From Pain to Purpose: Rebekah Tinker’s Healing Journey (Part 1)

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I remember shifting my like brain space to

constantly try to protect her from feeling any kind of

emotion, trying to make sure that everything was always Okay,

someone would honk at us in the car. And I would immediately

like pipe into like, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's okay.

We're gonna be okay. And and I was praised for that. And when I

look back now, I feel sad that I was praised for that. Because

what I wish that I would have been shown is that it's okay to

experience emotion. It's okay, but this is triggering mom. And

that doesn't mean that the system is broken. That doesn't

mean that we're all going to die. That doesn't mean that

we're not sneaking our body

Welcome, everybody. I'm Dr. Rob Gent. And welcome to

another podcast of Sessions. We are so fortunate today to have

our guest with us that we'll be doing our session with her name

is Rebecca tinker. Welcome, Rebecca.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, so Rebecca and I have had a chance to spend some

time together. And I was just looking so forward to asking her

to join us on the Sessions, because she's just got so much

to offer us. She's a practicing clinician and LCSW. She's got

some really some amazing focuses, which I'd like her to

talk about, but you're located in the Bay Area, and then in San

Francisco, and Rebecca, if you wouldn't mind. Tell us just a

little bit about you. It'd be fantastic.

Yeah, sure. Um, I'm in private practice. Here in

San Francisco. I specialize primarily in body image

disordered eating. I work with folks on the gender spectrum

also worked around issues surrounding sex and sexuality,

as well as more trauma informed care.

Boy, could there be certainly I know us dealing here

in Embark we see so many adolescents and young adults.

These are just these are such relevant issues. I you know, I

mean, I can only imagine, have you seen an increase in this

population in your practice over the years?

Yeah, you know, I have, I think that the

pandemic has definitely created for has been a big trigger for

folks with eating disorders. And so that has definitely led to an

uptick and referrals for me in that way. Also, with no issues

surrounding gender and trans populations, non binary

populations, and so much going on in our world and country

socially around that also led to a bit of a big uptick in clients

struggling in that realm as well.

Yeah. So I know that you have this, an expertise in

this in this population, which is so fantastic. And I guess

part of the reason that I wanted to ask you in on to the Sessions

podcast is, the whole point of it is to say, Hey, let it What

led you to this, why do you do this? What is your expertise?

You know, we all get into this, like it or not, you know it

because of our own personal stuff. It's in our own personal

journey. So Rebecca would love to spend some time maybe, you

know, exploring a little bit you have this expertise. I know we

talked a little bit about for you, the focus was really in

related to some personal stuff was trauma, loss, some sexual

stuff, if you would mind sharing it with us? Yeah. Where did that

where did that really start for you?

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for asking that.

Because the reality is, as a clinician, I feel like my model

of care is very much informed and I did find my own

experience, and has been not primarily about learning who I

am. But from the world around me, and it's so hard to untangle

ourselves from these ideas and images and structures and needs,

desires, expectations of the environment, and in circles us.

Um, I feel like my journey started in kind of two different

places. One, and when I was four, I was sexually assaulted

by my cousin. Um, which was a very, yeah, obviously

traumatizing experience that I had deep, and then the lapses of

my brain hoping that they would be pruned at some point. And I

hid from them for a long time. Right. And and for good reason,

right? It was not safe to remember that. This is a cousin,

I was gonna continue seeing a lot over the years. So I needed

to hide from it for my own safety.

Okay, you're saying I've just This is so amazing. At

four years old, you have this abusive situation that sexual

with a, you know, a family member, if you will. I mean, I

just can't imagine what that's like, because so many of us

would want to normalize it like, well, you're just four, you'll

forget about it, it'll prune away, like you're saying, I just

can't imagine how that must have affected you, even at four years

of age.

Yeah, it definitely made me feel really

unsafe in my body. And I didn't. I don't think that I realized

that for a long time. I think that I found safety in my

athleticism, and in my play and within my family system. But

then that safety, again was kind of ripped away when my dad

passed away right before my seventh birthday. And that that

continued to linger was of course, the process of his

passing was deeply traumatic. And that, you know, my little

six year old mind was trying to keep him alive by making him

happy and making him laugh and wanting to conjure aliveness.

Again, I could like see in his eyes, this more confusion and

more fading, and that was super scary. And my approach was to

like, cling and grasp and get close. And then when he passed i

Yeah, this like lack of safety, and this year, really became

very strong inside of me.

Are you conscious of was this a conscious type of

thing? Are you looking back more subconscious? Or?

You know, I think it's so hard to say. I

want to say it was more subconscious. However, I do very

viscerally. Remember, you know, my my mom, right? Police though,

was in her own grief in depression after my dad passed

away. And I remember feeling so terrified for her. Like, I

thought that I was going to lose her. I thought that she was

going. I don't know if I when I was like that young age of seven

thought that she was going to take her life. But I did think,

Oh, she's not okay. And the family system is not okay,

because she keeps crying. And I remember shifting my like, brain

space to constantly try to protect her from feeling any

kind of emotion, trying to make sure that everything was always

Okay, someone would honk at us in the car. And I would

immediately like pipe into like, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

It's okay. We're gonna be okay. And, and I was praised for that.

And when I look back now, I feel saddened that I was praised for

that. Because what I wish that I would have been shown is that

it's okay to experience emotion. It's okay, but this is

triggering mob. And that doesn't mean that the system is broken.

That doesn't mean that we're all gonna die. That doesn't mean

that we're not sneaking our body. But I was so afraid that

we just weren't not faking or we were not.

So if I can just just this is such an amazing journey,

Rebecca, so I'm just trying to understand, at six to seven, you

lose your dad to cancer. And then of course, understandably

your mom has an immense amount of grief and loss in her own

life. And then the way family systems often do one of one of

the children compensates and becomes parental FIDE you In a

hurry, and you become the safety mechanism. But yeah, and

I actually, I, I actually think that it wasn't

that I was present defied. Because I'm the youngest of all,

I'm the youngest of seven. And so I, I actually then just

became the thing that everyone focused on, and was like, make

sure that Becca doesn't act out, make sure that Becca doesn't and

so I felt like I was like, scrutinized a lot or like

objectified a lot in that of like, make sure that she

doesn't, you know, do something crazy that then will like make

mom upset or roll like create rupture within the family

system. And so I found myself trying to just make myself

really, really small, so that we could focus our energy more on

like his mom, okay, rather than focusing energy on me. And so I

just, yeah, got myself super, super, super small, and hit

outside in the yard a lot are like, in my room without my

second

did it in at that point in time. I can't help did

did it work? did? Did you make yourself small? Did people not

notice you as much were they kind of, you know, I just

fascinated

like, a mold that they needed, what I

imagined they needed me to be. I did fit that mold. I was gentle.

And I was compassionate. And I said yes to everything. And I

didn't. Yeah, I wasn't until then adolescence, but I started

to feel like kind of Rayji and push back against that. Because

before I think I lost sense of boundary. And I didn't know

where like I began and someone else ended. I just felt very

merged. And it was this like murky kind of spilling space of

really not knowing fully who I was because I was just fitting

the mold of like, Be quiet, be gentle, be sweet, be cuddly be

your athletic self, because that's where you thrive. That's

where you're bringing other people joy, everything like, oh,

look what Becca can do, she can hold herself up on the pull up

bar for longer than any of everyone else in the school or

she can or whatever it was, you know, or she's saying yes to

everyone to play with every single person on the playground.

Like how sweet is she? How nice.

But that recognition recognition at some level is

reinforcing. Right.

Absolutely, totally. Totally. Yeah.

So it becomes at least an aspect of what's rewarding to

you is doing those things. So I'll keep saying yes, it

perpetuates it. Right.

Right, which then was very much a trigger of

the eating disorder that I then had, like beginning in

adolescence, young adulthood, because I you know, in childhood

was very petite, and still quite petite. But of course then like

I hit puberty, and my sexual characteristics started to come

out more I was getting breasts, I had more like, you know, as

most girls do, through puberty got like, started to gain weight

in certain areas didn't look as amazing as always athletic, but

didn't look as tiny and athletic as I did pre puberty. And then

it was this sense of like, oh my god, I have to restrict or I

have to over exercise. I have to make myself small again, because

that's where people needed me to be. That's where I was praised.

My worth is within that my worth isn't like this new body and

then people would comment Oh, looks like you're gaining weight

or Oh, but I remember an older cousin saying one time like I'm

like, it looks like you've little Hershey Kiss boobs or

something like something in this way of like, very objectifying

in my body and feeling so like, oh my god, this isn't okay, this

like I'd wear sports bras to try and like hide the fact that I I

had this budding like woman form. Yeah.

Can I ask him you're doing such a great job of

articulating Rebecca. I just can't help but think of how

many? How many listeners are probably resonating with this?

Certainly I know that's part of your career. If I can ask, how

was your mom during this whole period? How was you and your

mom?

My mom and my relationship? really struggled.

And my adolescence I was pushing back a lot and Then, and I felt

so guilty for it. But I also had no sense of how to how to start

like, I didn't really I had no idea and how to hold boundaries

without just being totally meet the so mean and so angry and

pushing back against all the boundaries, but back then I

would apologize like, Oh God, my apologies were just like so

profuse as we

was, because I would just feel so badly. But I

also have no idea how not to push back. And I really cut her

out from my life in so many ways. And I also, I also was

really afraid of how, how she felt about me getting older. And

I think that that was my own projection in some ways of the

older I am, the further we are away from when my dad was here.

And that felt super scary. The have to know that I recognize

that. But then imagine her recognizing that. And the more

like I remember when I got my period, I didn't tell my mom,

because I was so afraid of what would then come up for her. And,

and it's true when she did find out. However, she found out I

don't know. He she was really she was so pet. Oh my gosh,

she's so mad at me. And it was validating them like, right, I

can't tell you things. I have to keep hiding. When in reality,

she was mad because I was hiding. Our relationship is is

amazing. That's really wonderful now, but then was that it was it

was not great. It was definitely not.

When I'm sure. I'm sure for your mom, it's it came

out as anger like you, but I can't imagine even the profound

sense of maybe guilt or shame even for your own mom, right.

Like, like, I don't have the relationship with my daughter

that I wanted to what was if I can ask, you know, you're one of

seven siblings. How do you or your siblings paying apart? I

mean, that there's, I'm sure there's some years between I

just, I'm so curious.

Yeah, um, there's quite a few years, but

my oldest siblings were adopted by my dad. They're all blood

related siblings, from Ethiopia, and my and then I have one

sister whose blood related to me, and she's a year and 10

months older than I am. And she, you know, all my siblings,

really, after my dad passed away, like, stepped in,

especially my oldest brother, like, my three older brothers,

really stepped in as parents in some ways. are like dad rules to

me in some ways, especially as I got older. Um, but, but my, my

sister was blood related. Gee, I think really took on this

feeling of needing to be my mom's partner. And then I lost

my, my like, buddy, and then I felt super because my sister

older than my blood related sisters 10 years older. And so

there was this like, huge gap and so the only other kid then

was no longer my like, comrade, and was like constantly

tattletaling on me, or like, putting me in my place. Or I was

a pretty quiet kid. And she's, she's an actress. She's there.

She's still an actor, so it's very loud and makes her opinion.

No. And I remember in my childhood, she my mom would be

like, Alright, girls, what do you want for dinner? And my

sister would turn to me and be like, What do you want for

dinner? And I would whisper to her I want mac and cheese. And

then she like go and tell my mom we want like, maybe say mac and

cheese or maybe say something completely different? I don't

know. But I like was, yeah, it was this like, let's, let's just

say whatever will be easy. Yes. Like my sister definitely took

that role. And, and it was black

accents. That makes sense. So yeah, so So walk me

back through so you're beginning as in your adolescence to find a

voice I guess is what you're saying. But it's it's rearing

its head his anger and rage and profuse apologies. And then it

Yeah, how does life look at that moment in time for you?

Um, you know, I, like middle school was super

hard and middle school was like, I didn't know who I was, I was

really like floundering and like, no clue. And going to high

school, I switched her in middle school, I was at a Catholic

school, which really did not bode well for my, like, anger

parts and also my like, desire to individuate. And I was

pushing back and I was constantly getting in detention

and speaking back in class and being a brat, and there's just

like, I was trying to find myself and like, all the

different ways. And then I went to a liberal arts high school,

and that was super beneficial. My teachers were really like

mentors and a lot of ways and really held space for me and

really reflected like, because it was such a small school,

they, they knew what party I've been to at the weekend, like

over the weekend, and they knew, and I respected them. I really

respected that. And I, you Yeah, I, like go along with that, like

profuse apologies. I remember, freshman year of high school,

there had been some party, and I was on track. And we were going

to state and we had regionals, and then state and there was a

party after the prom, which I wasn't allowed to go to the

prom. But I did go to the after I snuck out of my house, and I

went to the after party. And I got in trouble that my mom and I

came home. But that was a kind of besides the fact within it.

Well, the next day they made or whatever the next day was at

school, they made an announcement for like all the

students on the track team to like, come to a meeting, we went

to this meeting, like we know about this party. And we know

that some of you were there. And we're gonna give you guys the

opportunity to come to us and let us know if you were there or

not. Because technically, you're not allowed to go to parties or

drink during track season or whatever that was. And of

course, no one goes to, to say that they were there, but I did.

And I was like I was there. You probably already know No, no, we

didn't. Okay.

The Bluff worked. Yeah.

So then I like I couldn't run in state those.

They like when when you admit to something like that, or when you

were found out about something like that you have to skip the

next week and the next week. regionals or whatever. And,

yeah, so yeah, but adolescence in high school was very much me

finding myself and having really awesome mentors and people that

held me accountable. And that I could, I feel like with my mom,

I it was so hard to push, explore my boundaries and push

on her because I was so resentful of her grief and her

sadness growing up. I think the end so resentful of like, I

think there was a part of me too, that was like, maybe my dad

died. And this was like a unconscious froth of conscious

thought of like, maybe my dad died because you want to not

have a life. And that goes back to my own my sexual assault.

Because my cousin at that time that said, this is how you have

to be a wife. This is what makes you a good wife. Those are the

only words that I remember him saying that I remember thinking,

well, maybe my mom wasn't a good enough wife, and or good enough

partner, and that's why my dad had to die or something. But I

have a lot of resentment towards her. But then I so I didn't feel

like when I would try and push back, she would just cry, or she

would just break down and I didn't have that strong wall to

fully push on. And I mean, I think my mom did, absolutely the

best that she could given her circumstances, you know, and has

done an amazing job since then, but but I had like in my my high

school, the teachers and the coaches that I needed to be able

to fully push back on I knew that I could remember with my

soccer coach who was also my track coach. I felt like I knew

that I could scream at him. And he and I did. I like remember

after doing like a soccer game. He pulled me off and was yelling

at me for something and I just screamed at him back like

profanities. And he was like, Okay, let's go for a walk. And

we like went for a walk and like he just like fully held the

space and like wasn't mad at me was just It's like, this, isn't

it? You can't treat me like this. And let's talk about let's

talk about this. And I was like, Oh, my God, like, that was the

boundary that I needed. And I, like felt so much more content.

It's, it's so amazing. I love what you're highlighting

Rebecca is that as kids and adolescents, we need really

secure people in our lives that can handle and are resilient in

order to allow us to feel that safety. It's so amazing. Yeah.

Totally. Totally. I'm so glad that you had that. And can I

ask, Where was the eating disorder occurring during this

time as well? Was that or was that no,

I, I was constantly ruminating about my

body, I was constantly wanting to make myself smaller, it

wasn't like I was in and out of, like, actively restricting, and

then not restricting and then restricting and then not

restricting. And I it was as though I was I like I had I had

significant body image, but I didn't quite have the

understanding of what I could do about it. And then it wasn't

till college that I was like, Oh, I'm on my own. I'm not in my

mom's home. I can not eat whenever I want to not. And, and

so I did that. And and it worked very well for me at the time.

Um, and, and then, you know, when I would go home for the

summers, I I remember, especially the summer between my

freshman and sophomore year of college, oh, my gosh, I was so

intensely anxious because I had these disordered eating patterns

that then I had to figure out how to engage with in my home

environment, where we're supposed to be having family

dinners all the time. And when I was really little, I would cry

before and during every single meal. I hated family meals, and

I hated I just hated eating. And I and it was like that, that

part of me got reignited. Again, it was like I would get anxious,

mad, start crying, and I wouldn't want to sit at the

table. Or like my family would plan. Like a big dinner out at a

restaurant. Because like my brother would be in town or

something. And I was like, I can't I can't go like you don't

understand, like, I can't go, they don't have food that I want

or I'm not going to be hungry. Or I had recently started taking

Adderall for ADHD. And I would blame it on that. And I would

say, Well, I'm on my medication, so I can't eat during that time.

It'll give me a stomach ache, or middle. And so I like got away

with eating small amounts. And no one really said anything. No

one was like, are you okay? Despite the fact that I was

dropping significant weight. Over the years, I think

beginning during my junior year of college, there started to be

some like, Wait, is this home really want to be living my

life, because I'm starting to feel more when I have a strong

community of friends. But my eating disorder voice was so

loud, that it felt then super hard for me to actually connect

with my community, and connect with my friends. And I felt this

part that was just disconnected. And I was like I don't being

disconnected doesn't feel good, I need to feel. And so I like

had my own kind of reality check in that moment. And then also at

that time, I had, I had switched my major to creative writing,

specifically poetry, and I started writing a bunch and that

and I had an amazing poetry professor. And he really

supported my writing so much in ways of like, allowing me to be

vulnerable and allowing me to talk about this claustrophobia,

and this like stuckness and this sensation, I remember saying in

multiple different ways of like wanting to rip my skin off,

because it was just like clinically restless feeling that

I couldn't get away from, um, and and he really helped me find

words to understand the experience I was going through

and all the different layers of it. And so that was like one

shot And then there was another shift, I guess it was senior

year of college, I started doing a lot of meditation, and a lot

of yoga. And I was waking up far earlier than all of my friends

and going to a yoga class and doing meditation, and maybe

going for a run at some point. And then just writing like

writing my thesis. And my thesis was a creative writing a long

poem or prose, the format, really about my own life. And

that journey really helped me especially like yoga and

meditation, of creating more introspection into myself and

like, really becoming more aware of my senses. And like, can I

just feel wind on my skin? Or can I just feel my fingertips?

Or can I feel my seat in the chair? Or can I feel this muscle

stretching, and recognizing that my thoughts about that muscle

stretching, were just as much me as the muscle that self is made,

and creating more of a relationship from the gaze of

like the muscle itself, like, from the embodied space itself,

and I had really built the gaze of being the muscle, but I had

not really built the experience or built the muscle, so to speak

of being inside of it. And I was able to shift my lens to be

like, Wait, can I go inside, and really be in that muscle as it's

stretching, rather than observing the muscle as it's

stretching. And that helped me to gain a different kind of

appreciation or acceptance of being in my body? I won't i i

Really push back against the verbiage of like body

positivity, because that shows them that there's like, it's

still objectifying the body. And I I knew that objectifying the

body in any way, whether it was positively or negatively wasn't,

was not going to serve me at all. And so I was like, Can I

just be inside of it? And can and like, how do I feel inside

of it? Not how do I feel about it? But how do I feel inside of

it, and gave me a different appreciation for my flexibility

or my strength, or my able body mass. And, and that was a big

shift. And after I graduated college, I went on to the

studying yoga and meditation. And I did that for like 10

months and became a yoga teacher and, and meditation teacher, and

that was what really brought me into eating disorder care as a

clinician, as well of like, bringing people back to the

bodies experience, because I started working with clients

from that, from that more somatic lens before I actually

got my, my MSW. Yeah.

So you, I really appreciate the words. It wasn't

about judging, it was about being I really appreciate that.

Because so much of our just, we're hardwired for

objectifying, even ourselves. And so that is so valuable,

Rebecca, and I'm also hearing you say, as my journey

continued, there was this evolution that because I've felt

some healing. I'm gonna, I can give back.

Exactly, yeah, you've, you're going

through your journey. And as you create your own

healing, you reach this point where you recognize that you can

start to give back and and heal others, and then maybe talk a

little bit from that point on. How has that transpired into

just a career in in seeing the clients you have now?

Yeah, um, well started with I started working

at a clinic in Vermont called Vermont Center for Integrative

therapy. And we specialize more on working with folks struggling

with disordered eating and body image. And I was leading there.

The Yoga programming and meditation programming for all

of our IOP is intensive outpatient programs. And then

also doing one on one and also leading workshops and

immersions. Using the modalities of mindfulness, and yoga was the

primary interventions at that time. But then while I was

there, I went, I did my level one and level two of internal

family systems training by Dick shorts, and he wasn't the

trainer, training. Other people, I don't remember their names.

But that was also super informative for like building my

own language, as a talk therapist, so to speak. And then

it was after that, that I went on to grad school. And when I

went to grad school, I actually left the eating disorder clinic

and started working in child psychiatry at University of

Vermont. And then I was also teaching within the behavior

change minor, at the University of Vermont, and using

mindfulness as therapeutic interventions. And, yeah, and

that, and then it was after I graduated grad school, but I

then just simply go and started my own private practice here.

Yeah, and I would imagine with your experience,

and your expertise probably didn't take line long to build a

clientele. I would imagine.

I started my practice in San Francisco at the

very beginning of the pandemic, and my caseload was full within

probably like two months.

Oh, my goodness, what a need during that time. Yeah.

Yeah, especially with the online has actually

served to be so beneficial, as in, especially for my adolescent

clients. Because they don't have the option because within zoom,

you know, you can, there's the chat box as well. And oh, man

listens or expert text. And if they didn't want to say

something out loud, because their parent was in the other

room, they would just send it in, in the chat box. And so we

would be like making all the faces on the Zoom call, but then

like, like, you know, sending the actual messages or like

doing a lot of the dialogue in the textbox. Because those this

year, are my parents listening. And establishing that, I

believe, especially with adolescents, building the

attachment, and the connection therapists to clients is so

imperative for anything else to ever happened. So in the first

many Sessions, it's just us, almost shooting the ship kind of

to be like, Hey, you can trust me, like, I'm your, I'm your

ally, here. I'm your peer, here we are in this together. And

then it's at that point that then they're like, Okay, now,

like you don't have any agenda for me, you're not saying I have

to heal in this one particular way. You're saying all of my

parts are allowed to be here, and you're not shaming them? And

now we can go forward and have a comment?

Because I trust you. Because I trust you. Yeah, well,

so profound. Tell me I just really sub two quick questions

that I'm curious about is how did the repair go with your mom?

Um, his repair the right word? I don't know. Maybe that's,

yeah, I don't know if we had a moment of

repair. But we absolutely have had a lot of moments of deep,

connected conversation and discourse, where I have felt

more comfortable sharing about my experiences growing up. And I

think for a long time, I felt very afraid to have

conversations about my adolescence and childhood with

her. For the same reasons why I felt afraid to have

conversations with her back then of like, just gonna get upset,

or I'm gonna hurt her feelings or something. And our

relationship now is very much one where I don't, I have

established clear boundaries. I'm not here to take care of

you. But I'm here to support you just as you're here to support

me. And once I really understood my own boundaries, and like

where I started and where she ended, that has allowed me to

then be able to open up to her and and share with her my own

vulnerable Oh, these are like call her when I'm in a moment of

like suffering or like hardship. And, and then and she'll hold

space. But I think because the boundaries between us were so

blurred for such a long time. That's why I couldn't I didn't

feel comfortable going to her when I was suffering because I

thought that it would just add to hers. Because there's that

boundary now and I know who I am separate from her, I know that

we're different beings, it's made it so much easier. And I

think that that also came from her allowing me to just be me,

especially through college, like, through the lens of

college, not like, there was not, there was no getting in

trouble. There was no like, she really saw me just like, growing

and just, and then again after college and like making my own

choices, and fumbling and then standing back up, and then

fumbling and standing back up. And to gain a different kind of

respect for me as an individual maybe, or maybe she always had

respect. But I started to be able to see Oh, Mom respects me,

or Oh, Mom, mom, trust me in in being my own autonomous

individual out there in the world. And now that means I can

I can go to her when I am suffering or I can go to her

when I when I am celebrating. And I don't have to stay in

heightening.

So wonderful. Thanks for sharing that, Rebecca. And

my last question is just just because I am curious. I'd

imagine you don't ever really arrive. But how is your journey

with your self identity?

I was my journey with myself identity, I feel

confident in my identity, I feel I feel confident. And yeah, and

in who I am and what I know. And from, I feel like I've moved

from a space of like beginner's mind, and trying to like,

constantly be learning and growing. And that, because that

then allows me to be confident in in my moment, and then my

identity as I am because I just fully acknowledged to myself

that I don't know everything. And I think for a long time, I

felt like I had to be perfect. And I had to know everything.

And I was ashamed of all that I didn't know. And now, like, I

think that I've entered more of a space of curiosity into the

world of like, yeah, there's so many things I don't know. And

that's kind of exciting. I don't want to know everything. Because

if I know everything, then like, why am I still here? I feel like

I should be dead by that point. Like, if there's no point?

Well, I have to say, Rebecca, you've certainly made

an imprint on me that there. This. It's a building like your

confidence that you describe allows you to be vulnerable. And

I can't tell you how much myself but also the listeners

appreciate that vulnerability and the confidence in the story

and to recognize that there is healing. Frankly, there is

healing, and now you've dedicated your career to helping

others. And I imagine it helps you as well.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well,

Rebecca, this has been such an incredible time. Thank

you so much. And I know there's just so much value and just

everything you've said and the listeners. And I mean, from

everything to understanding what does it mean to be a confident,

safe caregiver to children and adolescents and being that safe

place has been so incredible. So Rebecca, I'm going to go out on

a limb, I'd love to follow up if you're up for it made me do a

part two and talk about more about your current practice,

because we just, we didn't really even touch on this vast,

just enormous, complex issue of gender identity and how co

occurring co occurrences of eating disorders with minority

group and marginalized groups is just exponentially really high.

So I'd love Yeah, I would love to. I'd love

to do that. Yeah.

Terrific. We're going to have you back. So thank you

for joining. This is Ben Sessions podcast. With Rebecca

tinker. Thank you so much. And please access this podcast

wherever you do, if it's Apple or wherever, wherever you do

that. Please look us up. And we look forward to you joining us

on our next session. Rebecca, thank you. Thank you, Rob.