A Murderer Took My Innocence | Sue Allen

Her childhood was shaped by instability, rejection, family trauma and experiences that forced her to grow up far too soon. As a young girl, she endured abandonment, homelessness and painful struggles with colorism and self-worth. 

As a teenager, another traumatic experience changed the course of her life and led her into motherhood at an incredibly young age. Rather than allowing what happened to define her future, she says becoming a mother gave her a reason to keep moving forward. 

Her journey would continue through family rejection, dangerous situations, young motherhood and learning how to survive without the protection she desperately needed. Eventually, therapy, motherhood and self-discovery helped her begin rebuilding the way she saw herself.

In this powerful episode of Indelibly Marked, she shares a story of survival, resilience, motherhood, healing and breaking generational cycles.

May Your Wounds Become Beautiful Scars.

#truecrime #truecrimestories #storytime #survivorstory #indeliblymarked

Dominique Kuykendall
https://youtube.com/@indelibleartsnetwork

https://www.instagram.com/indelible_rudy/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

There was this local rapper. He pulls a gun on me and my son and said, then this, I'm gonna send a message. If my cousin don't come up soon, if her body or her don't come up soon, you and your son are gonna end up dead. He had a gun on my head and my son's head. Born in Chicago, raised between Kans City, Minnesota. Um spent half half my life between Kans City and Minnesota. Uh-huh. So um my grandmother raised me for the beginning of my life, and then my brother raised me after she passed. And so for the most part, I was with my brother until I went on my own. How much time in Chicago? Born. Born in Chicago. Don't really remember much of Chicago, but I was just really born there. I remember little bits and pieces of Chicago, but not too much of Chicago.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

So how'd you end up with your grandma?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Um, I ended up with my grandmother in the early part of my life, I think I was around two. My mother sent me to um Chicago with my aunt on a train to live with my grandmother. And I remember getting sent to her because my mother just didn't want me. And so I sent got sent with her, and that was that. So that was the around two years old. And I didn't understand why I got sent with her until later on in life. I understood that well, I didn't really understand why, but I got sent with her, and um, it was an interesting childhood, but it was fun.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

So when you say interesting childhood, what you mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Well, I lived with my grandmother. I went to church six days a week. She dressed me up like a little poofy Barbery doll for six days a week and big poofy dresses and stockings and little um shoes that shine like those little um what are those shoes called? The little dressy shoes with the um what's she called? Pat leather in there. The patent leather the patent leather shoes with the socks.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

I know now I know what you're talking about. The one with the lace on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

The patent leather shoes and the socks and the little big poofy dresses. That's why I would wear to church like six days a week, and it was fun. So it was interesting because I would go to church and Sunday school six days a week, and I didn't realize that I was the only one going to church in the household, and she wasn't going. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

You you enjoy church six days a week.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

You said it's I know no different. Yeah, I mean, a lot of kids was there. I was playing, well, and so I would go, and it was that's all I knew. And so I would just come home. And when I come home, I remember my grandmother, because I have really long, pretty hair. My grandmother would take me out of my clothes and brush my hair and put me to bed and things like that. And the only part I didn't really like about living with my grandmother was my two cousins would live there. And um, when my grandmother wasn't there, I don't really know what she did. I never knew like what work was, or I was young. I just remember, I think I was a little bit older, that um when my grandmother wasn't there, my cousins used to kind of like beat me or do little things like that because I would tell when things happen in the house. My cousins would have boys or something. And I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to tell, but I would get in trouble for my cousins when I would, I guess, snitch on them or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

But um they would hit me or something like that because I would snitch, like like hit hit you or something like one of the things.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, they would like beat me because I would like, oh, they had a boy in there and they was like doing stuff, and I would just tell because I know just talking. Talking to my grandma, like this is what's happening when you're not around. How much older than you? You said they are? Oh, my cousin, they were like teenagers, they were older, it was really old.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

And you was between the range of what you said, two to five or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I was at that time probably like three, four. Yeah, I was just talking like kids do, and I just remember getting beat up by my older cousins, and they had to, they couldn't have been too, they had to be older, but not like oh too old to be doing what they were doing, having voice over and doing the things that they were doing.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

Yeah. Uh what's your gr what was your grandma doing at the time? You don't know?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

I don't remember because I didn't know what she would do when I didn't see her. I didn't know if she was going to work, I didn't know what that looked like. So I knew she wasn't with me.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

And they had you so scared that you wouldn't even tell on them about beating you up. No, I didn't tell. You told about the other stuff, but you were.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

But I didn't know I was telling. I didn't know it was snitching. I was just talking. I was just like, oh, this they had the boys in the house and just talking. Then eventually they say, you better not tell. Then I knew it was wrong not to tell. Well, I was told it was wrong if I was telling.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

So do you remember the worst they did you? Did it make you feel like alone?

SPEAKER_02 6:20

The worst they did me threw me down the stairs. Oh yeah. That was the worst through throwing hot water on me. That was the worst they started doing me. They used to do me bad. And that was when the abuse started. That's when the physical abuse started. The abuse started when I got sent to Kans City, and I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

So what you mean?

SPEAKER_02 6:46

The abuse, um, the abuse started when I got sent to Kans City, meaning the abuse started when I was born when I didn't, and I didn't realize it because I didn't recognize that the abuse started when I was born because of the color, color of my skin. So with my mother being so light, and when she gave birth to me, I was dark. She couldn't love me from the moment she gave birth to me. And so she knew that she didn't want me at that point. So she gave me to my grandmother. And so at that point, it the abuse had already started from birth, and I didn't recognize it.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

So how do you know that though? How do you you had a conversation with your mom?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

I had a conversation with my mom at 25. Um, but I didn't know any of this growing up. I didn't know. I just knew that over the years that I was called ugly. I was called fat. And my whole life, I was just like, I knew I wasn't fat. I was never fat. I was, I always thought I was ugly. I always was like, oh my God, I'm so fat. I'm just, I'm never anything. Like I always thought I was the baddest everything out there. I always wanted to die. I always just wanted to just be the back, the back of everything. Because I was always felt like the ugliest person on earth because that's what my mom told me I was, or how I felt that I was. Whenever she did see me, she made me feel that way. And so once I um my grandmother um passed away when I was six.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Um, she sent me, but I had a great life with my grandmother. Um, I did, I enjoyed that. I learned a lot.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Besides the besides the abuse. Your grandma was good.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

What was going on wasn't so good. No.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

I don't want to confuse that like what was going on with my cousins was not good. But my grandmother was amazing. Um, she was a great woman. She she sent me back to Chicago with my mother. But before she left, she always used to tell me I'm going to I'm going to um Las Vegas. And I'm going to go to Las Vegas one day. And she always wanted to go to um the Mandalay Bay. I remember her always saying she wants to go to the Mandalay Bay. I never knew what the Mandalay Bay was.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

I still don't.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

And um I said, oh, okay, Grandma wants to go to the Mandalay Bay. And I in my mind as a child, Grandma wants to go to Mandalay Bay. My grandmother, it was this little back in the day, they had these little suitcases. And when I watch old time movies, I remember seeing those little bitty suitcases, little hard suitcases.

SPEAKER_04 9:56

I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Tiny little hard suitcases that the women, little prestiged women, would carry. She had her little um green suitcase, and she packed it. And I remember her putting a little gown in the suitcase, and that was it. It was it. And I remember her packing my luggage, putting all these snacks in there, putting everything in there. And um her putting me, taking me to the bus station, had my aunt, um, she's no longer with with us anymore, taking me to the bus station and sending me off to Chicago back to my mom. I did not want to go. I remember did not want to go.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

This was just for a visit?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

No, she was sending me back.

unknown 10:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

She said, You have to go. I love you. And I said, Okay, I love you too. I didn't know what was going on. And she got on the bus too. And um, this was 1990. And I said, Okay. And so um my little sister, I think she just got born. And my grandmother got on that plane. I mean, got on the bus, not the plane. She got on the bus, I got on the bus, got to Chicago. A few, I don't say a few weeks later, a week or so later, we got a phone call. My grandmother passed away. She went to Las Vegas, Madalay Bay, laid in the bed and died. She knew she was dying. She went to the hotel and died. She knew it. That's what she wanted to lay her head and die. April the 4th. I remember that.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

And you were six, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

I was six.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

How did you receive that news at six?

SPEAKER_02 11:50

I don't know. Like internally, how did you I can remember everything said that has ever happened to me. I can remember what I had on. I can remember a smell, I can remember a curtain, I can remember the creak and a floor. Every single trauma moment that has happened to me, I can remember. And I don't know how I can remember that. And it can play in my head every single time. And so with that, I just, and I wasn't there. And like when we got that call, I don't know where I was. I'm I'm I know for a fact I wasn't with my mom. I just know I wasn't with her. But I just remember someone telling us or telling me she passed away. Somehow we come back to um Kansas City for a funeral. It was just a one-way bus ride here to Kansas City. And uh we're supposed to just come for a funeral and go back to Chicago. But somehow we got here and we didn't have any money. We didn't have anywhere to go. So we came here, we went to a shelter. We came here for a funeral. After the funeral, we went to a shelter. And um it was great actually to be at the shelter. It was great. Because we had food, we had stuff, and somehow they gave us money um to get back to Chicago. So we ended up going back to Chicago for a little bit, and then somehow, some way we um end up getting money to come back to Kansas City for something. I don't know however it was, we came back here. Got the first, she owned her house. We came back here, and her house um was on 45th in Virginia. It's kind of right across the street from um that detention center. And there was house, it was left to me. But I was so young, they didn't give me the house. But they could have given me the house, um, but someone just had to be over me. Yeah, they signed the house over to someone else. The house didn't transfer or transfer over to so many different people now. The state owns the house. I think the house still may be there, or however it is, I never got the house. And no one in the family owns the house. But anyway, um, so much had happened with my family with being back and forth from Kansas City to Chicago within a short amount of time. We ended up being back in Chicago for a little bit. Um and my mom, we we moved to the project. I think it was something called the O Block at this point. We were we stayed in the O Block. And it was craziness at that point. And um I think we ended up getting put out for something. Which is the craziest thing ever because it was the trenches, the cheapest place ever ever. And um, I remember my brothers, no one lived there. Um, it was no one there besides me and my sisters, me and my two older sisters, and my two younger sisters. Because at this time, my little sister was still just a baby at this point. And I don't know what happened where we got put out, but my mom ended up leaving. Well, me and my two little sisters and my mom ended up leaving. And I remember her dropping me and my two little sisters off at an abandoned building. And when she dropped us off at an abandoned building, she left me and my two little sisters there. And when she dropped us off, she said she'll be back. She left us there for two days. I remember just being scared. And when she came back two days later to pick us up, it was raining. And so in the midst of it raining, she opened the cab, it was a cab that pulled up. She opened up the cab door and she screamed for us. She didn't come to get us. She didn't say, Hey, Sue, are you here? She didn't try to walk and come together. She didn't try to come to see if we're okay. Sue. Hey, Rena, Sue. We're like, I'm looking around. I come around the building, like, look around the door in an abandoned building. Doors, no doors, no nothing. And go out there, and I'm running to the door. She says, Don't text alone next time. Two of my me and two little sisters. You couldn't even come and get us. Because she had to work. So my mom's a stripper. She couldn't risk getting herself wet to come and get her three little kids that you just left in an abandoned building for two days. A little crazy.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

And you around six at this time?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

I was around six. Still, I was still six at this time. Because all this so much happened. It was a it was a lot going on at this time. Still around six at this point.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

And your youngest is like a baby, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:47

The youngest sister, she's still a baby. She was little. She was really, she wasn't like tiny, tiny. She was still little. I think she was maybe around five, six months. She was still little.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

That's tiny.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

So that means she's crying throughout the night. Two nights. Two nights. You don't have the resources to feed.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

There was no food for none of us. There's no bottles. There's nothing at all.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

Nobody ever peeked in there or nothing like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

No. Anything could have happened to us. Anything could happen to us. I don't remember if there was, I mean, I'm pretty sure it was like other people in the building, like addicts or something like that, but no one ever messed with us. But no one checked on us to see if we were okay. No one gave us food. No one gave us water. No one gave us anything.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Well, you said you sing other addicts in there.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

I don't I didn't see anything in particular, but I'm sure of it had to be. I mean, Chicago in this abandoned building. I'm sure it had to be others in there. But no one ever messed with us or anything like that. But the fact that she left us there in that abandoned building and came back and made it seem like it was my fault for taking so long to get to a car in the rain with two little kids, and she didn't even try to come and get us. Just opened up the cab door and screamed for me to come to the car. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

At six years old, you the obviously the oldest in that situation. Did you do can you remember taking a position of protection or whatever, protector or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Mm-hmm. I do.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

So what was the the nights like in there?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

I can't remember. I can't remember. It took a lot of therapy for me to get over that.

unknown 19:46

Understood.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

It took um, I went to shock therapy to get over that moment. That was very devastating. I had nightmares for years. I used to wake up at night sweating, thinking about that. I had to go through a lot of therapy to get over that.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

What is shock therapy?

SPEAKER_02 20:05

So I had to go to a psychiatrist, and um, they put this device over my head, and they literally had to shock my brain to get that memory and to get that feeling out of me. So it's a shock therapy. They shock that feeling out of me. So that's how I'm able to talk about that. I used to not be able to speak about that because it hurt so bad. I used I used to just cry and I used to just shake thinking about that moment. I used to see it and feel that the raindrops. I used to feel every single raindrop. It was that bad.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Yeah, I've heard of people like uh I had a few people sit here and say they when they go through like whatever type of therapy they go through and they start to remember that stuff, they start to cut, they can feel the actual moment happening and stuff like that. So I do understand what you're saying when it comes to that. That buggy's making me mad, I ain't gonna lie. But uh going back to like staying getting in the car with your mother, right? What was the extent of her anger with that as far as y'all not getting out there?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Oh, so I remember getting back in that car. I remember getting in that car and her telling me, don't take so long. You don't don't take that long next time. She didn't say anything else to us. Nothing else. I remember her flirting with a cab driver. I remember her talking to the cab driver. I don't I don't remember her ever checking on us or grabbing my sister. I don't remember her doing any of that. None of never.

SPEAKER_04 21:52

And you said she had to go to work, right? Because she had to keep her hair right and so yes, she was going to work.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

She was because Um, she had to make sure she was perfect. Yeah, my mom was beautiful, mom was gorgeous, always was gorgeous. She used to make sure she was perfect.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

So, where do y'all go? Where do y'all go when she go to work?

SPEAKER_02 22:15

I don't remember. I can't remember. I know we lived in shelters a lot. We lived in shelters. So whenever we were living in shelters, she had to be there when we were living in shelters. Um, because she she couldn't leave us in the shelters um without her there. So a lot of times she would make sure that we were, she would get her way to make sure we have our our housing. So I can't quite remember where we were, but it was 10 of us at that point. Um all my brothers were much older than me.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

And so Oh, so everybody before you are boys.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

So there are there was 10 of us. So it's two older sisters. I have two older sisters and five older brothers. Gotcha. So at any given time, it was more than likely older sibling who had us. So I can't quite recall where we were, but someone probably had us. I don't know. A lot of my life was so blur, yeah. More than likely try to forget a lot of it. But once we came back to Kansas City, my brother had, I was with my brother, one of my older brothers. But I don't quite recall a lot with my mom because my mom didn't raise me. I'm grateful for my mom, but I'm grateful my mom didn't raise me.

SPEAKER_04 23:51

So there was, so you can't remember as a kid no good moments with your mom as a child?

SPEAKER_02 23:57

No. No.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

No.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

And I I noticed you called her beautiful and she was just so pretty. Did you feel yourself trying to live up to that? Because she called you ugly and all of that. So with her being light-skinned and pretty, did you find yourself trying to impress her in type of ways as far as like getting yourself together?

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Yes. I always wanted to be like my mom. I always wanted to please her. I always wanted to be like her and my sisters. I always wanted to be lighter. I used to try to um not necessarily bleach my skin, but only I can we had access to was peroxide. I used to try to put peroxide on my skin and go sit in the sun and see if the peroxide would make me lighter. I used to be really, really dark. I used to be so, so dark. Way darker than I am now. But I love my skin that I'm in now. Um, but I used to try to sit in peroxide and just like, oh, make me lighter. It never worked. Ever worked. And we didn't have running water a lot of times whenever we were, when I did live here in Kansas City with my mom. Um so I couldn't say I needed to try to um go and take baths and screw up my skin because we couldn't necessarily go take baths because I didn't have the water. So when I lived with my brother, and grateful I live with my brother, I took baths all the time every chance I possibly could. But when I did live here, I tried to join when I was in school, I tried to join every activity that required a shower, everything at school that you could possibly do that required a shower. So, like the swim team, um, cheer, dance, um, anything that you would take a shower at school. So I would take a shower to scrub the black off of my skin to try to look lighter so I can look like my mom, but it never worked. So anything that I could do to make myself lighter, I would try to do. But that was the first step of me trying to look lighter, yeah, to be like her. But then also my mom was tiny. My mom was maybe five, one, maybe. But I knew like I had to be small. So, I mean, it was no problem not eating because we were poor. So I would still try to skip as many meals as possible to be tiny, but all the way up until I was 16, I was maybe 100 pounds. Maybe, but I was still called fat. I was fat because I ran track and I had athlete legs. I danced, so my legs formed at a shape.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

So that wouldn't go anywhere. And I didn't know that at the time that me dancing and me running is keeping me as a certain shape, keeping my butt formed, keeping all this up. My mom's like, your butt is too big. And at the time back then, having a butt was bad, it was bad.

unknown 27:23

Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

And so I'm like, oh my god. So I used to try to walk with my butts tucked in, so I'm walking like all pushed in weirdly. Uh-huh. And I'm like, well, I don't really know what to do because I have a butt, but I'm making me have a butt because I'm running track and I'm doing all of this stuff. But now I'm super fat. I'm black. My hair is long. I was punished because my hair was long. I was like, I just cannot win. My sister's hair wasn't the type of hair that I had.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

So nothing I did was pleasing her, but everything I did was try to please her. When I told you, I would try my best to be perfect. I tried to do nothing wrong at all to please her, and everything I did disgust her. So years down, um she sent me to Minnesota to live with my brother and his wife. And I was happy because his wife, my brother's wife, um, she when I first seen her, she was dark skinned. And she was in college. I don't know if she was in college, just graduating college, and I was just like, she had this beautiful shape. And I looked at her and I was like, oh my God, like she is beautiful. And I said, huh, I want to be like her. I no longer want to be like my mom. I said I want to be like her. She's beautiful, she was dark skinned, she's beautiful. And I just walked around, I was like, look at her. And I'd see nothing else. And she was just like a ray of sun. And she seen me and she just was like embraced me. And she just was smiling at me, and she seen other people. It's like she didn't care about nobody else. She only seen me. And I was so happy when she did that. And so she would take me and we would go shopping, and um she took me to get my nose pierced, and it was like, don't tell nobody. And I was like, I don't think nobody cares. Nobody cares about what I do.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

You were a teenager at this point?

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Um, when she took me my nose pierced, I was a teenager. But some that I jumped ahead a little bit. But when she took me on my nose pierced, I was a teenager. Um, but before that, um when I was in Minnesota, we used to always go to the Mall of America. And she did things with me, like sleep with the fish, and just so much little fun things that you really would do with your your child. It's like she just really have fun with me. And then we would come back here, and then that's when a lot more hate would come. And I always spoke different, I always spoke proper, you would say.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

Oh when you say come back here, you mean come back to Kansas City?

SPEAKER_02 30:40

I went to Minnesota.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

You saying when you moved back here or when so when I moved back, just calming down.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

So when at this point I was visiting Minnesota.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

So this was now I was only visiting Minnesota in the summertime.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

Got you.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

And I would come back for school. And I will live here in Kansas City for school. And then um I would go to Minnesota in the summer.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

So you going being with your brother and his his wife, obviously. Do you think he knew what you were going through back home and may have had conversations with her before you got there?

SPEAKER_02 31:19

I don't know. So I don't really know what my brothers knew. I still to this day don't know what my brothers knew. So um recently, um, I'm gonna go back, but really quick. My brothers, I love my brothers. I love my my siblings. I really truthfully do. But my brothers, I'll kind of just call them like, did you know that this woman said this or whatever? So my um brother, one of my other brothers, not the one who raised me, I said, Did you know my mama? I said, Did you know this woman said she loved a crackhead? And then he said, What? I said, This woman had the audacity to tell me it's something about a crackhead that turned her on. And he said, No, she didn't. I said, I don't know what it is. She said, my daddy was a crackhead. Obviously, I don't know what, I don't know what her deal was. I don't know. But I mean my thoughts for her to say this is that she seen a crackhead walking down the street, scratching or something, and said, Oh man, he looked good. I want his number. I don't know. That's your mama. I don't know. And he's and my brother's laughing because we try to make jokes of everything because life was like that.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

And so he just laughed and just let it go. So I don't really know what my brothers think. And so for that, like I don't know. My brothers, we never talk about anything. Like, life was so unspoken with everything. We never had like a deep conversation. My brothers, we've never had a deep conversation about nothing. It was always about yo mama, your mama, your mama. It was never like we felt like this, or this happened to us, or this is how we took this, or this is how we feel. It was never that.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

So you don't, y'all, none of y'all really know what happened to the other.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

No.

SPEAKER_04 33:35

But you may have you may have got the shit in because you're dark-skinned, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah, I I'm pretty sure everyone knows that I got the worst of it. I got the worst of it all. They got to act out. I would say my two other sisters, my two older sisters, got to act out. I have one brother who was acting out in the streets. And my mom was like, you know what? No, you're not. She tried with him. She tried, tried, tried. She's like, you're going to do this, you're going to do right. I'm sending you to Minnesota. So she did. She sent him to Minnesota and he got right. Became a Jehovah's Witness. Love him to death. He is amazing. He turned his life around. He's married. He has a daughter who is smart, who's intelligent. This little girl is A1. Beautiful wife, amazing. Turn himself around. But she she told him this is what he was gonna do. And that that was that. But I wouldn't say that she did that for us. It was just like, you fat, you this, you this, you dirty, you dog, you blah blah blah. It was that. It was so many insults for us. But her love for her boys was different than she had for her daughters. But her hate for me was different. Her love for her her other daughters were was there, but her hate for me was different.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Do you know if your mom had any substance issues like drinking or drugs or anything like that? None of that. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Nope. She didn't do drugs and she she drunk beer. That was her drug of choice was a Miller High Life. But it wasn't, oh, she got drunk, sloppy. No, you would never see her do that ever. She was too prestige. And it was beautiful when she did it. She did it with class.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

I don't know if I'm jumping. So, but if I'm jumping, let's get back in line. Okay. It's because you mentioned your dad. You said crackhead or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

If this is later down the line, she just was saying, I was just assuming, because I asked her about my dad. This I've always asked her about my dad since I was young.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

But she will always reference a crackhead whenever I would say my dad. And I would be like, Are you trying to tell my dad's a crackhead? Like, what is wrong with you? And I always would say, like, can you stop and be serious for once? But my mom will always be that joking person who would never take anything serious. And so I wouldn't know anything about my dad until later in life when I nearly was like, I'm sick. I need to know who my dad is. I need to know. But that was later.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

Okay. Cause I the way you you saying it, it sounds like it's later. So let's go back to leaving Minnesota and coming to Kansas City.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

So now I'm skipping some years because those other years kind of don't matter. Skip them some years. So now I'm at Westport. So this is my eighth grade year. So this is when the most traumatic thing has ever happened to me in my life. This is, I've been in and out of Minnesota a few years. Just came back from Minnesota for a while. And this is February. And um my brother and his wife was kind of needing a break.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

I guess they needed a break. So I was back living here with my mom. And we lived on 50th and Woodland at this point. And I really didn't want to come back here, but I had no choice to live there. And at this point, it was a lot of people in this house. My mom worked um 7 to 11. 7 at night to 11 in the morning. No, 11 to 7. 11 at night to 7 in the morning is what it was. She was a nurse at this point. And um my older sister was in charge. So at this point, a lot of neighborhood people who was in and out of our house a lot, her, a lot of her friends, I hated being there. It was so unsafe. And um we knew to be in the house when the street lights come on. I always try to make sure that I'm in a house. We always was being in the neighborhood dancing. We were known as the, I for me in particular, I was being in the neighborhood, like making up these little dances, the drill team. I was always the head of the line. Um everyone was like, Sue, we're gonna be out here making up the dances. I'm like, yeah, I have the dance routines down. Like we would do that in the daytime. But I'm we're gonna be in the house before the street slides come on. And that was our daily routine. This particular night, um, I came in the house, went to bed, my sister friend, he came in to the house. It was late at night, and um my two it was two little sisters in a bed next to me. Two little sisters, and my sister and an older sister in a bed next to me, and then me and another sister in a bed in my bed. My sister friend, older sister friend came into my bed, climbed on top of me, and he said, You better not scream. He raped me. This was two weeks after my two weeks after my first period. He raped me and told me if I ever tell anyone, he would kill me. This guy was speculations of killing a young girl in the neighborhood who had been missing for years. I he told me if I tell somebody, he would hit me in the head with a doorknob at that moment and kill me. I was scared, but I knew at that moment that I was pregnant. Never had sex before. He took my virginity, he raped me two weeks after my first period. He took my innocence, he took everything from me. I no longer danced anymore after that. I no longer did anything. I went silent. I started peeing on myself at 14 years old. I was already small. No one knew anything about me being pregnant. I never told anyone. Um the fact that he raped me with a room full of people and didn't care. And is my sister's friend. After my older sister got her own place because she my sister was kind of known in the streets. She ran with the toughest of the toughest in the neighborhood. Um she uh got her own place. My mom kind of got tired of her because she was stopped going to school. She was in and out of um like girls' homes and things like that. And so my sister was my mom's like, I'm done. So she got her own place. So when she got her own place, my mom was like, Y'all go over to her house on the weekends. I didn't want to go because that's her friend. So when if I was to go over there, he would be there. So he would rape me there when I would be there. And so my sister would leave, and so he would put me in the back room and he would rape me in the room, and so I'm constantly being raped by this guy the whole time, and so um finally my mom finds out I'm pregnant. I was just about to give birth to my son, but um I passed out. Woke up in the hospital, about to give birth to my son. Um, the reason I passed out was because the whole time, mind you, I've never had sex before. I was a good girl. I was so good. And I couldn't believe that that happened to me. I couldn't believe that no one noticed that I was no longer from that moment. I was no longer who I was. I was no longer dancing anymore. I was no longer um, I was no longer me. And the fact that no one noticed, I mean, I knew no one cared, but like literally no one noticed. Like it was sad. It was pretty terrible. But yeah, I woke up in the hospital. But what made me hurt the most is that the man who raped me was there. And he was there because my mom, my sister, my oldest sister knew who the dad was. My older sister knew who the dad was. And he was there. But I was so terrified. And thank you. And the um I was looking at the nurse. And the nurse, the nurse was like, no, he needs to leave. He needs to go. And I was like, yeah. The nurse was the only one who protected me. And no one else did. But what got me, what made me pass out in the hospital was the fact that he gave me a sexy transmitted disease that was curable. Nothing that was nothing that stuck at all. And so um, but it had made me so sick because I don't know what point he gave it to me because I never had any care. I'd never been to the doctor for anything. I never went for any prenatal anything. So I didn't, I didn't even know you were supposed to go. I didn't know anything about any of that. I was 13 years old. So now at this point, um, I let me see. Okay, so now my mom, I have the baby. I come home from the hospital, and my mom's like, there's no child of mine who's gonna have a baby, and the giving have an embarrassment in the neighborhood. I'm gonna raise this child as my own. No, you're not. No, you're not. You're you're not going to um take my child. But at this point, I was like trying to figure out how to kill myself before all of this. I was trying to figure out because I was tired. I was already tired of trying to please my mom. I was tired of trying to be the perfect person. So I looked at my child being born. And so the time of me being pregnant, I was trying, I chose to keep my son because I looked at it as a blessing. I looked at my son as God sending the devil in to send me a blessing because I wasn't listening to God. I had a brighter reason to be here. He needed me to be here for a reason, and I just wasn't listening to him. So he needed to send this man in here to send me a blessing. So I look at it as like he saved my life. That man who came in there and did that to me, he saved my life. Like, if I had a chance to see this man, because he's in jail, so that speculation of him killing someone, he really did kill that girl. Um, I would thank him for saving my life that day because I was trying to kill myself. I was trying to figure out how to kill myself. I was trying to figure out how I could do something. I never acted on anything, I never did any of that, but I wanted to. I would try to walk up and down Paseo at late at night at 12. Well, I was 13, 12 and 13 years old, trying to walk up down Paseo in a neighborhood, hoping someone would kidnap me, hoping someone would kill me, hoping someone would do things to me. But no one ever did. Because they knew me. They knew my sister. Because my sister has such a big name in their neighborhood. So I was trying to do things to do things, like to get someone to kill me, hurt me, but no one ever would. So he came in there and did that to me. And so when I came home from the hospital, and I didn't agree to give my mom my son, she threw me out. Um, my brother came back from Minnesota and got me. I didn't know he was coming to get me. I just knew my brother was coming to take me to get diapers. And um he put me in a car, and I just remember holding my son on my chest, and I remember driving to the in the car and I fell asleep holding him. And I woke up and we were still driving. And I woke up and we were headed, we were still driving. We were in Minnesota pretty much, and my son was sick. My mom didn't even care to tell me how to take care of my child. So we go to the hospital, and my son was in a um attensive care unit in the hospital in Minnesota for almost a month, or if not longer, and um, he had RSV. And so my brother, pretty much, him and his wife, they helped me bring my child to help. They they helped me raise my baby. We got him to help. Um, they got me in school down there. They they helped me. They were amazing, so amazing. And so um they did the best they could because they were still, they were still young, they were still pretty young. And um they made sure that we had everything we needed, and it was like a little fire, something happened in um our apartment, and so we had to come back here, and so when we came back here, I was forced to go back to my mom's house for a little bit, and so within that time, I hated it. So within that time, my mom she was still angry, and so, but at this point, she wasn't there as much.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

So, um how long had it been when you guys had to go back? A year, a year, a year, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

And so when I came back here, um I had moved back with my mom, and she knew who the father was at this point, so she would make him pick me up. She made him pick me up, and it's always diapers. I'm not raising this child, I'm not buying anything for this child. You need to figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 51:27

I was 15 at this point, and he what, like a good five years older than you?

SPEAKER_02 51:32

I think like seven, eight. This is older, much older. I'm not really sure how old. I don't know how old this man is to this day. I don't know. I didn't know he was older.

SPEAKER_05 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Um, and so she said, you need to call him. So I didn't. So I think my mom called his mom. However, she made him pick me up. And um, she had him pick me up to go get diapers. I remember being in the car, but the whole time he's still not in jail for the murder yet. The police pulled us over. The police pulled us over maybe like five miles past the house. And they pulled me in the back of the car, and um, they said you're safe. And I was like, what? I didn't know what they were talking about. And they had him in the front. But the whole time they were letting me know, like, we know we're keeping the eye on you just in case you he can't do anything to you. So they pretty much let him know that we know that you got this girl. So make sure that she gets back to wherever she's going because they still was making sure, well, they still had an eye on him because he still was under investigation of killing that girl. And so they were protecting me. But here's the kicker. The night that he raped me, they were watching him. They knew he came in my house that night, but they didn't know he raped me. They they watched him come in my house that night drunk and watched him leave, but they didn't know he raped me. They had been watching him for years. And so they still didn't have enough on him to know he killed that girl. He turned himself in for the murder. He turned himself in. He walked into the police station and turned himself in for the murder.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Do you remember how old your son was at that time? Two.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Two when he finally turned himself in. And so um, all of that, so once everyone started finding out who was the father of my son, oh, hell broke loose. I became a target. I became a target because A, you to this guy, I guess everyone feels like he was the man. He was attractive, I guess. I could not tell you what this man looked like if he was standing in front of me. I couldn't tell you what he would he looked like because I didn't pay attention to my sister's friends. He was an older man. I didn't, I didn't know. I didn't care. And that's how I, if it's someone that I don't really care to look at, I don't look in that light, it doesn't matter to me. And so everyone was mad at me because he chose me. He chose to take my innocence away. So they was mad at me. The women were mad at me, girls were mad at me, young girls, girls who were younger than me were mad at me. Girls in the neighborhood were mad at me. Craziest thing ever. So there was this local rapper who found out that he was the father of my child.

SPEAKER_04 55:14

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

He yeah, he was the father of my child. He pulls a gun on me and my son and said, Send this, I'm gonna send a message. If I think it was my cousin, if my cousin don't come up soon, if her body or her don't come up soon, you and your son are gonna end up dead. He had a gun on my head and my son's head.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

So the rapper was related to the I'm guessing related to the girl who was missing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 55:48

Oh, so she was missing. They didn't find her body at this point.

SPEAKER_02 55:52

They hadn't found her body or they haven't, yeah, they hadn't found her body or knew anything about her whereabouts at this moment yet. Okay. And so I'm like, oh my god, it was intense because these two had so much issues with each other. But the that dude, the rapper dude, he was crazy, period. Psycho.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

But tell me who it was out here.

SPEAKER_02 56:25

No, he's crazy. But he um it was a lot, it was a lot, and I didn't like the fact that I had nothing to do with that. The thing is that it was it had nothing to do with me. And people never took the time and say, you were a child, yeah. You were a child. There's no way that you willingly had this baby by this man. There's no way. But people looked at me like, oh, you had this baby by this man. Yay, no. I was a whole different person. I went numb. I went completely numb. Like it was crazy.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

Um I might have missed this. Where where did this the rapper pull up on you at?

SPEAKER_02 57:18

My house. My home. On my front porch.

SPEAKER_04 57:24

You were there by yourself?

SPEAKER_02 57:25

Yes. I was walking off the front porch to go to the store to get food for my child.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Yes. He pulled up to me. At this point, we moved from 50th in Woodland, and we lived on the corner of 51st in Michigan. And yeah, at this point, it was just me and my two sisters' home. And so he just parked his car in the middle of the street, like he owned the dang on block, and no one could say anything to him. No one said anything to him because everyone's afraid of him. But not me. I didn't care who you are. I was saying anything to anyone like I do now. I'm gonna stand my ground.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

This is a person that knew up, that knew who you were prior to finding out this.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

He was close to my family. To the point where he would sit in my home. He would eat with my family. Even after this was over, he was still, he would go and sit, went and sat with my family and ate right after that. Like nothing just happened.

SPEAKER_03 58:31

Right after.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

Right after. You just put a gun on, put a gun to my head.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Did you tell anybody? Like any of your siblings or that that happened, or no, I didn't tell anything.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

So right after that happened, it was just, I was only, because me and my one older sister, she was, I think she was not around as much. And then um my older sister, I don't know where she was. It was really just me. It was just me at this point. And I don't, I had so I had another son, he was sick, he was in the hospital at this point. Um, and the father of that child, he some, I don't know where he was at that point, but he I don't know if they were together or what, but either way or go, I was alone. So I really had no one to talk to. I had no one. I think I told the father that's that child right when that happened, of my other son when it happened. And that was, I had no one. It was literally just me. And so I think I ended up telling him, like, listen, people think that I have something to do with you, and I don't. So you need to get this together. Like, leave me alone. Please leave me alone because this just happened. Because I think I ended up seeing him, because then we went to um the corner stop. It was a store on 51st in Woodland called the corner stop. And he was at the store because I was walking down, and I don't I didn't deal with him. Listen, this is what happened. He just pulled up on me with a gun with both of our heads, and this just happened. And that was it. Said nothing. Yeah, he I was so angry. I wanted to go back to Minnesota, but I had no escape. So at that point, um, I think I ended up moving back. I moved my brother, him and his wife moved to Kansas City. So they moved here permanently for a while. So I end up packing my bags and I moved to their home in Citadel. I moved over there with them for a while. And then at 16, I got emancipated. I couldn't take it anymore. I was tired of moving, tired of jumping around. I wasn't, I was not. I didn't have my son yet. That's I didn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

Because at this point, you said you didn't son, or did what?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:26

No, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to do the timeline. I don't think I did yet because I was, I didn't have my own place just yet. Because I wasn't emancipated. I got emancipated at 16. I didn't have my own son 12, my other son's 16. Because I got emancipated. I told my mom, you didn't make it to my um, you didn't make it to Parents User Conference. She didn't care. You didn't make it to Parents Use Conference. And here's a paper, sign this. She signed the paper. It was an emancipation paper. She just signed it. She didn't read it. She didn't care. It was notarized and everything. She signed the emancipation paper. The next day, I went and got my own place. I moved out. I had nothing. I moved the couple bags I did have, and I got my own place. So at 16 years old, I've been in my own place since. I was on welfare. I moved to that apartment complex over on Linwood. That was my first place, base income. And that's where I lived at for a few years. And ever since then, I've been on my own. So I was no more back and forth to Minnesota, any of that. So at 17 years old, um, I started getting sick. Well, my son came. When my son was born, I got him pregnant at 17. I mean 16. And then with that point, um, so the father um of that child, we got to, I got with him when I was 15. So he adopted my son who I was working with. And so he'd been there and we kind of been together ever since. Got pregnant. My son um was born with his intestines on the outside of his body. And so that was a situation we had to deal with with him. I told him, said, hey, you finish school, do what you do. I was staying at the hospital. I was falling back from school for a little bit. He finished school. Once he finished school, I finished school. We it was just a lot of we made sure we took care of business, what we needed to do for us, because we were going to be failures to everyone because we had kids at a young age, but we made sure that we was not going to be failures. And so um once he um all that, so we ended up getting pregnant again. So I ended up getting pregnant at 17. And so that child I could not keep. So I had another child and I gave him up for adoption. And there was a family I picked. And there's no way I could raise another child with having a child with a birth defect, and going through this court thing with um, because his my oldest son, this man still hadn't been in jail. He still went in jail yet at this point. It was a lot happening. And so state was involved because now my son has birth defect. I have a two-year-old child who I was raped with. Now court, it was just a lot. And so I chose to give my third child up for adoption, but I had stipulations with them. And so said, okay, I need to find a family who is black, who's willing to stay in Kansas City, who's willing to send me pictures, who's willing to um let me see my son who's willing to do all of these things and stay in contact. Found an amazing family. Great, love them. My son came back um into our life at 10, like he never left.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:19

So you always recognize you as much. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

We talk. He's like, Mom, mom, mom, he's amazing. Just turned 23 years old. Um, when I introduced him to his brothers, they was like, You ugly. He said, You ugly. Looks just like um, never skip the beat. He just welcome they welcome, welcome him, he welcomed them. Perfect, fit right in, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:43

So your third son and the second son have the same dad then, because y'all were still together or yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

Okay. So the second son, third son, fourth son. That's all same dad. Okay. And so basically, all four of my sons have the same dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

He raised and you only have the four sons? I only have four boys. Okay, pretty.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Yes, the four boys, and they're all amazing. All my boys graduated high school. I'm proud of that. Um, so um myself and their dad, all of us graduated high school with high school diplomas. No one has G D. Um, all my boys went to college, and I am proud of that, and we did it. And so I we were not going to be the that those parents, like, oh, you had your kids early. No, we're gonna, we're gonna do it. Like, I was going to make sure that I was not gonna be thou that person saying you had your kids early in this and this, no, but you don't know what I went through.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:40

How do you feel like your the way you were raised and like treated by your mother and your siblings affected the way that you parented as a mother and then like the way that your kids interacted with each other? Like, you know what I mean? Because for me, my mom didn't have a really like the best relationship with her siblings. So with me and my sister, like she wouldn't play in that. Like we were like to this day, we're like best friends. So how did that affect your parenting style? Just you, but then also how you made sure your boys interacted with each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

So my boys have never argued fault. Like they don't, they are good. I just make sure that they love each other and I always let them know that you all you have is each other, no matter what. All you have is each other. So I never pointed, put them against each other. So they'll say, Who's your favorite? None of you were on purpose. You all were accidents. Each and every last one of you were accidents, and they all they laugh about it. But I always let them know you all were choices. Yeah, every last one of you were a choice. Yeah, and I needed you not when you all came about. And so, my oldest son, you are the best decision that I've ever made in life. I needed you. I chose you. I chose you because I needed you. You saved my life. I told him that every chance, every single chance I can. You saved my life. And so my oldest son, he's light-skinned. He's so light-skinned. And I'm like, it's so crazy because that's why your mama wanted him.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

Huh? That's why your mama wanted him. Yeah. You are child.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

He's so light-skinned. Oh my kids, my kids are all light-skinned. My youngest, my my two younger ones are lighter tone, I mean darker tone, and mine too light, um, older on lighter tone. But um, yeah, but I'm gonna go back a little bit. So um, my I got sick at 17. And I needed to know my dad. And I need to find out besides my mom. Hey, I need to know my dad. I need to know, I need to know what's going on. My breasts, they're changing shape. They're like a pear. I need to know what's going on. And she's like, Yeah, you don't need to know nothing. I'm like, do we have breast cancer in our family? She's like, you don't need to know none of that. I'm like, literally, I need to know what's going on with my breasts. I need to find out because I'm I'm hurting. So my doctor, I go get mammograms. They're like, you have cysts in your body. Okay. You need to get your uterus removed. I'm like, I am like 17, like, what's going on? Okay. They didn't want to do it, I was so young. So um I got diagnosed with endometriosis. Okay, they start doing Toby scrapes. I'm like so sick. Every year on my birthday. Every year on my birthday, I'm dog sick.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

When's your birthday?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

February 24th. I'm in the hospital or in bed sick day and every year. And so um, when I turned 21, I gave birth to my son. But it was a terrible experience. I was after I gave birth to him, I ended up going back in the hospital. They tied my tubes, and then right after that, they start doing these blazing scrapes, my uterus, every month. And it was just terrible. But they end up over time, they started doing um, they did hysterectomy, then they did um a whole bunch of cutting cysts and removing cysts off of me every year. It was just it was too much. Eventually they were like, okay, we need to go ahead and remove your breasts because that's the next thing. Because we don't know. Now you have like cysts on your breasts. I'm like, okay, I need to know what's going on. Like, seriously. So I started doing a um, I did a ancestry test. And so I found my um I did the ancestory.com thing. Found my dad side. Well, I found some stuff. I didn't understand it. So I hired hired a DNA detective and I had her do all the research because all that crap, you can get it, you don't know what it means. Had her break it down. She finds my family, she's telling me what to say. I find them. They're like, okay, we've we've been looking for you. Your dad's been looking for you. He's dead. He passed away. Man, I start crying.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:34

Like, literally. Do you know how um many years before you found them had he been gone? I think it was two years.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:42

Okay. He had been gone. Then it's like, your dad had been looking for you. Um, you do have a sister and this and this. So they gave me information to my sister. I reached out to her, and I thought it'd be more pleasant than it was. And her first thing was like, what you want with social security? What? No. I whatever. I want to know you. Like, whatever. And then she was like, Oh, he was a crackhead. Oh, okay. So what my mama saying was real.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

Girl, they want you to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:16

I'm like, okay, well, then she says, it's because of your mama who cheated with your mama cheated with my dad, and that's up my family. My mama was married, and your mom, your mama cheated. And ever since then, my mama ain't been right. I'm like, girl, we 30. What are you talking about? We're in our 30s. Can you not get your life together? What what do you mean? And so she was so nasty to me, but I went to meet her anyway. I'ma book a trip, book a flight to Chicago so I can meet you. So I get to Minnesota, I mean to um Chicago, me and my family, they throw it throw this big family thing. When I tell you I feel at peace, I felt like I finally fed in, fit like fed into a big family because like my siblings here, I never feel like I was apart with them because they do things that I'll find out later. Like I'm never invited to family things. I'm never, I'm always like the outcast. I don't find out about family dinners until after they're over. I don't find out about absolutely nothing until I see a post on Facebook. And I'm like, I'm really sad about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:37

So aside from your sister, everybody else on your dad's side was pretty welcoming. Like yes, like they're amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:46

They I I look at them and I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

Are things still rocky with her? Or she blocked me on everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

Oh, okay. She blocked me on literally every single thing. And I mean, I see why. I'm hurting.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

Is she involved with the family, or does she, or she like just kind of like that as a human?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:08

No, she ain't with them. Okay. They are they she's there.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

Okay. Nah, they well, that just seems like that's just her as a person then. So yeah. She's there. Do you still like even though you had the experiences like with your cousins and everybody, like the mistreatment that you had in your life, did it still, is it still, or was it at that time, I guess, still like jarring to you that maybe your sister behaved like that when you first met her? Or were you kind of like, are you kind of like desensitized to people just being like assholes?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:53

I am used to it because people prejudge me all the time. People prejudge me to the fact that they assume that I'm Siddy. I'm stuck up. I worked hard, and I'm okay with people thinking I'm the way I am without knowing me. And I'm okay to it, so whatever. And she just assumed that what she told me was that this is her thing. You dark skinned, you should be more like us, because she's dark skinned, they're more of a lighter tone, a little bit, you should be more like us, you you dark skinned, and I'm like, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:45

Do you feel like the colorism piece affected you more in your familial life than it did outside, like in the real world, in like normal settings? Like at school, was it a big deal? Or like when you started working, was it a big deal, or was it mostly you experienced that sort of thing with your family?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

Colorism still, it doesn't affect me now, but it's still a big thing. So it was it was a big thing growing up. Now I just look at people like they're stupid because it's still people still say things. People say things to me to this day. You are so beautiful because um, you're so beautiful because you're dark skinned. You are so well spoken because you're dark skinned.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:32

No to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:32

No, to be dark skinned. Not because to be dark skinned, you're so well spoken to be dark skinned. You're so beautiful to be dark skinned. Um, oh, your hair is so beautiful to be dark skinned. Are you mixed? Are you mixed? Are you mixed? That's the biggest thing. What are you mixed with? Are you exotic? Where where are you from? I'm like, is that is that your hair? Oh, I'll get people to be like this all the time. All the time. Oh my god. Oh my god, really? Really? I'm like, what? Really? Really what? Your body. Oh, I was told that you got a BBL. You told who who said that? Who? They say, this is what people say. They said you had a BBL. Who who's they? Who's they? Because I don't know who they is, and they ain't never said I had a BBL because I haven't had a BBL. It's them, girl. They is them. I don't know who they is. And why is that a thing? Because I'm dark skinned, I have to look like trash. What is this this thing is, this dark-skinned, light-skinned thing? But I don't get it just from black people. I get it from white people too. I have white clients who say things like that. And I just look at them a lot of times, but my biggest thing was that my mom could not love me. So when I was 25 years old, that's when my relationship with my mom became so good. I set her down when I was 25 years old, and I made her tell me why she could not love me. I made her tell me why she pushed me away, and she told me it was because the color of my skin that she couldn't love me, it was because I was too dark. It was why that she could not love me, and so I I it hurt, but because she was able to tell me that I felt better. I understood. She became my girl, my best friend. Like when she passed away, I hurt so bad. I was I was like, I was able to see her. How were you and she when she passed? Uh she just passed in 21. Oh, I yeah, she just passed. But I was able to have those years. I was able to have a good almost 10 years with her calling me every day, saying the silliest things. Um did she ever apologize to you? Yes. Yes. She was telling me how proud she is of me. She was able to tell me how much she loved my kids. Um she told one of my sons that um he was her favorite. And so to this day, he's like, Oh, I'm her favorite. And he tells everyone, but I was able to see her.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:56

At what point did you stop fighting for her approval or living for her approval?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:03

I stopped living for her approval. When I started loving myself, therapy. When I started really diving into therapy. Um when I was 23. When I was 23, I I really when I separated myself from everyone, everything, I I left everything. Um my home, uh, my relationship, everything. I I had to, and then I had to really sit into myself and really accept myself. I seen myself for the first time, and I was looking back at pictures. I was like, girl, you you are pretty. It's like really pretty. When Hallmart called me back for uh modeling, and I did like a dick photo shoot thing with Hallmart, and I looked back at the unedited pictures that they said they didn't need to edit. And I was like, You're right. They said we don't need to edit anything. You are gorgeous. I say you're right. And people was like, Are you wearing makeup? I'm like, no, I'm not wearing makeup. This is my face. And people just touch me like I'm not wearing makeup. Like, stop touching me. And so that's when I really accepted myself.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:49

Now, um you said a lot, so we gotta take a deep rewind.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:54

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

We gotta go back into the the the right. So that you're in the room with your sisters at this point, and do you feel like anybody heard that?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:08

Okay, so three weeks ago, uh, it was about six weeks ago now. I had a conversation with my sister, and I said to her, um, man, the hardest thing I've ever had to do was tell Vincent about um me being raped and him being a product of rape. And it was like, but that was the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in life. And then she said, Girl, what you talking about? I said, about me being raped from his dad. And she said, What you mean you being raped? She said, I remember that whole night. I said, What you mean you remember? She said, I was woke. I said, My heart drop. My little heart drop. She had to be like 10 or 11. And uh she said, I remember him walking in the room. She said, I watched the whole thing happen. She said, I remember him walking in the room, him climbing on top of you, and him doing all of that. I said, What do you mean? She said, I remember saying everything. I said, and you didn't say nothing? She said, I thought you wanted that. I said, why would I want that? I was 13 years old. She said, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:40

I just thought you wanted that. My heart was in my stomach.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:50

It hurts so bad hearing her say that to me. I can't say she hurt. She said she didn't hear him saying it. But for her to witness it and because I he said it in my ear. Um if I said anything, he would kill me. But she said he heard him, she heard him say something, but she don't know what he said. But she didn't say anything to anyone. That hurt. That hurt so bad that she told no one, she said nothing to me for 26 years. 26 years, and she never said anything to me. But the killer part is all of it. No one in my family has ever talked to me about my son, been how he's been born, how he came about, the dad. No one knows any of that. Ever. No one ever talked to me about none of it. So no one knows, no one knows raped. No one in my family that knows I was raped. Like, no one. They probably all think it was consensual.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:11

Because he's this nice looking dude that everybody wants.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:15

Even if that was the case, no one's ever talked to me about my life. Ever. Even my brother, who my wonderful brother, who took his time to raise me, no one has ever talked to me about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:37

You you yeah, because with your little sister, I'm kinda wonder like, was things going on around that house to where dudes was coming in and y'all it was sex being had in that house with like your and she may have thought it was like a regular thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:56

Not in front of me. No, not so no, not with me.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:02

No, no, not with you. I'm talking about like did you say that was the party house or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:09

Yeah, but wasn't sexual, anything like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:12

No, okay. And also, this moment, did you say there was a party going on at this time too? Or was this just no no no?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:23

So we would make up like dance routines and stuff like that, like just in the days to kill time.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:28

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:29

But no, nothing like partying, no. We wasn't doing it that, but we did have a party. Like it would be when my mom would go to work, they would throw like parties and stuff at the house. But at this particular time, no one, like, that hadn't happened yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:48

But he was welcome in your house. I'm just saying. All the time. So with this body lingering, like nobody knowing where this woman, this young lady is, but they're thinking it was him.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:02

They're accepting of him coming inside of your house.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:05

Yeah. I don't think my mom knew. I don't think my mom even knew anything about him like that. I don't think that I even knew anything about him like that until after it happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:26

So even before that happened with me, I didn't know anything about this man, like that in particular. I just knew it was my sister's friend.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:36

My sister had a lot of older friends, even like even older than him, friends. So it was a lot of men. My sister had a lot of male friends.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:50

Let's just say you did say something, and with your sister's status, you said that she's known out there for some, you know what I mean? What do you feel like would have happened if you told her? Would you have felt, did would she have protected you in that moment? Was your relationship there? Or was it like, nah, I don't believe, I I can't believe that happened in my house.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:14

It could have been both ways. Okay. It could have went both, it could have gone one or two ways. It could have been it could have been him, something happened to him, or it could have been, I don't believe you.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:33

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:34

So I think so. It could have been one or two ways.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:39

Oh, so your mom used to have you, you said a few times she would have him pick you up after my son was born. Yeah, so what was those rides like between you and him?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:51

Quiet, sitting at the door, sitting close to the door, so I can jump out. It's terrified. Terrified.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:00

He wasn't aggressive with you in those times. Like in the he'll be like, loosen up.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:07

I remember him saying, loosen up. Mm-mm. I would sit close to the door. I remember him always having a towel in his car. Like um a dry towel. Always would have a dry towel in his car. But I was just sit so close to the door. He always had like a F-150. But that's where he kept her body. He would pick her body up. Um on holidays and her birthday. So she wouldn't be alone in the back of the truck.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:47

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:50

What we're talking about? That's yeah, he would pick her body up. The girl. The girl. No, I'm there, but I'm like, yeah. So she wouldn't be alone on her birthdays? And holidays is what he would what he told the people. I didn't try to find anything. I don't know much about the case. I try to stay very clear away from him a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:15

So how like going through like I know after finding out all of this stuff, like you gotta look like I'm blessed to not have been in one of those bags.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:28

Yes. I'm grateful that the police protected me every single time that I was alone with him. Because the one time, it was just one time that I was picked up. My mom had them picked me up. Oh, okay. It was just one time um that the police did pull me over.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:51

And it pretty much kind of was like had him knowing, like, nah, I can't do nothing of this when they gonna know what's up.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:57

Yeah, but he had others that were other, he had other younger women relationships with them in the neighborhood or just like all around town kind of deal, or you don't know them. I'm not sure, but it was one little girl for sure. She was younger than me, and she purposely was going to the prison and had a relationship with them. And so I know for a fact that one his wife, she makes she reached out to my son. He's married, he married a guard. Oh, she reached out to my son, and um she don't work there no more, did she? I couldn't tell you. I mean, I don't think she reached out to my son and said, Your father wants a relationship with you. And this was before I told my son who his father was or the whole situation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

And um my son didn't say anything to me about it. And I told my son, when I did finally see my son three years ago, um, I said, Hey, I want to talk to you about something.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:05

At this point, how old is your son?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:07

This was just three, so 23.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:09

23.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:10

And um I said, um, I want to talk to you about something only because at this point I was going through um separation from my husband. I was going through my mom passing. I was going through losing my home. Um, I was going through, I was going through so much at this point. It was it was hard. And um, I was going through losing my breasts. I was going through so much at this point. And um I needed to get this off of him because I felt like I was dying. I felt like I was, I was, my life was ending. So you wanted to make sure he knew. And I needed to get this off of my chest. I said, son, listen, I don't know what's going on with me. I don't know what's going on with my health, but I need you to know. I was raped, and you are a product of rape. I chose you. You were always my first choice. You were not a mistake. Never once you saved my life. I will always choose you over and over again. And I told him the whole situation, and he said, Mom, I always knew that dad wasn't my dad, which I told him that. I always knew dad wasn't my dad, but he's always gonna be my dad. And so you didn't marry him. That's who you married, or okay. He said, Um, I always knew that he was that was my dad, and it was a reason you didn't tell me. And you everything you do is for a reason. There's nothing you've ever done in life that's so sorry. Okay, there was nothing you ever done in life that you didn't make sense of. So um I knew you'd tell me when the time was right. He said, but this lady did reach out to me on Facebook and she said that my dad, who's in the prison, Kansas City, named such and such, is looking for me. I said, What? He screenshot it, he sent it to me. The love what pissed I was I sent that down because we have an expert for 25 years. You're not supposed to reach out. He technically didn't reach out, she did. I sent that to my lawyer. Okay, sure, right? I don't know what happened to it, but but I did my part. I sent that out because you're not supposed to have contact for 25 years. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:12

Is he doing a life sentence? 25 years. 25 okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:16

How'd your son feel after hearing that? And do we do we have any interest in going to see his dad? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:25

I told him, um, we do have I do have contact with the man's mother, just in case, for health reasons, because that's so important. Um, I do know some of the people. And if you want that relationship, that's completely up to you. You do have sisters, you do have brothers. It's completely up to you because that is your family, no matter what, that is still your family.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:54

It's and they are not the ones that did what happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:58

So you do not, you you did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong. If you want their relationship with that man, it's completely up to you because you did nothing wrong. Because you were still a decision that I made to keep you, and I'm grateful I did it. So if you want their relationship with him, you can have that relationship with him. Completely up to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:22

Was he more open to it before you told him what actually? Yeah. I don't or he didn't ever tell you.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:32

I don't know because it was no this is your father point blow.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:37

I mean, like when he told you this lady reached out to me, I mean, after you had told him, and he's like, Well, this lady reached out to me, whatever, did he tell you that they had actually no? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:47

No, we didn't have another, we didn't have a previous conversation before that. It was just like you're a product of this, and then he told me that, but uh he never told you like, well, I did no, you know, get a call from him or nothing like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:01

So he didn't, he kind of just left it at that.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:03

No, he did say he got a conversation, he did have a conversation with uh his brother. Okay. So he did have a he does have an older brother, and he did want to pursue that relationship, and then I don't know what happened with that, it kind of fell through, but he did want to pursue that relationship. I don't know what happened, it kind of hurt my son's feelings a little bit. Um, but that kind of fizzled through, but there are several other kids, but yeah, there's that's a lot of kids out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:36

Yeah, uh uh want to take the time to clear something up for the audience in particular. Or maybe you meant this when you said it, but you said something earlier, like you want to thank him because he saved your life. And for me, I don't feel like he saved your life. You know, uh your Bible lady, or somebody who has uh is familiar with some of the words in the Bible. He may he God might have meant it for good, but he meant it for evil. He had no intention of giving you something to help save your life. He didn't know you were on the verge of suicide or anything. So his plan wasn't to let me go in here and put a baby in her so she could stay. So I think you're giving him too much credit when you say something like that, or and maybe you didn't mean it like that, when you end it like that. It sounds like you just gonna thank him and give him the praise for it. So what would a real conversation look like with him? Because you did say you want to sit down with him or look him in his face or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:40

Um I was saying I would say he changed my life.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:00

He really did. He changed it for sure. Uh with my son, my son changed my life. Yeah. My son changed my life. So in a sense, he did change my life. He did save my life, in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:22

So, I mean, he's an asshole, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:27

But I don't really I don't really know another way to say it because I do feel like a hundred percent he saved me for myself. But also I had to have that deep conversation for my mom because my mom, I looked at her as a devil, he I looked at him as a devil. I looked at so many different things as poison around me, and to I faced them as what they were, and it it helped me, it changed me. And so if I was to sit down in front of him and look at him for what he is, and it would just make me feel better. And I had I had to thank my mom for being terrible because with her being terrible, it made me better. And so I'm grateful my mom didn't raise me. I'm grateful that he changed my life that night because I probably wouldn't be here today.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:43

And you never got to tell her that he did that?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:45

Never.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:49

So again, you you you you giving her credit for changing your life in today, and I think you lose a lot of credit for yourself for being resilient and like staying alive and wanting to stay alive and do that, you know. So actually sitting in front of your mom and telling her that, how did she receive it? Did she receive it like, girl, you're right, I did that for you. Or did she have some some kickback like, you know, I nah, that was fucked up what I did to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:20

I never told my mom that she hurt me.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:22

You didn't have that real conversation with her?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:24

No.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:25

So how did y'all get to the colorism stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:27

I asked her why did she reject me? I asked her why does she hate me? That was the question. I I set her down because uh what she asked me to do something for her today, one day. And I said, I can't. She asked me to come sign some some insurance papers or something. And I said, I can't. And she said, why? And I went over, I said, why do you hate me? Why do you literally hate me? And she said, What do you mean? I said, why do you hate me? She said, I don't hate you. I said, Yes, you do. You've always hated me. Everything you do, you've always hated me since I've been born. You've never had you never raised me. You never let me be around you since I've been alive. Like you literally hate me. She said, I never hated you. I just didn't like the color of your skin. She said, I couldn't have you, I couldn't raise you. She said, You were never beautiful to me. You were you weren't beautiful because you're black. The color of your skin. She said, Imagine having a dark skinned kid with the times that I was born. She said, I had you and you were really, really, really black. Really black. You weren't pretty. You was never pretty.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:48

And I said, Do you think I'm pretty now? She said, not really.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:56

So how do y'all get to the point where she become your girl?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:01

We start talking more. We start talking more. And I said, I think I'm very beautiful. She said, You have beautiful features. She said your body is very beautiful. She said your hair is beautiful. And she started naming little things as beautiful. And I said, regardless of what you think or not, I feel like I'm beautiful. And so over time, weeks, things go by. Then she starts complimenting me more and more. And our just relationship grew. And then she just starts telling me, she started calling me pretty little susie. And then she will say, Pretty, pretty, pretty little Susie. And that's how she, that's how she um had my name in her phone, Pretty, Pretty Little Susie. And that maybe happened a year later.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:01

But what was your relationship besides, you know, what did it become besides, you know, with the uh compliments and stuff? Where did what did it become before she passed away? I mean, what was the time period when y'all actually started uh speaking with each other on good terms, I guess, and then she passed?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:21

I want to say if that was I was 25. What am I 41 now? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:30

Oh, so you was 25 by the time y'all started.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:32

25. Yeah, I was 25 at that point. So say 26. So okay, so here's the kicker. I was 20. This was in I got married in 20, 2014. 2014. She didn't show up to my wedding. She got married. She got married right before my wedding. Because she needs to be married before me. But she didn't show up to my wedding. She drove past. But she said she couldn't show up to my wedding. She just couldn't do it. But she couldn't, she don't like to be inside buildings. But she went all the way to Minnesota for my brother's wedding. But she didn't show up to my wedding. But she got married uh right before my wedding. And but it's like she has to be like right, everything she needs to do is be for me or better than mine or something, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:55

I want to go into uh school. With all that on your on your not your plate, but all that on that you're carrying on your back and all that you keeping in your mind, how are you responding to situations in in school? Uh and I'm not talking about like teachers and stuff. I'm talking about other girls can be nasty. You know what I'm saying? How can how do you and they don't know what you've been through and all that, so your reaction may be a little different. And you you you you seem real sweet too. A lot of times sweet people got a uh a burnout, you know what I mean? So, what did that look like when you were in school and situations?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:38

I got a lot of fights.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:40

I figured.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:42

Um I got a lot of fights in school, and it's the craziest thing. I got on fights because I was nice. I got on fights because the most popular boys would like me. And I would like the most popular boys, but I would be friends with the nerds, the goth, like literally anybody I could be friends with. But the girls would dislike me because of my hair, the dumbest thing ever. I was hated because of my hair looked like we. I think maybe I didn't like do something. She had told me something, whatever. Yeah. And that was my punishment. And then she made me go to school like that. And when I've whenever that did happen, um people's school was like making fun of me or whatever. But it was like, it caused me to get in another fight because of that. But that fight in particular, that fight caused because my mom, this girl, she tried to jump me at school. And I just remember downstairs in the locker room, she told me to meet her. Oh, she was gonna get off on my bus stop. And then she got off on my bus stop. We had a fight off my, I have no idea what I did to this girl. We had a fight off the bus. Then my mom, something happened. My mom told her to go get her mom or whatever, and my mom followed her to her house, and her mom came out, and her her her and my mom was fighting, and then me and her fighting, and then come back, and then I got in trouble with my mom, all because I went to school with this ball spot that she cut out of my hair. But I got in I got into many fights because I was nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:40

Because of my hair was long, and I didn't know what to do. And I I don't. I literally try not to do anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:53

So I had a lady on and that was dark. Yeah. I had a lady. Rashida Inez. And she, like you, my mom was very beautiful and all of that. So some of the things y'all say remind me of each other. But she also said when her mama touched her, it made her very sexual. She wasn't having sex, but she was curious, very curious. Not at the time. She was hurt about it, but she would her mind made her, it made it made her very curious. You also mentioned like having your other son like two years apart. So how was it with you interacting? How did you go into interacting with other men? And was you scared of sex or did you kind of go towards it?

SPEAKER_02 1:50:47

No. Um actually sex makes me cringe. Um when me still still I can see that. So when men flirt with me, it makes me cringe. When men tell me how beautiful I am, or they're about, oh, I will do this and this, it makes me cringe.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:14

So with that, how did you I don't know, I guess not overcome, but like how did that work in your relationship with your husband? Like, how did you get to the point where I mean not that sex is just all that matters, but how did you and him get to the point of you being of not feeling of you not feeling like that with him?

SPEAKER_02 1:51:38

Like, wait, wait, wait, let her finish that first though, like where she was so like going through those processes of trying to I feel like with so sex and being oversexualized. So, what that did to me, it made me feel oversexualized. And okay. What that happened to me, that wasn't what made me feel oversexualized. Not being raped, that wasn't what made me feel oversexualized. What made me feel oversexualized was my mom's husband. She gonna be the one. My mom said that to me. He said that you gonna be the one. I said, what is that? I was maybe 12 at this point. I said, what does that mean? She said, he said, you're gonna be the one. And I believe him. I said, what does that mean? I I'm clueless. Whatever. Go back to dancing, whatever you're talking about. Um I got raped. I sat there in the corner rocking. I just remember being in the corner all the time just rocking, crying, spent most of my time crying. What does that mean? Because I it will play on my mind. And so I'm like, maybe he did this. He sent him here to rape me. He did this. That's all I kept thinking. He made him rape me. And or I didn't think rape because I didn't know rape was. He made him do this to me. Um, but I never wanted that feeling again. I never wanted to feel like that again. Um, and so I knew that I didn't like what that felt like, but when I got with my husband, um, but I had another boyfriend. So after that happened, it was another guy. And so me, him, whatever, we had our little relationship, whatever. And it was just that, but it wasn't a feeling, I was numb, and it was just because I felt dirty. I just felt dirty, something just to get out of my house. But when I got with my husband, at that point he was just my baby Eddie. But but it was more I don't to this to this day, me and him talk about what happened then, because that was 20 plus years ago. And for truthfully, he was my only person. And it was beneficial. I tell him, our relationship was beneficial. He I had something he wanted, he had something I needed. He had stability, I had stability for him. So more like we both had something we each other needed.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:59

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:59

Then I had a I moved out of my own house at 16. And I asked him to this day, I said, Did you truly love me? Or did I did I have a place for you to be at? Because I don't honestly think that you really liked me, especially knowing what I know now. I don't really think that you absolutely loved me at 16 years old. I don't think so. So I think that our relationship was just beneficial and we had kids. And so was I out here in the streets, I loved him. When I put my heart and all into you, that's what it was. When we separated, we were separated, and that's how I looked at it. But when I was with you, I was with you. When I was married, you we were together, we were together. That's what it was. But that's how I viewed it. But I wish it was like that the whole way around. So I don't I don't look at men like, oh man, I need to have sex with you because I see you look good. Like a lot of women who are abused sexually. They look at like, oh, I want to do this and this, and I want that feeling of being touched. I want this, I don't want you to touch me. I don't want you to look at me. I don't want you to compliment me in that matter because it makes me cringe. But I do have a lot of men who are messaging me and saying things to me in ways that make me feel just dirty, objectified. Yeah. And it I had a guy um just recently he messaged me and he said, I'm trying to flirt with you and you're not catching it. And I'm just like I'm not for one, you're talking to yourself. You're in my inbox, you're literally talking to yourself.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:13

But go, I wish that like you will go back and read your own messages to if you have a daughter, which she does, read these messages in your daughter's voice. Like, let's if you were your daughter and you're reading these messages, how would your daughter feel? It's gross. Like, please stop. And that's how I feel.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:35

Do you aspire to be married or to find like another, you know, more prosperous loving situation? No, you're fine, yes. That's fair, it's fair as fuck, girl.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:55

But I I got another question within the sexual part of it. Um and this is this is more for like the audience who's going through this or going through this in a connection type of way, because nobody knew what you went through. Right. And I know around that time how dudes were. Like, if if you we you talking to an older dude and you got a kid, we probably looking at you in some type of way, like, oh, she she going. Or you know what I'm talking about? Yes. So did you get that a lot too?

SPEAKER_02 1:58:32

Like Yes, absolutely, absolutely, and so um, I don't think that even my husband's family even had the conversation with me or him about my son. I just know that they said she got a kid. What are you gonna do with her and she had a kid? Or oh man, you talking to her and she got a kid, nephew, she got a kid. That's what's up, nephew, you know, like but that hurt hearing that. Like, I heard that in the background. But like, dang, nephew, it couldn't have been like, dang, nephew, she had a kid. But that situation, like, what happened there? Like, it was never a conversation or what happened when she got this kid, or whatever. It was always like, dang, she got this kid. She's messed up. Or you you wow, you got a kid. Even to this day, my grandbaby, love her to death. And I feel like that was another reason why God gave me this amazing um young man for this amazing grandbaby of mine. Um, dang, you got a grandbaby, you that young. You got a grandbaby. How is your son? He gotta be like 16. I be like, no, my son's 26. Dang, you had him at what, 10? I'm okay though. I'm okay. You can find out what happened to me. You can see if I was okay before you saying, dang, this you got a son and he's 26. Like you just look at me and be like, dang, you got him at 10. I'm good. My grandbaby's good, my son's good. No matter how old I was, I have a grandbaby. Yes. Sure do.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:47

I feel like you've uh been through a lot, but I still don't feel like uh, and I could be wrong, a lot of it has been like released. A lot of people have been held, nobody's been held accountable for what you've been through. I feel like you store a lot of it up and make yourself feel okay. Um I do.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:10

I do. Um, I've I'm making myself feel okay on a lot. Um, I am still working progress.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:17

I am still working in progress. I still do therapy. I'm still in therapy. Um, sometimes I still go three times a week. Um not a week, three times a month. Sometimes I go twice. Sometimes I go twice a week. Um, sometimes I text my therapist. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll just I'll email her like, hey, I need you right now. Sometimes I call my best friend. I have outlets. Um I am not a hundred percent okay. I'm not my safe word is I'm okay. It don't mean I'm okay, but it's my safe word.

unknown 2:02:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:05

This thing. But my safe word is I'm okay. Doesn't mean that I'm okay. Um, but certain things do trigger me. And um lately I've been getting triggered a lot more than normal, but it's been coming in, it's been coming from in-home.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:30

And um I need to figure that out a lot more. But I am yeah, no, I'm working progress.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:44

Oh, uh, all your kids are like older now, though.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:48

Oh my yeah, my youngest is 19.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:49

So they're they're old enough for you to leave for a long time, like a good month, and do some healing, like some process of healing, like go. I don't know. People talking about ayahuasca and all of this kind of stuff, like like so.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:06

My healing is actually work. I love being at work. I love been at work. Okay, and so I love being at work because doing work, I am I'm a therapist to my clients. Yeah, a lot of people have issues for sure, and being behind the chair and talking to my clients helps me a lot. I had a I had a session today with an older lady. We had a conversation today about pro-choice. And everyone has entitled to their own opinion. Even though my choice was to keep my child, not everyone has that, not everyone wants that choice. But everyone's choice is their choice. Whatever you choose, your choice. But we each had our opinion on it, and by the time she walked out, she seen she she seen things differently than she did when she said sat down in a chair. But um, I do like having conversations, and I'm never gonna change anyone's opinion on what they view things. But I have some clients who come in who's on a break, who wants to end it, and I talk them through it, and I love that. I love that I have a lot of clients who um are going through a lot divorce, separation. I've been through, I've been through a lot, a whole lot. But the fact that I'm still standing here and I've been through a lot with a smile on my face, and these people come into the shop with tears in their eyes and hurt, and I can feel the hurt in their voice, like I can feel the vibration in their chest, and I can just calmly talk to them, and they're walking out, hugging me in tears with happiness, with their hair being happy, and I love it, like I absolutely love it, and then I love the fact that I get to go home and see my kids at home. Like, I love that. So, like I said, all my kids are back home. I love I have the space in my home and my grandbaby and my son's um girlfriend. Like, I love the fact that I have that space there for them to do that, and I could come home to that.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:42

And I'm I have love there, I have love at work, and so you created the environment you didn't have when you was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:51

Yeah, I absolutely I'm healing at work and at home, and so my only time that I feel like that I have the least amount of healing, truthfully, is the car ride from home to work when I feel unprotected. I feel the least amount of protection from home to work when I'm by myself.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:23

I control that. Yeah, you had something. You look like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:27

I was just gonna ask, how long um have you been doing hair?

SPEAKER_02 2:06:32

Um, I started doing hair. I started doing hair when I was 14 to provide for my son.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:38

Okay. Did you feel like because I know a lot of people that do hair, especially like back then? You know, that's that was a real hustle. Like, you gotta really love doing hair.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:50

So my mom, my mom told me that I want to do hair five. So I have pictures when I was five years old with me holding my sister's hair and ponytail before we took a picture because I don't like their hair being crazy in the picture. But I always loved doing hair. And so it became a passion of mine when I was younger and I started on micro braids back in the day, but I kind of progressed into doing like all kinds of things, but now like I'm a natural hair specialist, like I don't do certain things, and I am a strictly like natural hair specialty extensions. I only stick with like a certain clientele. I'm not for everyone, and I don't do everything, I don't accept everybody, and so I'm not how you master it too.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:39

Not trying to dabble in it.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:41

I don't do everyone, and I'm not on social media for everyone.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:44

So I appreciate you coming through, being as transparent as you can be with that type of story, and I uh also appreciate you using your experience for purpose. And the fact that you still believe in God after all you've been through, that's tough. The goal is to leave a lasting imprint on their minds and their hearts. We pray you've been a delicate one. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:14

Hopefully, good.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:16

Don't get your head on the uh, you can't do it.