Women Like Me Stories & Business

You Can't Save Others Until You Save Yourself

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 153

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What happens when a 12-year-old girl locks herself in a school counselor's office to escape her intoxicated, raging mother? For Katherine Ritchie, this moment became the catalyst for breaking generations of family trauma.

Katherine takes us through her harrowing childhood with a mother struggling with addiction and unresolved trauma. From bizarre 3 AM wake-up calls to rearranging furniture to having her mother's hand around her throat in a moment of intimidation, Katherine's story reveals the subtle yet devastating impact of emotional abuse.

After entering foster care, Katherine embarked on a healing journey that wasn't without its challenges. She shares the painful reality of watching her mother spiral further into addiction while she forged a new path with the support of a stable foster family. Through education, spirituality, and mindfulness, Katherine discovered practical ways to heal that transformed her life.

One of the most potent aspects of Katherine's story is her ongoing struggle to maintain appropriate boundaries with her mother. She speaks with raw honesty about the emotional toll of their volatile relationship and the moments of hope that make setting boundaries even harder. Her insights offer valuable guidance for anyone navigating complex family dynamics.

Today, Katherine has created a life filled with simple, healing practices – gardening with her daughter, knitting as a form of meditation, and finding joy in present-moment awareness.

Katherine is a former youth in care and mother to a three-year-old who has intentionally forged a path of self-discovery and resilience. She left her mother’s care to break the cycle of intergenerational abuse, cultivating self-love and healthy, reciprocal relationships. Outside of her personal journey, she enjoys gardening, knitting, crocheting, and training for triathlons. 

Katherine can be reached at katherineritchie1@gmail.com, through her LinkedIn profile at www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-ritchie-bsw-ma-1095882a, or through her small business on social media, @vanislandknits on Instagram. 

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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.


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Speaker 1:

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Women Like Me Stories and Business. I'm your host, julie Fairhurst, and I am so pleased to have Katherine Ritchie here with us today. Katherine was an author in one of our past books actually in 2022, came out December 2022, and the book's called Women Like Me Healing and Acceptance, and Catherine has such a beautiful story of healing and acceptance, and so today we're going to talk about relationships. We're going to talk a little bit about Catherine's story and how, hopefully, you can break the chains of generational trauma if you're experiencing anything like that in your family. So, catherine, thank you for being here. I'm just so excited that you're here. This is going to be a great conversation. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. So, catherine, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, anything you want to share?

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Hi, I'm Catherine. You know it's funny to even just start with my name, so I've always gone by Kate. And then my partner's name is Kit, and so friends started calling me Kat. And then, with my job, my legal signature goes on everything, so people call me Catherine.

Speaker 1:

So I just answer now yeah, that's what happens. And you live, do you live? Do you live on Vancouver Island?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I live quite close to the University of Victoria.

Speaker 1:

Nice, such a beautiful place.

Speaker 2:

It is, it is. I've been privileged to work here and live here and play since 2007, but I've been on the island since the year 2000. Wow.

Speaker 1:

Wow, A lot of people they go and then they never want to get off the island. I have a sister over there who, yeah, tried to get her back on the ferry this direction.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was a stark shift from where I grew up, which was East Vancouver. So the busyness of that compared with the slowdown tone and energy of the island, this is definitely where I'd like to stay and raise my daughter, compared to a bigger hub.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, beautiful. Well, Catherine, why don't you tell us a little bit about your story that you wrote in the book?

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, so I grew up with my biological mom and my little brother who was six years younger than me, and my mother came from a few generations of abuse and violence and alcoholism in her family and unfortunately she carried on a lot of those patterns into my childhood and I didn't recognize it as a child. I didn't see what was going on. I just remembered my mother being in her weird moods, you know, as a child can understand, and it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I started to recognize it was when she was drinking that she was in these weird moods and things became clearer and began to escalate.

Speaker 2:

Um and so as a pre-teen I I had a friend who was going through a difficult time and she wrote me a letter and she was describing suicidal ideation and it was a private letter. My mother found in my room and she told me she didn't want me to talk with this friend anymore. And I tried to explain how I was her main support and I didn't want to leave her. I was worried about her well-being and my mom put her hand around my neck and then got right in my face and said you're not going to talk to her again and I was holding a pencil because I was doing homework and she said what are you going to do? Stab me with the pencil. And I was just struck, just dropped it and she said now go have a shower and get over it. She's coming on. Pretty traumatic thing. This wasn't the first time she'd been physical, I would say she never struck me. There was no nothing, no beatings or anything like that. It was a lot more of a you know a 3 am wake up to go catch a spider or to go help her rearrange the furniture in the living room or to dance with her on like a Wednesday at 2 am. Those sorts of bizarre, bizarre things. So I confided in my school counselor the next day and I told her you know, my mom's going to be so angry that I'm not returning home after school today. If you call a social worker and they have to come talk to me, there's no way I can go home because she's going to be just so mad. There's no way I can go home because she's going to be just so mad. So either you keep this between us and I'll confide in you, ms School Counselor, or if you have to report this, then I'm not going home because my mom is just going to be so mad at me and she said I have to report it.

Speaker 2:

And so I was in and out of classes all day and around 3.30, I was in the school counselor's office and I could hear my mom enter the school yelling drunk where's my daughter? What the fuck? And you know choice words for anyone in her path. And school counselor stood up and left the office and I closed the door and locked it. So I locked myself in the school counselor stood up and left the office and I closed the door and locked it.

Speaker 2:

So I locked myself in the school counselor's office and my mom is now yelling at the school counselor and I go to the back of her office and I hide underneath the desk and I'm just holding my knees and I'm rocking and I can hear my mom banging things and yelling at any admin staff at the front desk.

Speaker 2:

And I come out from underneath the desk and I noticed there's a window that I could escape things that go through your mind. And then I go to the door of the school counselor's office and it's one of those rectangular glass windows with the wires and I just remember thinking thank God, the wires are there, like she could get through the glass and I can see her. And then the school counselor comes back into the office and she says to me Catherine, your mom's arrived. She's very upset, it looks like she's been drinking and we're gonna have to wait for the police to arrive to hold her back so that we can get you out of the school. And there's a social worker that's gonna come and take you into um their care for the evening. And I was like, wow, I'm gonna be so grounded dear.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So the police show up and the exit out of the office was a very narrow hallway. So there was a police standing on either side of my mother and I had to walk right past her through this narrow hallway and I remember like looking at her before I passed and she just stared at the ground and I was just so concerned that she was going to reach out. But she never did and I walked out and right at the exit of the school was this, um, like a GT red sports car. This was my social worker car and I'm like cool, wow, what have I been missing?

Speaker 2:

And the social worker comes out and introduces herself to me and my counselor and I get into the car and she's like I understand, your little brother is at home alone, six years old, so we're going to go to your house and we're going to try to pick him up. I thought fantastic. So we get to my house and she says, oh, and I should say the house was about two blocks away from my high school, so I was worried that you know, if we spent very much time there, my mom would be back very fast and hell would be unleashed.

Speaker 2:

So we're knocking on the door. She's like you can't enter because technically you've been removed from care and if you enter it will be a break and enter and you could be charged. Let's not do that, okay. So I can't go to my house, can't get any of my stuff Banging on the door. Ross, ross, answer the door. Answer the door. No, answer, we're banging, we're yelling. Neighbors, neighbors, are looking out the window and they've seen social workers at my house before. They're banging. I can't, can't see him, can't hear him, don't know where he is um.

Speaker 2:

And then we hear from behind us get the fuck off my property, mom's home, um. Social worker says kate, get in the car. I get in the car and as I get into the car I see my brother open the door. So if we'd had 10 more seconds we would have had my brother in in care life. Yeah, we drive away. My mom goes in the house with my brother and I never stepped foot in that house again and that night I spent in a hotel room with the social worker. And the next day we went to the office and I met a new social worker and I learned that getting attached to a safe adult was not something I could really rely on at this point. Because already I thought that first social worker was so cool, red car, probably in her 20s, you know, fresh out of school, a hero, pretty girl and I thought, wow, social workers are awesome. She's going to be like my new big sister, and I never saw her again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, why do you think your mom was the way she was?

Speaker 2:

I don't know if anyone's seen the movie Mother Dearest, mommy Dearest, but my mother told me that hers was very much like the the mother portrayed in that film, and there's one scene in particular that my mom said happened to her very similarly uh, where, um, the mother trashes the bathroom, baby powder and makeup and water and just crap everywhere, and then the mother drags the daughter in and says clean this mess up. So a lot of mistreatment, again, not necessarily being beaten, and I think that's the obvious call to abuse and violence is the physical assault. But when that's not there and it's less obvious, I think that can be so damaging.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Emotional abuse is yeah, it's so damaging and sometimes we don't recognize it, we don't see it for what it is, but it sounds like intimidation, you know, with the hand around the neck and you know never actually striking but scaring someone.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, it's, you know. I just, I know even with my mom she had her trauma and her trauma affected us and I had a baby at 14 and my brothers are drug addicts and my niece died and it's just people not being able to deal with their shit and just can't face it or whatever. And I think that the fabulous thing about the generation that we have now is that we're more open, we want to deal with things, that we're more open, we want to deal with things, we want to heal so that our kids can have better lives and our grandkids can have better lives. And I think for my mom anyway for her, you just didn't go to counseling. It was, you know, shut up, don't talk about it, carry on with life, but but it comes out, yeah yeah, absolutely does yeah, so how did so you?

Speaker 1:

so how did you heal? What did you do to help yourself, because you've come a long way?

Speaker 2:

You know, one beautiful trait I believe I inherited from my mom was her spirituality. Believe it or not, my mom lost her virginity very late in life and she was going to be a nun. She was raised Catholic, as was I, and then she, whoops, got pregnant and one night stand and I came along that kind of shifted things. And when I was a young girl I remember I was caught on the balcony once and I was just making this noise she said this like melodic, there's like a tone and some you know rhythm to it, but it wasn't really words. And she's like what are you doing? And I said I'm singing to God to save the world. And she said, okay, keep singing.

Speaker 2:

I would go up to trees and I would hug them and I would thank them for the air. I would go up to trees and I would hug them and I would thank them for the air. And only later did I learn that when you hug trees it can actually help to regulate your nervous system. So there may have been some things there that I was tapping into and I really held on to that connection with the natural elements and felt this interconnection with air and with earth and with water, just how everything is really blended together and nothing is fully separate. And for me, that's how I find God, or find my spirituality, and that has been an immense part of my healing journey. It's very individual, it's very solitary and at the same time it's completely not, because it's just interwoven with all of the energy in the world around me.

Speaker 2:

So, being in the present moment, um, I went into college after high school, uh, and I got a social worker degree because I wanted to save my mom. But I also learned a lot about, um, self-care and meditation. And I, you know, I wish I meditated more. I'm sure it would do me wonders. And I, you know, I wish I meditated more. I'm sure it would do me wonders. I don't, but I do practice being in the present moment so much that it's really part of just how I move through the world. I notice that perfect leaf on the sidewalk, you know, and it brings me, it sparks my joy, you know. So, finding those little beautiful items that we have no control over, that you cannot predict Again and again and again. There is so much beauty in this world and it's not that difficult to find on Vancouver Island, no, no, so I just nurture that.

Speaker 1:

So gratitude Gr that.

Speaker 2:

So gratitude, gratitude, yeah, a lot of gratitude for health, yes, for health and for awareness, mm-hmm, yeah, and I think, grace, I was so angry once I got into high school because I went from that final social worker office in East Van to a group home in East Van which was rough. Staff were buying the kids smokes and I didn't know what was what. Staff were buying the kids smokes and I didn't know what was what. And then my mother actually moved to Vancouver Island for a business opportunity that fell through and I had followed her out to Vancouver Island and moved into a permanent foster home and that's how I ended up on the island. Only a few months after I'd come out to be closer, she retreated back to the mainland with my brother and I stayed here. So grace and gratitude, and I think from so early I I learned that so much is not in our control and there's when when you can just surrender that it can just be such so uplifting Like thank God, it's not all in my control.

Speaker 1:

Yes yes, yes, yes and yes. So many people do place a lot of shame and blame as well, and I find that the shame is, I find that the shame is oh, it just keeps you so down and it keeps you from living.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, it's so hard to not get lost in the what ifs or the blame. After I left, my mom spiraled and she is now an addict with you know her housing is so unstable. My little brother ended up moving into foster care at the same age at 12, voluntarily as well and I remember going over to visit him and her after he'd been placed into care. So I went and met him and we went to go see mom in the house she was now squatting in and just needles and drugs and no heat, no electricity, just a mess. Another time I went to visit she was in a flipped over shopping cart, you know, with cardboard and bags behind a church, and that's just. Had I not left, would things have been different? I don't know. I was 12 yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I think I think, by you know, by I don't, you know, I don't know, but just my thought process is, you had to save yourself and that's what you did. And you know we can't save other people if they don't want to be saved. We can't help them if they don't want help them, if they don't want help. You know, my mom would have ended up there had I not been able to afford a place for her to live, and I always say to people that you know, my mom lived the same 30 days all her life. Nothing would ever change.

Speaker 1:

I think there's times we have to do what we can to save ourselves and that's how I. You know, I just knew I can't, I can't, I still love. Of course I love, I love my mom, I love my brothers, but I can't be around them because they're not healthy and it's not mentally healthy for me. So I think that sometimes people think, oh well, you know, if I can't separate myself from them, because then I'm a bad daughter or this or that, and I think it's vital to do it. And again, it doesn't mean you don't care, it doesn't mean you don't love, it doesn't mean any of that kind of thing, because family is family. We don't get to pick them or maybe we do, who knows, but on this life we don't get to pick them and we need to do what we can for ourselves because we matter too.

Speaker 1:

So I think you did the right thing, absolutely, absolutely. And for myself, I remember the day that I knew I had to distance myself, I couldn't have my kids around my family, and that was so hard, so hard for me to do, and my youngest didn't even hardly remember my mom, which I always feel it tugs at my heart, right but I had to do it. They were unhealthy, you know, and the same for you. So you know we, and you know you deserve a good life on this planet, and your daughter, your sweet little daughter, deserves a good life on this planet. And your daughter, your sweet little daughter, deserves a good life. And so had you not made that decision when you were 12, you know, and moms make their own decisions.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, yes. Who is the adult, who is the child? And I can absolutely relate. I'm sure many people can. You can love family members that are not treating themselves well. Yeah, you know, I will always have love for my mom. I will always care deeply for her. Uh, our relationship today is so volatile. There's just so much unaddressed baggage there, from me leaving and her sense of abandonment by her daughter, my sense of neglect from my mom and years lost. And now what I find the most difficult to reconcile is the loss of potential. You know, she has this amazing granddaughter and this amazing opportunity to be part of a bigger family. My family's expanded with my partner and I'm still very close with my foster family who live in the same city as me. Now, um, there's, there's a lot of beautiful people in my life that I wish I could share, and a lot in your book. I said you know, when life gives you crap, you get a new life.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, you just got to kind of turn it and I think it's okay to have those boundaries. So I've said to my mom and I think it's okay to have those boundaries. So I've said to my mom, since the two years that I wrote my story, we've come together, my mother and I, a couple of times to communicate. We've had a couple visits. It seems like every few years we'll have a falling out and we'll need space, and that's been our pattern over the last 10 years. Yeah, space and that's been our pattern over the last 10 years. Yeah. So right now we're at a spot where it gets so combative. I said I think we should talk about having a mediator. She is just so not there, yeah, and I said you could pick one or I could pick one, yeah yeah I just I don't think that that's really going to be a space we can move into um techno.

Speaker 2:

You know when you're, when you're barely housed, technology is not really something you're. You've got capacity to maintain um a schedule, making an appointment on time being in a video call.

Speaker 2:

Like these are not, it's not realistic. We don't like. I live on the island, she lives on the mainland, so we're hours apart, yeah. And you know one final thing that I think of when I look at the patterns of our communication now, as an adult, there can be some amazing conversations and sometimes we'll talk and her mother insight just turns on and it's such a stark contrast to the pattern of what's happened for us. It shakes me for days and I'm like, oh, maybe this time, maybe this time it'll be different. And it's not. It's a moment. Yes, you know, it's a conversation and then it's over, yeah. And that, that shakiness, you know that that bleeds into my relationship with my daughter, because I'm sad or I'm unsteady and my partner hears about it. I think my boundaries are evolving. They're going to continue to evolve. But I know now that I need to have a lot more space between my mom and I, because it's not just about me being upset anymore. I'm responsible to be on because I'm a three-year-old. I have to be aware and present for her.

Speaker 1:

Well, and at this stage she's mentally ill. She's mentally ill. You can't be living like you can't live under a shopping cart and not be mentally ill. You know so the drugs that so many people are taking, I know from firsthand experiences that they just are not the same people. It just and they're not in reality. And it's so sad to see. And it's just so sad because you know there's no sense of worthiness there. And so I think it's beautiful that you get those little glimpses of your mom and you know I can certainly see that they shake you. I get that. I get that, but really to be able to still see that that she's in there, yeah, she's still in there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it almost makes it harder. Yeah, it would almost be easier if it was just always a mess. Yes, that we could bounce back and forth, make it so unpredictable.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah that I struggle with that. I struggle with a lot. Um, a couple of years ago she uh got, uh she got herself onto regular welfare and they were able to cover her training for her to become a flagger with a construction company and that was the first job I ever saw her have. And she got that just around the time my daughter was born. So I thought, whoa change? Yeah, yes, maybe this time, maybe, and I will say she's, she's held it for years. She still has this position. Um, wow, so she has a room that she rents. Um, so she's housed and she has been for a couple of years now and so it's.

Speaker 2:

It gives that that maybe factor. Yeah, a little bit of hope, yeah, but still the communication is there's so much blame and so much hurt and also I've become a little bit jaded and my patience is very low. She's always been quite eccentric Talks a mile a minute, incredibly animated, loud, takes up a lot of space, always has Also one of the funniest people I've ever met. But I just have very low patience for it, because now when we talk, talk, it's drama with the landlord, it's drama with the bitch that lives around the corner, it's drama with that asshole that took her bike or her phone's fucked or you know. It's just messy. Yeah, it's exhausting. Yeah, it's exhausting to listen to and to support.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well it's. Yeah, your mom sounds quite a bit like my mom. Yeah, I don't think I ever saw my mom smile after the time I was 10. Yeah, just one big grump, and it was everybody's fault. One big grump and it was everybody's fault.

Speaker 1:

And but you know, you, just for our sanity, because you have to be more concerned about your sanity than hers, because you have, you know, you have to have your life and your daughter and your partner and your friends and all the good, be able to accept all the good things in your life. And so you know, for me, I just always thought, you know, she's sick, it is what it is. I'm not going to take it personally. Just what can I do? There's nothing I can do. She's going to be this way forever. And so I just did, like you, set up some boundaries, I limited my time and did what I could. But yeah, you just can't, and it would be like anybody. We can't be around people that bring us down, that tear us down, and they don't even know they do it, and then they hang up or they go on their merry way and we're left going. Oh, my goodness, I just like I gotta go to bed for two days.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I just think. I think I mean, I course know your whole story, catherine, and it's a lot more than the little bit that you told us for sure, and I think you know you've come out of it pretty good. You know you've got a good hand on your shoulders, you've got a lovely daughter and you've got yourself a great education. You've got a lovely daughter and you've got yourself a great education and you've got good friends, and here you are able to talk about it. A lot of people can't even talk about it, you know. So you're helping. You don't know who's listening to us right now. That is going to. It's going to gain some insight, or a little bit of you know. Oh, I need to set boundaries, or maybe I need to distance myself, or, you know, I'm having this problem with my mom and I feel guilty about it, but maybe I don't need to feel guilty. Maybe I just need to take care of myself, you know. So it's just so important that people hear our stories, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I really have to give thanks and more gratitude to the healthy people that I did intentionally try to surround myself with. Yeah, because at 12, you're not sure if this is normal or not, and so you get that validation and then, as you grow older, you can see what healthy relationships look like. And also that turning inward and that mindfulness. After the social work degree, I went back and I got a master's in education and I did that to look more into curriculum and how programs are written, what's underneath all of the instruction, what's underneath how we learn and why we learn what we learn. Yeah, as with many master's degrees, I don't use any of that in my job name, but it was still a great exercise and I think being around those sorts of relationships and having those sorts of conversations with really healthy adults, intellectual people wanting to read and write and speak, and and then being able to meet others, like my partner and and having other hobbies that are well again, I keep using the word inward, but uh, are grounding Like, yes, I I'm an avid knitter and crocheter, because you really can't do much else or think.

Speaker 2:

It's almost like a meditation, and I've got my daughter very excited about gardening. We've got a bunch of vegetables and fruit and trees and flowers and garden beds in the backyard that we take care of year round and again, being that close to nature and having our hands in the dirt, it's just. It's such a healthy practice. And you know, baking cookies every other week, you know, I just things that I wasn't taught. It's almost like I'm continuing to do healing and like it's like a life therapy, like present moment therapy. Finding these, whether it's studying in a degree or putting my hands digging up a huge hole to put an apple tree into, it's working towards something, something calm and something that has some sort of end results that I'll be able to see, but really just trying to embrace the process, like knitting, crocheting, gardening those aren't things you do just for end results. Most of that is process.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, yes, and what a wonderful example for your daughter. Yeah, you know what wonderful like that's the thing. You know we may not have had those kinds of things, but we can give them. You know we can stop, and that's what you're doing. You know you're still. You're still struggling a bit, and that's okay, but you've stopped that abuse, you've stopped that craziness in your own life and now your daughter isn't going to have to deal with any of that because you've got the courage to wake up and say okay, as difficult as this is, I'm going to get myself on track. I'm going to be a better mom, I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to do all of those things that can help me, and not everybody can do that. Catherine.

Speaker 2:

One thing I write about in my story is my teenage years. So when I moved to Vancouver Island, I landed in an amazing foster home that I stayed in until I was 19. One family and incredible. I was given a lot of tough love and I think it was exactly what I needed, and I know you know, people are going to need different things to help support them and get them through the tough times. Yes, tough love, the boundaries respect. I lashed out and I partied and I AWOLed and I did things I shouldn't have done, but thank God, I got it out of my system when I was a youth. Yes, I'm so grateful for that that I didn't carry it into past 19.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you know, as soon as I was in grade 11, my foster mom was like okay, so you were like, she put me in volunteering when I was 13. So I've been volunteering all my life and even into adulthood I volunteer on boards of charities. That's that service and God, it's just just. Thank god I had that rock, yes, to hold me up. Yes, um, it's. Yeah, I just I. I wish that you know, more children that had such shaky, uncertain times could have. I wouldn't say it was rigid, but it was. It was full. You know, I was in rugby for years in high school. I was in volunteering, whether I liked it or not, um, and I ended up just wanting to stay in forever. And then, as soon as I hit grade 11, she was like what college do you want to go to? I was like what are you talking about college? She's like oh, you're going, let's go to programs. What do you like? You like trees you want to do, or what I like people. She's like oh, social work, of course, yeah, of course, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but that's wonderful and I thank you for sharing that, because if there's anybody out there that's struggling, you know, look around your, you know, maybe it's an auntie, maybe it's a grandma, maybe it's a neighbor, maybe it's the counselor at the school, maybe it's your best friend, maybe it's your best friend's mom. You know there's somebody out there that sees the worth and will be there to help. We just have to be able to open our eyes and see it and look for it, because it'll come. Yeah. Well, catherine, this has been a fabulous conversation and I appreciate you so much coming and doing it. I just know that your story is going to be able to reach out to people and help people. I just know it. So, everyone, I want to let you know that we will have in the show notes some details to reach out to Catherine. So if you wanted to do that, we'll have those in the show notes. So that will be there. So, catherine, in closing, what would you like to say to anybody who's listening?

Speaker 2:

so cliche. You really have to be your own best friend. No one is going to know you more than you know yourself how you're feeling, what you want, what you're worried about and what you would love to plan. Always think about what you want to do and appreciate that life is mostly process, so getting there is the majority of life.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you're so right, so right. That was excellent to leave them with advice. So I once again, catherine, thank you so much for doing this. Everyone, yeah, take it to heart people. If you're, if you're struggling, if you feel like you need some help, you know, find somebody that can help you and and just take care of yourself, because you are your own best friend for sure. So, thanks again, everyone, and we'll see you next time.

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