Healing, Hope, and the Heroes Among Us: Anne's Story

When darkness overshadows your path, the journey to light can be an odyssey that demands both perseverance and the courage to speak your truth. This is the very essence of our latest conversation with Janice's sister-by-choice, Anne, whose life epitomizes the struggle and eventual triumph over the ghosts of trauma. Together, we peel back the curtain on our intertwined stories, revealing the gritty reality of childhood abuse, the battle with alcoholism, and the saving grace of education and career stability that steered us towards a horizon of hope.

Anne's narrative is not just a chronicle of survival; it's a blueprint for reclaiming joy and success from the jaws of adversity. Our discussion uncovers the nuanced layers of memory, emphasizing its pivotal role in healing, while confronting the sheer resilience required to keep seeking help despite being turned away. We celebrate the unsung heroes in our lives—those teachers and friends whose small acts of kindness became the pillars upon which we rebuilt our world. Their influence stands as a testament to the life-altering power of compassion and understanding.

Finally, we walkthrough the value of intelligence, intuition, and situational awareness in surmounting the hurdles of a troubled past. By embracing a growth mindset and the tenacity to set goals, we underscore the importance of moving forward, not as victims of our past but as architects of our future.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

And you're listening to Dumpster Diving with Janice and Jane, and today Janice. What in the heck are we talking about?

Speaker 2: 0:13

All right. So we're super excited. For those of you who are watching this on YouTube, of course, you already see that we have a special guest here, and this is kind of in the under the auspices of storytelling, right. One of the things that you, jane, and I have talked about since the beginning of the podcast is really looking forward to having people on overtime who can contribute to this idea of sharing stories, and the extent to which we share stories, obviously, is always going to be different person by person, but today we have my adopted, if you will, sister and with us, and so, of course, it's very moving for me to have a sister and a sister on the screen with me, because you know, that's a big deal.

Speaker 2: 0:53

So so I get to introduce Jane and Anne for the first time, and you know, anne is someone that I met in my early 20, we've, like, known each other for like 30 years, which is insane, and and we realized that we had very similar journeys early and we like randomly met at like was it a bridal or baby shower? I can't remember which it was. It was a shower, browr shower, it was a bridal shower, and it was random because, like, we were both there. But she was there because she worked with the bride at a restaurant and I was there because I worked with the groom at a restaurant. And when I look back on that Anne, I realized I didn't even really know Amy very well at all, although maybe she was working at tortilla. It doesn't matter, the audience won't care.

Speaker 2: 1:41

But long story short, we ended up in the same space together and you know it speaks to the whole like power of the universe in terms of like, the fact that we were so randomly in that same space together and we realized that we had similar journeys in terms of the different kinds of trauma we experienced as young people and we fast became allies in a crazy world, if you will.

Speaker 2: 2:03

And so Anne is my older sister, jane, and she's been a guide and a mentor and a treasure for a long time, and so you know, we have shared families, if you will, over the years. We both stepped away from our biological families a long time ago and we've grown and shared family and it's been really kind of amazing and so, yeah, so I asked Anne to be here, because today we were just having this conversation. Jane and I were having this conversation about what was it about us as young people that helped us navigate what we went through and to end up in a space as adults where we have lives, where we're, you know, we have joy and we're thriving, etc.

Speaker 2: 2:47

And then Anne and I- were talking, so we were having that conversation, and then Anne and I were having this conversation where she brought up a similar thought process and I said wait, you have to come on the podcast, let's not explore this for a while I'm talking right now.

Speaker 2: 3:03

I don't want to flush it all out. Let's come on to the podcast, because we had very unique perspectives on that. So all of that to say we're going to be talking about the things that you know. I don't know, the things that help us navigate trauma and get to the other side, whether it's a quality you had during, whether it's something that you came to understand after, whatever it was right. We're going to essentially be talking about that this morning, and so anybody who has experienced any kind of trauma in their lives, this episode is for you in terms of taking away some things that might be helpful, but other than that, so that I introduced Anne in terms of who she is to me, but now I'm going to ask her to just kind of introduce herself in terms of whatever she wants to know about her. It's all you, sis.

Speaker 3: 3:45

Okay, first off, I'm a little jealous, jane, that you are now really more of an official sister, since Dan and I have been sisters for years. Yeah, and your rapport that I've seen on other dumpster dives has made me just a tiny bit jealous.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Oh, I think it's our father that creates that bond. We've talked about it a lot. Like he's not here to defend himself, so we just, you know, keep talking about it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:19

So you know, I'll just say family of choice and serendipity. You know, Janice and I wound up at a party where we sat next to each other on a sofa, as I recall, yep, and it was like that. And I do think sometimes you're drawn to people, either because of similar experiences or somehow you're just drawn to the right person at the right time. And you know, as Janice says, 30 years hence, you know, when she married her first husband and I was tagging along to holidays and wondering how I would fit in, I realized, well, wait a second, I'm Janice's side of the family.

Speaker 3: 5:07

You know, like I was Janice's side of the family and had as much right to that crazy dinner table as anyone else and having her kids call me Aunt Anne.

Speaker 3: 5:19

And you know I'm blessed to have many, many really wonderful friends that have seen me through all kinds of phases of my life. But because of the trauma, I think Janice and I have been able to share things that I would not feel comfortable, maybe even sharing with a therapist. You know so. So you know, thank you. You're a blessing to me and I you know I use that in more of a unitarian phrase, so a gift to me.

Speaker 2: 5:58

There you go.

Speaker 3: 6:01

And yeah, and just to say where I am now you know, I live in DC, I've retired from a federal job which brought me great success and financial stability, and how? I mean, I'm often in a like how did I get here? You know, how did I get here Because I also was an active alcoholic for a number of years and like, how, how am I here and others aren't? It's a, you know, I think that we'll be going, you know, into our thoughts about that for the rest of this discussion, but that's part of you know, one of these things I think about, and I think about other folks out there who are struggling or have overcome a struggle, and if we can share our stories and strengthen one another, that would be awesome.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:00

I love that and we and Janice and I were kind of chatting before we even started and and you know, you're going to go into your theory on survival and and, and how you know and how you excelled at life and stuff like that and and you know a couple of things we touched on.

Speaker 1: 7:18

But more than that, too, is we're going to also leave everybody after this conversation with some tools in some way shape or form, because not everybody's gone through what we've gone through and had the experiences that we did with the people that we did. So maybe their experiences are a little bit different. And if they don't have, if they haven't had that, oh well, how do I do it? We're going to, we're going to leave everybody with some tools or some some thought processes to to use that we've done. You know that we've developed over the years that's helped us and stuff like that. So I would love to know, you know, put that in the back of your mind and as you're telling your story and and let's hear some of those things too, because that's where we can leave our listeners with those little golden nuggets to help them improve day to day.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So why don't we, you know, why don't we jump in and, and, and? By jumping, I mean, I started digging, like our listeners, and I use the plural version of that very liberally.

Speaker 1: 8:14

They're sick, exactly.

Speaker 2: 8:16

That's right.

Speaker 2: 8:17

But they, you know one of them, so five, that's true. We're narrowing the pool here. We're going to have to be like um so. So our listeners are, you know, many of them know our story either, because they went all the way back and they listened to our first few episodes where we really just laid it bare. And if you haven't, and you're listening now, I'm going to encourage you to do that, and so generally know that.

Speaker 2: 8:38

You know, Jane and I, um, you know, have, you know, our childhoods were not pretty and we went through all kinds of different abuses and had lots of different experiences that, um, you know, were incredibly traumatic and we've talked about, you know, our kind of making it through right Like. One of the things I've shared is that I don't know how, but from a very early age it was clear to me that if I could make it to college, I would get out Um, and, and I don't know how I honestly can't imagine how, except that that must be like. It must have been people in schools who inspired that me, and I say that because I had no models. I was the first person in my family to graduate high school. To my knowledge, I'm the only one who's ever graduated a four year college, but who knows? I mean, they're all out there and there's lots of them, and and I hope that that's not a true statistic anymore Um, so it's not like I had models for that and it's not like I was going to school in a time where everybody was going to college, Right, we hadn't quite gotten to that point in our system where we messaged that everybody goes to college, but I knew, and so, um, and so it's.

Speaker 2: 9:40

It's almost like I remember early on thinking to myself if I can just make it until then, if I can just survive until then, right, Um and so, and so I could kind of look ahead in that way. So people know a little bit of our not a little bit a lot of our backgrounds because we've laid it kind of bare. So, and what would you like? Um, you know, you, you, you know you talked about childhood trauma, obviously, and you talked about, um, a period of active alcoholism, Um, is there anything else that you would share, that kind of fills out, that story in terms of um, your early experiences and, again, even like, your early thoughts about like, like, can you even remember times where you just thought to yourself, like that survival mode of like, if I can just get to, if I can just this or that is that and maybe not right, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:29

Uh, thanks for the opportunity to kind of think back on this, because I haven't thought back on this for a long while. Um, and you know, once upon a time, many years ago, janish, you and I went and we spoke at um, I'm thinking it was a special high school for young women. Um and uh shared some of our different stories and I think, uh, the, the. The thing that I've often forget about is is that I have a dissociative disorder and that, um, that there uh, for a variety of reasons, there are blocks of time that I don't remember and trauma that I don't remember, and um, and so, uh, there are things I can think back to that are kind of childhood coping mechanisms.

Speaker 3: 11:26

Yeah, um and and uh, um, you know, I, I, um, and, and, for example, I had many, many um stuffed animals and I like to tuck them tight into bed and um, and I was raised Catholic, very religiously, and there was a? Um stained glass window of the Virgin mother, like this, being assumed into heaven, and I can remember lying on the floor with my hands over there just thinking God would sweep by and take me up to heaven, like why I would be thinking that as a you know first grader you know, why I would go into my bedroom closet that happened to have a window in it and eat part of the window shade, thinking maybe that would kill me.

Speaker 3: 12:23

Like I wasn't an onion, I was a bit of a crybaby. I'll own that. I was a, you know, a crybaby. But I also had younger siblings and and once I felt like somebody needed to protect them like that gave me a real role and um.

Speaker 3: 12:42

And then I'll just say, you know, I think, uh, religiosity was uh, part of the imaginary friend network that kind of kept me going and realized success in school was going to to um, I didn't know at the time that it was an escape.

Speaker 3: 13:03

I don't think that registered, but that that was the achievement that was was going to, uh, you know, give me a foundation in my life. You know, and so you know I can talk further about other coping mechanisms. I'll say quite clearly and then let the two of you chime in when I had my first boyfriend, that was when I knew something was up, and I only knew something was up, because when we would be making out in a nice Catholic way, I would be on the ceiling looking down. I was immediately dissociated, up, looking down, and I go back to my journal entries where he and I would discuss this. Now we're fully clothed, we're just kissing and I'm out of my body. And then I really learned that if you had drank you could stay in your body. And my first blackout drinking, I was kissing a boyfriend, and this is in high school and I came to and I was hitting him.

Speaker 3: 14:27

Don't know why I was hitting him but I was hitting him and I drank for another 10 years but the alcohol was actually really got me through the end of high school, all of college, my early 20s. It enabled me to be successful Before it started killing me. It was a great escape. And when you talk about why me, I got sober pretty much at 27. How the hell did I get sober at 27? But I was already quite sick with alcoholism and glad that at the time I was too cheap for cocaine and there were no opioids, because people now who struggle with addiction to opioids like that is hell. That is hell and that is a fight for your life. And I fought for my life too, but not as I don't think the stakes were quite as high 35 years ago than they are now.

Speaker 2: 15:40

That's such an important piece. Go ahead, jane.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Oh, I just I think that thank you for sharing that, because it's not the easiest for people to admit or to talk about, and I think about what you just said. Like it got me through that stuff, not in a good way, guys, but it helped her cope with being present and stuff like that. It sounds like that the alcohol made you be present and you enjoyed that because you weren't disassociating, so you were feeling these things and all of a sudden these things came together for you. So you're like okay, I like this, I'm gonna keep it going. It's fucking me up or whatever. And then you had your realization that this is probably not the best plan.

Speaker 1: 16:33

But I think a lot of us have had moments in our life like that, whether it's shopping, whether it's sex addictions or gambling or hoarding or whatever. Those are all things that aren't favorable for us, but they help us in ways up here that help us function. But being able to function without it is the hardest part, because we get so accustomed to functioning with it. So I don't know like so that was when you were 27, and you're saying you're Janice's older sister, so there's been some time not a lot, just a little time and then that? So how has your upbringing and then becoming sober and stuff like that enhance everything throughout, or what was it?

Speaker 3: 17:35

like Well, I mean, I don't think I could have. Well, first off, just to go back to something you were saying, listing about all the other ways you can numb yourself, one of the other big ones is food addiction. That's a biggie. I went to a 12-step program for sexual abuse survivors and one of the pieces of literature had a tree and the root of the tree was in the ground but it said incest. And then all the branches came up and listed all those things, jane, that you just did. Oh, wow, I mean I think that the root cause of this and incest can be any kind of sexual trauma. I don't wanna lift it to the typical incest scenario. I mean it can be any kind of, you know.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Well, last station or anything. I mean it could be a non-family member, but it's still incest if you think about it. Your parents have a friend and they're doing things to a kid or whatever, whether they're blood or not. That's still kind of incest, I mean, it just really is. If you take the biological aspect out of it, it's people doing things that they shouldn't be doing and causing trauma and stuff like that, and all three of us have experienced that in one shape or form.

Speaker 3: 19:01

So, or several, and I'll just add that I couldn't have come to terms with why I was dissociating until I stopped drinking. And I did eventually go back and talk to my grandmother about it, to which she said you told me about this in 1969. I told them just give her some more drugs and she won't remember. So like I think back to that moment of clarity from my grandmother and I think, wow, here I was. I went to another adult who I thought could protect me when I was eight and that was her answer. And no wonder I dissociated. That's right, that is a gift.

Speaker 3: 19:59

And I would say this sounds terrible. I was a little jealous, isn't the right word. But Janice remembers her story. It sounds like Jane, you remember her story Most of it. For me to be putting it together backward in retrospect, with the gaps that I have, all of this nonsense about false memory syndrome or this or that, or victims never being believed, women never being believed it's been quite a journey. But once I stopped drinking and started dealing with my stuff, which was a lot to me, thinking ahead and having a plan Like Janice you were thinking about school, like education, will do it For me. It was. I got to earn a living. I have to earn a living, and I seem to have been frozen here, which is quite a lovely look. I think it is.

Speaker 2: 20:59

And I wanted to say, if you're not watching on YouTube right now, you should go to watch on YouTube just for this moment, ann, because it's really lovely.

Speaker 3: 21:07

I'm gonna turn my video off and then on again. What's that Perfect?

Speaker 2: 21:10

Well, I'm doing that.

Speaker 2: 21:13

I think that Ann and I we've had so many, we had so many conversations early on in our relationship about this, the difference between remembering and not remembering.

Speaker 2: 21:21

And it does, I mean again, I'll never know for sure, right, but one of the hypotheses that I've always operated off of is that my remembering is partly how I was able to, I was able to overcome, if you will I don't know if that's the right word so quickly. In other words, I wonder how much I can attribute the fact that I remembered all along to the fact that I didn't end up with alcohol or other substances. That said, I know of other survivors who remembered all along and they intentionally drank in order to numb that. So I guess it's just different for all of us, but I definitely think that remembering all along, just it was what you know, it's what kind of maybe keep the eye on the prize, right, like and I knew that when I left at 18, that would be it, Like there was no coming back from that, that I had to get out and stay out, and I, you know, and again, I attribute all that to not knowing all along and not having these periods of completely blacked out memories that I couldn't access.

Speaker 3: 22:28

I'm gonna be right back, guys, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:32

Okay. So I think, jane, while we and obviously experiencing some tech difficulties I'm hoping she's logging out and logging back in but, like you said, right, we both pretty much to our knowledge remember and don't get me wrong, like that doesn't mean I remember every vivid detail of every single thing. Thank God, right, my brain's definitely protecting me from that. But I always knew all along and there were never any blame spots. But as I listened to her tell that story about her grandmother and I saw your face right, like, and I've heard that story before and still when I hear it it just makes my insides like just tense up.

Speaker 2: 23:11

And so, while we're waiting for Anne to come back, I wanna say this like you know and I know that our show is not a show necessarily that little kids or young people are listening to or what have you but you know, we have to impress upon the young people in our lives, like, hopefully you and I have talked about, like how we talk to kids in a way that makes them realize that the people that we love can be a threat and the people that we love can hurt us. That with that, you also say and if you tell someone and they don't help you, then tell someone else, and tell someone else, and tell someone else until somebody helps you. Because, anne, you know she told someone, and when that someone didn't protect her, then of course, as an eight year old child, you assume nobody's gonna protect you, and so the message of no, you just have to keep telling an adult until somebody does is a strong one to take away from this.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Well, I think that you know my experience when I was being molested when I was eight, living in this apartment complex, and I've told the story about Miss Lilly going and telling my mom and my mom refused to listen to her. She was a strong black woman and she, you know she was like no, you're gonna listen to me, you're not just gonna blow me off, you're going to listen to me. Something's going on. I watched the interaction. You need to talk to her right now, like she would not let up and if I didn't have her in my life, who knows? Yeah, who knows? That's right. Miss Lilly's mom refused. I mean, it took her like 30 minutes to convince her to talk to me about it. I heard them talking. So you know it's the people that just wanna lift up the rug and sweep it underneath and then keep going because that's how we do things and they just don't understand what kind of damage that does.

Speaker 2: 24:55

Well, and let me you just maybe think of something, jane and Anne, to the extent again that you're okay with sharing, but can you paint the dynamics of your family from the perspective of like you were an upper middle class? You were, there was. So your grandmother saying just give her more drugs, was the interpretation I have of that is in part about images. We have to protect that image, right, but can you talk a little bit about that so people better understand those dynamics for you?

Speaker 3: 25:27

Sure, I'm back now, hopefully.

Speaker 2: 25:29

I've frozen. We filled in the space. You're a good girl.

Speaker 3: 25:36

No, I would say a middle class, moving on to upper middle class, very high degree of religiosity, very much. What will the neighbors think? Kind of thing. We had two Catholic churches. We'd go to One in our neighborhood where we'd have to dress up and one we called the dirty church because we could go if we were just in jeans or whatever.

Speaker 3: 26:06

So we had a dirty church and a clean church. And I would just say, you know, think back to mad men, Not that I'm quite that old, but you know Sunday dinners lots of cocktails, roast, you know lots of cocktails, and that was life, Like I didn't know you could have dinner without cocktails for a couple of hours beforehand. Just didn't know that.

Speaker 1: 26:35

You bring up that show and one of the biggest things I'd never watched the whole season, but this totally plays into this. There was one where it was probably the first season, because I started watching it and I was like, okay, this is cool, but it's like traumatizing at the same time for women, where she went to the doctor and the doctor called him and was telling him how to take care of it. You know, oh, she's going crazy. You know, you got to do these things and she had zero control over her own health care and I was just like holy shit, it was like that, you know, and I remember these things.

Speaker 1: 27:12

But it's just like when it's in your face, yeah, and it's like, thank goodness I was not born in that era, because I would have been like the one locked up in a cycle, because I would have been like F, you, you're not doing this. I don't need a man to tell me all these things, you know. But I just think about that and, going back to what your grandmother said, it was like, oh, it was probably totally like that, like she's fine, just do this and they'll get through it. They were accustomed to that too, you know, so that they act normal, or or don't cry or don't have emotions, and stuff like that Makes my heart hurt. I'm sorry I had to.

Speaker 3: 27:54

Yeah, yeah. And I would just say the the illusion of the perfect family lives on, yes it does.

Speaker 3: 28:08

It lives on. I am the crazy one, I am the one brainwashed by a a. You know, my parents both drank and my mother once said I would sooner pour gasoline on myself and strike a match than ever set foot in an AA meeting. So I have a lot of support for my early sobriety. And when I left home, like with Janice, when I left, I had to leave and I left completely and the trauma for me and for, for, you know, one sister left behind is immeasurable. But you know, sometimes you make choices because you've got to save yourself.

Speaker 2: 28:53

That's right and it's. You know, I was actually having that thought the other day as I, as I was anticipating this conversation and and I just again, you know, while you were coming back from your technical difficulty, and I was saying, you know, if there's a message to take away, right, as we think about how we support our young people, because you know, our audience is not a year old, 12 year old kids, right. So so we're relying on the adult to love them and support them. But as we talk with kids about safety, and you know, the people in their lives and and you know we've had many conversations about anybody could hurt you, right, that it's not limited to strangers. And so we, while you were gone in, we said, you know, reinforcing that message of if you tell one adult and they don't listen, then tell another one and another one, and another one, and tell somebody does.

Speaker 2: 29:43

And so, along those lines, kind of what you're saying, right is that you know, we've said many times, of course, that that illusion of the perfect family is just that. It is an illusion. Every family has its stuff and and you know a how about we let ourselves off the hook and stop trying to be one, but be the damage that it can cause right when we think about this front that we have to put up. So, and then, last but not least, I'll say the it hit, it hit, it hits home, this idea of who we had to leave behind. You know, my younger brother. You know, when I left, my younger brother was in high school and and my sense was that there was no immediate threat to him and my but my older sister and I've said this before to our audience was lost to drugs and it's still out there somewhere.

Speaker 2: 30:37

And there's still moments where I feel guilty. Right, and probably about five seconds flat, I could find her if I wanted to right. And there are moments that I feel guilty about not right and not doing and not trying and not, and then I have to remind myself that you know, in the times where I have sought out where she is in the world. What I know is that she has always been continuously a part of that vicious cycle, and now my stepfather, who was the biggest perpetrator, died a few years ago.

Speaker 2: 31:12

But my mom, in her own way, is as vicious right, it just wasn't sexual and so, and so I tell myself, my platitude, if you will, is almost that you know anybody tied to that I can't, I can't risk being associated with. I have to remind myself to of our mantra, and Anne and I taught this to each other, or learn this from each other early on. You're part of this, is it's the family you choose right. Family is family is not right, it's a privilege. And so I just have to remind myself with that, but it's lingering that you said and you said the trauma of leaving right a younger sibling behind is immeasurable, and so that I anticipate that those moments of guilt will last until I die.

Speaker 1: 31:57

And that's just how it is, you know. You know it's funny because when, when I left, I was I don't know God held, was I? I mean I left a couple of times. I moved out when I was 15. I was pregnant. My mother and I could not get along, could not, and she's physically abusive and I didn't want to risk the chance of her getting abusive with me and so I lived with a neighbor. But as soon as I had the baby to, you know my oldest daughter, emily, two weeks later my mom's trying to take her away from me through the court, saying that I'm abusing her and all this stuff. And I had to go and fight for her and you know all these things. And I won because she was lying. But I went back and I went back and then I got pregnant with my son and then I spent a lot of time away and she tried it again after I had my son.

Speaker 1: 32:44

But even after that trauma, you know like I always had that sense of I need to take care of them, because when I was 14 and working, I took care of the whole family and so when leaving, I did have a younger brother, devin, and then my half sister, michelle. But at that point I had two kids. I couldn't worry about them. And Devin, I knew, was fine because he was the, he was the family favorite. And Michelle was, you know, eight years younger than me and my mom treated her different because she was with my stepdad.

Speaker 1: 33:17

So I was the black sheep, I was the one that got picked on, I was the one that got pulled out of school to watch my little sister and take care of her and all those other things. And so, luckily, I didn't have to worry about anybody, you know, because I was just like they're going to be fine. I have to worry about my own kids and that's who I'm protecting now, and I think that's where my mind shifted in the aspect of it's them that I have to protect, the actual physical kids, and I did. You know, my mom tried to take them away from me and it never worked, you know, because it was not valid. But I just think about that and I'm like, oh, I'm glad that I didn't have that stress too. You know, I just had my own.

Speaker 2: 33:56

So that's a good lead and then kind of the catalyst for this conversation Originally. I love, I really value kind of all of these different pieces, though, and I'm trying to call out like the little mini lessons. Another one I want to call out, by the way, is be the Miss Lily to someone you know Jane, you mentioned more than one time. Be the freaking Miss Lily. Be the person who has the courage to say look, I'm not 100% sure, but something seems weird and we should pay attention to it First. It's just it's easy for us to brush things off because it's not our business, it's not our place, it's not our whatever. So be the Miss Lily.

Speaker 2: 34:25

But let's go into then, like when we think about to those, those younger versions of ourselves, and we look back now and you gave us that really disturbing image of you lying on the floor and you know like waiting for you know God possibly to pass by and just scoop you out of that hell. But you know we've had I've had one on one conversations with you, so this is the first time to do it as a group. But you know, when we think about, like what was it about us, right? Like, like I said, I was sitting in a house where my older sister, you know, turned to draw. My way out was college, her way out was drugs. My younger brother just kind of thought through it again, dealing with different things.

Speaker 2: 35:03

But but what do we think, right? What do we think? We're the, the, whether it's attributes or, you know, whatever it is about us that helped us be able to, like, get from there to where we are right now. So, and I'm going to say we're going to start with you, since you're the, since you're the guest. Yeah right, we have good guests etiquette, we practice it. So very good, very good, that's what we're going to get.

Speaker 3: 35:29

So so I, I have a friend, a dear friend, who is a clinical psychologist and I, you know she basically saved my life back in the day. But you know her, you know, immediate response was intelligence, and not necessarily book intelligence, but it seems that the science behind it is more resilient, because children tend to be brighter. Children just tend to be bright. Yeah, and I was no genius in grammar school. Yeah, but I went, you know, I went to a Catholic school and the nuns and the discipline, and you know, you know, that gave you a really concrete you've got to pass that test and you got to get. So I always had education and school, as you know, as requirements that wasn't even in college, a good high school.

Speaker 3: 36:28

I mean we moved to a different neighborhood to be in a good high school and it was always anticipated I would go on to college.

Speaker 1: 36:36

So you know, something popped in my head when you were saying that and I too and I think, janice, this is true for you too love school and I and I thrived in school because I got accolades and and I wasn't the brightest person in the classroom I struggled with math like I would cry in high school math and I just pulled all my eyes out because I'm like this is like German and Chinese mixed together and I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, I just struggled in math. But it was the structure, because at home we had no structure. We didn't know what to expect the next day. We didn't know if we were going to eat. We didn't know if mom was going to get up. We didn't know. But I knew what to expect at school, what time the bell was going to ring, what we were expecting, and it was so organized that I was like oh, I love it.

Speaker 1: 37:26

I think my obsession with office supplies and you know feeds into that, because I love office supplies and decor and stuff like that. But it's like it was. It was a place where there was no guessing. You knew you were there, you had teachers that were going to be the same every day and I was like I love the substitute and I loved the, the, I love the structure. I needed that structure and that's what really helped me with everything you know, because I had such disruption at home and chaos all the time. So that's, I think, for me, that's what it was.

Speaker 2: 38:00

So interesting and I think you know, and I like how you put it, like your friend said, intelligence and not necessarily book smarts, as much as almost you know it's hard to kind of put your finger on it when you shift it away from book smarts, but to you fill that out and by saying it was the structure of school that attracted you, and you were able to kind of leverage that and I, I, and I'm glad we're thinking about all these things in this way because you know all three of us have said what we don't.

Speaker 2: 38:29

You know it's not that we were special and it's not that we had something that someone else couldn't have, and we say that because what we don't want is anybody listening to say, well gosh, I don't have that thing you just said, and so therefore I'm screwed right.

Speaker 1: 38:44

I didn't have that experience Exactly.

Speaker 2: 38:47

But I honestly, interestingly enough, I think that for me the reason it was education was in part because I felt safe there and that's a story I tell when I introduce myself as an educator that I felt safe there. Like I remember vividly moving from one school to another because we moved towns from Frederick Ford and Pennsylvania when I was in the first grade and I have a visceral memory of my first grade teacher at the end of the year hugging me at the end of the year and it's such a random thing to remember. But, and it's the thing that makes me and I'll never know the answer, there's a part of me that has always wondered did she know something was up? Did she know something? And I say that because, like, I remember her hugging me and she had tears in her eyes. Maybe she hugged every kid and had tears in her eyes, I don't know Right. Like, maybe she did that's special, janice, I know.

Speaker 2: 39:43

But my little brain, right, like I asked myself, like why do I remember that hug Right? And who knows, maybe it's because it was a fucking safe hug, you know what I mean. Like, maybe that's why I remember it. And I think it's because it was a hug with those strings attached. I don't know Right, and I was. But I was also always that kid who teachers loved me. I loved them, you know it was.

Speaker 2: 40:04

But I and I think to your point, jane, that you're for you it was the structure, but and maybe in addition, oh yeah, it was the safety and the caring, right, like, and I was, you know, I'm grateful that I had, like I can't think of a single teacher that I don't remember caring about me, which is unusual. I don't, you know, unfortunately I don't think. I don't think everybody could say that. And again, maybe my brain is over exaggerating those memories to write as a part of my like, who knows, right, it's all when you remember something, that memory is not an accurate depiction at all. We all know that. But so maybe that's what it was right, like be drawn to the feelings of safety and caring and, as a result, giving more to it and, as a result, success being successful, and then, as a result, seeing it as a way out. Maybe that's the threat, I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 40:57

I'll just say I didn't, I don't recall growing up in any kind of chaos. You know there wasn't necessarily chaos, it was with the opposite chaos. A lot of very nicely dressed. Go back to madman cocktail parties. A lot of you know. So you know I actually, and I liked school but I had some darn me nuns like just to say so.

Speaker 3: 41:38

I didn't have a story, you know. But I will say once I got to high school, I was a creative writer and I kept journals. I started keeping journals when I was in seventh grade and I still keep journals to this day. So, janice, when I die, you're gonna have to figure out what to do with them.

Speaker 2: 42:02

We are so reading them on the air. It's gonna be a whole special season of just reading a journal. People die of me.

Speaker 3: 42:11

I love it. I can't wait. But I had written a book called I think it was called Death, a New Beginning.

Speaker 1: 42:21

Oh my.

Speaker 3: 42:21

God I did. I took rubbings of tombstones in old, yeah, and I had an English teacher who and this was ninth grade she and another teacher asked me to come by one Friday and I'm sure they were worried about me. Yeah, I at that age had no cognition, I wasn't on the ceiling, I wasn't drinking alcohol, I just really, really liked writing poems about being dead, Wow. And so I kind of look back on that to your point of a teacher paying attention, or you know, boy do I want to thank Mrs Rilling and Miss Jean Greco, because I think Rilling was the right name. But the teachers that were there for you tried to be there for you.

Speaker 3: 43:27

And just to give a plug out, you know, you talked about the neighbor trying to get your mother's attention, Jane, about what was going on with you. My friend Vincent was a pain in my ass about my drinking, Like he was on my ass for two years and without him and a constellation of other individuals I probably would have drank for another 10 years until I was dead. I would have been dead by 30 if I kept drinking.

Speaker 1: 43:56

So yeah, unfortunately, I know several or no of several adult women who have gone through a lot of the same things that we have, that are in their, you know, late 40s, dying of liver cirrhosis and just a wreck, and, you know, having to get fluids drained from their body and everything else, because they are raging with their colleagues because they've never been able to just deal with it, you know, and get to that point and they probably haven't had the right people in their life and other things. You know from the person that was telling me these stories, they were like well, you know, if you can't beat them, join them.

Speaker 2: 44:33

And I was like yeah, you know, I get it Because sometimes it's the only outlet. Like. My sister only saw drugs as an outlet, right, and it was. It was literally like she turned 18. She had met some man because as far as I know he was probably in his early 20s who whisked her away and that was it. She started, you know, with him, started taking drugs, right, and that was, and.

Speaker 2: 45:02

But she was like he was safer than where she was and honestly, to this day I would say, yeah, that was a safer choice for her than where she was, because the other piece of our experience is that I had enough, you know whether it was intelligence, whether it was intuition, whether I don't know what it was, and Jane and I have laughed because, you know, there have been many times across my adulthood where I'm like, maybe that quality came from my father and now I know who my father is, and I'm like, or maybe it did not, maybe it originates with each of us, right, we're the original source. But like intuition to like stay out of the way and be invisible and do all the things that would create the conditions where I might have a shot at being safe on any given day, my sister, it was from an outsider perspective. It looked like she was antagonizing. It looked like her she couldn't, she didn't have a skill set to be able to do that and as a result of the skill set missing, you know, she would challenge and she would argue and she would get the shit beat out of her.

Speaker 2: 46:02

So, in addition to being repeatedly assaulted sexually, she would get the shit beat out of her because and my mom was a really disturbing part of that process and I remember more than one time where, you know, my stepdad would get home at the end of a day of work and my mom would just start bitching and bitching about my sister. She did this, she did this Until finally he'd say do you want me to beat her? And then he would, and that would be the cycle. And so in my mind I'm like my mom was smart enough to know that if she bitched she was the catalyst for that stuff. And there's a part of me now when I look back with my amateur therapist hat on and I think to myself she was absolutely getting something from that. I still don't quite what, but she was absolutely getting something from that.

Speaker 1: 46:45

Well, the attention's not on her anymore, because I'm sure he wasn't just abusive to you, chris, I'm sure he was abusive to her as well. So if the attention was directed at somebody else, she was the model, and oh what. Oh good, I'm a good wife today and so it was her protecting herself. But unfortunately it was directed towards you guys, and that just makes me.

Speaker 2: 47:10

So I don't again. It's that whole like and I will say on the front of this whole idea about one of the factors being intelligence, and I've said this before on the show. I look back and there's no question, my sister's borderline mentally retarded. I know that now I did not as a child, I couldn't have known that or understood that. But when I look back now, having been a special ed teacher and done all that testing with kids, and when I went through that part of my professional journey that I went, oh shit, that's exactly what it was. So she did not have the mental capacity. She's probably somebody who could have had the mental capacity had she grown up in a household without violence and had some work there, she would have been OK.

Speaker 2: 47:53

She would have been able to be a functioning adult, but in challenges already, and then they could still have. Yeah, it was just a recipe for disaster, and that's exactly what played out. What else, though? Is there anything else we would? We've talked about, like you know, intelligence from the perspective of again not book smart, you know working hard to use learning as a tool and a mechanism. We've talked about almost like situational awareness, I guess, is what you would just describe what I just said.

Speaker 1: 48:23

Are there any other? Yeah, let's ask Anne, and then I have two to discuss out with.

Speaker 3: 48:31

Well, I think, once I left home and knew I was on my own, the ability to think ahead and not just think ahead next week, but think ahead long term oh, can't be an actress anymore. Maybe I need a graduate degree, Maybe I need to suck up this job that I hate, because I'll have a pension when I retire you know, that was another thing my friend mentioned is that ability to delay gratification, the ability to regulate your impulses on some level is, you know, obviously I own two pieces of property now Like how the hell?

Speaker 3: 49:21

did that that happened when I got down to $600 once and was living on a mattress in some stranger's house, like how did that happen? And it was like work, a strong work ethic, and I don't expect at all anyone to ever take care of me, which is probably terrible, because I'm sure Janice will be there and she'll make sure you help out, jane, if I'm not busy?

Speaker 2: 49:55

Yeah right, she will.

Speaker 1: 49:57

Yeah, she's not busy, yeah, she's really busy.

Speaker 3: 50:00

Well, I'm not expecting to need to help for another 20 years or so. Ok, good, let me take a round from the end.

Speaker 2: 50:07

But I like that and I want to pick on that for a second. And then I know Janice got her couple. But that idea of being able to see ahead and to see beyond what's happening in this moment and being able to I think you said basically give up things now in order to know for something better if you will, those are both things that I think that if you've never had that instinct, naturally you could hear this right now and go oh OK, hold on, I need to think about that. You could develop that it's not God-given and if you don't have it, you're fucked. You could develop that. Go ahead, jane.

Speaker 1: 50:46

Yeah, no, I mean, these are all definitely skills that I'm going to talk about, that you can develop or even just start thinking about. And this came up during an off conversation with JP when we weren't recording and we were just kind of chatting with him. But I think for me personally, there was a couple factors. One of them is definitely work ethic. I started working at the age of having a real job, at the age of 10. I worked at a little parlor. I got paid $10 a weekend. I didn't care because I had specific job duties, expectations and accountability, and I've carried that with me through my whole life and it's helped me with my outlook, which is the other aspect.

Speaker 1: 51:35

I always knew it didn't have to be this bad. Why are we living in a shack with a wood-burning stove and no heat in the back room and we could see our breath in our bedroom and we have no food, but we have all these animals. But what? We don't have stuff for us, but we keep bringing in, bringing on things that we don't really need and we suffer for it. We don't have to make these choices, and so outlook was a big one for me, because I'm just like there's no way that life can be like this crappy all the time. That's right, but my parents didn't have that outlook and they were in that victim survival mode all the time. Now, have I ever gotten out of survival mode? No, that's how I run, that's my energy. Now, that's what we'll do. But the other thing is, like you said, and being able to set some goals that aren't all instant gratification. We're motivated all in different ways and a lot of the times I didn't mean to do the thumbs up, sorry, just like hey.

Speaker 1: 52:39

Do yourself, yeah, but being able to, what was I saying? Instagrification, oh, the goal is we are all extrinsically and intrinsically motivated. Intrinsically is proving to yourself or others that you can do it, but then extrinsically is getting that price right so you can have long-term goals but still have the little ones in between to get some of that gratification. And you just have to know how you're motivated and what motivates you to be able to then go. Ok, now I can set a goal. My desire meets up with the commitment level that I have and the end goal. I'm good, but holding yourself accountable to that too.

Speaker 1: 53:22

Because what I learned from my parents is they did not hold themselves accountable for anything, so it was always that somebody did something to them. It was always that level to victim mentality. I never had that, even through the experiences that I had. I said, ok, I've been through this experience. What did I learn from it? Well, don't trust everybody. These are red flags. And I started making all of those mental notes like things to watch for, because I knew that I never, if I had kids, ever, wanted them to go through what I had gone through.

Speaker 1: 53:57

That's right, and on that last episode. We chuckled about it because I talked about a story where I'm teaching my daughter how to drive and I yelled at her and she instantly started crying. And she's like you yelled at me and I'm like mom. When you know, I don't yell at my kid if she starts crying. The second I write my poem. I think I know I mean I proved a point, but then I proved a good point too.

Speaker 2: 54:20

I didn't mean to make you feel bad while I did it, but let's look at the upside. Well, let's look at the upside.

Speaker 1: 54:23

I don't do that all the time, so you're welcome.

Speaker 3: 54:27

Can I? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you've got I don't want to throw your flow there.

Speaker 3: 54:35

I do want to give a couple of plugs for things that I think can help that are even more concrete. I read one book about being the child of alcoholics and the line that really was transformative to me is if you come from an alcoholic family and you drink yourself to a problem, extend, deal with yourself first. Put your own life, that start first, and I had to get sober before I could deal with the family stuff. I think finding a competent therapist and I've had great therapists, I've had shitty therapists finding support, whether that's a support group. And then for me, because I had such issues with physical dissociation, I actually did some body work Good and worked with someone who was trained in somatic experiencing and also EMDR.

Speaker 3: 55:38

And there are modalities out there to deal with trauma in a concrete way where you're not necessarily sitting there reliving all of the terrible things that happened, but where you're being proactive and you're looking for resources and they can be found. And I am such a harsh interviewer of therapists I am not educating a therapist. Don't give me some 22-year-old right out of MSW school and I had some young MSW trained therapists. But sometimes you need, like you need, a major. It's a real deal. You know what.

Speaker 1: 56:21

I had an experience like that and I was already a coach and I went to my very first therapist, you know, and she literally had her school books out trying to diagnose me for something, and I'm like you can just stop right now. Just stop Stop. I'm like you don't need to diagnose every one of your patients A and B, you can just sit and listen.

Speaker 2: 56:43

Maybe you say listen and pull the books out later, get out.

Speaker 1: 56:47

Don't tell me your experience in front of me, please.

Speaker 2: 56:53

So I love, and that you're because we're going to be kind of coming up on a close here I love that you and Jane, you too but brought us around to the concrete things you can do now.

Speaker 2: 57:02

And Jane, it really made me reflect on that conversation with having with JP.

Speaker 2: 57:06

Jane alluded to it and we're thinking about, like how would we capture maybe a TED Talk, for example, or how could we capture, like the beginnings of a potential I'll use the word keynote but like if we wanted to, not if we wanted to, but when we are ready to, like take it on the road, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 57:23

And now I'm wondering you know, we got caught up in this part of the conversation, anne, which is why it was so great that you were able to come in and chat with us today, because we got caught up on the trying to identify those qualities. And then we got caught up on the well, that's all great and good, but you identify them. And if somebody doesn't have them, and what then? But you just sharing that, anne, about what you can be doing, and then listening to you, jane, also talk about like being able to, you know, think ahead and be able to plan and do all those things, I wonder if that's not the space for us to sit in a little bit more, because our audiences are never going to be eight year old children, right, and how to deal with it.

Speaker 2: 58:00

While you're in the middle of it, it's going to be people who've been through it. And now what? Now how to get from where I am to this life that I want. And so this is helpful, like it just made me kind of go ding, ding, ding. That's the space to be in is, where did we pick up after we escaped the trauma in order to get to where we are?

Speaker 1: 58:19

Well, I think the big one, you guys and I talk about this all the time in my coaching is growth and fixed mindsets.

Speaker 1: 58:26

Yeah, if you have a fixed mindset. You're going to buffer, you know. I mean, it's just it's going to be the same cycle, like your sister, like my sister, like my brother. You know like these cycles that we get, or our brother, you know that get stuck in these cycles and different things, and until you can actually see your growth out of that cycle, you're going to continue in that cycle. And so having a growth mindset is like again, it can't always be this bad, or if I just tweak myself just a tiny bit, I can get out of that little loophole and go to the next one. So it's really about knowing that all of us, every single one of us, no matter if you're eight, a baby, babies are definitely growth mindset. Let's just talk about it.

Speaker 1: 59:10

We were born into growth mindset people. Where did it go? Where did it go? It comes from our parents, biases, really, and the world around us.

Speaker 1: 59:17

Yeah, because we are born growing and we're fighting to stay alive and then to take that gift that we get every day. That gift to keep living, yeah, is taken away from our environment and we really are the ones that possess and control how we see it and it's our filters, and so when we're young, it's hard to develop those filters, but I think emotional intelligence has a lot to do with it too, because we've talked about this, how I always thought, about how I didn't want my kids to feel, and I was very aware of that, and so, and I think that is just like your gift that you're given, you know, when you're born, like I don't know if it's DNA, it's environment or whatever, but if you can have just a little bit of that or attach to it and use it as your little, you know, orb of growth or whatever it is, that's the key is really getting into that growth mindset for you first. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:19

All right, I'm calling that your final word because I love it and I love how you framed it. So, and final thoughts on just whether it's a reflection you want to make on this conversation, whether it's a final kind of piece you want people to be thinking about as they move forward.

Speaker 1: 1:00:33

Or a bad story that you know about Janice that you want to tell everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:00:37

You know what? I did not agree to this Embarrassing, embarrassing.

Speaker 1: 1:00:41

We're cutting it out whatever it is.

Speaker 3: 1:00:44

I'll just say don't give up.

Speaker 1: 1:00:49

Yep.

Speaker 3: 1:00:50

So I have been suicidal at points and I have told myself they win. Yeah, you know, you have to be your best advocate and you have to protect yourself, your mind, your life, your body. So don't give up, because there are tools and there is help. Yep, and just keep going.

Speaker 2: 1:01:17

I love that we're going to leave it right there. It's beautiful, I mean, it's as simple as it can get. So thank you to everybody for listening in. Of course, as always, the like, share, subscribe, do all the things and share, especially because you know we just want to grow by one listener a week. That's all we're asking right now. One listener.

Speaker 2: 1:01:36

And it could be you who shares this on your platforms, and that one listener comes along and you know, and I just love you. I'm just going to leave it at that. Thank you for being a part of the conversation, and I suspect we might be seeing you again, but you know we'll play it all by ear. So love you, sis. Well, love you too.

Speaker 1: 1:01:55

Candice, and I will talk about it later. That's right.

Speaker 2: 1:01:57

That's right, you found everybody. That's me too, jane.

Speaker 1: 1:02:00

Hi, you too. Bye, guys.