Lisa Nikolidakis

INTERVIEW

When did you decide to write about the abuse you and other women suffered from your father?

I began writing this book the day after my father died—a draft I still have in two spiral-bound notebooks that (mercifully) looks nothing like the book does today. That means I wrote and rewrote this book for about seventeen years. Writing was my way through. A much-needed and often far-off lighthouse.

Can women from abusive pasts such as yourself ever find the connections or true explanations for why their abusers do what they do?

We can spend a lifetime trying to understand precisely what drives abusers to do what they do. Even if we unlock certain doors—say, we figure out who abused them—it still can’t wholly explain their behavior. I spent so many years trying to answer why, but I wish I’d been asking how? How can I focus energy on my own recovery? Sorting through “why” was certainly part of that, but it also allowed me to neglect myself.

Do the scars and nightmares ever go away? What can women do to move past them?

In my experience, scars do, indeed, fade. Same for nightmares. But complex PTSD is a sneaky creature. Sometimes the nightmares creep back in—often without warning—but then they move along again. At least, mine do.

Trauma recovery isn’t a destination. It’s an odyssey. I’ve arrived at a therapy session many times to say, “So, today’s the day, right? Today I’m cured?” It always gets a laugh.

What has helped me most in recovery is building my sense of self-worth, brick by heavy brick, and keeping it healthy. Nurturing it. Nurturing myself. I spent so many years steeped in harshness; I only knew how to be merciless to myself. Now, I aim for much softer landings.

What is your advice for other victims in helping keep a distance from their abusers?

Choose yourself. Choose yourself again and again. Whether that choice lies in going no contact, finding an affordable therapist and/or support group, and/or calling a domestic violence hotline to make a safe plan.

And read. Read a lot—about recovery, about abuse, about PTSD/CPTSD. Understanding not only how abuse works but how it affects the mind—what actually happens in the wiring of the brain—was immeasurably helpful to me.

Drawing from your own childhood horrors, what is your advice for others going through the same suffering?

When I was younger, I couldn’t visualize a life in which I thrived. I didn’t believe that was possible for so, so long. I thought I was broken—that my father had, indeed, irreparably broken me—and my job was to hobble through life.

I wish I’d known that one day, I would have a life not defined by my father or what he did to me. I’d assemble a life full of love and kindness. I’d like myself one day. Truly, actually like who I am. I’d love the work I do, both in teaching and writing.

Recovery Road is long and coiled. I’ll think I’ve got a handle on something only to shift my thinking by a millimeter and realize that I am, again, staring at something I need to unpack—

INTERVIEW CONT’D

something I thought I was finished with. But I have learned to pivot, and my refractory time continues to shrink. I bounce back to balanced more quickly with continued practice.

One of the most helpful habits I’ve developed is finding small joys. A weird rock, a hopping bird, a crooked tree. Making art, silly horror movies, chilled face masks. A perfectly ripe avocado. Those few weeks when Pink Lady apples are paradise. I work hard to stay present and appreciate the little things, and that has carried me through even the darkest days.

What were your thoughts when the truths about your dad and his crimes came to light?

Have you ever stood before a lake and jumped in fully prepared for your body to rocket to the bottom only to find that the water is ankle-deep?

My thoughts felt like that for a couple of years.

Where can readers find your book online and where can they connect with you?

This book is available in multiple formats on Amazon, including audiobook, which I narrate in my smooth-jazz voice. Lol. You can also get at me through my website lisanikolidakis.com, on Twitter @lisanikol, and on IG @lisanik.

NO ONE CROSSES THE WOLF

A powerful memoir about the traumas of a perilous childhood, a shattering murdersuicide, and a healing journey from escape to survival to recovery.

Growing up, Lisa Nikolidakis tried to make sense of her childhood, which was scarred by abuse, violence, and psychological terrors so extreme that her relationship with her father was cleaved beyond repair. Having finally been able to leave that relationship behind, surviving meant forgetting. For years, “I’m fine” was a lie Nikolidakis repeated.

Then, on her twenty-seventh birthday, Nikolidakis’s father murdered his girlfriend and her daughter, and turned the gun on himself. Nikolidakis’s world cracked open, followed by conflicted emotions: shock, grief, mourning for the innocent victims, and relief that she had escaped the same fate. In the tragedy’s wake, questions lingered: Who was this man, and why had he inflicted such horrors on her and his last victims? For answers, Nikolidakis embarked on a quest to Greece to find her father’s estranged family and a reckoning with the past she never expected.

In her gripping and moving memoir, Nikolidakis explores not only the making of a killer but her own liberation from the demons that haunted her and her profound selfrestoration in the face of unimaginable crimes.