- Finding Curiosity in Healing - April 13, 2026
- Finding Creativity in Healing: Draw a Bird for Me - April 6, 2026
- Finding Courage in Healing - March 30, 2026
What a Dexter Convention Taught Me About Trauma
No Way This Is Real
The room was eerily quiet for a space filled with actors from Dexter. Barb and I walked into the hotel next to the Monroeville Convention Center, where Steel City Con was being held, and there they were. Doakes, Deb, Batista, Masuka, Harry, and a few others, spread out at tables, waiting to meet fans. Michael C. Hall had to reschedule, which was disappointing, but I got to meet him and Rita at the next con.
There were maybe two other fans in the entire room.
I laughed. “No way this is real.”
Barb attended conventions regularly and knew I was a Dexter fan, so she’d asked me to come along. I had never heard of this type of thing before. I didn’t know you could just walk into a room and talk to actors from a show you’d watched for years.
My heart raced. Part of me wanted to walk right up and start talking. Another part wanted to turn around and leave. I listened to that nervous part and took some deep breaths. Slowly, my curiosity to interact with the Dexter cast helped my nervous part feel okay to go ahead. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity.
David
I started with David Zayas, who played Angel Batista on the show. He was warm and approachable. We talked, and he told me about a Broadway play he would soon be in called Cost of Living. The play, written by Martyna Majok, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and David earned a Tony nomination for his role. The premise explored privilege, disability, and human connection.
That hit close to home. Before private practice, I had spent years as a case manager for people with intellectual disabilities. I told him that, and the conversation shifted. For a few minutes we weren’t fan and celebrity. We were two people genuinely curious about each other’s work.
His table was right next to Jennifer Carpenter‘s.
Jennifer
Jennifer played Deb Morgan, one of the most complex characters on the show. Deb was a homicide detective in a male-dominated field, tough and foul-mouthed and relentless. But underneath that exterior was someone desperately looking for love and approval from her father and her brother Dexter.
When Barb and I started talking with Jennifer, something shifted. She leaned in. We told her how much we loved her character and how well she portrayed that constant search for approval. How Deb put on the tough exterior to survive in a world that didn’t make room for her vulnerability. How that need for her dad’s attention and Dexter’s love played out in her romantic relationships, the way it often does in real life.
Jennifer was interested. Not just in hearing us as fans, but in hearing us as therapists. She wanted to know how the things Deb experienced show up in real people. She talked about how her body absorbed the trauma of the storylines, how playing Deb left her nervous system carrying the weight even after the cameras stopped. Your body doesn’t know it’s acting, she told us.
Barb and I connected with that immediately. We work with people whose bodies carry trauma every day. She was describing it as an actor. We hear it every day from clients. But she was talking about the same thing.
Then Jennifer waved David over. The four of us leaned in for a photo together. She did it because the conversation had been real.
What Curiosity Actually Does
That day taught me something I keep coming back to. I didn’t walk into that room with a plan. I didn’t prepare questions or rehearse what I’d say. I walked in curious and let that curiosity lead.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), Curiosity is one of the 8 Cs of Self. It’s the quality that lets us approach something with openness rather than judgment. When I sat down with David and started asking about his play, I wasn’t performing. I was interested. When Barb and I talked with Jennifer about Deb’s character, we weren’t trying to impress her. We were genuinely curious about how she experienced the role.
In therapy, curiosity works the same way. When clients can get curious about a part instead of wishing it would go away, something opens up. Instead of “why am I so anxious,” they can ask “what is this anxious part trying to protect me from?” That shift matters. The part feels heard, and the client can start to understand it rather than just wanting it to go away. It’s the same thing that happened in that room with Jennifer. We didn’t judge Deb’s character. We got curious about her. And that curiosity led to a conversation about trauma that none of us expected.
That’s what curiosity does. It takes the pressure off. My nervous part, the one that wanted to turn around and leave when we first walked in, didn’t disappear. But curiosity allowed me to have another perspective. I wondered what the Dexter cast members were like in real life? What was it like being on such an intense show?
And what I learned surprised me. A conversation about a TV character turned into a conversation about how trauma lives in the body. A room I almost didn’t enter became a conversation I still think about.
Being brave got me through the door. Being curious is what made the conversation happen.
A Reflection for Your Journey
Curiosity is something we all have access to. It shows up when our protective part feels heard and understood enough to let Self lead with openness.
- When was the last time curiosity pulled you into a conversation you didn’t expect to have?
- Is there a part of you that holds back from asking questions? What is it trying to protect?
- What might happen if you approached an unfamiliar situation with interest instead of performance?
Fan conventions taught me something else too, about what happens when curiosity turns into real connection over time. But that’s a story for another post.
This post is part of my monthly series exploring the 8 Cs of Internal Family Systems, a framework that shapes how I teach, write, and support healing. The 8 Cs are qualities described by Dr. Richard Schwartz, founder of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model.