Start Your Comeback: Rebuilding after Divorce, Empty Nest, and Loss of Spouse
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Start Your Comeback: Rebuilding after Divorce, Empty Nest, and Loss of Spouse
The Stories Our Scars Tell with Brittany Tinsley
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Brittany Tinsley, author of "Stories Our Scars Tell," shares her 20-year journey through self-injury, healing, and finding purpose in her pain. This raw conversation explores how scars—both literal and metaphorical—can become powerful storytellers of hope and redemption.
• Brittany explains how her struggle with self-injury began at age 15 and continued into adulthood
• The crucial role of hope in sustaining her through dark periods: "Eventually this is going to be okay"
• Why shame thrives in secrecy and how vulnerability begins to break its power
• The profound impact of her professor's acceptance when he saw her wounds: "This doesn't change how I see you"
• The concept of "invisible effort"—the unseen battles we fight that no one acknowledges
• How fierce independence can both help and hinder healing
• The transformative role of therapy in sustained recovery
Pre-order "Stories Our Scars Tell" now everywhere books are sold. Connect with Brittany at britneytinsley.com or on Instagram @BrittanyTinsleyWrites.
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Is there a major life transition benching you? I know you may be asking what's next? What's my purpose? What if? Because I've asked those too.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Start your Comeback podcast. I'm Toni Thrash, a certified life coach, and I want to share the tools and practical steps to help you create a winning game plan to move into your new adventure. Hi, welcome back. You're listening to episode 98 of the Start your Comeback podcast. Today, my good friend Brittany is here to tell us all about her new book.
Speaker 1:Brittany Tinsley is a writer, speaker and the author of Stories Our Scars Tell. Her work explores the intersection of faith, mental health, shaped by her personal experience with self-injury. Through honest, heartfelt storytelling, she invites others to find the hope baked into their own lives. Brittany lives in Texas with her husband and their two daughters. Hey, brittany, thanks so much for joining me today on the Start your Comeback podcast. I am so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:You bet, as you guys heard in the beginning, brittany's book comes out September the 9th and it's called the Stories Our Scars Tell, and so I'm super excited. I've had an advanced copy to read and you guys are going to love every word of it, and so, if it's okay with you, brittany, we're just going to jump in with some questions and go from there. Sounds great, all right, awesome. So to tie everything in, obviously your book Stories Are Sparse. Tale comes out September the 9th and while your comeback story is a little bit different than what typically I talk about, it is nevertheless a comeback. So if you don't mind, I just kind of like to just jump in with the questions and you feel free to say pass or whatever. But do you want to give a little bit of history, to kind of give them the idea of what the book is about, so then they kind of understand what we're discussing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The book is about hope and healing, and it's told through the lens of my own struggle with self-injury. That's something that I started struggling with when I was about 15. Now I'm in my mid-30s, and so for the last 20 or so years, that's been something that I've been working through, and so the book talks a lot about what that looked like and the questions that people tend to be left with after they've gone through hard things or seasons of struggle and are trying to pick up the pieces after the fact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great. It's a great read and you didn't see the results immediately.
Speaker 2:So, in your teens and through your 20s, what was the thing that kept you from being discouraged or put you on the bench to say I think that it was really tempting to be discouraged, because, as I was trying to sort of figure things out and trying to figure out what it looked like to stop self-injuring, it wasn't really working for me and I spent a lot of time trying a lot of different things and wasn't seeing much fruit from those efforts.
Speaker 2:And I think the thing that really kept me going was and I can't even fully explain this but the sense that, like eventually, one day it was all going to mean something. And so I held on to this hope that eventually, something good would come from this really hard thing that I was going through. And I can remember being just really in a dark place, like in the depths of it, and sitting on the floor in my bedroom and thinking eventually this is going to be okay, eventually God's going to use this somehow. Eventually there's going to be a story here. And that was, I think, the thing, more than anything else, that kept me going when it was really really hard.
Speaker 1:Wow, Well, what was the you talk about in the book? What was the thing that led you to start your journey of healing, or your comeback, if you will?
Speaker 2:Yeah, eventually I got to the point where I was struggling so much that it started to scare me. I started the self-injury itself started having more power over me than I ever imagined that it would, and so it was at that point that I thought I am in way over my head. I need some outside help. I need somebody else to help me figure this out. I don't really know where to go from here on my own, and so I'm going to tell some people and figure out what I can do, what resources there are, how they can help, and hopefully then I'll be able to get on top of this in a way that I wasn't able to by myself.
Speaker 2:Who was the first person you told? So the very first person that I told was a friend of mine, and she and I sort of talked about it and I didn't really have any adults. This was when I was in early high school. I didn't really have any adults who I trusted, but she and I kind of agreed together that I should tell a woman who volunteered at our church in the youth ministry and that she would be a good person.
Speaker 2:She was in her early 20s, which at the time, as a 15-year-old, seemed really grown up and like she really had her life together. And so I told Danielle it was this woman's name. I told Danielle and she was just so encouraging and had the kindest response and her reaction, her positive reaction, her acceptance, her we're going to figure this out together, we're going to be in this together sort of response made me feel like it was okay to tell some other people. And if you read the book you know things didn't always pan out in a good way, but that initial response, that first time, really made it seem like okay, like I can tell other people and there are people who are going to be willing to step in and help.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, so, along those same lines, I wanted to ask you, um, about the emotions, right, so living in fear or shame of someone finding out, right, you have those feelings before you're hiding, trying to keep it under wraps, but then also of learning to be vulnerable with someone, and then the shame of oh my gosh, I shouldn't have told them that and the fear of fear of what that. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was terrified to tell anybody about the self-injury Before I told anybody else. I thought that if I told anybody that I was going to immediately be sent to a psych ward, that all of these terrible things were going to happen, that people were going to think I was this terrible person. There was just a lot of fear, mostly shame-based fear, associated with it, and so I really hesitated to tell people. And then, once I told, my friend and Danielle and a couple other people found out and they didn't have that reaction. I don't know that it ever got less scary to tell people, but I think that some of the shame sort of started to dissipate.
Speaker 2:And then, as time went on and sort of as things unfolded, I ended up having to tell some other people and they did not react as positively, and those reactions, instead of I think I think scaring me into doing better, really just scared me into hiding more effectively, and so the shame that that existed made me think well, I'm never going to tell this story ever again. It's going to be this deep, dark secret that I hold on to forever, and maybe one day God will do something with it, but that's probably not going to be for a real long time, and so I just got really good at hiding things and thought I had to handle it on my own at that point, because if I told anybody I was going to be met with shame or ostracism or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. Going back to the shame thing, I mean I don't know if you're a fan of Brene Brown or not.
Speaker 2:I love Brene.
Speaker 1:Brown. I love Brene Brown and I just remember watching her TED Talk, the first one and then the one after the second one, and she talks about how shame is all about secrecy, but within once you name it and it brings out and no longer has a hold on you. Did you feel that way?
Speaker 2:eventually. I think eventually, yes, a lot of this was happening, you know, is when I was a young teenager. You know, started when I was 15. So I was 15, 16, when a lot of this was unfolding, kind of initially, and at that point, I don't know that it did get easier. I think as I got older, as I got into my 20s and through college, that then the shame started. I think as I got older, into my 20s and into college, that the shame shifted and then it did become easier to deal with, because I think at some point I started recognizing that I am not this self-injury thing. The self-injury is a part of me, it's something that I deal with, but it isn't me, and if it isn't me, then it's not my shame to carry. It's just this thing that I'm walking through and I think that helped release a lot of that for me.
Speaker 1:I love that that's so good. Well, for those of you who are not here with us today, brittany walked into the meeting room today with me, tears streaming down my face as I was reading this story in her book, and I'm going to ask her to just share a little bit about it and then what you were feeling once that situation happened. But I'm going to cry now. The story about you walking into your professor's office I'm not going to share. I'm going to let you tell it because it was like oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So I had a professor in college who I was close with. I had him for several classes. He and I had gone on several mission trips together with our school, and so I knew him well. I babysat his kids, I helped him move, I had dinner at his house with my friends pretty often, so we were like involved in each other's lives.
Speaker 2:And I was in a period of a lot of self-injury and I had a cut that I thought was maybe infected and I didn't know what to do because I didn't feel like I could go to the doctor. I was on my parents' insurance still and I knew if I went to the hospital or to an urgent care or something it was going to get flagged on their insurance and my parents didn't know that I was still hurting myself and so that was going to be complicated and messy. And so, as this cut was not healing, my friend now he's my husband, but at the time he was just a friend was like you know. I think that maybe we should ask this professor what we should do. Let him look at it. He's somebody you know, who knows what he's talking about, like. Surely he'll have a good solution. And so after one of our classes.
Speaker 2:We walked over to my professor's office and my now husband sort of deposited me there and was like she has something she wants to tell you. And so my professor's sitting there looking at me very expectantly and I have to explain that I have this cut and I think it's infected and I don't know what to do. And he asked to see it so that he could assess what the situation was. And that was terrifying to me because that's not something that I ever let people see or examine or that I really even wanted to talk about face to face with anybody. And so to have to sit in front of him and not only talk about it but also actually show him the damage and not just a scar but like active damage was really intimidating. And so I pulled my sleeve up and showed him my arm and he sort of looked at it and told me that he thought it was going to be okay, he felt it, and but as he was looking he saw these scars and he asked if I'd made those too. And I said yes, and it was this moment of such vulnerability and such exposure, and and he looked back at me and he had tears in his eyes and he was like you know, this doesn't change anything, this doesn't change how I see you. And that was just the most profound moment for me, because I was sitting in front of him in probably the most vulnerable state I'd ever been in in front of somebody in regards to self-injury, and had him respond with this doesn't change anything.
Speaker 2:When he could have said I see you real differently now. You're no longer this great student, you're no longer going to babysit my kids. I don't think you're a strong Christian anymore. He could have come up with so many other things and he didn't. And so I just remember sitting in that conversation with him, trying desperately to believe him. And I did believe him. But also there was this voice that still was like but maybe it's all a lie, maybe he doesn't really mean it, maybe he means it right now, in this moment, but tomorrow he's not going to mean it. And I was in his class again the next day and he was. I mean, he was true to his word. Nothing changed. I still babysat his kids, I still was treated the same in class.
Speaker 2:He eventually performed our wedding, and so it was just. It was just a really beautiful, tender, special moment that I don't know if it carried much weight for him, but for me it meant a whole, whole lot. Well, does he know you've written a book now? He, he does. Yes, and I've shared this story with him before. I shared this, uh, that chapter with him and and he was very nice about it and told me you know what a great writer I was and things like that. But yeah, it was a really, a really meaningful moment for me. I love that.
Speaker 1:It's so important to have people on your team and in your life that see the yuck and still love you anyway, and that's that's important. And y'all know that you talk a lot about community. We're not going to really delve into that, but it's a big, it's a big part of all of us. We have to have that community to to show us the tough love and tell us some things we don't want to hear, but yet at the same time, tell us and be tender with us like that. I've still got tears flowing down my face, people. There's a line in your book you talk about invisible effort. I would just love for you to expound on that. It was like I reread that probably I don't know 10 times because it's so good. If you don't mind, it's yeah.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I created this idea of invisible effort that's what I've always called it, but it's this idea that a lot of the time when you're struggling with something, there's a lot of effort that goes, that goes on behind the scenes that nobody else is going to necessarily know about unless you actually tell them.
Speaker 2:And so for me, in regards to self-injury, it was this invisible effort of trying not to hurt myself, and for every cut that maybe there was on my body somewhere, there were a thousand more that I hadn't made, and nobody would know that just from looking. And so that's the invisible effort is those thousands that you didn't make. And obviously that looks different for everybody depending on your situation and what you're walking through and what maybe you're struggling with or trying to come back from. But we all put an invisible effort in our own ways, and I think that it's really tempting to want people to acknowledge that and they just can't because they don't know. And so on some level it's just something that you have to hold and recognize that you know that you're putting in effort, whether or not the results look how everybody thinks that they should, or whether or not anybody else ever tells you that they see it or anything like that. You know that you are putting in this invisible effort as you're working through things.
Speaker 1:Oh, book number two.
Speaker 2:I'll tell my agent.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then I'm just going to. I have one more kind of question for you and then we'll find out all the details of where you are and how we can find you and order your book. But you talk about this fierce independence and I love that term because I feel like that's part of who I am to a degree. But I also know that there's two sides to the fierce independence. Right, it can keep us from help, asking permission or giving ourselves permission for help, but it also can give us the drive to accomplish the thing. So would you just kind of mention that and talk?
Speaker 2:about that. Yeah, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's this really good thing. It can be really powerful, it can drive you forward, it can help you get where you need to go, and sometimes you do sort of have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and that's when that fierce independence kicks in. But also there's the dark side of it that makes it really hard to reach out for help. It makes it really hard to reach out for help. It makes it feel like you're almost failing if you need help, because you're so used to doing things on your own and sort of figuring it out.
Speaker 2:And so I think for me, part of my journey has been learning how to hold the nuance of that to say I can be really independent. I can be this fiercely independent person who really is sort of driven internally to do things and solve problems, and also I am a human and so I have limits, and so that means that sometimes I'm in over my head. Sometimes I need people with a different kind of expertise or different life experience to step in and help in some way, whether that's professional help of some sort or emotional support or friends who come alongside you and cheer you on, whatever it might be. It doesn't have to be this either or you're independent or you're really needy type thing, which I think is where my brain likes to go. It can be you can be fiercely independent and also recognize that you can't do everything, because none of us can do everything Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so, sorry, I came up with one more question. You're good, so talk about the importance of the continuation of therapy. Counselors, how are you honest? How do you? Who keeps you accountable? Is that a thing, or is that just like?
Speaker 2:what does that look like? For me, it looks like a lot of therapy. I did not did not do therapy in well. I went to a therapist for a very brief window of time which I share about in the book when I was a high schooler, but then I didn't do therapy until my late 20s, and going to therapy for the first time was the best decision I have ever made for myself, and I still go to therapy now.
Speaker 2:I think that it is such a powerful tool and it's not necessarily that you quote unquote need therapy every week or every month or however often it is that you're going.
Speaker 2:But for me it's more about having guardrails in place so that if things start to go a little bit off, the rails you already have. And circling back to the shame part of our conversation earlier when I enabled me to actually be honest with the people who know me the best, so that when I am struggling I can say that, or when things are really great, I can say that, and I think that when we have people who know us at our best and at our worst, we feel less alone, and when we feel less alone, we're less inclined to make decisions that maybe we wouldn't otherwise make. It provides some accountability, it provides community, it provides support, and there's this reciprocal element to those relationships that I think is really important in staying healthy too. It's not just what can you offer me, it's what can I offer you. And if everybody's sort of leaning on each other, as cliche as it is, that makes everybody better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, therapy is the thing that saved my life back then. And I have him on speed dial now and if I say, hey, todd, I need to see you, he's like, ok, I'll get you worked in, but not that there's anything major, it's just to check in and say, here's where I'm going, here's where things are, and just to continue to put myself into someone who is that third party, kind of to just keep me grounded. I think everybody should go to therapy if they can. Right, I agree with that. I preached that on this show. People are so tired of hearing me say it. It's a jury. Well, I'll echo you.
Speaker 2:Everybody should go to therapy. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that that's a nice plug. Well, listen, thanks for being my friend, Thanks for writing this book and making me cry in the public library. I'm so sorry and I would just love for you to pitch the book. Pitch where we can find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the book is called Stories Our Scars Tell. It comes out September 9th. It's available for pre-order now, everywhere books are sold. You can find me online at britneytinsleycom. You can find more information about the book there and also a link to my sub stack. I write a weekly sub stack and then on social media I'm at Brittany Tinsley writes on Instagram. That's where I tend to hang out the most in terms of social media, so that's where you can find me.
Speaker 1:I love it, I think. Thanks so much for being here. This means the world to me, and listen people. I've pre-ordered the book and I've already read at least 75% of it. I suggest you go pre-order right now, because here's the thing. There's someone that you know, a neighbor's teenager, I don't know. There's someone who could possibly be struggling with this, and I know that this book is going to minister to so many people, so thanks for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay, if you're anything like me, you're going to need a moment to let all of that settle in. What a powerful conversation. Brittany, thank you not just for being here today, but for the bravery it took to write this book the Stories Our Scars Tell Y'all. This isn't just a memoir. It's a mirror, a flashlight and a life raft all in one, and I truly believe it's going to be a healing companion for so many who are walking through dark seasons, wondering if they'll ever see light again. To everyone listening, maybe you're not struggling with self-injury, but maybe someone you love is, or maybe you just need to be reminded that your invisible effort matters, that your fierce independence doesn't have to mean silent suffering, that therapy isn't weakness, it's wisdom, and that you, too, have a comeback story worth telling. So here's what I want you to do Go pre-order the Stories Our Scars Tell. It drops September 9th and you can grab it wherever books are sold. I've pre-ordered mine on Amazon. I will get it on September the 9th.
Speaker 1:Follow Brittany on Instagram at Brittany Tinsley Writes, and check out her weekly sub stack for more raw, real encouragement. I'll put all those links in the show notes and if you're feeling all the things right now maybe some shame relief, fear, hope. You're not alone. You never were. You're not alone. You never were. Until next week, keep doing the work, keep showing up and remember. Your scars may tell a story, but they do not define the ending. I'll see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. I don't take it for granted that you're here. You didn't listen by mistake. If you want to reach out, you can DM me on Instagram at Tony Thrash. Until next week. Remember, there's still time left on the clock. Let's get you off the bench to start your comeback. I want to give a special shout out to Country Club for the original music. You can find them on Instagram at country club. So
