In this episode, Lisa sits down with Offie, an alum of the Out of the Cave (OOTC) group coaching program, to explore her powerful, trauma-informed journey of healing. As the conversation unfolds, Lisa and Offie reflect on her adolescence marked by shame, peer pressure, and disconnection — and how sobriety in her twenties transformed coping into control. Through the challenges of marriage, secrecy, and self-judgment, Offie’s path eventually led her to the Out of the Cave podcast — and then into the coaching program, where she began to understand her patterns through the lens of trauma, brain science, and compassion. 

Topics Include:

• Childhood Loneliness

• Coping Mechanisms

• Self-Compassion and Reparenting 

• Trauma-Informed Recovery

[3:09 ] Lisa introduces her former client, Offie, an artist with food, who decorates cakes and cookies, a hobby farmer who  has a couple of horses, chickens, dogs, cats, and a donkey. 

[06:24 ] Lisa and Offie discuss how her childhood was shaped by her father’s alcoholism, illness (cirrhosis), and death shortly after she turned 8. Offie talks about her experiences of frequent loneliness, being left alone, and household stress amid limited resources. Office shares how she dissociated emotionally following her father’s death and began using sugar and food for comfort, gaining weight around ages 10–11.

[20:20 ] Offie shares with Lisa how working through modules 3–4 of the ACE during the group program brought up  memories of multiple abandonment-like episodes forward, linking trauma to food coping. Offie recounts multiple abandonment-like episodes: alone under her father’s care, babysitting far from town while adults stayed out after bars closed, and her mother going out while her sister isolated in her bedroom.

[26:47 ] Offie talks with Lisa about becoming promiscuous and how she was sexually victimized by a teacher, how she carried candy to gain popularity, and struggled with romantic acceptance due to body image, expanding her coping mechanisms from food to sexual behaviors while her dissociation persisted. 

[36:48 ] Lisa and Offie discuss how she believed she was “just like her dad,” rationalizing cheating, heavy blackout drinking, and academic avoidance due to low self-esteem and fear. Offie shares with Lisa how traumatic events affecting someone close to her, led her to seek treatment. Sobriety shifted coping to control—restrictive eating, intense exercise, quitting smoking, and career/education gains—while her core wounds remained.

[44:12 ] Lisa and Offie talk about how in an unhappy marriage, she resumed having affairs, began binge eating, alternated starving/eating, and used horse riding as a distraction and that she dissociated to avoid sadness and fear. Offie shares how therapy facilitated insight and separation from an unhealthy marriage and how her new romantic partnership enhanced her satisfaction and stability.

[1:01:35 ] Offie shares with Lisa that on a road trip to visit her ill sister led to discovering the OOTC podcast and resonating with safety themes and familial alcoholism, prompting her participation in the mirror challenge and finally the group coaching program.

[1:05:25 ] Offie shares that during the group she learned brain science, reframed narratives , and developed regulation tools. Lisa and Offie discuss how the group program differs by addressing the whole person, providing a safe group environment, reparenting practices, and boundaries. They wrap up the episode with Offie dedicating the episode to her sister, Ruth, who passed away last year.

*The views of podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and beliefs of Lisa Schlosberg or Out of the Cave, LLC.

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