Julie Barth Shares How She Rebuilt Life After Loss And Trauma

Some people hear “unthinkable” once in a lifetime. Julie Barth heard it again and again, and still found a way to keep her family standing. Julie is an author and the founder of Colin James Barth Outreach, and she joins us to share a life shaped by rare disease, caregiving, grief, and the slow work of rebuilding. From the Chicago suburbs to raising a big family, she walks us through the moments that changed everything and the mindset shifts that helped her survive them.

We talk about her daughter Tatum’s early medical crisis, the frustrating “failure to thrive” label, and the eventual discovery of primordial dwarfism, a rare form of dwarfism that finally explained what doctors could not name. Julie shares what it’s like to live inside constant monitoring and uncertainty, and why she chose quality of life over a life consumed by appointments, fear, and other people’s comfort. If you’re a special needs parent, caregiver, or someone trying to support one, her words on isolation and invisibility will feel painfully familiar and deeply validating.

Julie also opens up about losing her first husband Colin to pancreatic cancer, becoming a widowed stay at home mom, and turning to writing to preserve a story her children could hold on to. Then we go to the harder chapter: a second marriage marked by emotional abuse, the cycle that kept pulling her back, and the moment she realized her kids were carrying the cost. She leaves us with practical steps for healing, including a simple way to regain control when life feels overwhelming, plus how her charity helps women-led households in crisis create a plan forward.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. What part of Julie’s story stayed with you?

Juliebarthauthor.com,  my charity at cjboutreach.org. 

Transcript

Welcoming Julie Barth

Chris 1:02

Today's guest is Julie Barth. Julie Barth is an author and the founder of CJB Outreach. Let's give a warm welcome to Julie Barth. Hello, hello, hello. How are you today?

Julie 1:21

I'm well. How are you?

Chris 1:23

I'm very good. Thank you for taking some time out to be a guest here on Glass Half Full. We're so happy to have you today.

Julie 1:30

Oh, thanks for I'm I'm excited to be here. So thank you for having me.

Chris 1:34

Awesome. Can you tell everyone where you are in the world and what time is it?

Julie 1:41

I am in Aiken, South Carolina, and it is 9 a.m. here.

Chris 1:46

Excellent. Well, good early morning to you. We're gonna jump right on in. I'd like to ask all my guests this first question. I believe that our lives are in spiritual design. Can you share your life layout or blueprint with everyone? This is how you grew up, where, your family lifestyle.

Julie 2:07

So

Childhood And A Life Blueprint

Speaker 5 2:07

I was born in a suburb of Chicago. It was on the north side. So it far enough removed that it felt like a small town, but it was a fairly large town. I grew up with my mom, my dad, and and one sister. And I I don't really, it's weird when I think about my childhood because I I envisioned my life in chapters. And the first chapter went really, really quickly. I don't remember much about it. But I I, you know, I we we moved when I was in third grade. And the one memory that I do have, ironically, is when we moved, you know, back in the day there was no FaceTime or way to keep in contact. So when you left one town, you were gone, you know, never to return again. And I moved to the the suburb that I then grew up in, and that I met my first husband in third grade, and it was almost like the defining moment.

Chris 3:05

Did you say you met him in third grade?

Speaker 5 3:08

I did, yeah. I met him in third grade. Yeah. And I went to this fun fair with him in sixth grade and we kissed, and then we lost touch for many years.

unknown 3:17

Okay.

Speaker 5 3:18

You know, we went to the same school and stuff, but we kind of just hung out in different circles. And it wasn't until after we graduated college meeting back in a bar that it almost felt as if everything had come full circle. And, you know, it when I was in the fourth grade, I remember practicing writing Julie Barth. And at that time, my name was not Julie Barth, but I remember writing it. And yeah, it almost looking back on it, it almost felt like, you know, things were written long before. Yeah, you were bringing up existence. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So he was my best friend. He was everything.

Chris 3:57

I love that. Sorry, please continue.

Speaker 5 4:00

I think so. We ended up, you know, like I said, meeting back up again and and very quickly, I think within a two months, moving in together, and you know, things just progressed naturally.

A Pregnancy That Would Not Progress

Speaker 5 4:12

We had a first son moved back to the suburbs that we were from. And, you know, I wanted a huge family. So we quickly got busy on having more children, had a couple miscarriages, and then I got pregnant with my second child, Tatum. And Tatum, where Hayden, my my first child was everything was very natural and normal. And nothing about Tatum's pregnancy was either of those. She from day one just stopped growing to the fact where, you know, I'd show up six weeks and I said, congratulations, you're six weeks pregnant. And then I went back a 10 week. So congratulations, you're 10 weeks pregnant. And by 12 weeks, you know, she was still measuring only about seven or eight weeks. So even though it was in the 2000s, you know, I I couldn't write off instrument error anymore. And that's how our pregnancy went. She just never grew. You know, I would I would go in after two weeks and she'd grow three days, and then I would go in after three weeks and she'd grow four days. And there was really no rhyme or reason to it. And although they kept telling me that there was something wrong, they couldn't really tell me what it was. So we had 40 some ultrasounds, and I was heavily monitored. And even though she wasn't growing, there wasn't any, you know, we we uh throughout all the ultrasounds, we didn't, there weren't any genetic markers that something was going on. And we did have an amnio, and that turned out normal. So it was much just a waiting game. And there was almost this belief between everyone that once she came out and we got eyes on her, that we would all, it would, everything would, you know, all of our questions would be answered. But unfortunately, they delivered her at 30, 37 weeks. And I think they did so more for my mental stability than hers, because it had been, you know, eight and a half months of she's going to die. We don't know what's wrong with there's something wrong. I mean, just all of the stress. And so, yeah, they they delivered her, and it only further started a cycle of what is going on here. It was a lot of mental coal malpractice that we didn't know about. But even at that, when she came out, she still didn't grow. You know, it was and and one of the phrases that they use in the NICU that that I always I I really disliked because it just sounded like it had taken all the hope out of it. Is they just kept saying she has failure to thrive. And you know, that was their medical diagnosis of failure to thrive. So it's called failure to thrive.

Chris 6:49

Failure to thrive. Um okay.

Speaker 5 6:51

Yes. So basically it means we don't know why, but she's she's just not making it. It it's just a very it's almost the umbrella that they put all the unknowns underneath. And so we lived under that for about two years, traveling around the United States. And at that point, the malpractice that she had been through damaged her throat. She had she had a trait that led to throwing up. And so there were all these mitigating factors. And no matter what we did, every all the doctors that we saw wanted to go back to what is globally wrong with Tatum. And a lot of them ignored the fact that what we were dealing with in those moments were trying to heal her throat, you know, get her to stop throwing up so that she could start thriving a little bit more. But there was always that question of, you know, she was a year, she was almost, she was over a year old and she was eight pounds, if you could imagine. So she was the size of a seven-week-old running around my home with her zero to three month walking shoes from the gap. So

Diagnosis Of Primordial Dwarfism

Speaker 5 7:54

it wasn't until she was about three and people started coming up to me in the grocery store where when I was out with her saying, Is your daughter the one in that Discovery Channel show? And I hadn't seen it. So I, you know, it it took me back. And it was just a very eerie feeling of why all these people coming to me and asking me this question until I finally, one of my best friends told me that she had seen the show and it was called, it was about something called primordial dwarfism. So I actually Google was finally coming around and I Googled it, and everything about Tatum was explained in that moment. It was like, yeah, it popped up. All the feature, all the facial features that she had and the things that they were saying about like her fingers being, you know, mildly turned in, elf ears. She's, you know, everything that they kept honing on was like right in front of us. But, you know, in back in 2001, the way that they diagnosed things, you know, there was no social media. There were no computers to link things together. They would literally just go through their encyclopedia medical books. And nope, that's not it. Nope. And, you know, it it it explained everything in an instant, which was both good and bad. You know, gave it gave us kind of a um playbook of of what we were dealing with. Uh, not not a whole lot of resources of what we can do about it, because there wasn't much to do about it.

Chris 9:23

So, what was the diagnosis discovery that she was a dwarf that the dwarfism was a part of this? What was the that you yeah.

Speaker 5 9:34

So, like the reason that she wasn't growing was because she has a very rare form of of dwarfism. There's there's several different kinds. Primordial dwarfism for all practical standards is the smallest man on earth recorded had primordial dwarfism. No datum has a variation of it. Okay. But it basically she's proportionate. She's just even to this day, I don't think she reaches four feet. Okay. So uh the prognosis was uh not really that off from you know what what you would expect. She has some learning difficulties from it. Her her joints will start to separate as she gets older, but she is, you know, 20 uh 25 now. So you know, she's doing incredibly well. Yeah. Yeah. And she's always, you know, she's always beat whatever it is they they gave us expectations for. You know, they'd say, Oh, she'll she'll never walk upstairs. And the next thing I know, she's running upstairs.

Speaker 2 10:34

She's skipping up, yes, yes, Tatum. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 5 10:38

Yeah, yeah. Okay. We we but then we should see her in the book.

Speaker 2 10:41

She should be in the book.

Speaker 5 10:45

She is in the book. Actually, the book is is all about her life story and her dad's as well. That my first book, Nuts from the Blackberry, is all about taking her from, you know, from from Culinite meeting to having her to traveling around the United States. Just, you know, I would take her in for something as simple as like a cold, and the next thing I knew is she was flatlining. So, you know, I will say to this day, I I can't figure out on certain days whether she is the luckiest of the unluckies or the most unlucky of the luckies, because she will always be on the side of 1% for whatever that means to her, you know, like the the yeah. So I mean, I'll go to pick up fast food and you know, I have six children, I'll bring everybody's order home and without fail, and this is the honest to God's truth, Tatum's meal is always missing. Like and it's not like she orders something unusual, it's just like a cheeseburger, and I'll get home and I'll be like, oh. So I do check now. I was about to say, please check for Tatum's meal.

Chris 11:58

Please, please check potato's meal. Let that be the first meal that's checked for.

Speaker 5 12:03

Yeah. Well, that's just like an example of like, you know, I I do believe in the universe. I believe there's a reason we're all here. And there is no reason medically or soundly why she is still here. Um, which is the whole reason she is here. I love it.

Chris 12:22

I love it. She is awakening.

Speaker 5 12:24

Every day she proves, yeah, every day she proves that miracles do exist.

Chris 12:28

Yes, this is it. This is it. Okay, so now keep keep us going. We're gonna come back. So, okay, this is child number two, right?

Speaker 5 12:37

So we child number two, yes.

Chris 12:39

Okay, so let's let's further on. During the adolescence, so you were saying that it was it was difficult, you know, having difficulties with raising the child. And and the first child is just regular standard, like anything with the first child at all as far as like health.

Speaker 5 12:59

Yeah, no. And that's the thing about what Tatum has is there's no genetic marker for it. They haven't even just they haven't even figured out whether it's you know a recessive trait or or how how is it about it? Right. And so I think that that was that really put us into kind of like it was good and bad because it had it been genetically linked, I might have said, okay, well, we'll either adopt or, you know, we'll whatever that looked like. But I still wanted a big family. And Tatum's medical issues for three years were just, you know, everything in our world. And as things started clearing up with her, I really decided, you know, I I want to continue on with having a large family. I kind of felt like, you know, I don't I don't want, I see so many times, you know, when you have a sick child that people all of their focus, you know, gravitates necessarily toward that child. But I never wanted our lives to be lonely or really centered around her medical issues. So as she got better and she had re air airway reconstructive surgery to remove the trach, you know, things started just normalizing in our world. And we had we proceeded to have two more children.

Chris 14:19

So what is the difference in times between Tatum and the next child?

Speaker 5 14:25

So there is there's five years in between my first child and Tatum. And between Tatum, my third child, I believe, there are three years, and then between my third child and my fourth child, there are two years. Okay. So

Colin’s Sudden Cancer Diagnosis

Speaker 5 14:40

in 2007, we had just had our fourth child, and things were, you know, I was living the dream that I had always dreamed of, you know, just family in the suburbs, you know, married to my best friend, very involved in sports and school, and as a couple, you know, we were just very in ingrained in our community. And so when our youngest was about six months, my my husband, Colin, worked down at the board of trade, and he just stopped, he wasn't behaving like himself. You know, he was always very engaged, sarcastic, fun to be around and not not to, you know, put him down, but there's something had changed. And he was very isolated, maybe, and just closed off and and wasn't really participating the way that I I he normally did. And he was back and forth to the doctor saying he had stomach problems. And, you know, I I really at that point we had a talk, you know, if if your work is too stressful, then you know, maybe we should consider something else. And but he just kept trudging through it until one day we were having this, you know, huge party in the community. And I went to him and I said, you know, next week is our Halloween party. And I really need you to go figure out what's going on. And because I need you back, you know, I don't I don't know what's going on, but obviously they're dismissing whatever you're feeling. So just go to the hospital. Don't come out until they have run tests and they can really give you an answer how we fix this. And within three or four hours, he was in the hospital, and I just felt this need to get to the hospital. And I can't really tell you why, or nothing preempted it. I just had this feeling like I gotta get there. And so I showed up at the hospital and he was sitting up in bed, and he just had this look on his face. And he said to me, Oh, the the attending just came in and he he was telling me something, and then his deeper went off and he had to walk out the room, but he'll be back. And so I said, Okay. And literally, right as I was walking in, the attendant came back and he said, We we found a tumor on your pancreas and and several lesions on your liver, and we're not sure yet, but it looks like it might be cancer. And you know, from that moment on, I will honestly say nothing in my world was ever the same. Oh in that moment, we pretty much lost him. Yeah. So they gave him two weeks to live. Well, and uh, yeah, they said take him home, let him say goodbye to his children. And true to me, I wasn't having it. Yeah. So I found him a trial, and he did end up living 16 months. But they were, you know, some really, really tough months.

Chris 17:26

I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you. So, how long has this been? When when when when did this happen?

Speaker 5 17:35

What year would did this so it was 2009, which is hard for me to even believe that it was, you know, 15 years ago that this all happened. Yeah, we lost him in January. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes it feels like yesterday, and other days it feels like a completely different lifetime.

Chris 17:54

Wow. And so after this, now you are left with four children.

unknown 18:02

Right.

Chris 18:03

Yes, okay. Yes. As a widow.

Speaker 5 18:07

As a widow, a stay-at-home mom because I, you know, I I couldn't get a job. I did have, you know, a bachelor's and a master's degree, but Tatum is my full-time job. And, you know, it didn't make sense for me to go to work because then we would just have to, you know, pay for talk care and who's going to take care of Tatum. So, you know, when he passed, I was now the breadwinner, the head of household for four little kids. And although I had I did have an education, I had been out of the workforce for 10 years. So at that point, the only thing that I could really, I I saw when he was really sick, I sold things on eBay. And that was great. I mean, it got us through two really tough years because he didn't have vacation or medical pay.

unknown 18:49

Wow.

Speaker 5 18:50

So I float, I was able to float us, but in 2009, I don't know if people remember the economic atmosphere, but you know, the housing market dropped out, collectible dropped out because no one had any disposable income. And at

Widowhood And Becoming A Writer

Speaker 5 19:03

that point, I just I decided it was time for me to, you know, find something and I I became a writer. And so that's really what I did for, and that's what I do today. I I kind of just took my my desire to I I'm a words person. So I became a full-time writer and was able to work from home remotely and and still be at home with the kids, which was you know, more of a blessing than I. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris 19:29

So now had you I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Speaker 5 19:33

No, go ahead.

Chris 19:33

I was gonna ask about the writing. So was writing something you had done growing up? Did they say, Julie, you know that girl? She she always writes good essays. Was it something that we felt like you were reading things? They were like, Julie, go ahead and get up and read something you wrote. Was this or this was a completely different avenue that you stepped into?

Speaker 5 19:54

I would say a completely different avenue. Although I really enjoyed writing, um, I I could honestly say I think I almost failed literature.

Speaker 2 20:04

That's okay. It's all right. You're not the only one. You're not there's many of them out there. Don't worry. And look at you writing books, it didn't matter.

Speaker 5 20:12

I yeah, and it really was a matter of grammatical errors. You know, I I I love a run-on sentence sometimes. Don't we all? So I I would like to believe that it was just the grammatical nature of my my writing. But yeah, I I did, even though I became a writer, I when I would take Colin to Kema on Tuesdays. We would go downtown and I would leave all the kids behind. And I kind of felt like it was going to be our time to reconnect. Because we had had, you know, five crazy years with Tatum traveling and surgeries and all the stuff that we went through with her. And so he he was so sick he didn't want me moving around and I had a Blackberry. And so I would sit next to him and I was writing. I don't know if anybody out there will remember, but there's something I think it was called the family tree or care the caring tree. And it was a place, it was a blog space where people who were ill could write, you know, again, this is before technology was so in our hands.

Speaker 3 21:13

Yes.

Speaker 5 21:13

You could write a blog that would go out to, you know, anybody who was on the caring tree that could read about your journey. Wow. And I had people from, you know, all over the world. And when Colin passed, people wrote out, you know, would write out to me and say, like, please don't stop writing. And and, you know, people I've never met before. Wow. So when I was sitting with him, I was writing our story because I yeah, I didn't write it again. I wasn't a writer at the time. I didn't write it for any other purpose that I knew my children would probably never get to meet him. And it was very important for me to not only give witness to Tatum's struggles and challenges, because anybody who reads the book, you will shake your head when you read all the things that have happened to her. But more so too, I wanted my children to know how hard Colin fought to stay here. And, you know, they they saw him in their year early years so much differently than he really was because he was sick. So I wanted to, you know, recount how how full of life our lives were. So that's where I would write it on my BlackBerry and email it back to myself. And it sat on my computer for 13 years.

Speaker 3 22:27

Wow.

Speaker 5 22:28

Um, all pieced together. And, you know, I proceeded on with my life and closed up chapter of my, you know, my writing and and never really felt as if I could go back and reread it. And that's why it's sad because I I I don't think I wasn't in the headspace to go through it again to read my butt by reading it.

Chris 22:47

Understandably so.

Speaker 5 22:49

Yeah.

Chris 22:50

Wow. I want to ask you about the what role did writing play in your healing process? And what do you hope that readers take away from the notes from? Blackberry.

Speaker 5 23:04

I don't really know if it helped me in the healing process. It definitely burned some energy and time of sitting there by myself.

Chris 23:12

So getting it out didn't feel you didn't feel any sense of relief with it, or you just felt it didn't provide that type of feeling as you were doing it, or I don't really remember.

Speaker 5 23:24

Okay. I say this very frequently. Yeah, like I don't I don't remember years of my life.

Chris 23:29

Thank you for your honesty. Thank you.

Speaker 5 23:31

Yeah.

Chris 23:32

Um people do say that.

Speaker 5 23:34

They are, you know, the the big thing is it was a cathartic, and it can honestly say I I don't know. It it occupied my time, and I'm a warrior by nature. So I think just having that outlet to not focus on what was going on, but more like reliving in the past and yeah, and to to focus on the good times, I guess, is what I was able to do because I was talking about us growing up and living together in our 20s. And so I think it was a good distraction, if nothing else.

Chris 24:02

Okay. Was there anything that you hope that the reader takes away?

Speaker 5 24:07

Or just that's the thing, is like, yeah, I wrote it for my children, which obviously I, you know, have they read it after coming it in my some have, some have not. It's funny because my oldest son will always say, because people ask him, Do you have you read it? He goes, I didn't have to, I didn't I don't have to read it, I lived it.

Chris 24:31

Okay, okay, that's fair.

Speaker 5 24:32

I I think that yeah, I think that it would be too hard on him as well.

Chris 24:36

He was 12 and it was Okay, so he's old enough to I I can't imagine.

Speaker 5 24:40

Yeah, yeah.

Loneliness Behind The Strong Face

Speaker 5 24:41

And so after reading it over, I finally got the courage after going through a divorce, and I I read it and I I think that I didn't even recognize what I was feeling at the time. You know, I had other people read it before I released it, and they the the big takeaway that I gathered from people was, wow, you were so lonely. And I will say that I don't if if someone had asked me, yeah, how'd you feel during that period? I don't think loneliness would have been something that I acknowledge.

Speaker 3 25:15

Okay. What would you have acknowledged?

Speaker 5 25:17

You know, nothing from chaos. You know, I disordered. I didn't even feel as yeah, I feel as if I didn't even have time to feel, which is a very strange, you know, I think when you're going through all of that. That's kind of being numb, right?

Chris 25:35

Yeah.

Speaker 5 25:35

I mean, I think that's the real definition of shock, you know. And yeah, and I think that people have this impression of what they would feel or how they would behave or what's an appropriate response, or you know, they they feel as if there's a standard to the way that someone should process and behave during these times. Right. And it I I remember it leaving me, and it took me many years after reading the book to go back to from the outside. I think people thought I had it so together and that I was so strong. And, you know, I was just hiding it. I was, I was literally falling apart, but I had this outside facade of, oh, everything's fine here. Everything's fine. Don't look behind the curtain, everything's perfect. And I think that led to me pushing a whole lot of people away to pretending that I was okay and not being honest with not just them, but myself. And, you know, even after he passed, I kept that up. And I think that those things that serve us so well during times of crisis, you know, putting yourself into numbness, almost being in denial, you know, just skating through something and bouncing. And I wanted my children to have uh memories that were good of childhood. So I almost acted as if the our lives were unreal. You know, I I I smiled and I I almost danced through it all. So I think from the outside, a lot of people had this impression that I was not only strong, but I think more so after we passed, callous that, you know, that how could I just move on with life? How could I not be crying? How how did I not appear sad? But what people didn't see was when their grief started, I had already been living in grief for 18 months. Wow. And yeah, I lost a part of them every day that nobody saw behind the scenes. So when they first started grieving, from their perspective, I'm sure, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to move forward. I can't sit in this grief anymore. And it wasn't that I wasn't sad, but I had made a life of pretending everything was okay. And I was hell bent on continuing on that path. And I didn't skip a beat, and I never stopped to really examine the guilt I was dealing with. But, you know, just all these like emotions wrapped up at survivor's guilt. I I thought it was, you know, in a crisis where one person makes it, you know, out of the Twin Towers and another person doesn't. I didn't realize that it happens with caregivers and the slow, the slowness of watching somebody you love pass and suffer that you carry with you, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. So, you know, I think really that's what got me into the second part of my my chapter, my life, whatever you want to look at it as, after Colin passed, I just kind of thought, well, if I pack it all away and don't acknowledge it, then oh, it was sad or, you know, yeah, it happened, but I'm over it and I'm just gonna move forward. And I think it kept me stuck for a decade of trying to not see what was right in front of me.

Chris 29:46

Did grief change your definition of love or family in any way?

Speaker 5 29:53

No, I don't think it did. Okay. I I feel as if I I was born a caregiver. And I mean that in every uh every sense. You know, my parents didn't get along, so I was the peacemaker in the family. My sister and my mom didn't get along, so I was peacemaking them. And then I moved straight into from there to being a mom to being a special needs mom to being a caregiver to my husband. It was a role that I feel I was born into as anybody is born into any, you know, any particular life, I guess.

Speaker 30:27

You enjoy being a caregiver.

Chris 30:29

Oh, oh wow, okay. Some of it. No, thank you for your truth. Thank you for your truth.

Speaker 5 30:34

Yeah, no, I mean, I enjoy being a mom. Okay, but no, I I don't enjoy having to sit back and watch people I love suffer. Um, I spent, you know, 24 years of 25 watching Tatum be okay to not okay and pote and prodded and going through things that no one should have to, you know, and later on in life, which we haven't gotten to, Tatum, when she was 13, came down with a rare form of cancer. And it was connective tissue cancer, which is again the one of the rarest forms of cancer you can get. There's only about 30 cases in the United States every year, and they're all in geriatric patients. And she was 13. So she had her right side torso removed and her legs grafted to repair, and it was completely unrelated to her dwarfism. So it I I yes, I I love being a mom. In fact, that's probably the only thing that saved me. If you ask me one thing is, you know, what how did you carry on? How did you keep going? It was the family. It was for my children.

Chris 31:35

Well, you know, this is what you wanted, right? This was a like you mentioned it, that it was something that you've always wanted was the family since you were young, right? Is to be married, to have a big family. I think you kept saying from the beginning. So it's something that almost like a dream. So it would make sense that you could pull that that would be a place where you'd pull energy from to feel the sense of you know, happiness or joy from in these type of moments. Oh yes. I love that.

Speaker 5 32:02

And I will say, like I said, after Tatum was born, I think there was this impression like it when I got pregnant again, there was almost this like, why are you doing that? You know, you don't you have enough on your plate? Shouldn't you be focusing on Tatum? And then there was a degree of guilt in that that I wasn't truly focused on what I should have been. But I will say, you know, now 25 years later, had I not continued to have more children.

Speaker 32:27

Yeah, three and four, the rest of them would be here.

Speaker 5 32:30

Well, and found joy and you know, and the enjoyment of a big family. And and Tatum would have lived a very lonely existence as as well as I would have, being wrapped up in our medical. And, you know, I probably could have spent a lifetime trying to focus on Tatum, hyperfocus, and make her better all the time. But to what end, you know, what what joy would that have brought her? So having a big family, I think, has saved both of us. Yeah.

Chris 32:56

This is it. I wanted to ask you being a caregiver on many levels, who's taking care of Julie while you are

Resilience And Letting Kids Live

Chris 33:03

taking care of everyone else?

Speaker 5 33:06

I don't know if you heard me smirk a little.

Chris 33:09

No, I didn't hear it.

Speaker 5 33:11

I have, you know, I think I have, I well, to this day, I'm very, very blessed to have very, very good friends. But I also think I have this. My mother was Irish Catholic and probably the most Irish Catholic human you'll ever meet. So she taught me to be very independent, my sister and I both to, you know, don't ask for help, do it yourself. And I think that that has gotten me to where I am. And I thank God every day that she did teach me those life lessons that in the same breath, I will say she also taught me not to accept help, to you know, mask perfection, to handle it on my own, that no one was going to save me. So I will say there have been many, many people over my many years here that have tried to take care of me, but I I'm I've never been open to it.

Speaker 3 34:05

Okay.

Speaker 5 34:05

It's uncomfortable for me. You know, when Colin was around, we were a team. He was supportive, he would take care of me when, you know, it was like we had a tag out system. Like, can't do it anymore. Then he'd tag in. But really, since I lost him, I would say, you know, with the exception of, you know, my mother, who obviously is always here for me, I I tend to be the person that takes care of everything. And I don't even know I'm doing it, you know.

Chris 34:33

That's called the superhero. Let me tell you, dude. Let me let me let me let you know. That's called a superhero. Your cape is just your wear. Yes. Okay. Well, you know what? That's great. So let me ask you, are you a self-motivator or do you need someone or something to motivate you?

Speaker 5 34:50

I'm a Pisces. So I don't know. I'm like, what does that mean? No, okay.

Chris 34:54

I was about to say, what does that mean? Okay.

Speaker 5 34:56

Yeah.

Chris 34:57

Um break it down to us for the rest of it.

Speaker 2 34:59

I've been living in Asia too long. What does that mean?

Speaker 5 35:04

Well, Pisces mean HR, we're very, very, we're big dreamers. We've got big plans, big emotions. Um we don't live in the real world. Yeah. Like I, you know, in my head, I'm gonna fix everything. And I can't really describe it. Like where it falls apart is the execution of it. Okay. I have these big plans. And so people don't need to motivate me. They need to push you to refocus.

Chris 35:35

Okay.

Speaker 5 35:35

A refocus. Yeah. I mean, I I want to take the world on every day, but I I tend to take on too much. I tend to become too enthusiastic about something, and then I get halfway in and I'm like, I just lose focus and I lose attention and I'm on to the next thing. So unfortunately, I am more of the big idea person.

Speaker 3 35:55

Okay.

Speaker 5 35:55

We need the idea and the little, yeah. The task orientation is where I get the little walk. So, no, I think people need to demotivate me sometimes. I just have a lot of energy. I'll just leave it at that.

Speaker 2 36:10

I love that. Thank you for your honesty.

Chris 36:13

Thank you for your honesty. I wanted to ask you, what does resilience look like when life continuously throws unexpected challenges your way?

Speaker 5 36:25

For me, there was always a solution no matter what happened when I found out Tatum was sick. Or when, you know, for many years, I just tried to get back to where I was, whatever challenge I, you know, I went through. I I I just wanted to return to the way that things were. And to me, that that was resilience. But I think as as life has continued to throw things at me, I've learned that much like when you go away to college, you can't go home. But that doesn't mean that you can't visit there, first of all. And secondly, that you aren't growing and not needing the past to be comfortable. And that's been the hardest thing for me is to, because I am also a creature of habit, to to let go of things and to recognize that you had what you had and it was great and it served you in that moment. But there's a reason why things change and it forces you to grow. And if things didn't, if thing if you didn't have hardships, then you you couldn't feel joy either. So I think to me, resilience is learning to refocus your energy not on things that you can't control, but on things that you can and making the best of the things around you that you can control. And again, that I you know, I think if if somebody took a timeline and put my life on it, they would look at it like, gosh, this poor, unfortunate soul, where I don't, I don't feel that way. I am very sad to have missed my to lost my first husband. But then again, I feel like people can live a lifetime never knowing that kind of friendship or love. So I feel very blessed in having that. And I think, you know, too, Tatum. She, I won't say that it hasn't been that I've been saddled with her illness and all that comes with it. But again, I've learned that, and I think this is a part of resilience too, is you know, there were so many people that really looked unfavorably on the way that I raised Hayden. You know, when she had a trake, I would take her to the pools and nurses would just go insane. You know, she could die, you know. I would take her to the mall and they'd say, you know, she's gonna get sick. You just can't pick her out in public. And and I would always say to them, you know, what what good is the life that we preserve if we won't let them live it? And that has been my motto since she was born. Why, why, you know, people would all I doctors chastise me because I don't go to every checkup and appointment and have her in every therapy that's out there. And yeah, I could do that, but what quality of life would that be for her? Exactly. And you know, I think resilience teaches you what's really important and to refocus and to see the good things rather than seeing everything as a challenge. I I more see things as things that push us to grow that are are meant to be here, they're meant to happen. Whether we like them or not, right, on the other side of them, they're worthwhile. And yeah, yeah. And it, you know, sometimes you have to look a little harder, I'm not gonna lie. It's always a blessing to be found in it. And being able to see that, you know. I sometimes I know people are shaking their head at me when I say those type of things because it almost, you know, I guess it's it kind of like believing in Santa Claus, you know, it's it it makes it all better. Well, how magical.

Chris 39:57

But yes, exactly. How magical. No, but that's a great answer. That is a great answer on your sense of resilience to seeing in a different view about it. But thank you for sharing that. I do want to ask you about what unique challenges do parents of children with special needs face, both emotionally

Special Needs Parenting And Isolation

Chris 40:15

and logistically.

Speaker 5 40:20

For me, I I think the isolation really is one of the hardest parts. You know, it's many times in my life I have found myself becoming a part of a club I didn't sign up for. The widow club or the special needs club.

Chris 40:38

Um we say I didn't I didn't put my name down for this one.

Speaker 5 40:41

I didn't volunteer for this. Could you remind me? Um You know, I I think that you no longer feel as if you can complain. You know, it and I find it so funny this day. I I have two teenage girls, and if I say something about them or their attitude or something they've done, nobody gasps. You know, everyone expects you to complain about your teenager and you know how hard of a time they're giving you. And but if you do that with a special needs child, it's almost as if everyone goes, you know, like how could you suck it? I can't believe you do that. I can't believe you're gonna make fun of her. Like, you know, there's this like hands off about special needs children. And I I do understand it. I would never want someone to, you know, find humor in the fact that they're special needs. But there's so much humor to be found in in their behaviors as there is in any other child. But it's almost as if it's taboo for you to talk about your child in any other light that their medical needs or how great they're doing in their therapies. And I do, I do mean that. So you become in this special group where you can't, you don't talk about your children in the same way that all your friends are talking about their children. Because first of all, you can't. Second of all, when you start talking about them, there's a hush that goes over the room because it's almost like everyone is instantly feeling bad for you. As if oh, we're sorry that you have that. Yeah. And nobody knows they're doing it.

Chris 42:12

It's not necessarily but it's happening.

Speaker 5 42:15

Yeah.

unknown 42:16

Wow.

Speaker 5 42:16

It is happening, and it it it kind it gives you a signal that you are not supposed to talk about it. You are not supposed to share those parts of it. A social hustle. And so you find your yeah, yeah. And so you you find a few good people in your life that will allow you to vet and not judge you for it. And you find other special needs parents. But again, they can understand. They're go they're going through their trauma, you're going through your trauma. There's not even, I don't think, space to share. It's just a very like I said, it it's like anything else that's very hard to deal with. Nobody else understands what you're going through. And you you keep it to yourself and you put your head down, you do what you gotta do. As a caregiver, you feel bad for complaining because you're watching your child suffer and you're thinking, How dare I complain and complain about this when they're going through this?

Speaker 3 43:10

Yeah, wow.

Speaker 5 43:11

But it is, it it is, it is very hard to be a special needs parent and navigate the normal world. Do you think we have nursing?

Chris 43:19

I'm sorry. Do you think as a special needs parent that like is there something that you wish people understood immediately without needing an explanation?

Speaker 5 43:30

People understood that you're not you know there's something wrong with your child. I don't know, people about this way of like pretending it's not happening, you know. Um and that's okay. Yeah, like you know, Tatum had a trake, so she had to be suctioned and she would cough and choke when she was a baby. And people just pretend not to be sitting next to me or not to be.

Chris 43:55

I guess they don't know what to do. Right.

Speaker 5 43:58

And we all tell our children like, don't stare at the end of the day. Don't look at them, don't yes, don't stare. Don't look at them. Yeah, don't. But in doing that, you become invisible. And being invisible is really tough. And so, and in this same breath again, I don't know that I would have wanted people to call it out or stare at me either.

Speaker 3 44:16

Okay.

Speaker 5 44:17

So I don't know what the answer is. I just know that it's this almost as if you become invisible in the world when you're with them, and then you become invisible when they're not around because you can't have the same conversations anymore. You don't have the same things in common with the people you used to. Your your whole world changes, and you're no longer all the things that you you used to depend on and and think, you know, who your best friends are. Suddenly the veil comes off and and they can't handle it. So they walk away and then you feel like it's you. I I I went through many years of depression thinking people just don't like me anymore. I'm no fun to be around, and I can see why.

Speaker 3 44:59

Julie.

Speaker 5 45:00

But when I'm only saying this, and I didn't feel it at the time because I think these are very important things to talk about. No, of course, special needs parents out there.

Chris 45:09

So And for us to hear who are not special needs parents, we need to we need to hear this perspective because we don't know.

Speaker 5 45:16

Yeah, and I think if somebody had just acknowledged, gosh, I I really give you so much credit for what you're doing. And and walked over and said, like, can I can I help you with something? Because just even sitting down next to you and being uncomfortable with you. Yes, you know, no one wants to be uncomfortable.

Chris 45:36

Nobody speak on it.

Speaker 5 45:38

So I think a the best way that people can deal with being uncomfortable is just to avoid you. And what they don't understand is it feels personal. And they know it's not, and they don't blame anyone for their feelings. I saw it with Tatum, I saw it with Colin, but it does leave a special. With this feeling of I am no fun anymore. Nobody wants me around. And I'm just going to sit in this by myself because I don't want to burden other people with how terrible this all is.

Chris 46:07

Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 5 46:09

So I just want to quickly but from the outside, you're smiling and saying everything's fine.

Chris 46:15

Well, this is it, right? You don't want people to know because then once you let people in, there's lots of questions that need to be answered. You got to do backstories, explain. There's just so much where it's just easier to just put the smile on for a few seconds and then I'm I'm out of your face and we're we're good, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 5 46:31

And I think also you're afraid that people will further stop inviting you places if you become even less fun or if you don't talk about good things. You're afraid that even the people that still do stick around are gonna leave too.

Chris 46:44

This is it. This is it. I want to change focus a little bit. And I know there was a second marriage that happened. I wanted to

The Second Marriage And Abuse Cycle

Chris 46:53

ask you, were there any children by the second marriage?

Speaker 5 46:57

Yes, I had two children.

Chris 46:59

Okay, two children by the second marriage. Okay. And these are the teenagers that you talked about.

unknown 47:04

Correct.

Chris 47:05

Okay.

Speaker 5 47:07

And I was just using that as an example. I never spoken about them. You're not going to be able to do that.

Chris 47:11

That's okay. I mean, that's hey, it's fine. It's fine. I don't maybe they won't even listen to this. So you you're safe. You're safe.

Speaker 5 47:20

No, I'm just teenage. Yeah, they're fine.

Chris 47:23

So the second marriage brought an entirely different kind of hardship. Could you give us some a little insight about that as well?

Speaker 5 47:33

Well, after Colin died, as I said, I was I was grappling with a lot of feelings I couldn't even like put my finger on. You know, I just wanted to move on. I wanted to put it all in my past. But as if you don't deal with things and you keep trying to ignore them, I say many years it was like I had a band playing in the back of my head, no matter what I was doing. So I just wanted to move on. I wanted, you know, I told you I'd always wanted a big family. And I I felt as if Colin and I would have proceeded to, you know, we we wanted more children. I just wanted my life back and he wasn't in it anymore. So I figured, well, uh I can I can find somebody like him or, you know, that I love just as much as him or it or someone to share my life with. And so I ended up getting into a really someone was working in my home, and it it was a really bad situation all the way around, but I couldn't see it. I I was so focused on what I wanted. And I felt like so much had been taken from me that I was going to do what I wanted to do and and have the future I wanted compel or high water. So I ignored a lot of red flags. I I made decisions that I still look back on and try to retrace why. And I naturally, I think, just fell into a really abusive relationship with somebody who was very emotionally abusive to me. And I will say it, you know, I didn't know that I had the guilt feelings of, you know, every day I would have to toward the end, I would have to tell Colin he was dying to his face and lie to him. And, you know, all those things sit with you. And yet you're you're forced to reconcile with them. So my second husband would say things like, nobody likes you, because he knew that was a big trigger for me. Then I would think, you know what, you're right, nobody does. So all the things that he said to me, you know, seemed, seemed real. They became real for me. And the more you said them, the more they became even more real until, you know, I felt as if I deserved everything that I got. And yeah, it was a really bad decade. I was about to say, how long was this?

Chris 49:46

It was 10 years.

Speaker 5 49:48

It was. You know, I I when I when Colin passed, I I had to leave. I I couldn't stand, I became a beacon of sadness in the town and people would see me and cry. And I just kind of felt like if I didn't get out of there, that I would never get to move on because people were holding me into a space that I I probably should have sat in for a bit and you know, really worked through my feelings. But instead, I was like, nope, I'm out of here. And I just picked up and left. I left my family, I lost my childhood friends. And as the years went on and I didn't contact them, or I did, I'll be honest. I I don't remember a lot of the years after that. Um, I lost pretty much everything, every connection, everyone.

Chris 50:31

Is this after the first husband or this?

Speaker 5 50:36

Yes, this is with the second husband. Yeah, I think away with the second husband. Yeah. Yeah. We we moved away to a small isolated place that he wanted and chose.

Chris 50:46

So okay, so he isolated you or you followed, whatever, how it worked, but there was no one there besides you. You didn't have any friends.

Speaker 5 50:54

We moved halfway across the country with four little kids, pregnant with my fifth, no job, no friends, no family up on a mountain.

Chris 51:02

Oh, that's isolation.

Speaker 5 51:05

And never looked back, yeah.

Chris 51:06

Now did the children I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 5 51:09

No, go ahead.

Chris 51:10

I was gonna ask, how did the older kids take to him? Your oldest son, Tatum, did they find him nice? Was he nice to the kids as well since they weren't his children? Was he a kind father?

Speaker 5 51:23

No, he was terrible.

Chris 51:25

Oh, God, Julie. Okay.

unknown 51:27

Wow.

Speaker 5 51:27

Yeah. And and you know, I think again, that that's uh something I struggle with now still. Thank you for sharing. I I I I always have this impression that he was terrible to me and I was some sort of a buffer. And, you know, I I took a great amount of abuse thinking that I was shielding them. But when you are in a house, you can't shield them. And I had this mistaken belief that we only fought at night and text fought, and I was so wrapped up in it, I couldn't see what was really in front of me. So I've had to reconcile a lot of that. He wasn't he was never physically abusive. Okay, but it it emotionally he was he was pretty bad to them as well. You know, came home one day and even his own tool demanded that they all he didn't really ever get to know his own children. Okay, yeah.

Chris 52:21

But go ahead, he came home and demanded one day after that that everyone call him dad.

Speaker 5 52:26

We weren't allowed to put up this as a colon anymore. Yeah, yeah. And he was very, very abusive to my second son, particularly. And yeah, so it was it was a decade. He he did travel for work, so I was left alone a lot, which at the time was was a great source of our fighting. But I will say that looking, it was a blessing, even though I wanted him to be there. It was yeah, it was a blessing that he was never around. But it was almost like I lived in a fog for 10 years. And I think I I was so focused on not remembering the past that I really just checked out of life altogether and became so hyper-focused on saving this relationship. And I think it was because I lost Colin. I lost everything I wanted. And so when my second husband would threaten to leave, I would do anything to make him stay. I mean, anything, anything he said, anything it I I literally would say.

Chris 53:28

And I'm sure he knew this. I'm sure he knew it.

Speaker 5 53:30

Yes. Very well. Yes. And so when I when I would question him, he would threaten to leave and or I'd kick him out, and then he'd start to leave because I knew it was bad, and I'd kick him out, and then when he would start to leave, I would panic. Oh wow. Like, oh my gosh, I can't be by myself, and I would beg him back.

Chris 53:46

And then here comes the cycle cycle. Yep, this is it.

Speaker 5 53:49

Oh, and it went on, yeah, for literally a decade of me kicking him out, then begging him back, then you know, three days of me crying and apologizing for being mad that he would drain our accounts or whatever it was he was doing. How did you realize enough was enough?

Chris 54:06

What brought you to feeling that this is that I'm not going back anymore?

Speaker 5 54:11

Well, you know, the uh the average

Leaving For Good After Hard Truths

Speaker 5 54:14

person takes about seven times to leave an abusive relationship. I think I was probably, if not seven, eight. And we had actually separated for several months. And when we were together, I had fibromyalgia, or at least that's what they thought it was. So I was on all sorts of muscle relaxers and physical therapy. And within two months of us not being together, I used to run 10 miles a day when I was, you know, when Colin was sick and I couldn't run to the mailbox when I was married. And within two months, I was out running five miles again.

Chris 54:45

Oh, okay. That says everything.

unknown 54:49

Wow.

Speaker 5 54:50

Yeah, but he came, he came back and he said, Well, if you really want to, if you're still begging me back, and I wasn't, but you know, you fall into habits and cycles, and then I started feeling bad for him. So we reconciled. And my son, the one I told you about, who was the source of much abuse, finally confronted me. And he said, I don't know why you keep letting him come back. He's threatened to kill you. He's threatened to kill me in front of you. And I've he's ruined my childhood. I don't leave my room. I've slept with you know, some sort of weapon to protect myself since I was six. I don't come out of my room.

unknown 55:27

Wow.

Speaker 5 55:28

And I was threatened, you know, it wasn't anything I didn't know, but I I was forced to look at it and take a hard look at, you know, my my feeling of, oh, I was protecting her and being above her. And I and I wasn't. Wow. That's what I'm saying. Well, he he was 16 by that point. Wow. Yeah. And it was, you know, I remember thinking, I might have stayed in it forever because I really didn't, I felt like I deserved what he was doing to me. But in that moment, I thought, well, even if I think I deserve it, they certainly don't. And in that moment, the veil came off. Yeah. And I I recognized that I I didn't care what happened, I was never gonna do that again.

Chris 56:08

Wow, that's intense.

Speaker 5 56:10

And he did come for me. So I knew that was going to, you know, in these relationships, you do a lot of stupid stuff. It's true that you don't even know why you're doing. You're on autopilot. In the fall. You're just you're so hyper-focused on, yeah. And you do so many dumb things. And then when when the end comes, you know they're coming for you.

Speaker 3 56:34

Yes.

Speaker 5 56:34

You know they're going to use all of your worst things against you. You know you've done stupid things that are going to come back to to haunt you. You know everyone is going to find out what went on in your house. Every, you know, my embarrassment for everyone to think that I lived this perfect life. It was all coming off again. And wow, yeah. And I had also seen him take down other people. So I knew what he was capable of. Wow.

Chris 57:02

Now, when you say take down other people, what does that mean?

Speaker 5 57:07

He would have vendettas against people and go to great lengths to make their lives miserable if they stepped out of line. Yeah.

Chris 57:15

Okay. Okay. Thank you for breaking that down.

Speaker 5 57:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3 57:18

Wow.

Chris 57:20

I want to change a little bit and I want to ask you for listeners who may quietly be struggling right now,

One Small Action Toward Healing

Chris 57:27

what is one action that they could take this week towards healing?

Speaker 5 57:36

For me, the most important thing or the way that I regroup is when I start to spiral or things are really challenging. I I make whether that's a physical or a mental list of all the things that I actually can control. I look at a problem, whether that's illness or bad marriage or whatever it is, and you can't change everything in a day because it takes you day, it takes you years to get where you're at usually when things go bad. But making a list of not being overwhelmed by, oh my gosh, I have to change everything. You know, just making a list of, okay, today I can, I'm gonna go through my bank account and I'm going to cancel memberships I don't need so that I can take that money and put it away to save a little bit of it.

Speaker 3 58:27

Nice.

Speaker 5 58:27

Or I'm going to, you know, see how much my work my house is worth. Or I'm going to sit down with a financial planner and find out how, you know, how I can secure myself, how I can make sure that I'm protected. Because and I'm speaking as a woman, and that's my experience. And so I'm not saying that men don't go through things as as well as women, but again, this is my experience.

Chris 58:53

No, this is it. And this is all we're asking for today, is yours.

Speaker 5 58:56

Yeah. Um as a woman, you're we we care so much about other people. We always we tend to put other people before ourselves. And we think we're keeping everyone around us safe by giving everything we have to them. But I think what we don't recognize sometimes is when we're running on empty, when we're forced to perform and really stand up, we might not have the resources or the energy to do it. So I think it's really important to do a daily check of how am I doing? What do I need in my life to make me feel more secure, to make me feel more accomplished? What you know, again, as a mother, as a caregiver, nobody praises you on it for the for hard work. Nobody says good job. Nobody says, you know, like, oh, you get a bonus this month.

Chris 59:49

There's no Yeah, there's no gratitude given for the work that scene.

Speaker 5 59:54

There is, but the only gratitude that you really find is is seeing the people that you love happy and safe and healthy. And so you constantly uh gauge your own well-being and the well-being of those around you. And unfortunately, that's that's an empty road because no one around you can't make anyone else okay. The only person that you can truly make okay is yourself. And when you make yourself okay, then you have more energy to help those around you. But that little piece always gets lost in the show.

Speaker 1:00:28

It's so true, right? It's so true. Just learning to be able to keep that together, that little piece with it.

Speaker 4 1:00:34

Yeah.

Chris 1:00:35

I love it. I like to ask all my guests this final question is your glass half empty or half full?

Glass Half Full After Everything

Speaker 5 1:00:44

It is so interesting that you say that because in my book, in the first chapter, I there's a whole section that I talk about having a glass empty versus glass full. And you know, I in the book I say, I'm a very fortunate person. You know, I live in in a developed world. I I have a house, I have a car, I don't never going hungry. So I should consider myself with a glass half full, right? But then someone came and they emptied my glass. So I feel now as if my glass is always half half full. But I will say that I think the perspective of your glass really depends on where you started from. And readjusting what you thought you needed, what you thought you wanted. Because I think sometimes those things that we think we want keep us stuck in things we don't want to be in. And by that I mean, you know, I I was so afraid of losing everything when I was in my second marriage. So afraid of losing everything. But when I got on the other side of it, I found out that the things that I really was were so afraid to lose, they never had to begin with.

Speaker 4 1:02:02

You know, there it is.

Speaker 5 1:02:04

It was a hard reality for me to recognize if I lost friends, I didn't have them to begin with.

Chris 1:02:10

Speak on it.

Speaker 5 1:02:11

If I you know, yeah, and that's very hard. But if your relationships are so fragile that you taking care of yourself or making sure that you're okay, or them not giving you the floor to tell your truth, then you never had those friends. They were never your friends speaking on it. Yeah, that is yeah, that's a really nice to you.

Chris 1:02:32

They might have been great acquaintances or comrades.

Speaker 5 1:02:35

Yeah, you might have had a lot of fun with them. And yeah, and they might have served a purpose for you in that moment. And that's but yeah, so I think half full versus half empty really it alters over time. And it it really is about taking an empty glass and filling it back up again, whether that's full or halfway. If you're if you're sitting on a half empty glass, you're still got you still got a half a glass. I still got a little bit in there.

Chris 1:03:07

I love it. I love it. I love it. Let me ask you do you have any final thoughts, anything else you want to leave us with for our listeners?

Speaker 5 1:03:17

I think one of the most important things that I've learned in all of my many, many years here is and the hardest lesson for me was to stop caring what people think because I I've lived a long life of making decisions based on what are people gonna think. Yes. And it really doesn't matter, you know. If you if you there when you make a decision life, you make it with all of the information that is then presented to you, no, not the future of what's gonna happen, not not even the truth, you know, like your truth is not the truth. So if you make a decision hoping for the best with the best of intentions, even if it doesn't work out the way that you want it to, that doesn't mean you didn't make the best decision.

Speaker 4 1:03:59

So true.

Speaker 5 1:03:59

And it doesn't mean that it's your fault. And I think making, you know, always I was always worried about how people were going to see me, whether they were going to think I was a good person. And now I the only person I care about thinking I'm a good person is me. Because if I can look in the mirror and know that everything that I've done to that point has been done not to ever hurt anybody else. If people got hurt along the way, I certainly apologize. And I would never have wanted that to happen, but that was never the intent. So if you were sitting there feeling that way, your decisions didn't go the way you wanted to, you're hanging in there because you don't want to admit you're wrong or you don't want people to think that you're stupid. You're living a very unhealthy life and you deserve better. So care about you, stop worrying about what other people think. And when you get on the other side of it, you'll understand that it doesn't matter. But right now, you think it does. It doesn't. You'll find that on the other side.

Speaker 2 1:05:00

On the other side.

Chris 1:05:01

Yes, Julie. Give it to us, honey. Give it to us. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Please tell everyone how they can reach you if they want to find out more about you, about your books and information. Where do we go?

Speaker 5 1:05:15

So if you go to my website called JulieBarthauthor.com,

Finding Julie And Getting Help

Speaker 5 1:05:20

there is that's like the home base for everything. There is, which we didn't talk about. I opened up a charity that was formed to help women led households. They find their themselves in crisis, whether that's divorce or illness or special needs, even if you if you find yourself in a situation where you don't know what to do, you know, your resources are gone. And really you just need a plan. And that's what our charity specializes in finding different resources and for whatever else there isn't, then we try to provide a canopy for. But our goal is to give you a master plan of how to get out of wherever you're in. Nice, healthy, safe, and on the other side. So it's called the Colin James Barth Outreach and tabs for my charity is on there. If you want to get involved, if you want to read more about it, if you want to volunteer, and certainly if you need help, please do reach out. Also on the same JulieBarth Author.com is tab for my daughter. My special needs daughter, who's 25 now, is a self-taught artist, and she's pretty amazing.

Speaker 3 1:06:24

Nice.

Speaker 5 1:06:24

And I can say that because she did it all on her own. And so her art is being sold, and proceeds go to fund our charity. So if you want to get involved, if you go to her website, find something you like, everything can be custom made. And yeah, the proceed is good to help someone to pay it forward.

Chris 1:06:40

We love paying it forward.

Speaker 5 1:06:42

That's where you can find everything.

Chris 1:06:44

Excellent. Julie, thank you so much for being a guest here on Glass Half Full. We are so glad to have had you today.

Speaker 5 1:06:52

Yes, you're very, very.

Chris 1:06:56

We are blessed to have you and to share your story and just to hear about your resilience and your strength. And just thank you for being vulnerable today and coming in and just being able to, you know, open up your life story and share. I know sometimes going through these stories bring back emotions and things. So we're just grateful for you just, you know, being able to be honest with us and really just share about your life. And so we are grateful for it. And I'm sure people will have learned and we look forward to definitely getting onto your website and finding all your information there. Everything will be listed under the episode because you know people aren't writing things down today. So they'll just be underneath, it'll be there for the people to find so that way they won't be struggling to be like, what did she say? What is it again? It'll be all listed so they can find it easily for that. Thank you for yes, no, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Have a wonderful day, and we will talk to you real soon. Thank you, bye.