Peeling Back the Layers of Past Trauma and Abuse; Survivor's Story-PART 1

When the wounds of the past threaten the promise of the future, where do we find the courage to share and heal? Join me and Phoebe from Code Green Plant for a poignant conversation that traverses the rocky terrain of mental health and the deep-seated effects of trauma. In a space where vulnerability meets strength, we unpack the shadows of our childhoods, the complexities of discussing traumatic memories, and overcoming them one day at a time. 

Our dialogue extends beyond our own struggles, touching the lives of many who wrestle with the echoes of turbulent pasts. From the anxiety that lingers from witnessing substance abuse and violence at a young age, to the heart-wrenching decision making of whether to confront an abuser, we confront the dilemmas that shape a survivor's journey. This isn't just storytelling; it's an act of reclaiming power over the narratives that once held us captive, and an offering of empathy to those who may see their reflections in our words.

As the episode unfolds, the resilience of the human spirit shines through. Tales of early entrepreneurship reveal the hustle born of adversity and the courage to face a world that juxtaposes harsh realities with the potential for profound growth and healing. Through shared experiences and the support systems that emerge in crisis, this episode is an ode to the survivors, the thrivers, and anyone on the path to reconciling their past with the hope of a brighter tomorrow.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

I would like to give you a trigger warning for today's episode. If there's anything that makes you feel uncomfortable that has to do with trauma, this may not be the episode for you. Please do not listen to it around your children. We're going to go deep today. Enjoy the show. The Love you, Mischie Bye podcast. Let's inspire each other. Hello and welcome to Code Green. Nope, not that one. Hello and welcome to Love you, Mischie Bye. I'm Christy Chanel and today we are crossing pods. I want to have Phoebe on this show because I know that there's a topic that she wanted to cover that is, you know, right in this space, and I'm sure it affects a lot of people. I don't know. I mean, do you think it?

Speaker 2: 0:56

You have the giggles. Usually it's me. I feel much better.

Speaker 1: 0:59

So I have Phoebe on and she and I are co-hosts on Code Green Plant, where we talk about cannabis and all things. Cannabis Wellness is a part of that, and so is just everything that's happening with the legal system. We're talking about a topic that we wanted to do for Code Green Plant this week, and it was mental health, so what better person to bring on than my co-host? And so we're crossing the pods. This is really exciting. That's pretty cool, isn't it cool? I get in on Love you, mischie Bye. Probably won't be the last time you get in on Love you, mischie Bye. We've gotten deep on Code Green Plant before you know, with our stories and the things that we've been through in that way. I'll never forget it. It was like I started the Code Green Plant thing and I started the cannabis thing, and Phoebe's like I have a question for you why did you do this?

Speaker 2: 1:47

You don't even smoke.

Speaker 1: 1:48

I mean, I'll never forget you asking me that, and I had never sat there and thought about that before.

Speaker 2: 1:52

I'm like huh, I wonder if everybody thinks that People that don't smoke don't tend to be passionate about it not like you are, at least.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Yeah, I think it's just because, you know, my mom had bipolar and she would use cannabis as a way to kind of streamline her moods, and she didn't really know she had it at the time, but that was her medicine without even being diagnosed with it. So I saw how it helped her and I didn't really notice a lot of things out of the ordinary with her until later on.

Speaker 2: 2:26

A lot of people are dealing with it and you know my heart goes out to everybody that's struggling. But I think it's new for a lot of people. You know, it's kind of like today's society's brought it on, or maybe just growing up in all the craziness of the world has brought it on for a lot of people. But I've kind of had issues since I was a kid and so it's for me it's almost all I've known, you know. So that's why I say I'm always a work in progress. So when did I first know?

Speaker 1: 2:52

Yeah, second, third grade, second, second third grade. Okay, so this is something that's not caused by the surroundings or a situation in particular. This is something you just were born with. You feel.

Speaker 2: 3:06

No, well, it's both, it's twofold. So I would say it's definitely something I was born with, because mental health issues run in my family. My mother has a lot of issues. On my mom's side it's heavy. My mom still struggles greatly. We always have to keep an eye on her as far as her depression and make sure it's not getting out of control, because she still struggles back and forth.

Speaker 2: 3:27

But also, I grew up. The way I grew up is a big part of it and that was why my mom just made me go to counseling when I was young. It wasn't like, hey, mom, I'm having mental health issues. It was like my mom knew what I'd went through and she saw the behaviors I was having and knew that like I needed to get into counseling. She put me in counseling when I was in. I think third grade was the first time I remember going to individual counseling. I remember going to group counseling and I mean from then on I've almost always gone back and forth between sometimes I'm going, sometimes I'm not. It's always hard going, though you know it's like it's hard to think about.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Okay, wait, wait. Before we do that, I feel like we're skipping over a little bit.

Speaker 2: 4:02

Oh no, are you gonna make me talk about stuff, christy?

Speaker 1: 4:05

I feel like we're like woo. I think it will help only as much as you want to go into it. But we have to do some contests. What was going on?

Speaker 2: 4:13

Let me slow down, I guess it's. I don't talk about this very much. I still don't verbally unpack a lot of what I went through, Because it's layers, it's layers.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Yeah, and I feel like it's just. I've been circling this block with the same shit since I was in second grade and it just, you know, never goes away, though I've been learning that lately that all the work you do, it never goes away. It doesn't fix it, it just makes it to where you can deal with it better. By the time I was in second grade, I mean, I just had already been through a lot of things that most adults will never experience in their life.

Speaker 2: 4:43

Both my parents are alcoholics and drug addicts and I kind of realized today, christy, like thinking about gearing up for this, maybe why partly why I don't talk about it is because when I really talk about the details of my childhood, it makes my mom sound like a really bad person and a bad mother and I love my mom. We have a great relationship. Now, you know, she's just been through so much and she still has struggles and challenges and you know, but I love her and it just sounds so bad to hear it Like now that I'm a mother and I really understand the gravity of it, it's almost harder to like talk about it and think about it.

Speaker 1: 5:14

I feel the same way. It's like when I go deep, I feel bad, I'm worried I'm going to hurt somebody. I don't want to do that, but at the same time, it is our story, so we have a right to talk about it, because there are people that may be listening that are going through something like that and they just they don't have the money to go get help. They want to hear that they're not alone. That's why I feel like it's important to kind of just touch a little bit on it. We don't have to get that deep or anything. And I know, I know that you have a good relationship with your mom.

Speaker 1: 5:46

You know, I get that. I get that. So this is in the past.

Speaker 2: 5:50

It's in the past and she's a changed person. I mean, you know, in many levels she's changed. She's been cleaned out for 40 years.

Speaker 2: 5:56

I went through a lot and I started having panic attacks in second grade. So what is that like as a second grader? I don't know. I just remember it'd be terrifying for me. I'd be screaming, I'd be crying and I'd be trying to curl up in a ball, in a corner. That was pretty much my MO. I would always try to get as small as possible and in a corner, you know to where I was just trying to escape from the world.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I mean, a lot of what I went through that's how I got through it as a child was just like close my eyes curl up and hope I'm not, you know, wait on it to be over, and so that was kind of how my panic attacks were. I was going back to that place of so, even though I wasn't experiencing it, my body was experiencing it again and my subconscious was. You know, that's kind of how it worked, for me at least. And so, yeah, I would just freak out and it was not good, and my mom and my older sister were like the only people that could really help me get through it and get out of it. If anyone else came near me, it would just like exacerbate it and get worse. And so I had horrible, horrible panic attacks. They started in second, third grade and I had them through. I mean, at this point I'm in my forties and now I do under, like I can feel when it's coming on in my body.

Speaker 1: 7:02

There's only one time in my life that I've actually experienced something like that, but for me it was complete meltdown of everything, like I couldn't breathe, I was hyperventilating, it was all that. And that only happened one time and it was due to the fact that I felt trapped because I had neck surgery, my ex had just gotten put in jail and I couldn't drive and my kids were at school. I had a complete. I was out of control, I could not get to my kids and I just absolutely lost it so badly that I had never experienced that then or now. Like that was the only time, but that's all I can compare it to and I would. That could be a panic attack that I had. I don't really know, but it sounds like it right.

Speaker 2: 7:51

Yeah, that sounds like. Yeah, that was a panic attack, that was an anxiety attack. So I mean, people have them. It can happen to anybody. Anybody could have that. It's just when it's a pattern, it happens a lot. I think it becomes an actual issue, you know, like it's disorder at that point. But yeah, I mean now I could just my whole body. I can feel it in my body, like my body just starts filling with anxiety and fear and my breath, like my heart, will start getting faster and faster and our start breathing heavier and faster and I just go into panic mode inside internally. And so now, like I said, I have calming techniques and things. I've learned over the years that I haven't went into a full blown one in a long time. But anytime I get close, I'm like, okay, now it's time to you know. If it's a period I'm not going to the therapist or something. If I get close to having one, I'm like, all right, it's time to get back and start doing that again, working on things.

Speaker 1: 8:40

So can I ask you what is, what are some of the things you can do to stop one that you've learned that you could share?

Speaker 2: 8:48

So for me, my biggest thing has been centering. Are my dogs barking so much Like, can you?

Speaker 1: 8:52

hear that they're going. Yeah, they're going pretty good.

Speaker 2: 8:56

Do you want me to like mute and like do you want to wait or just go? I don't know what you want to do.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I feel like we're on a good spot, but yeah, maybe we would give it to they're having a good time. I don't believe it. I know someone must be coming walking by or something.

Speaker 2: 9:09

Is it like a stranger? The biggest one, and my mom taught me this when I was a teenager and back then it would somewhat work. But I didn't understand everything. And now it usually does and it's what I'll do when I start feeling it coming on. But it's all light of candle and it just helps center me. Like I will just stare at that candle and nothing else. Like I will try to block everything else out except staring at that candle and it's just kind of like a way to center myself and I'll try to breathe, like slow my breathing. That's just staring at a candle and slowing my breathing, cause I know when I'm looking at that candle I'm trying to focus and concentrate.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So, like I said when I was a teenager and she taught me that candle trick, it wouldn't always work, but now that I've been using it for so long and that's really the only one I can come up with, cause that's what I do is, you know, look at my candle and I will find this. You know, usually cool down, try to cool off somewhere, like, oh my God, as soon as I think they're gonna stop, they keep going. Let me go, and nobody's home to calm them down Like normally my husband would like get in here and wrangle them in somewhere, and so they're in there.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Let me go close the curtains.

Speaker 1: 10:07

I think that'll help. We got time we got time.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Whoa Jesus, what the fuck, uh-oh.

Speaker 1: 10:19

We're back. We're back. I'm thinking of it as a viewer. I would wanna know what caused the panic attacks and what's kinda led you to where you are. So, all right, I know this. It's hard, phoebe. I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Do I start over? Do I you?

Speaker 1: 10:42

can do it whatever flow you want. And I will find our and I will edit. You have to edit. Yeah, I have 24 hours but I'm gonna freaking do it, man. No, you don't have to go backwards. But I would say I would say, right now we're at second grade. Right now you started to have panic attacks and your mom thought you needed to go to therapy.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Yeah, go, okay. So yes, at this point my mom had just started getting into recovery and she was back in college. She went to college and she was a psychology major.

Speaker 1: 11:12

And she herself learned.

Speaker 2: 11:14

At this point she needed to be doing a lot of work, and she started going to therapy and counseling, and so she, of course, had me go.

Speaker 1: 11:21

I really think you should tell the story. There's one story that I want you to tell, and you know what I want you to tell.

Speaker 2: 11:26

I know and I understand, because I feel like it's not fair to the listeners for me to just be like I had a shitty childhood. Moving on, they're like don't give us the potatoes, we want the meat.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Yeah, that's right, I just did an episode for my history with tea, okay, and yeah, and it's deep and it's long and it's traumatic and it's horrible, okay.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Wait with tea like the drink tea. Oh okay, I didn't know you had such a problem with tea.

Speaker 1: 11:58

It was a deep episode on tea, green tea to be specific.

Speaker 1: 12:02

No, no, no tea. And so I talk about this episode and I feel like I've healed from it and I put the episode out and Lori tells me she's like. She's like, yeah, you know there's layers there, because I was doing what you tend to do, which is gloss over a lot, like I skipped every traumatic fight we've ever had. You know what I mean I did, but it's because to go down into those fights hurts, you know it hurts. And so I realized that I'm gonna have to peel the layers back a little at a time if I really wanna connect. So I know it's hard and I don't expect you to be able to just peel off these layers, but if you can peel off maybe the first layer, I mean.

Speaker 2: 12:56

I can. I can peel off layers. It's fine.

Speaker 1: 12:59

I think I'm good I definitely wanna hit that story that you told in Code Green Plant, though I mean I'll just.

Speaker 2: 13:04

I've never told my story like from beginning to end, ever.

Speaker 1: 13:07

This is the hard part of talking about it and I think it's relevant. So, just like I did in that one episode where I was like you were having trouble, you know, and that's okay because everyone has trouble, so we can do this, phoebe, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:21

So okay, when did I start? Back in Kansas, Like okay.

Speaker 1: 13:28

Take me back. I always do a rewind To the beginning.

Speaker 2: 13:32

Yeah, I was born in Kansas. My mom was married. I had two older sisters already, but one did not live with my mom. Already when I was born she had lost custody of my middle sister because of all of her drug abuse and chaos and just her entire life. My oldest sister lived with her dad when she was three. He didn't necessarily even want custody, but my grandma so my mom's mom we just found this out not too long ago actually went to my sister's dad and said hey, even though we don't get along and you're not the best, you're better than my daughter and her new husband. So it'd be much better if I would support you getting custody. I would support you in that battle. So he did. He went and fought for custody and got sole custody of my sister. My mom only had my oldest sister living with her and my dad, my bar certificate dad.

Speaker 2: 14:25

So that's kind of the environment that I was being born into. It was one that one child already got taken away. My mom started drinking alcohol when she was five. She was an alcoholic, a true alcoholic, started doing drugs hard drugs when she was pretty young. Her favorite drugs were, you know the really hard ones LSD, all those types and my dad favored heroin and things like that on top of the drinking.

Speaker 2: 14:47

So I mean, I grew up in, I was born into true, you know the chaos of it like the true. You know they didn't really have jobs. My dad was a biker. These were the bikers of the 80s, not like the clean cut ones that just got on the weekends. He was the real dirt bag. Sorry, I mean, I don't know what else to say. You know, like the real dirt bag, dirty ones of the 80s that were about crime and not good people. So I was around that a lot. You know I'd be around the party and them drunk. You know they didn't have a babysitter. My oldest sister was my babysitter. That's who pretty much raised me. You know A lot of what we went through, though. We went through together, me and her. She would be there too, and we, I mean we'd literally be at all those bars. We'd be at the bar, we'd be at the biker cookout, we'd see the fights, we'd see everybody drunk, we'd see, you know I've I mean by the time I was five I'd already seen people having sex.

Speaker 1: 15:34

I'd already seen almost all kinds of things related to sex by the time I was five.

Speaker 2: 15:38

I'd seen people have really bad fights. I mean my parents would fight like bad, physically. You know, my mom used to fight other people. I would see all this, my dad. They were just violent people. That was a violent community we were in. So I'd see the violence and I would see and I didn't realize how that would fuck me up, you know.

Speaker 2: 15:55

And then I just it wasn't until I got much older that I realized all that shit I went through was what turned me into what I am and why I have all these troubles. I didn't know it then. You know, I just knew I had a panic attacks and I had anxiety and I was different than other kids. I had mental health issues already and I knew that. But I didn't know what all fed into it. I just thought something was wrong with me because to me that was all I knew. That's how I grew up. I didn't know there was a difference. I didn't know. I didn't. I didn't see what a normal childhood was like or what two loving parents was like. I didn't see that. So I didn't know any different.

Speaker 2: 16:24

You know, it took me a long time to even understand the gravity of a lot of what I went through. I didn't fully understand it until I had my own child and I could say, oh Jesus, you know, and that's something we talked about before. I know that, but for me that was my tipping point and catalyst of like really coming to reconcile and really having to realize how bad, how fucked up my childhood was, was after I had my son and you know, when he was three, four, five, I'm just like the shit I was already going through. He would not be the same kid he is today if he'd went through that and it made me understand, like now I get it. Now I understand why I've always been different, because I was exposed to so much at such a young age that it made me different. I was never going to be the same I was. I never. You know, it was one of the things. I never really had a chance to be normal.

Speaker 1: 17:07

I just don't know what is normal, though.

Speaker 2: 17:09

But yeah, yeah, no, but you just you didn't get a chance to get to see what you would have been like had you not had this traumatic experience, and yeah, and my parents, like I said, they fought I mean it was, I mean it was bad fights, you know, and my sister and I would try to hide in our bedroom and I've talked about you know how my dad would come and get me and he'd pull me out of my bed and that was. You know, that was the thing, especially when they were drunk and they're, you know, alcohol fueled fights and drug fueled fights and they just get fucking crazy and my dad would come and grab me out of my bed, you know, when I'm sleeping and you know, pull me out or pull a gun on me and threaten my mom, say he was going to kill me or you know just anything to try to hurt her and try to win the fight. My mom, you know, even though you think, oh, she's a woman and he probably just beat her, like, well, my mom would beat him too. I mean my mom would get a weapon, she would take something and beat the shit out of him too. You know it wasn't just a one sided thing, they were violent towards each other and the other things that would happen.

Speaker 2: 18:06

Like he, I mean my dad was also, he was sexually abusive and my sister being nine years older. That's one of those things I still feel like I don't, because people say, were you sexually abused? And I'm like I don't know. I don't know if I was touched. I don't know because I was so young. But what I do know now is that either way I was because I was there when he did with my did. Whatever he did to my sister. I know I was there. We shared a bed. We'd usually sleep together because we were scared of everything going on outside our room. So we'd always shared a room, we'd always shared a bed and so, regardless whether he touched me or not, it's almost irrelevant, because I'd be there when he was doing it to my sister and we know for sure he did that. So that's what I'm saying. Every type of abuse you can think of I had went through by the time I was, you know, five or six. I'd already experienced a lot.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Well, I was also sexually abused when.

Speaker 1: 18:56

I was five as well and my mom was 25 at the time. She was with this lawyer guy that she married and he had money and she had to go to get a hysterectomy and she went to the hospital for a week. And when she went to the hospital I was alone in this house with him for a week and it happened when it was it was it was nighttime and I was asleep and I remember waking up. So I don't know if it happened again. I don't remember it happened again happening again, but I was so protect. He never told me not to tell because I don't think he knew, I don't think he thought I really knew, but he it was an instinctual thing not to tell because she was still with him and I didn't want him to hurt her Like she was my world. I didn't end up telling her until I was safe and we were in New Jersey and she was with my stepdad and we were at the table and he was still. He had he owns the home that my grandmother lived in her mom. So they still had to talk to get rent and all that other stuff. And she came into the kitchen one day and she said oh, we're going to go see Bob. I'm going to fucking say his name, I don't give a shit. We're going to go see Bob. And I was like I don't want to see him. And she's like I got hate him as a matter of fact because you don't hate anybody, christy, I go, I hate him. And it was over breakfast and she's like she could see in my eyes that there was something deep there. And I ended up telling her that morning and she's like, if you don't have to go to school, if you don't want to go to school, I'm like I've dealt with it, I can go to school. You haven't dealt with it yet.

Speaker 1: 20:44

And I was in third grade and they decided her my step, that they asked me. They said Do you want to do, you want to go to court? Do you want to fight him? And I said she goes. But understand, if this happens, you're going to have to testify in front of people, you're going to have to share that story, you're going to have to do all that. And I decided I didn't want to do that, I just would rather not have him in my life anymore. But he was an attorney, so he was high, you know, in the court system already. It would have probably been a losing battle for me. So yeah, that was my story and I don't know how it shaped me or didn't shape me, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Yeah, when it sounds like it was handled well too. I mean, it was not. You know your, your mom validated you. It sounds like she said like, yeah, that was not okay and that's fucked up. And what do you want to do? How can we, you know, support you?

Speaker 2: 21:38

Yeah, and when my mom found out what was happening, she didn't do anything, she, they just started fighting worse. They didn't. She didn't leave my dad. I mean, she didn't leave him for that. They just kind of like she used drugs more. It made her go that way. You know she drank more and use drugs more and their fights got worse and more vicious. And she says that now, you know, she she's apologized and said you know, I'm sorry, I didn't know how to leave, I didn't know what I was supposed to do. All I did was like what a feral person would do, like she didn't know Because she wasn't protected as a child, so she did not know how to do that, and so we it didn't stop, and it was never like a let's press charges. I mean, my dad went on and did it to his next girlfriend's kid too, and there was no nothing happened with them either, and so it's always it's been a thing you know.

Speaker 1: 22:31

So how do you, how do you deal with the fact that she knew and she stayed, because If you turn that around, and it was our kids, I Can't think of.

Speaker 2: 22:51

Then that's why I said I have a hard time, because it's it's hard to talk about what happened and then turn around and be like Hi, mom, I love you, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very disconnected, right? Yeah, I just have to, you know, remember that that was a past and it's not today and but she didn't. I mean, you know, you say, how could you know that happened to your kid? And I do anything, but like all the shit that she let us go through, how, yeah?

Speaker 1: 23:15

yeah, I guess it's all and it's all in the same category if you look at it. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:18

I mean, and we were. I mean I raised myself like my sister would raise me, but she was not went to rate. You know she was a fucking wild ass kid to everything we went through. You think she wasn't wild and had her own issues. So I mean I feel like I raised myself. I was always on my own, you know, because when my mom was using, she was not home, she was not available, she wasn't a good parent and I mean in her drinking like she would have seizures, like she would get so, like that's how her drinking was, like it was bad, it was all very bad.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Do you notice that for me? Because I was molested, I was always hyper Aware of people around my kids. It made me super.

Speaker 2: 24:01

I am now effective.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Oh my god, I just yeah my husband everything yeah, sleepovers, like all of it.

Speaker 1: 24:09

I would have those talks really early. You know what I mean and and and I hope that I've protected them. You know they. They seem to be well adjusted and stuff, but so those type of secrets don't always get revealed, you know, and it's like you just hope that you've protected them enough that that that will never happen to them. But I just know that that was probably one of my top three things that I was always on the alert for, because you just want them to be kids for as long as they can be, you know, and nothing hurt them. Yeah, so I get that. Okay, so you were going through that. He was Clearly not a good parental figure in your life. He was far from neither one of them.

Speaker 2: 24:53

No, they want. Yeah, yeah, my, I mean, I didn't have parents at that age, so I just when did you?

Speaker 1: 24:59

How long was it until you actually got a?

Speaker 2: 25:02

parent, I mean. So my mom got clean when I was about five, but she didn't, okay, and people I always think like, okay, like it didn't get better, yeah, yeah, no, it doesn't sound like it. That was, it was. We had so much, okay, I mean, we were so dysfunctional. Her, her stopping that, yeah, it helped, but it in in in the shit, because she'd already been through so much in her life. She still was. She was fucked up. You know like you know, when you grow up the way you did, I still feel like I still fight, not being that part of me. Yeah, I have so many demons. Yeah, yeah, part of me feels like that was the road I was headed down for a long time and that's where I should be right now. Somehow I veered off and did a different thing, but it's like I have a pole towards it a lot.

Speaker 1: 25:47

And you know, and that's that's also a testament of you, because a lot of people they can take, they can go one of two ways. They can go the way the same path and follow that because that's what they know, and then their kids end up having those issues and it's passed on from generation to generation. You're breaking that, that curse more or less from your childhood and giving your son something better. Yeah, that's a big deal and yeah, takes a lot of courage.

Speaker 2: 26:12

So they got a divorce. Finally, how long did it take? I was probably six and he would still come around. It wasn't until we moved to a different town when I was in the middle of second grade.

Speaker 1: 26:22

That's when we moved, but um so when they got a divorce, did you feel? Do you remember feeling any sense of Relief? But if you had to live with that kind of a person and in, in fear you know, I didn't know, but I didn't feel like my dad.

Speaker 2: 26:38

I all I wanted was my dad to love me and treat me well. So all I wanted was his love. I didn't feel scared of him. I felt like I just wish he'd love me. I never remember feeling Scared of him. I remember feeling angry and sad, but I never felt scared of him, despite everything he did. All I wanted was him to love me. You know he was a horrible monster, but I just wanted him to love me. So no, I didn't feel fear. I mean it was hard because then I didn't see him much and I cry and miss him and you know something like he was a dirtbag, but he was my dirtbag.

Speaker 2: 27:14

I just knew other kids had dads. I wanted my dad, I wanted a dad, yeah, no that that makes sense because my son feels that way.

Speaker 1: 27:22

You know he's. He's Going through that where he loves him and he misses him, and it's Even though he knows what he's become and what he was. And so that's an internal struggle for a 15 year old to try and decipher His love for his own dad, Even though he's not the best human.

Speaker 2: 27:43

Yeah, it's like you want the idea, maybe the idea of a dad. You want something that they're not gonna be, though.

Speaker 1: 27:50

Yeah, you just want a dad and I get, I get it, and so I make sure that I support him and I'm like talk about it, let's talk about it. I want him to keep talking. Yeah, I don't want him to push it and repress it. You know, you were about to say that. You're that your sister hurt heard the podcast that we did. Did they? Did you guys ever have a conversation after that?

Speaker 2: 28:10

Yeah, we did. And the crazy thing so in that, that episode, what Christie's talking about, for the love you miss you by people that haven't heard, it is like there isn't an experience with my dad that I had went into kind of detail about and it was I think it was when they were fighting and he came and pulled me out of bed and that was when he broke my window right yeah, busted my bedroom window. The police were outside. Like my mom would call the police on him. This is a fight she did call the police on him for.

Speaker 1: 28:35

But she was hanging out the window. She left that part out. You know there was glass every everywhere. I mean that the visual I get is is I just want to. Yeah, I could make me tear up a little, because it was. I just want to push him out the window.

Speaker 2: 28:52

And right but, I, mean, and that was his like I'm gonna, I'm gonna hurt her. If y'all come in, I'm gonna hurt her. I got a baby, you know like. It wasn't like a I love her, it was like I got a piece of glass.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Yeah, I.

Speaker 2: 29:07

Yeah, oh. So that was the shit that would go on, you know, when they were drunk. And then my sister's here in that podcast. Oh, what I wanted to mention about that was, like my middle sister she's like. I didn't know that's what you guys were all going through at that time, because she didn't live with this. So in her mind she just envisioned we had a great mom and like they get to be with mom and I don't. Mom doesn't want me. I'm here with away from my family with my dad and all the while it's like, and my mom said it now like. Now my mom says this you know she's like, but the reason I didn't even fight for custody was because that was my only way to a protect her. So that's where those panic attacks, kind of the root of them, was. You know, just reliving that stuff, I'm not knowing how to process it. As a kid, you don't know how to process that and so when I started counseling?

Speaker 2: 29:51

I would. I thought I was working on you know like I talk about how I missed my dad and I didn't feel like he loved. You know what? I'm not lovable people don't love me. I don't have a good parents, I don't have a grandparents, I don't have an snook was. That was a lot of what I would talk about, I think, in counseling when I was little Not realize you know, now that I'm older it's like you got to talk about all kinds of stuff, but those were the little childhood things that I'd probably talk about in there, I know what I was doing.

Speaker 1: 30:16

loved you were. Yeah, that's all I wanted back then. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:20

And I was very aware that I didn't have all of that, whereas my friends all did. I still remember my therapist's name. His name was Phil. I mean, I still remember him. It was a black man, if you. I mean we've talked about that and remember I told you that's what I'm more comfortable with people in your life. And so even my, even my counselor, who did show me love and and make me feel valid and seen, he was even that.

Speaker 1: 30:41

How long was your counselor for like through?

Speaker 2: 30:43

elementary school and then it was in middle school when I started going to, like you know, in order someone for older, you know, middle school age kids. It's funny because I thought I was just like a tough kid and like my, I was my own self and my own body. And now that I understand what all happens to trauma victims, I'm like, oh my God, I was like a textbook trauma survivor, you know, like I was showing out and I did all that stuff and I was all textbook.

Speaker 1: 31:08

What are we doing? Like just just being rebellious and living on the edge Like you didn't care about anything, that type of thing, uh-huh, anything.

Speaker 2: 31:15

You know, I was especially like towards the end of middle school and early high school when I started really getting older and getting hormones and just angry, really angry about everything. I mean, I was a fucking mess. I, like middle school I started hanging around the best crowd. They were all drinking and smoking and all that already I wasn't. My friends were already having sex. I wasn't, and it was just cause I had such a weird past that it wasn't. That wasn't what I wanted to do, I just wanted to be the tough kid. You know I was the tough kid. I would fight. Now, I know all that was just went in attention. You know, it was just attention seeking by like ninth grade. It wasn't getting. It was all getting worse and the therapy wasn't helping. So I had to get on medication to help start managing my anxiety, cause at that point I was having bad anxiety and like OCD was starting to kind of exhibit OCD symptoms.

Speaker 1: 32:02

Okay, so the cleaning, that type of thing, the cleaning Organization, like what are? What are the symptoms?

Speaker 2: 32:09

Um, like for me it was mine was cleaning, like I was obsessively clean. I mean, it was like it was an obsession and I would wash my hands a lot too. Those were my two and it's just a control thing. Like what can you control? You know, I never had control of so many areas of my life, so that was my control. Was the cleaning, and my sister has the same one. You think like, oh, no, it's. You know you're clean person. Like no, it was. Like it would cause issues. Like I'd be at school doing a list of, like what I'm going to clean.

Speaker 2: 32:34

Like that's if I was at home, that's what I was going to be doing, and like it would cause, it would cause camp fights at our house. Cause, like I'm like yelling at the people I live with, like I would get after my mom, like you didn't sweep this floor, good, wow, so you? Were just like this is yeah, it was over.

Speaker 2: 32:51

It overcame me Like so yeah, the medicine was to help with anxiety panic and OCD it did it did I mean there I will say like I'd get on one and it might help with some things, but then they didn't help with everything and I didn't know of any other ways to control it. My mom, you know it was like so they just would change it or add more. And there was a point in high school that I was on three. I was on an anti-anxiety medication, I was on an anti-depression, anti-depressant and I was on an anti-psychotic. There was a point in my life where I was on all three of those.

Speaker 1: 33:24

How did that make you feel?

Speaker 2: 33:25

Were you numb to everything? At the time I didn't realize it, but I would say I was, because that's when I was just super reckless. I didn't give a shit about anything.

Speaker 1: 33:33

Or just kind of like no emotion.

Speaker 2: 33:35

Yeah yeah, and I was wild. I had a great time, had a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 33:40

I had a really good time. Let me just put that out.

Speaker 2: 33:42

there had a really good fucking time. You know it didn't mix well also with all of my party and my drinking and drugs and that I started getting involved in.

Speaker 1: 33:51

Was it just really making your choices that much scarier? Because you know you have those internal things that stop you from doing things that could hurt you and if that's numbed that can be a little scary. It just made me more reckless. I mean, I was very reckless, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:06

I was a tough kid. I was a tough child.

Speaker 1: 34:08

I do not doubt you, not even a second.

Speaker 2: 34:12

You know so my friends were not medicine, you know, now it's common. I think it's more common for people to take something to help them. But back then in the early nineties, it was not common. It wasn't common for adults, at damn sure it wasn't for kids. And my friends, you know they'd make fun of me for it. I found out behind my back and shit, and that's when it started, what medicine itself started being like a shameful thing for me.

Speaker 1: 34:36

You know, kids were just great things that people yeah, if they don't understand it they, you know it'd be like.

Speaker 2: 34:41

I remember a friend coming and being like so and so said and this was a girl I thought was one of my good friends that that's why her crazy ass is on medicine. Like it'd be comments like that. My relationship with medicine started getting weird too, because not a lot of people were on it started my not wanting to take it. I got to figure something else out. I'm not taking this and I always had the like I don't want to be like my mom and always have to take something. Like teens, early twenties I stopped.

Speaker 1: 35:03

Are you in therapy at this?

Speaker 2: 35:04

point I would go back and forth, because I'm an adult now, so I didn't have my mom making me, I didn't always have insurance. So, and also at this point you know they're wanting to talk about this childhood shit that I still wasn't ready to talk about. I didn't know how to talk about it, I didn't know how to process it. To me it was like that's what I went through and like that's how I felt about it. Like and yeah, that's my, yeah, that's my story and it didn't affect me.

Speaker 1: 35:29

Like I really thought it didn't affect me.

Speaker 2: 35:31

I really thought like so it didn't affect me, though Like that's.

Speaker 1: 35:35

that's what the layers are about. Yeah, so you just pulled up your wall.

Speaker 2: 35:38

We lived in Pittsburgh. That was the one town we moved to and I got on medicine when we were in Pittsburgh. I hated Pittsburgh. My sisters had already moved back to our hometown at this point. My mom happened to break up with her boyfriend at the time because my mom loved the men.

Speaker 1: 35:52

Do you think she had like a love addiction where she's all the time she had to be in a relationship, all the time, girl, all?

Speaker 2: 35:58

the time we hung around a lot of people that were, you know, sold drugs and did crime and it was all normal for me. You know, like my first tricycle my dad literally stole from a preschool. Him and his biker buddies went out the local preschool had got like all these new tricycles in and they went and stole them all and that was my first tricycle and my mom said it was like even in the paper, like the next day it was that big of a till. So like this shit was normal for me. So when I got older and that's the crowd I fell in with, like of course, why wouldn't?

Speaker 1: 36:27

I have. It was just a natural fit. Yeah, yeah, that's what I knew and my sisters did the same.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Like you know, they especially my oldest sister, like I said were a lot of like now my middle sister's not. After my middle sister graduated high school, my oldest sister didn't. My middle sister immediately went on to college. Me and my oldest sister didn't get to go to college till we were like in our thirties. That middle sister of mine, that time away from us, she actually is a kind of a different person than us. Because of it. She's a little more healthy not all the way and she's got her own shit.

Speaker 1: 36:54

She unpacks but she definitely formative years.

Speaker 2: 36:57

She had a chance to actually had a little more of a chance, change a little bit there.

Speaker 1: 37:01

I'd be curious to know if the addiction for your mom came from a boyfriend or a man in her life that got her started. And I ask you that because If she has a love addiction where she feels like she needs to have to get her value from a man and that's what keeps her in going in these cycles, I'm wondering if that's where it all started both her parents for alcoholics, have the alcoholics and her mom had like a pill problem, I think.

Speaker 2: 37:27

But my grandpa was beyond abusive, like he was sexually abusive, physically. They would lock my mom and a potato seller for days like without any food or water. My mom was raped and like sexually molested by her dad, the priest, the dentist, multiple people, her doctor multiple people because you know back then that's how they they target the victims and my mom didn't really start talking till she was at like five or six. She didn't really talk because she was so fucked up. My grandpa, like he literally skin her dog in front of her. I mean, this is the shit my mom went through. So that's why she started drinking at five and she said that's because that's the only thing that made her feel good.

Speaker 2: 38:06

Like I heard my mom tell her story because you know they and you talk, you speak sometimes until your story. I've heard her tell her story Multiple times. That's how I know all this and I've been here in this story since I was a kid, mind you, because I've been going to the meetings with her from when I was, you know, when she started getting clean. That's also partly why I was always just like I get it. You know what can you do? Like, yeah, my mom's fucked up too, but think about what she went through.

Speaker 1: 38:30

And then that helps to learn that part of your mom, just because, yeah, it's more perspective on why she didn't leave that relationship, because the two people that are supposed to love her, yeah, that's what she knew from them.

Speaker 2: 38:42

Yes, she knew, and I mean in the abuse so bad my aunt killed herself. She couldn't, you know, deal with it and my uncle just had the worst drug problems and you know he's dealt with addiction issues his whole life and that's why I said my mom and him both the suicide attempts and all they have so many mental health issues because of what they went through she's a victim to me. So I was on my own. You know, especially after my sisters moved out, like by seventh grade I was a hundred percent, like hundred percent latchkey kid and I mean to the point like I get home by myself, I go to bed by myself. You know my mom didn't get home till after I was already sleep. She got up to my midnight.

Speaker 2: 39:19

I moved to Dallas after high school. The reason why I moved to Dallas a shocker, my boyfriend at the time was, you know, criminal. He was a known criminal in our town and we were at the point where the police would just like park out, like down the street outside our house and follow us everywhere. We went like trying to get him in trouble. So that was a part of it is just like all right, we got to get the hell out of here. I was 21 and literally just pack my car and left. How long were you with him? Probably six months.

Speaker 1: 39:45

I would drink a lot.

Speaker 2: 39:46

I was drinking a lot, though alcohol at that time was my choice heavy, heavily, like blackout. Heavy, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:52

Okay.

Speaker 2: 39:53

And that was even before I moved to Dallas. Like blackout, I mean it? Was nothing. I started blackout heavy when I was a freshman. Yeah, I started every weekend. Every weekend from freshman year on, I was fucking plastered the whole weekend. I got a job immediately through a temp service. I always had a job and I thought had what I thought was a good job. You know, I had a cubicle and I thought that was fucking amazing.

Speaker 1: 40:15

It is fucking amazing.

Speaker 2: 40:16

So that was part of what would keep me, because, no matter what I was doing, how late I was up drinking and partying, I was getting up and I was going to fucking work. That's what I was going to do. That's what I did. Know, I'm not afraid of hard work.

Speaker 2: 40:27

I've never been afraid of that and I would usually end the relationships as soon as they started going somewhere. I would end it for some reason. I remember I broke up with a guy once because he ate my leftover pork chop up. Like I love that. I was saving that fucking pork chop. I wanted a pork chop sandwich and I came home and it was gone and like that's it, buddy, we're done.

Speaker 1: 40:47

I think we're together. You must have been really hungry, phoebe.

Speaker 2: 40:51

I just like pork chop sandwiches. There is nothing like you put that pork chop on a piece of bread with a piece of cheese and some hot sauce. Christie is so fucking good you must not.

Speaker 1: 41:01

You were probably already looking for a reason to get rid of him.

Speaker 2: 41:04

I was always looking for a reason to get rid of a guy, christie. Oh, you were, I was. That's how I was, yeah that. I was not trying to settle down, no, I mean in my high school, high school sweetheart, at that point, oh, he was always trying to get back with me and I might, I might let him come and spend the night, but he wasn't getting back with me.

Speaker 1: 41:21

Yeah, so the commitment thing was, I was not.

Speaker 2: 41:24

No, I was not with that and at this point, even though I lived here and I had you know what I considered a good little cubicle job. Yeah, I was very much in the streets and very much like starting a new life of crime here and hanging around the wrong people here. I made a lot of money in the streets. I'll just say that I don't really talk much about what I sold. Held my own in the streets as well. I'll say that I had a thriving business I had, I had workers, so I mean I started selling drugs in high school, so of course that wasn't a thing when I was an adult. As I got older, I got wiser and I wasn't necessarily the one doing it. I had people working for me doing stuff.

Speaker 1: 41:57

So it makes sense that you go from the streets to an actual business and simply vibe in that. It's the whole circle.

Speaker 2: 42:04

I started hustling in sixth grade. I didn't know that's what I was doing, but that's when I started. I would go to the candy shop and buy pounds of candy and I would take it to school and sell it individually and make money. I started doing that in sixth grade. I mean, you know, when you're poor you figure shit out. So, like at work, no one ever would guess that that's what I went and did at night. And then at night, no one would ever guess that's what I was doing during the day. Were you ever scared? No, I mean, and it was just because I was reckless. I didn't fucking care. Why would I? What would I be scared of?

Speaker 2: 42:33

Yeah, of other people, I was too, reckless to be scared.

Speaker 2: 42:35

Honestly, I thought I was if I died. That you know well, that was what I was involved in. Like that's part of what you as part of it, I wasn't. No, okay, I mean, and during that time, like I've been raped, but it didn't have anything to do with business. The guy that raped me was actually one of the clean cut guys that had a good job and had a nice car and a nice apartment and I thought like, oh, I'm finally going to date a nice guy that's not in the streets and he's the fucking one that raped me. So no, I wasn't scared of the guys in the streets. That's what I knew, that's what I was comfortable with. Is the thugs, the? You know. I tried to go the clean cut route of the good guy and he's the one that you know is like the date rape situation.

Speaker 1: 43:17

How long were you dating him?

Speaker 2: 43:19

We'd gone on a couple days I think this was just like our second or third maybe and I did so. The guy, my other guy that I moved here with he was still in my life at this point, like the end and out, and he found out what happened and he like would sit outside my apartment for like days at a time, like at night, and just sit there and hope he was catch the guy come back over. He didn't, because I mean I didn't really talk to him again after that, but I was also date raped Bye.