn it. Also

not supposed to do. Oh, and then

when your mother's liver studies come back over 11,000, which is

like liver failure levels, except she's never had liver issues before, so that's very

weird. And a month ago, her liver studies were fine. You are not

supposed to look at her in front of the doctor and ask her— because when

they say, like, this could be some kind of hepatitis, you are not supposed to

look at her and ask her if she's using intravenous drugs again, because

they will laugh. They will. But then when they wheel her out to

CT, the very sweet but a

little dense nurse will come to you and say,

"I'm 99% sure you were joking, but I just need to clarify that

she does not actually use intravenous drugs." And I was like, "She does not, no.

In fact, I wish she would, but she does not." But I thought when I

left that the episode would just be over.

I was on— I was standing on that porch in my mind.

For the 3 days that followed, easily.

Because that is what grief is. And that's what

trauma responses are. That's what my brain did.

And I had no control over it. And I, I couldn't,

even if I wanted to fight it, I couldn't have, but I wasn't going to

because that was involuntary. That was out of my control.

I am proof that you can both be

mid-trauma response and also

an asshole smartass, because it's like my thing.

It's like a two-for-one that you get, like me sobbing and also

making jokes about the fact that one of the paramedics

said that the woman paramedic who was

in charge, the— I guess the paramedic in charge, that he

was joking with her and said that she was micromanaging him, and

me, through sobs, said, "You probably deserve it."

And he was like, "You're correct. I can still

be an asshole." Which is— I don't know how to

turn that off. But so two things can be true. But also,

that is the reality, the deep, deep

reality of grief and trauma that we— I don't think we talk about,

which is that 10 years later, out

of nowhere, it is a Mack truck that

will run you over without explanation, or without

anticipation, I guess. There's no time to

protect yourself. There's no time to put up the guard. There's no time to

send yourself the trigger warnings that you need

to put up the armor. There wasn't time. And 10 years

later, my brain is not healed, and I don't think it ever will be.

I mean, it's not something that I want to happen. I don't want to walk

around sobbing for 3 days, but sobbing kind of feels good when life's a dumpster

fire and everything seems awful. It's just also

not— you're not in control of it. And I will say

that I feel awfully lucky to be 10

years in and to have

been so deeply connected with somebody

that I could be rendered to tears on

a porch on a random Tuesday night

because he still hasn't come

back. And that's rude. Very, very rude.

And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's

Small Talk. We have a question from Andrew in

Eugene, Oregon. "I'm starting to wonder how

much of my personality is just coping strategies stacked on

top of each other. Is there a real me underneath that, or is

that the wrong question entirely?" I don't know that it's ever

the wrong question. If it's a question you have, it's a question

you have. I think maybe the inclination to second-guess

yourself kind of like illuminates the problem

altogether, right? It's that you're second-guessing you

second-guessing yourself. So, like, that's meta

and adorable. But it's really hard to figure

out who you are without doing a whole lot of

work. It takes time. It takes a whole lot

of feeling things within your body and also, like, deciphering what is

the right thing to feel. And that's a kind of a complicated way to say

it, but like, you know, there are times when you're going to be presented with

something that you either think you want to do or think you need to

do. If you feel like you need to do it and you don't

want to do it, you're gonna be presented with

guilt or stress or frustration.

Like, is that the valid emotion there? Because if it's something you don't have to

do, something you've never had to do, but you're still trying to unravel from this

pressure you've always been under to be someone else, or to be somebody who

would do those kinds of things, what's the correct thing to feel

there? And, and there's not a right answer to that at all,

but it takes a little bit of time of

being honest with yourself. And sometimes you're gonna do things

just because it's what you've always done without realizing that

that's not what you want to be doing or not things that fill you up.

I mean, there's things that we all have to do that we don't want to

do, like Nobody wants to go get their driver's license renewed, but we have to

go do it anyway. Like, you're not gonna wake up one day and be like,

"That is the thing I love doing, and I have just

misunderstood my intention." It just takes time. And the

real complication to that is not necessarily

figuring out who you are now, which is, again, takes time and

is a process and requires just you,

you know, thinking through and trying things and testing things and seeing what

you like and seeing what you don't like and seeing who you enjoy being around,

and which might be no one, to be honest, and seeing

who you don't enjoy being around and those people that you want to

separate from. But

the real kind of kicker to that is you're not the same person

throughout your whole life. You're just not. This is going

to shock people. This is gonna shock everybody listening. There was a

time in my life when I was young and dumb that I really

liked going to things.

I liked being around people. I had a lot of friends,

I think. I had a lot of people who tolerated me, at a minimum.

I had— wait for

this one. Wait for this one. I had a lot

of shoes, and I wore them all the

time, and I coordinated them to my outfits

because I liked shoes that much. I enjoyed

wearing shoes. That was me in my

youth. I was a very smart

kid, but also clearly dumb because I wore shoes all the

time and I didn't need to. That was me 20 years

ago. That is not me now.

So maybe you are performing a version of

yourself who you're not anymore because you've grown out of that. Maybe you need

to take some time to just feel around and make

note of what feels good and what doesn't and what feels like what you want

to do and what doesn't to figure out who you are now. And maybe you

also just need to give yourself space to realize that, like, you might be someone

different in 5 years anyway. And so just, like,

roll with it. But there are a lot of people who are

so used to masking that they don't know who they actually are under that.

And the only way to really figure that out is to try things, to see

what feels comfortable, to see what you enjoy, to see what you don't enjoy,

to figure out what lights you up, to note what things

give you unmanageable dread, and go from

there.

We have a special guest today, guys. So excited to have her here.

I want to introduce you to Lauren Yerkes, who's gonna tell us

a little bit about her company that she runs.

Um, it is an incredible accessible apparel company

that is focused on very niche populations and

people who have historically had a lot of trouble finding certain types of garments.

So I wanted to give her a couple minutes to tell our audience about what

she does, why she does it, how she got here. Um, so

Lauren, thank you so much for being here. And also thanks for causing mass confusion

among my staff because we do not know how to deal with two Laurens, which

is fun. Mostly me going to respond to things that

were not meant for me because I clearly have control issues. But I

would love to hear a little bit more about your background and your company so

that our, our listeners can learn a little bit more. Yeah, well, thank you for

having me. I'm very honored and I've been around

multiple Laurens too, so I totally understand where you're coming from.

It's literally how I became L2, so it's not like I should be

like averse to this, but it's been messing with my brain, so. I

understand. Well, my name is Lauren and I'm the founder of

Post Swim. Uh, Post Swim is a purpose-driven

swimwear brand and it was born out of my

own diagnosis with breast cancer. I was diagnosed at the age of 37,

and I've spent years in the fashion industry. I

saw all of this product all the time. Um, I was formerly

the chief merchandising officer for Revolve, and so I was approving brands to go

on the website on a regular basis. And after my own

diagnosis and going through surgery and treatments, I really

struggled to put a bathing suit back on. I am a Southern California

native, and so you know, live by the beach, travel to Hawaii often,

and I wanted something that covered the things I

wasn't yet ready to show the world. And so we focus on

coverage, and I always say that with a subtext, so

to speak, because I always want people to know that it's not coverage to

hide, it's coverage to empower women to share their story when

they're ready, because it does take time after you've gone through something like this to

feel comfortable to share and to expose the things that you're maybe still getting

used to. And so that is our goal at Post

Swim. And we design, you know, purely with intention. We

design with coverage in mind. We design for comfort and confidence.

All of our suits are different purposes. So there's

minimal to maximum coverage. There are styles that are great for

women who are flat after surgeries, great for women who use

a prosthetic, and great for an woman who has had no

surgeries. So it's really about thinking about

the outcomes after a diagnosis or any surgery, a

hysterectomy, you know, C-section, whatever it may be. The

first time that you put on one of your own suits that actually

made you feel confident enough to wear that suit, what was that

like? Oh my gosh. I just remember standing in front of the mirror and I

was like grinning from ear to ear. I was like so

I felt so confident and really just comfortable.

I had reconstructive surgery, and so I have this rippling effect

that you can see anytime I bend over or move a certain way. And it—

that was really made me self-conscious. And so our

first suit from the first collection is called the Kim Top, and it's a square

neck and it sits a little bit higher and it covered that for

me. And so it felt like I was me again. I

just wanted to feel normal and I felt like that swimsuit gave me that

ability. How do you encourage people to find the balance

between, you know, 'cause there, there are very strong messages about the, out there

about how you shouldn't be ashamed. And that's obviously that's true.

And those scars are how you survived to get here, et cetera. But

also even if you're not ashamed of them and you shouldn't be ashamed of them,

but even if you're not ashamed of them, they're so personal. A stranger who sees

you have a giant scar might have questions and maybe you don't want to talk

to them about that. How do you approach that with women who, or

people who use your products who are still kind of navigating that journey

and maybe just not sure how to handle it? Yeah, it's, it's

really about finding that right suit. Not every

suit can cover every scar. So it's really thinking about where are your

scars and, you know, if you have multiple scars, which

one is the most triggering for you. So for me,

it was like a port scar was really like, anytime I see somebody with

a port scar, I'm like, you had cancer. I know it because I have the

same scar. And so it was, it's really trying to help the woman

identify what is she most self-conscious about and

finding a suit to help her to, you know,

it's not cover, it's coverage, but it's not to hide. To your point,

it's really to allow them to just feel normal again. You

know, think back to life before cancer, and that's always what

you compare to is what was life like before

cancer? And now it's always, there's the before Lauren and then there's the

after Lauren. And a lot of times women will tell me, I

just, I want the old me back. And so I just

try to build that and work with them to identify what that style is that

fits their needs. Awesome. Lauren, where can

people find your suits? Our website is

postswim.com, and then you can follow us on social media

at Post Swim Official. We're on Instagram, TikTok,

Facebook, and X, Twitter, whatever it's called.

Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad we got to learn

a little bit more about what you do. And, uh, everybody go check out her

website and send it to your friends who might have a need. Thank you so

much. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.

While we're doing this, I'm gonna run to the bathroom. No bathroom

breaks. I'll make sure to mute myself then. I did

not sign off on that.