Forces Of Nature: A Conversation On Childhood Trauma with Gina Demillo Wagner

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Three years ago we published a TTFA episode called ‘Don’t You Want Somebody To Take Care Of You?’, an interview with Gina Demillo Wagner about her experience growing up in a dysfunctional family and being a caregiver as a child.

 

Gina’s brother Alan had a rare genetic disorder that caused him to veer from loving to violent. His illness put stress on the entire family, including her parents, whose mental illnesses went untreated.

 

Since that episode, Gina’s written a book about this experience called Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss and Finding Home. On this episode, Gina and Nora catch up about writing the book, how writing helped her process and how some of the Real Housewives helped give her the courage to cut off contact with some family members.

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Please send us your questions and comments about this episode or any other! You can email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 612-568-4441.

About Terrible, Thanks for Asking

Terrible, Thanks for Asking is more than just a podcast (but yeah, it’s a podcast).

It’s a show that makes space for how it really feels to go through the hard things in life, and a community of people who get it.

TTFA on social: TTFA on Instagram | TTFA on Facebook

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.


In case you didn’t know, we’re still making two episodes a month for our Patreon and Apple Plus subscribers. We wanted to give all of our listeners a little preview of our most recent episode!

Consider joining our Patreon to listen to the rest of the episode(or watch the episode!), get additional bonus episodes, ad-free episodes, and join a community of Terribles. (Or, if you’re an Apple Podcast listener, you can sign up for TTFA Premium right in the app!)

_

Three years ago we published a TTFA episode called ‘Don’t You Want Somebody To Take Care Of You?’, an interview with Gina Demillo Wagner about her experience growing up in a dysfunctional family and being a caregiver as a child.

 

Gina’s brother Alan had a rare genetic disorder that caused him to veer from loving to violent. His illness put stress on the entire family, including her parents, whose mental illnesses went untreated.

 

Since that episode, Gina’s written a book about this experience called Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss and Finding Home. On this episode, Gina and Nora catch up about writing the book, how writing helped her process and how some of the Real Housewives helped give her the courage to cut off contact with some family members.

_

Please send us your questions and comments about this episode or any other! You can email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 612-568-4441.

About Terrible, Thanks for Asking

Terrible, Thanks for Asking is more than just a podcast (but yeah, it’s a podcast).

It’s a show that makes space for how it really feels to go through the hard things in life, and a community of people who get it.

TTFA on social: TTFA on Instagram | TTFA on Facebook

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.


gina demillo wagner black and white profile photo

About Our Guest

Gina DeMillo Wagner

Gina DeMillo Wagner is an award-winning journalist and author. Her writing has been featured in The New York TimesWashington PostMemoir Magazine, Modern Loss, SelfOutside, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. She is a Yaddo Fellow, a winner of the CRAFT Creative Nonfiction Award, and her memoir was longlisted for the 2022 SFWP Literary prize. Gina has a master’s degree in journalism and is an instructor at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She lives and works near Boulder, Colorado.

View Gina DeMillo Wagner's Profile

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