{"id":17666,"date":"2025-08-05T18:53:01","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17666"},"modified":"2025-08-05T18:53:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:53:03","slug":"episode-648-sacha-mardou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-648-sacha-mardou","title":{"rendered":"Episode 648 – Sacha Mardou"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 648:
\nSacha Mardou<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_648_-_Sacha_Mardou.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“Going inside is how we get better, and how we get better at being human.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With PAST TENSE: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself In Therapy<\/a> (Avery), cartoonist Sacha Mardou<\/a> brings us a phenomenal graphic memoir about the midlife process of overcoming lifelong traumas and anxiety. We talk about her decision to to make her therapy process (& sessions) public, first as online comics<\/a> and then as a Past Tense<\/em>, the benefits of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, what it took to violate the English stiff upper lip and admit that she had problems and needed therapy, and her mother’s Jehovah Witness conversion and how she’s still sifting through the damage of that. We get into how therapy changed her relationship to her daughter, why corniness is no reason to avoid addressing\/admitting one’s inner child (and the work I<\/em> needed to do to truly appreciate Past Tense<\/em>), the strong, supportive and sympathetic public response to her online therapy comics and how she wound up going back to her therapist to deal with the shame-cycle of that, and how her families (and therapists) feel about seeing themselves in the book. We also discuss Sacha’s indy comics upbringing, her marriage to fellow cartoonist Ted May<\/a> and whether that means her daughter has any hope for a non-cartooning career, how she feels like her art is always catching up to her writing, how we feel about Gen X getting overlooked, her Doris Lessing binge during perimenopause, why we need to turn up the bonobo turn down the chimp, and a lot more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read PAST TENSE<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“Deciding to make this book was part of what ended up in the story: how \u2014 or WHY \u2014 do you turn your very personal therapeutic healing into something public?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n