EP09: Becoming Vanessa | A Story of Courage and True Liberation with Vanessa James

This week, in a deeply personal conversation, Vanessa James takes us through the years she spent quietly concealing her identity. She speaks openly about the emotional struggle of navigating childhood trauma, overcoming explosive addiction within the music and hospitality scenes, and the immense hurdle of a shocking 164-year initial prison sentence, ultimately arriving at a place of true self-acceptance—the long-awaited chance to finally live as her authentic self. 

Her road was long and winding, but she fought for her sobriety—even while incarcerated—all while battling the internal fear of becoming the woman she knew she was. We dive deep into the terrifying moment she courageously embraced transition and the beautiful, vibrant life she lives now as a transgender woman. 

Vanessa's story is a powerful testament to the gift of self-forgiveness, resilience, and the life-changing importance of community.

"I was ready to lose it all... but I haven't. It's been the most beautiful, loving, accepting journey that I've ever been on." 

Chapters

• 5:22 Struggles with Identity and Family Dynamics
• 14:29 Career Changes and Self-Discovery
• 28:57 Struggles with Addiction and Hiding Vanessa
• 39:15 The Turning Point: A Descent into Darkness
• 47:03 Facing Consequences and Seeking Redemption
• 59:32 Transitioning to Freedom: Parole and New Beginnings
• 1:04:50 Embracing Authenticity: Becoming Vanessa
• 1:12:46 Community, Loneliness, Self-Care and Boundaries
• 1:20:38 The Importance of Forgiveness and Self-Acceptance
• 1:29:25 Advice for Those in Transition
• 1:34:59 The Power of Truth and Connection

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

There are moments in life that put us open. By unraveling such brain or truth, we just don't need it. And so we have no truth. This podcast is about those moments. It's about the turning points that change us. The things I wish someone had told me that I only understand and looked at. Come on in. You belong here. And we're going to talk about all of it. I'm your host, Natanya, and this is what I didn't know. Before we begin, a quick note. This podcast explores themes such as mental health, addiction, trauma, and recovery. While the stories here are honest and heartfelt, they're not a substitute for professional advice, therapy, or medical treatment. Please listen with care and pause any time you need to. Take whatever resonates for you and leave the rest. Today's guest is Vanessa James. Vanessa is a friend of mine and also a transgender woman. This episode is much longer than usual. There are hard parts, there are intense parts, there are things about this that are very emotional. When she was young, she talks about getting passed along from family member to family member, kind of like in a pinball machine, home to home, and she really didn't have anywhere that she belonged. I don't talk a lot in this episode because I really wanted to give her room to tell her full story that she belongs here, and we're gonna allow her to take up some space. So this is the true story of how Vanessa became. So I'm just gonna start with when I met you. Okay. So when I met you, you were Leland.

SPEAKER_01: 2:02

Yeah. That name is still weird to hear.

SPEAKER_00: 2:05

It is weird. It is weird. And I I was telling you when I texted you the other day, I was looking for you in my phone and I couldn't find it. And I was like, I know I have her number. Um and then that I found it because it was under the wrong name. And I was like, we're getting rid of this. Delete. But so yeah, I just think your experience is so interesting and unique, and you're so impassioned as a person, which I have such a great admiration for. Um, but I would love to talk to you a little bit about the past and what this has been like for you before you were Vanessa.

SPEAKER_01: 2:40

Definitely. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 2:43

Um, so when did you what was this like for you growing up, or when did you first know or have thoughts about that you might not identify the same way that you were born?

SPEAKER_01: 2:55

Um that's a great question. It's so funny. You were like, you said, uh, you know, I know little bits about you, but not everything. And it's interesting when I talk about my story in my act of addiction and my recovery journey. I always started off with like, I can't tell you everything, just a little bit, because I don't remember everything.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:12

Most of the life was a blur. But to answer your question, from my earliest memories, so I grew up in very rural Oklahoma. And I say I grew up.

SPEAKER_00: 3:22

I say I didn't know that. Oklahoma? I didn't know that at all. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 3:26

For the most part, yeah. But um my family, we were very, very, very much just engulfed in poverty all the way around. Um, and so I would kind of get, I don't know, handed off, passed off from family member to family member. So I would live with mom for a year or two, and then I'd go to Arkansas and live with my aunt for a year, and then I'd come over and live with my grandmother. Most of the family lived in Oklahoma, but sometimes it was Missouri, it was Arkansas, it was Texas. Um, and to be honest with you, the longest string uh of time that I ever lived in one place was for three years. Um wow. And that's when I graduated high school. So the last three years of high school, I lived in the same place, and I honestly consider that home. That was the the most stability I ever had. Uh because it might be a semester or a year, maybe two, and then I would get handed off to the next family member. Um, very gosh, change is part of my story. But to circle back, all of the family members everywhere I lived was very, very rural country towns, like dirt roads, uh, sometimes there was farms, usually living in trailers and in Tornado Alley. That's always fun.

SPEAKER_00: 4:39

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

But my earliest memories, I mean, I, gosh, so vividly, I can remember being a child and usually around aunts and grandmothers and just feeling like I connected with them and feeling, you know, that like I was a female, I was a girl. I didn't act it out per se because all I knew were the country boys that I was around, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 5:04

And I enjoyed doing it. You know, I I played football, I bailed hay, I worked on cars, you know, I was I was a guy's guy. Um, but inside I felt like I was someone different. And the name Vanessa, I didn't choose that. Since I can remember as a kid, I don't know if it's something I saw on TV or where it was, but since I was a little kid, I just knew deep inside that my name was Vanessa. Like I was Vanessa. And even throughout my life, when things would happen internally, I'd be like, oh, that was just Vanessa that was doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:37

Oh, I love that so much.

SPEAKER_01: 5:40

She was always in there being like, ooh, kitty cat. When outside I couldn't, you know, I was like, oh stupid cat. Uh so gosh, as early as I can remember, I was always Vanessa. I always I knew this was who I was, but I couldn't be that because all of the community, all of my family around me, they were very vocal about their dislike for the LGBTQ plus community. Um I didn't even know what it was. All I all I knew was that girls like girls, guys like guys, and I was like, that's not me, because I don't like guys, but I'm a girl, so I was confused my whole life. And so I was like, maybe I'm not gay. I don't know. Maybe I'm just broken. Maybe there's something wrong with me, and I'm I don't know. So I shoved it down, shoved it down inside, um, and just hid it as long as I could possibly remember. Gosh, whole life.

SPEAKER_00: 6:42

Yeah, I want to go back to something really quick because it's so unusual to move that much and to be like handed off. What was the source of that or the reasoning for that that you know of?

SPEAKER_01: 6:55

Gosh, I really wish I knew. Um well, I mean, I I I kind of know some. So I'll give you even more of a background. Um, my father, my real father, uh lived on the Cherokee Nation Reservation. So his whole family is a hundred percent Native American. Um, I was the first born in an entire bloodline that wasn't a hundred percent Native American. So I have my roll card. It says that I'm I'm half. Um and so my mom was not. My mom was the outsider. So my father, when he went away to the military, um, had met my mom, and my mom was very much the grateful dead, like hippie chick, was my whole life, you know. Um but he met the the the girl from outside of the reservation who is not native in any way. Um and so there was there was a big dispute between the families. And so when I would go visit my father on the reservation, you know, I didn't speak the language, I didn't look like them, I wasn't one of them. So the kids would pick on me and beat me up. I couldn't understand what my aunts and uncles were saying to me. I had one uncle that was very nice and he would talk to me and his his my uncle James, um, which is my last name now. But it is he was nice and he was loving, he was caring, and he supported me throughout the rest of my life until he passed, but I wasn't welcome whenever I went home. And whenever I would come back to mom's house, I didn't look like them. So I have a stepbrother that's seven years younger than me. And when I say that I was passed around from family member to family member, it was me. My brother stayed home. He's blonde haired, blue-eyed, came from a good family. I was just in a small rural town. You know, everybody looks the same. I'll just say it, they're a bunch of white boys riding their four-wheelers, riding their pickup trucks. And then I looked very Native American in that culture. But when I went back home, I did not, or to my dad's side, I did not. So I was the one that was passed around from aunt to uncle to family member to family member. My brother would stay home, and it instantly made me think that something's wrong with me. And I knew that Vanessa was inside, and so I'm like, maybe people see this. Maybe I should act more like this male presenting person that they want to see. Maybe I should pick some fights, you know? And so I did. Right, right, right, right. It I just wanted to be loved and to be accepted, and it was like no matter where I went, I would get to that family member, I'd feel like I'm starting to belong and I'd connect, I'd go to school and I'd start to make friends and whatnot, and then be handed off to the next one. I'm sure looking back that I probably was acting out in some way. I probably was being an honor little butthead. But at that time, I was just like, I just want to be accepted. Like, what do you want me to do? What can I do? How am I gonna make you love me um when I can't even love myself? Type of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 9:48

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. And I can remember, like, first of all, that's a lot for a kid. You know, like not only the family member passing around, the different schools, but then also having another sibling who is not having that experience and it like sets you apart whether you like it or not. That's a lot to to witness. And and kids are smart, right? I can remember being a kid and picking up on things and just trying on who I am in different ways than what you're talking about. But it's the same process of you're trying to figure out who you are, and then you add in all those other layers of like questions because you don't understand something, especially when you see someone else who's like in the same title as you are. We're both siblings or whatever, but they're not getting the same treatment that I am, right? Yeah. So what happened after like high school? I I'm assuming how many schools did you actually go to?

SPEAKER_01: 10:48

Oh my gosh, I couldn't even count.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

That's a lot. I mean, I'm guessing a lot based on the way that you described.

SPEAKER_01: 10:54

It was, but then a lot of times they were repeat high school or repeat schools. Okay. So, you know, I'd go back to Aunt Thelma's a couple times. I I remember her quite a bit. I loved her, she was great. Um, she lived in Arkansas, but I also have to give this background too, that on my mom's side of the family, they were all very, very, very much involved in their religion, Southern Baptists. So when I would go to their households, you know, I was involved in all of the church activities. I mean, we were at the church five nights a week, basically, all the time. And, you know, diving into it. And so again, they were very vocal about their feelings of people who didn't, you know, fit into their category, which included the LGBTQ. And again, I didn't think that that was me, but I knew that I wasn't this image that they were portraying type of thing. Like, I wanted to wear pink, I wanted to be, you know, have nails and have fun. But I uh I needed to drive a truck and you know, date my high school sweetheart, which I did. Um gosh, so I couldn't tell you how many schools, but a lot of them were repeat. And when I would go back to the schools, sometimes they would remember me. And you know, I'd grown a year or two, or maybe three years, and things had changed, and instantly like that guy image, you know, fighting and being a bully. And I think a lot of it now that I've had enough time to work with my therapist and go through a lot of changes since becoming Vanessa, even before that, you know, that's where a lot of my gosh, anger and hatred came from was like you were saying, my brother got to stay there. I didn't. Why is this happening to me? So those three years, Branson, Missouri is where I I lived. So I grew up that's home to me, Branson, Missouri. And it's because my stepfather got a job up there, so he left Oklahoma. Mom went up there, I went there stage until my senior year in high school, and I actually got in trouble with the law. Me and a bunch of my friends doing stupid stuff, and I was kicked out of my house. So my senior year in high school, I actually secretly lived in a barn on a friend's uh property.

SPEAKER_02: 13:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:05

I lived upstairs above the cows, and I would go to work. I had a job, and I went to school because I wanted to finish school. Um and so my senior year of high school, I finished it and graduated, living in a barn with no electricity, no nothing. I would sneak into town and go to the little rec center and take a shower or find a friend's house and let me take a shower. But um, I had a job. And so I was making money and I was getting a car and doing stuff, got an apartment with some friends, and then my high school sweetheart, she and I were expecting, unexpectedly expecting. Uh-huh.

unknown: 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

And so, you know, college dreams. I I enrolled, I went for a semester, and then I came back just because this was taking off. And um, yeah, I had to hide Vanessa even more because now it's gonna be a father. Now I was going to be hopefully more accepted in my family and community because you know they wanted this male figure and they wanted grandbabies and they wanted all of this stuff. And so I thought things were gonna progress, and my family did start to come around. You know, they were very much involved whenever we were starting to have the baby process. Sure. But it was very much all plans of Vanessa went out the door. It didn't exist anymore. It to me, I had to shove it down, and you know, being a father wasn't something that I expected. I wanted, I didn't think that would ever happen to me. But when it happened, you know, it was everything. That's all that mattered to me. Like I would have, I would have given my life, I would have taken lives, you know, I would have done anything for my child. I mean, gosh, it it just changed everything. And so for a while, Vanessa went away. You know, she wasn't peeking her head up, she wasn't there. I was doing the dad thing, going to work, taking care of the family, making sure that the house was taken care of, but more importantly, my family. Um, and then fast forward about a year later, baby number two is on the way.

SPEAKER_00: 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:13

I had we had gotten married because we were pregnant. It was my high school sweetheart, but we weren't there. You know, we never really were. It was a high school relationship that turned into parental relationship really fast. And so neither one of us got to continue with our education, neither one of us got to go do our dreams. Um, I couldn't be myself. So resentment started to set in on both of us. Um, and resentment started to set in from the family members. And gosh, then I'd start go, I'd go bowling with my friends on the weekend, and that would basically meant we'd go get loaded at the strip club. Sure, yeah. Yeah. But we were going bowling. Right. And so it quickly fell apart, super fast, fell apart, and that was kind of one of the first times in my life that I was like, okay, maybe I can be my true authentic self. But in my mind, the only thing I knew, and again, growing up in rural Oklahoma, were drag queens. And I was like, that's not me. Because those people in my mind were pretending, and it was just so much. You know, it's like this show. So I'm like, no, that's not me. And that's not who I want to be, but I know something's wrong. Something is wrong inside. This is who I need to be. I was so confused. Um, so I just again thought that I'm it's a mistake. Something is wrong with me. I'm not right up here. I'm sure not gonna go get it fixed because I'm a country boy from Oklahoma. We don't ask for help. Yeah. So marriage number one fell apart um really fast. We had a very, very um easy divorce. We both agreed it wasn't the right thing. We paid$40, went to the courthouse, joint custody, split everything down the middle, and we're super connected for a couple years until I started marriage number two.

SPEAKER_00: 17:07

Okay. And so give me an age age, how are old are you approximately?

SPEAKER_01: 17:12

So this would have been, whoo, I'm old. Uh this would have been not old. I got married for the first marriage when I was 19. Um yeah, 19 years old. And that lasted for three years. So roughly 21 is whenever that ended. Um, and then by 23, I was married again with my second marriage.

SPEAKER_00: 17:34

Wow. And what was your job? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

So whenever I, gosh, first marriage was very much, you know, just out of high school. I was a manager at a Rocky Mountain chocolate factory. Actually, I was making chocolate, I was flipping food. It was great. I loved it. I got to eat all the sweets that I wanted, and I got to kind of just be silly and be myself. But right after that, the marriage kind of fell apart, and I went and lived with my grandmother in Oklahoma. Um she was pretty much the only like solid parental figure I had in my entire life, even though I didn't live with her for very long extents of time. She was always there. I always talked to her, always let her, she was always my support. Um, so I went to stay with her while I got grounded, I guess, or figured things out. Because it devastated me. Like I said, my children became my everything. And then when that happened and they weren't there with me every day, even though I had them every weekend and you know, this and that, because we we were 100% equal on our visitation. Um it it was a safe place for me to go. And it was about three hours away from Branson, so it wasn't too, too far away. So um then my ex moved to Oklahoma, which would made it even closer. Um, but at that point I went to school. I actually became a radio DJ.

SPEAKER_00: 18:51

What? I don't think I knew that either. That's the show, that's you would be great at that, also just sidebar.

SPEAKER_01: 18:56

But and that's kind of a a part of my story, is because I always wanted to be a musician, but I couldn't afford an instrument. I didn't think I could do that. Family came. So I was like, the only way I can get connected with the music industry is to support others. So I went to school, um, did everything that I needed to to start working entry level at a radio station. You know, I was a grunt work for a long time, recording radio commercials and working at their festivals and doing the midnight show, then working my way up and stuff. Um, but I moved to the big city, Tulsa, Oklahoma. That was the biggest city I'd ever been in, and it terrified me when I got there. Looking back, it's like a small suburb, but at that point in time, it was massive.

SPEAKER_02: 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

And so Country Boy moves to the city, Vanessa starts to come out. Like, I can become myself, nobody knows me here. Maybe I can do this. And so I'm I'm I'm starting to think that it's a possibility and trying to figure out a way how. Well, at that point in time, I'm starting to, I guess, make friends. Um, and I meet a new girl, and we worked together. I worked at a uh uh Team Mobile. Before it was Team Mobile, it was actually Voice Through Wireless. We worked together there. Um one night stand at a Joan Jett and the Black Arts concert. And then a couple months later, I found out that, hey, we're we've got something to talk about, um, which means that again, I'm gonna have to change direction, shove Vanessa back in, focus on trying to maintain being a father with my first two and become a father with the new one. Um, so Vanessa went away again. I had that glimpse moment of like, I can do this. I'm in a big city, there's resources, it's acceptable, I'm gonna do this, and I put it down again. And that's really when the depression started. Um, the two wives didn't get along, which meant that my children didn't um go unscathed. You know, they were affected. I didn't get to see them as much, and they got to see the fighting, which made me even more depressed. Um it kind of spiraled out of control. So both of my marriages last three years. So about 26 years old, the second marriage starts to fall apart. Um, at that point in time, I had climbed the corporate ladder at uh voice trim, it became team mobile, I was part of the merger. Um, I was a corporate trainer, I was traveling the country, which kind of helped with not being able to see my kids because uh then I'd be like, okay, it was because of work, not because there was a feud between the family. So I would put the blade somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00: 21:31

Yeah, I see that. Yeah, exactly. I see what you did there.

SPEAKER_01: 21:36

Right. But my drinking, none of that had really started yet. It was, you know, I might have a beer with my my burger at, you know, the restaurant. I might go golfing with the guys on the weekends and have a few too many, but that was just one day, and that was it. Um because I had a family to take care of, and that was my priority. Well, second marriage started to go away, and it was a it was a horrible marriage, actually. I'm still working through a lot of trauma on it, and I'm sure she is as well. Um we it we were not kind to each other in any way, and it affected both of us, which affected the kids. It was horrible. The divorce on that end was a very, very long process, and so I started working a part-time job to pay for my attorney fees, which was waiting tables. And so I was working in the corporate world during the day, waiting tables. Um, and I say corporate world, I was a graphic design at a newspaper, basically. So um, at this point in time, I started to get attention from the people I worked with. Like they liked me. It wasn't the the feelings that I was getting at home, and like the friends that I had in my marriage were my wife's friends. We had joint friends, and she was quick to turn them on to me. And so I didn't have any friends. When I started waiting tables, people liked me, they enjoyed me. Um, and then I'd get a shift drink at the end of the night, and boy, we'd have fun with those shift drinks. And then next thing you know, I'm moving into bartending, and girls like me, and I'm getting attention, and I was like, I don't need that corporate world anymore. I'm making cash right now. I've got people fawning over me. Um, it's okay to wake up in the morning and not remember what I did because we laugh about it and move on. So I got rid of the suit and tie, got tattoos, grew out some long hair, and bought a guitar. And that's where the next chapter starts.

SPEAKER_00: 23:28

Okay. Um this is I'm just this is just I'm just listening. Like I'm just listening because it's so interesting. And I don't have a question right now. I just want you to keep going. So what happened after that? Because it's so well there's so much. Right, right? There's so much to all of this. Not only is it long, but it's vast, and there's so many different aspects to it, right? We have work stuff and find you know your way through that and parenting and relationships, and then your own identity and your own family, right? Reading through all of these, and you're not even 30 yet.

SPEAKER_01: 24:06

No, not yet. I remember when I was becoming 30, I was having a mental breakdown of like, what? I haven't accomplished anything. I didn't finish school, I didn't do this. But, you know, looking back from my experience, you know, I I graduated high school, I got a little bit of college in, I mean, a very small, I did a little bit of trade school to become a DJ, but then I went from nothing to, you know, training the CEO and COO of this massive organization, traveling all over the U.S. training management. I didn't train individuals. People respected me and admired me. And it got to a point where, you know, I did have the conversation there, like you can't climb the corporate ladder until you get some schooling underneath. That's what we call it back in the South schooling. You know, you're down there.

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

I do. I am. I'm still learning, but yes.

SPEAKER_01: 25:01

Right. And honestly, when I had that conversation, that's when I was like, well, I'm not moving. I can't, I have kids, I don't have time, I can't do this, and then went into the newspaper um as sales, but I started watching people doing their graphic designs, asking questions, this and that. I I bought the Photoshop version at that time and started creating my own designs for the sales. And then the the editor of the newspaper was like, yo, why are you doing that? You need to be doing this. This is amazing. Because it was a an alternative weekly paper, very much like the Westward, you know, uh. And so I moved over to that and started all of this without education. And then so corporate trainer, I was, you know, at that point in time, I was paying for my youngest child to go to the same private school that Garth Brooks was because we live miles down from his house. Um, my ex-wife was an auditor for MCI WorldCom. We all know how that turned out. We were making a lot of money early in our 20s, you know, both of us six figures, and neither one of us was schooling. We just did it ourselves. Um, and yet that modality still sticks with me. That's kind of where I'm at now. Wow. But uh um, so gosh, guitar, uh, bartending. That's really where things changed. I was going through a lot of depression because the relationship between my two oldest kids and my youngest was being torn apart due to the divorce and a lot of resentments from the mothers and myself, and it was like this three-way whirlwind of battles that was going on. And my second wife was from Ohio and she was wanting to move back. I had filed for divorce on my second wife. It was it was very, very, very, very traumatic and harmful to me. And I finally got to a point where I was like, I can't do this. I found my way out. I filed for divorce. Um, her family is very wealthy, um, oil and gas money. And so they were helping on her end, which was causing more stress on my end, a lot of depression. And I used, again, those shift drinks, finding finding a connection, and that's when my alcohol addiction really took off. I hadn't ventured into anything else, but like it was a way for me to just stop thinking about the day, stop thinking about Vanessa, who kept trying to peek in every now and then. You know, I it was easier to push her away then because there was so much more immediate need with my children at the time. She was always there, but it was easier to just be like, give me a shot. We've got to get the next thing done. Um, and so bartending, I kind of found my voice and identity. I got a guitar, I started playing with um a coworker, and we played in a really horrible little pop punk band, but the bug hit because I was I was good at it. It wasn't that I really craved to do it. I enjoyed doing it, but I enjoyed the attention from the crowd more than anything because I hadn't got that from my family. I hadn't got it from you know, my siblings, I hadn't got it from my my wife's, um, and now my children I very rarely get to see because every time I try, there's battle. And so, like, I have nobody that's giving me love, nobody giving me attention. Once the divorces start, the family disappeared. They put the blame on me because I wasn't being this image that they thought I needed to be, and you know, fix it no matter what. And I couldn't. I couldn't, I didn't want to. Um I wanted to be there for my kids, but I didn't want Tim to go through the fighting that was going on. I didn't want them to see that. So started playing music, started playing in front of people, and they liked me. And it was girls, and I was like, oh my gosh, people, yes, this is how I can be somebody that people like. Um and behind the bar, it's the same thing, exact same thing. And so it quickly took off. So the first band kind of fell apart. I instantly went and auditioned for a bunch of bands. I went from punk band to a jam band. I just wanted to play music so I could be in front of people and get that love and affection. Um, and I found out that I'm good at multiple instruments. And so, like, other bands wanted me to join, and I did, and we started playing more, which was more attention. And then that's whenever the drugs and stuff started coming in. And I was kind of like that what is that B Cox movie with Will Fair or uh what's his name? Um, where he's playing the old rockabilly-esque type of musician, and you'd walk into the green room and he's like, What are you doing in here? And they'd explain what drug it was. Like, you don't want this. That's how it was with me. Like, I'd walk in and be like, Whoa, what is this? And they're like, yo, get out of here. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I want that. And so it was one after the other after the other. Um, multiple bands, and then finally I landed on a band to where we were doing well. We were playing a lot, we were touring a lot, we were self produced. Um, you know, we were getting asked to be on radio talk show morning shows to talk about our band. We were playing festivals. Um, I just the concert I went to yesterday. Was to see The Descendants. And the guitar player from The Descendants actually recorded our first full-length album. He produced it. He taught me so much. He actually played some tracks on there for. So yesterday I was kind of like, oh gosh, I haven't seen this dude in a long time. Let's go see him shred. Because he taught me a lot. But that was when things really took off. Because we were getting all kinds of attention and fame. And my kids at this point became an afterthought almost. You know, they were there when I had to take them. I thought about them all the time. I loved them, but every time I would call and the fight would start made me not want to call. Not want to call because it was easier to grab a drink or to just disappear with the ladies and not think about life for a while. Um and as a musician, you know, you you have a everything at your hands whenever you get to a certain point. Um gosh, I I will never forget the last show that we had played. We were playing a festival, and like the main headliners were like The Flaming Lips, The Roots, Ghostland Observatory, and we were the kind of like the headlining act on the the second stage. And things fell apart on the stage. We had just gone into a record contract based out of Texas. We were planning on moving. Debacle fell apart. We fought on stage, and then that's when I was like, I'm done. So I did move to Austin for a short time to be a part of the record contract, but I quickly sold out of it. Went back to Tulsa for a moment where I was bartending for many years, and that alcohol addiction was out of control at this time. Um I skipped over a couple DUIs because that's I mean, it's not relevant, but during that time it really was. Um and I'll I want to circle back to that in just a second. But um, that's what I I bought up with my money from the record contract. I bought a pop-up camper. I threw my cat and my dog, my girlfriend in it. We moved to Estes Park thinking it was gonna be a change. And I would get, you know, make something new. Um but that's that's part three of the story. Um, music is really where I thought I found my identity and where my addiction really took off. And it was because of the depression from the marriages, as well as not being able to be myself. And how could I be myself if I'm fighting to get my kids back? I couldn't become a woman and be a father. So I just kept shoving it down even more.

SPEAKER_00: 32:23

Yeah, that's another really big aspect of that that you don't consider when you're thinking about all that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:30

Yeah, because I just I had to be that dad that I thought I had to be. Then my whole life, everyone told me I had to be. Um, and they also told me how I was failing at it. So like I I didn't know what to do. But when I played music, when I served them drinks, I got attention. And the more I played music, it was great. Bartender musician is a great relationship because when you go on tour, you can come back to that job. While you're at the job, you can promote the local shows. You know, it's like a win-win. Um, and so gosh, yeah, Colorado. Colorado is where I thought I could get away. You know, I loved camping, I love backpacking, I love doing all of that stuff. Um, and I thought this was gonna be a fresh start. Nobody knew me. I hadn't drank in a year because I had just got off my second DUI. Um, and so I was doing great. And I moved out here day one. I was like, oh, just swing by the luxury store and get a little something, something. And I remember like day one blacked out, didn't unhold, you know, unload the U-Haul, got a job bartending the very next day, and it just went 100 miles an hour. Um, I thought that it was going to be an opportunity to get away from the drugs and alcohol because I wasn't playing music. So I lived in Estes Park for the first year, and then wintertime hit, you know, and they're going from making hand over fist and money every night to there's nobody in town. I need to pay rent. So I moved to Denver and uh got a job right off the bat, bartending again. Um, and after a short time, people would come in my bar regulars that I'd get to know. And they're like, oh, I'm a musician, I play this. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't do that anymore because I knew where it would lead. Two DUIs, a lot of depression. That I wanted to get away from because I knew I was starting to create my identity around that, and I wanted people to like me for me. So I fought it until I went over to just jam with some people. Um next thing you know, I'm in a band and playing shows, and then I'm getting asked to play in other bands. At one point in time, I was in five bands at one time, and we were all gigging out. So it was like bartending, playing music all over Colorado, uh, sometimes going on tour. Um, and that identity piece kicked in. In Colorado, I found more drugs than I had ever anticipated or ever saw in Oklahoma. I was meeting a whole new crowd, and it took off. Vanessa had really started to try to come out. Um, new change coming to Colorado, maybe it's a new opportunity. Um, but as soon as people liked me for that image they saw, I wanted to hide her. I was like, nope, people are liking me. I don't need you. I I can deal with this. You'll just have to not ever be, you know. Um, and again, I would refer to some of those moments as like, oh, that's Vanessa trying to get out, or that was Vanessa doing this. Um both of the times that I had my DUI, whenever I woke up the next morning, I was wearing a dress. And nobody had ever seen me do that before. And I don't ever remember putting the dress on, you know, because I would black out and she'd try to get out. Um and so yeah, here in Colorado, playing music, doing well on one side, but really bad on the other side. Um, I started to get aggressive from the early childhoods, you know, the the fighting, like I was saying. Like it was instead of just drinking to hide Vanessa, it was drinking and fighting because I was angry at myself and being just hurtful to people. I didn't realize this until I started my recovery journey because at that point in time I just thought I was the victim, you know, like we always do. Yeah, it's like I wouldn't have broken the beer bottle over your head if you weren't talking crap.

SPEAKER_00: 36:18

Sorry, we'll fucking yeah, no, it's great.

SPEAKER_01: 36:23

So gosh, it it got bad. I went to detox a couple times. I was a bartender. I didn't have insurance. I didn't think treatment was an option, and I was paying for my children, I was paying, you know, the child support, I was paying for their soccer, their braces, their musical instruments. Everything was going towards them. I made really good money, but between my active drug use and making sure that they had the new Nikes and everything, I didn't have anything to show for it. I had my guitars, I had my bass, I had my piano, you know, I had what made me money. Um, that was it. And sometimes I didn't because I would pawn them for drugs and alcohol and forget that I had a show the next week and I'd show up like, hey, can I use your bass? I don't have one. And I thought that was okay. I thought that was normal. Um, I mean, I was even making money from gigs and still didn't have them. So goodness. I'll go, I mean, fast forward to that was just the recurring thing, shoving Vanessa down to where it just became violent and angry. And um my drug and alcohol use took off. I was prescribed clonopin for my anxiety, and that was a horrible mix with alcohol.

SPEAKER_00: 37:34

Yeah. So I just that'll do you some good.

SPEAKER_01: 37:38

Yeah, I disappeared for years. And I had the type of doctor to where I could be on the bus, and yes, I say bus. I own two motorcycles and a truck, and I didn't drive them because I was never in a state of mind to where I could drive them. So I always took public transportation. Um, and I remember leaving on the bus after his appointment, after picking up my prescription and calling and being like, hey, I just lost that prescription on the bus, somebody took it, or would it make an excuse and they would change the the um milligrams a little bit and order me another one? And so I had just bottles in my bag all the time of different prescriptions and eating them like Tic Tacs, and so disappearing. Um I disappeared so much that when I moved to Steamboat to become part or one of the investors in a uh restaurant up there, um that I ended up hurting some people, and I don't remember much of it, but uh I went to jail there. I was in Route County for I got sentenced for a year. I did a little under it, but it was the first time that this soft, you know, there's a chicken side, but like I'm a musician. I'm not I've I've done one night in jail for my DUIs, I've never done anything more than that, and here I am getting sentenced um and being in the pod with the violent offenders. Um this is something completely new. Now, in hindsight, it's Steamboat. No, it wasn't anything to be terrified of, but I was terrified at the time. Uh but I learned how to, well, one, I didn't have anything in my system. Um and I I learned how to just be okay with setting with myself and thinking about how do I become my real self. I need therapy. I need this. Maybe I can become Vanessa. And but being around guys and I'm not attracted to guys, I'm like, I don't want, I don't know. I don't want this. This is gross, stay away from me, but I need to be me. So I started thinking about it, planning on it. Um when I was released from counting in steamboat, it was dumping snow. I had to go dig my truck out. It was it was horrible. Uh and then I I drove to Denver. This is where my my friends and family were. I had resources here. I had already lost everything in Steamboat. My ex had left. Um, I got bought out of my share in the in the restaurant, left on very bad terms. Um, and then I I came back to Denver. The reason I was in Steamboat is because my youngest daughter got in trouble in Ohio with the law, and she came to live with me. And so she was in school at Route Aaron Soraco out in Oak Creek. Because in my mind, get her out of the city. Get her away from the drugs, the alcohol, the nonsense. She's already in trouble. I need a break. Let's get out of there. When she came to live with me, I was a week out of West Pines. I had gone to West Pines and I was still shaking, and she came to live with me, and so I put all the focus on her. Vanessa disappeared, the clonipin took off, and one thing after another, that's when that incident happened. She stayed with me for a few years because I was up there a couple of years, and then she went back to Oklahoma or to Ohio. Um, I came to Denver, quickly got right back into the scene. I didn't want to, but they, the people I knew down here, they were using and drinking, and they loved that version of me that did do that, and they expected that. When I wasn't doing that, they didn't want to have anything to do with me. And I had just gone through all this heartache. I'd gone through the loss of my child again. I had hurt people that I cared about. And so I felt the only way that people would love me is if I stopped loving myself, you know, and I got back into it. I got released in uh December and I went to prison in August. So my addiction spiraled out of control so fast. Um and I'll touch base on the prison story real quick because I don't I don't know much about it still. Um I worked for uh this organization that owns a bunch of different bars, restaurants, cafes, and stuff here in in Denver. They have since been bought out by Anheuser, and so like you know, they made a lot of money on it. But beforehand, they had a bunch of things. And so I pretty much came in to do their events, marketings, promotions, things of that nature. And so, you know, I'd book bands at one place, I'd book um artists at another, I would do catering, I would do big events, I would do all kinds of stuff. Um, I had a team, you know, that worked with me, and so each one of them would kind of do different areas, but I was the one in charge, and I was the one networking with all the liquor companies or whomever to get supply for free or whatnot. So it was a lot, and the addiction just kept spiraling out of control because Vanessa was screaming to come out. I had lost my family at this time. None of my kids wanted to talk to me, none of my family wanted to talk to me. The only people who did wanted to talk to me if I was using, I didn't want to use, and I just wanted to be myself. So I basically was like, I can't, I can't be Vanessa because nobody will accept Vanessa, and I can't continue this lifestyle anymore. So I decided to end it. Um, I was putting on a large fundraiser for the children's hospital. It was on top of the Davita building here in downtown Denver. Um, I mean, it was$1,500 a plate to get in. I had all these chefs that were doing certain things, um, a lot of them from Food Network that were there. Um, I had a lot of community partners. There was a theme, there was music, all of this stuff up on top of this beautiful um rooftop patio type of event center. And all dressed up, I had already made up my mind this was it. I'm not gonna walk away from this. This will be my last thing, and then I'm not waking up tomorrow. So all those bottles that I told you about, I had multiple, and I brought them with me, along with all the other medications that the doctor had given me to sleep and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02: 43:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

And a lot of things that I had picked up off the streets or got the green room from my friends. Uh, because I was still playing music somewhat, not as much as I was, because I didn't have the desire anymore. I didn't want that identity. I wanted to break free so I could be Vanessa, but I didn't think I could, and that's why I chose to end it. Um and so I remember taking anything and everything and purchasing extra stuff before I went and taking that and walking around with full bottles of uh vodka from one of our sponsors, you know, because I had cases of it. I was like, this is I'm done. Uh and the last memory I have that night um was standing at the Davita building at the on the rooftop. And when you're up there, there's like some chairs, built-in patio furniture, and there's some like bushes, and then there's the ledge. And so like I walked up and stood on the ledge in my suit and tie, my suspenders, holding my bottle, and I'm feeling the breeze. You know, it's not a lot of breeze, but I'm feeling the breeze and I'm looking down, I see traffic below me. It's everything's below me. I hear people behind me being like, what the half are you doing up there? You know, like I didn't care. And I didn't have the courage to jump. I don't know why. That's all I wanted, but I didn't have the courage to jump, but I could feel the wind, and I remember closing my eyes and just praying that the wind gust would blow me off. Um my next memory is waking up uh floating in the river, downtown Denver, right in front of the REI. My head is on the bank, my body's still wearing a suit and tie and suspenders and look and fly was floating in the water. My laptop bag was right in front of me, and there's runners and joggers jogging by. I'm kind of in the bushes, so they can't really see me. Dogs are barking, and there's life going on, and I'm terrified. I didn't know what had happened, how I got there, and I was angry that I was alive. But my body was so beat down from everything that was in my system. Plus, apparently I got into a physical altercation with multiple people, and so I was black and blue, black eyes, bloody everywhere, um, and just disheveled. So I found my way home. Um, didn't have a phone, didn't have any money, got home, uh, passed out, and I probably slept for a day. And I remember waking up, checking my email because I didn't have a phone, and one of the managers that was a good friend of mine at one of the the establishments, it was a bar slash coffee shop type of environment, um, had called me and said that the police came by looking for me. And I was like, oh, so I had no idea what I did. All I know is I had a black eye, I was beaten up, I'm bleeding, like cuts everywhere. I still have scars all over me from that night. I have no idea what had happened. Um, and so I was like, well, I guess I can't hide from this anymore. And I wanted to end it. So, what better way for me to control this demon in here and the demon I had become than to just lock myself up? So hopped in the shower, wrote a note to my roommate at the time, left the uh titles for my motorcycles to him, and was like, I don't know what's gonna happen. Here's a check, here's my stuff. Um went across the street, spent the last money I had on alcohol, and I walked to the nearest police station whenever I walked in there. Um I'll never forget it. I walked in and I was like, I think you guys are looking for me. And the lady behind the desk was like, What? What do you I didn't what Yeah, that's the face she gave me. Yeah. She's like, Do you have any identification? And I was like, Yeah, sure. And I handed her my um expired driver's license because I didn't know what happened to my other one. And uh she typed the information in and her face just lit up. And she was like, Oh my, would you mind uh sitting down right there? We'll have somebody come out for you in just a moment. And instantly there was multiple officers out all on me. Um they were they were kind in hindsight, but I didn't know what I did. I had no idea. And honestly, I thought I had gone crazy and I needed them to lock me up, and I expressed that. I was like, I'm out of control. Please, please help me. And they were they were kind. They were until I got to jail and they ran me through. I didn't know what I was being arrested for the first day. I had no idea and I didn't care. I knew that I was on the right path. And I'll never forget when I was detoxing in jail. The nurse would come in and do my vitals. I was laying on the floor, they didn't give me a mattress, they didn't give me a pillow, I didn't have a blanket, and honestly, I didn't care at that time, but I was fluids were coming out every hole, and uh I would ask for water, I'd ask for aspirin, and she would come in. Same nurse overnight, over and over, like every it felt like every 10 minutes, but she'd come in, I'd ask for that, and she would say, People like you don't deserve to live. I'm not giving you anything. And she didn't, she didn't give me anything. So I went off the benzos, all the opiates, all the alcohol with nothing. No support, nothing. And I was ready for it to take me. I wanted it to take me. So I was ready. And every time I would wake up, I'd be mad. I'd be mad. So the next day I got to go to the judge for the first time, and his uh charges were long. I was blown away. I didn't think any of that could have ever been me, because that's not me that I had ever been. Um I could see how it turned into that for sure. But his original charge was for 164 years in the Department of Corrections, and I was ready to take it because I didn't want to get out and hurt anybody ever again. When I heard that I had hurt not just one person, but multiple people, and I had hurt people in the past before, and not ever wanting to, um I wanted it. And I remember going to sitting down in front of the the assigned defender, and I was like, all right, let's do this. And she was like, You're out of your mind. Like you're still detoxing. Go lay down. I'll come see you in a month and we'll talk. And I was like, I'm ready. Like, let's do this. Um, when I got in there and was going through my evaluations, I kept telling everybody I was crazy because I thought I was. I was hearing voices, I was seeing things, all this stuff. So evaluations after evaluations after evaluations, and and me begging them to never let me out because I didn't trust myself. Um you know, they they they finally cleared me after being months in there. Um the 164 years went to 60 years because I was still on probation from Steamboat. And so they they amplified everything. Um and I was angry because I didn't I felt that there would be a chance that I could get out. And I didn't want that. Um and I begged for them to figure out a way to lock me up. So they sent me on a mental health evaluation because they were like, if we were to put you in a spot where you'd never get out, it would be this course. And I'm like, well, I'm crazy. Sign me up. Yes, that's me. Um and I when I got cleared, I was I was angry, I was livid because they're just like, you guys don't understand how unstable I am. This I this isn't real. What are your guidelines for crazy? Because I'm there. Um and then the proceedings went really quick. I didn't want to sign anything away. And the last time I went in front of the judge, my um defender had got rid of a lot of the charges that were on there because they were just trying to amplify everything. And so basically it went down to a very serious assault. Um, and they gave me 10 years. And I remember standing in front of the judge and being like, You're making a mistake. This is I will get out, and I don't want to get out. Um, I'd never been in jail more than a few months, and I was in steamboat. So I was in a totally different environment. I'm 23-1. I was only allowed to get out for one hour at a time and very little interaction with other people. And when I did, fights broke out and it was horrible. I was terrified, and I knew that that was gonna be the rest of my life. Um, and when he gave me 10 years, I vocalized how upset I was. And when I went to prison, I was mad. I was angry because I knew at some point in time that I was gonna get out, and I kept trying to think how do I make sure I never get out of these razor wires again. I don't want to hurt people, I don't want to hurt anyone. And um I just hit I just hid from people. Uh and I'll this is the story that I generally tell a lot when I share my stories. I remember my first yard that I went to was on 23-1 still, but I could at least go to the the gym or something, you know, escorted to it. Um I did have a lot of interaction. There was a lot of fights. I saw things that people shouldn't see. Um my celly uh at the time had been in prison for 47 years at this time. 47 years he had done at this time, and he got a letter every single day. He got a letter every day from family members that loved him, from friends, somebody. He got money on his books, he had stuff, he had done something, and we don't talk about it and say it's not like the movies where like, what'd you do, fool? Nobody says that at all. They check your paperwork to make sure it's not something bad, like it gets a child or whatnot, but other than that, they don't care. Um, and so I never asked, but he had been in prison for 47 years. I got a 10-year sentence on something that in my mind was the worst thing you could ever do to anything, anybody in the world. And so, how is this person who's been in prison this long? He's an old guy, uh grumpy, just mean. Like, how could he get somebody to love him enough to send him a letter every day? And I can't, I haven't had a phone call, I haven't had a letter. I at this point in time, it was probably like a year and a half that I had been gone away. Um and I remember laying there one day, and I'll never forget this day at all, because this is kind of a pivotal moment for me, too, is that I was scared because it was the first time that I didn't hear a lot of voices going on up here. It was quiet. It was done, there was no voices, and I was terrified. I thought that it that was it, the snapping moment, like what's gonna happen? I don't know. Is this me? I'm losing it. Vanessa had been, she's gone at this time. I couldn't think about her anymore. It never even surfaced, but I hear this sound under the door. It's like shh, just like because we're locked in there, you know, and the sound of mail coming under. And I just thought it was the routine because he'd tell me about the letters and tell me about everything. And he stands up and he's like, You got mail. And I'm like, What? Nobody knows I'm here. Like, what what are you talking about? I have no idea. Um when I opened it, it was letters from voices from my children, basically. Telling me that my family and everybody for the first time in their lives felt safe. And that they were gonna move on with their lives and they didn't have to worry about me anymore. They didn't have to worry if I was gonna be alive or possibly hurt them, or I don't know, that they were done with me and they were moving on and they had to heal. Um and that was the hardest thing that I'd ever received in my entire life, but it was the first time that I felt that they were okay. I just wanted to take care of them my whole time, my life, but I knew I wasn't. Because I was being crazy. Um but I knew I wasn't, and so for me it was the first time that uh I could let go a little bit and be okay with it because I knew they were safe. And I was in an environment that I needed to focus on staying alive at times. And that same day, I remember going to Chow Hall. Um, I hated going there, but I remember going in and some things popped off on our way there because we had to go through the razor wires and the sliders and stuff, and uh a big fight broke out. And when you're inside, even if you're not involved, whatever your skin color is, is that you need to be there to represent and back up that skin color. Even though I'm half Native American, I'm half white. I look very much like a white individual. Um, they were always being trying to get me to be a part of them, giving me snacks, like, hey, come hang out with me, come do this. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't want to live right now. I don't care about you or me or anyone else. Um and so that happened, and they're yelling at me, you know, the the different skin tones are getting together and fighting each other, and they're like, get over here. And I remember standing there, and an old older gentleman put his hand on my chest, and he's like, They don't give a f about you, they don't care about you, don't you dare go over there. He's like, the only thing in here that matters is your name and number right here. And he tapped my shirt and he was like, the only thing that matters in this world and then in here is your number. You, you do your number, don't worry about anything else. Hey, just got that letter, processing that. I mean, this is probably an hour or so afterwards, hearing this individual say, it's time for you to do you and not worry about what other people are thinking. Um, and so I did. I mean, they they sprayed gas everywhere. I breathed in the maze. It was horrible, my eyes are murdered. Um, but um, I went back. And a few days later, the first time I get to go to anything, I go to the gym and I'm trying to just walk and do stuff. And somebody I'd kind of made friends with came up to me and he's like, Hey, are you going to AA tonight? And I was like, No, you what is wrong with you? Like, I don't want to live anymore. Why would I want to better myself? Um and he's like, You get out of your cell for an extra hour. Okay, I would do that. I, you know, I've been in here, I don't want to be next to my grumpy celly anymore, and he's mean. And so um I signed up to go to AA just to get out of my cell. That's it. That is it. Um and I walked in there and I remember sitting down and like, I don't want to be here. There's only like four or five people. This is just depressing. And this kid, he's a young kid, and he looks like he's come from money, he's got money behind him, glasses, smart looking, just intelligent, and he's telling his story, and he starts crying, he's telling it, telling it, telling it. And the whole time he's telling it, he's telling my story. The whole music side, the whole corporate trainer side, like all of this stuff. Oh my gosh, my light just went away. I stood up. Anyway, all of this is coming out, you know, very different upbringings, but very similar story. And the only difference between his and mine is that my victim survived, his didn't. And he's never, ever leaving that environment. And he was in tears. And I'm just like, this person is trying to better his life in an environment that he will never get out of. What is wrong with you? Like, you you can do something, you are gonna get out of. You might not, you're not gonna be young and spry anymore, you're gonna be an old person, but like think about things differently. So, all this is happening, the letter, the individual with my number, the that kid. I still think about that kid a lot. It it it made me start thinking differently, and I did. And I remember my first step was I started doing yoga because I'd always wanted to, and I thought it'd be a way to connect with myself. And every time we would walk by the people doing yoga, the other inmates were mean and banging on the window and talking shit to them on the yard and all this stuff, but I was like, I need to do it. And so I started doing it. I remember the first time that I sat in meditation long enough to where I was okay with sitting with myself, I just broke down and I'm bawling and I'm crying and I made a breakthrough. And so I dove into yoga, which helped me look at myself differently, start to get rid of the ego, be accepting of where I was, who I was. I was calm now, I was doing better, I felt better, and it helped my recovery journey. I was connecting in the rooms now. I was able to be like, oh my gosh, I am. An addict. I am an alcoholic. Wait, hold on a second. Yoga was the piece that changed it for me. And it really was that piece of setting with myself and start to working on the ego. So much that when I went down in custody levels, I was teaching yoga. I got my yoga certification. So when I'd go to a new facility, I would teach a yoga class all over the place. And so I was kind of known as like, oh, you're the yoga instructor type of thing. And then I got on the wildland firefighting crew. And I became the squad lead. I did that for two years. I learned a whole lot of discipline. And on the I mentioned that because at one of the fires, I was on the Cameron Peak Fire in Fort Collins. And when you're on a fire, there's no police officers there. There's no DOC personnel. There's firefighting crew bosses that stay in the buggy miles and miles and miles away. And me as the squad leader taking these individuals out into the wild. I'm in charge. And I'm one of them. How can I set myself above one of them if I'm not the key holder of a yard? I will never forget that we were on a fire, that fire, and we went up over this mountain to clear this area to where all these houses were just destroyed. And we were cold trailing it, making sure all the fire was out. And uh I put them on a break. And that's when they pull out all this alcohol and cigarettes that the other fire crews had given to them. Because nobody knows who we are. We look just like them. We are another fire crew when we are in the camps. And so they're breaking it out. They're drinking and they're smoking. And I'm like, oh my God. So I just walk away. I go look at this burnt boat. And this group of Serranios came up to me and uh was like, yo, you need to drink this. If not, then we know you're gonna tell on us. Basically, they didn't say that word for word. That's that's saying gang slay. Uh I was like, no, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. And we all have we have axes, we have knives, we have weapons with us. We're carrying chainsaws. And one of them put an axe right up to my neck and said, if you don't do this, we're gonna take care of it. And I said, I can't. I'm I won't let it affect my recovery. And when I said recovery, I meant where I was. I mean, I didn't realize it at that point in time, but I felt good. I loved life. I wanted to live, I wanted to do something better with my life. I I wasn't scared anymore, but Vanessa still wasn't there. I was contemplating when I got out of prison, it's a fresh start. That would be a good time. But on the inside, I gotta work on doing some bench press, like, you know, even the severage up, which I did. And so I didn't do it. And they got up in my face and they're like, we'll handle this when we get back to the art. When we got back to the facility like a week later, sure enough, as soon as we walked, dropped our stuff off, they rushed to my room, closed the door, kept tech, and I thought this was it. And I remember the guy who was upset with me got up in my face and he was like, Yo, homie. I do remember he said that, yo, homie. It's like I got mad respect for you. You didn't back down, and I'm glad that you didn't mess up your recovery. Gave me a hug, and then I worked out with him. I was part of the crew, like I ran on the jack with him.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:11

I did not see that going that way, by the way, at all.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:14

I was ready. I mean, honestly, at that point in time, I was like, well, this is it. This is where it ends. I'm okay with it because I'm at a point in my life to where I finally am okay with living. I love myself at this point in time. I don't love the environment I'm in, but I'm making the best out of it. I'm learning how to do this. And honestly, it was great for me at that point in time. And uh so yeah, I remember almost pooping myself. It's just like, okay, they're all hugging me and giving fives, and they're like, yo, yeah, we're gonna go do burpees here in a little bit. Come with us. And I'm like, okay. You know, and so it changed the dynamics.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:50

They had mad respect, which got me a lot of respect from a lot of other people. And then the last fire I was on was the Hans Peak fire in Steamboat. And I got paroled while I was on that fire, and they came and picked me up from the fire, took me so I could get a shower, and I was terrified. I didn't want to get paroled. I didn't want to get out, I wasn't ready. I had found comfort where I was. Um, I even told that to the parole board, I'm not ready. I don't want to leave. And they were like, okay, cool, you're getting out of here. So I've learned that if you're going in front of a judge, tell them you want a stricter sentence, they'll give you a less. No kidding. And which is what happened to me. When you go in front of the parole board, be like, no, I'm not ready. I don't want to go out there. And they're like, cool, get out. Um, I think because of my my work I did on the fire crew for two years, that uh, because I wasn't eligible for parole for many years, especially with a violent crime, but I had got a lot of respect and I had a lot of people write notes as in like officers and whatnot for me. And so I was paroled after four years of being in the Department of Corrections, which is unheard of for my case. Um I came to the real world scared because I was afraid things were gonna go right back to where it was. And but I was kind of excited because I had seen people transition inside, and I was like, I can do that when I get out. There's hormones. I didn't know there's hormones. You know, that's where like I didn't think there now there's more than just drag queens. There is a a person. There's other things, yeah. Yes. And so I was ready to do it. I got paroled, went to my first, I got paroled to a sober living, actually. And it's so funny. My probation officer opened the door and was like, sit down on this couch and wait until the manager gets here. Don't move. I sat on that couch for eight hours because my house manager was at work, and that was just the discipline and the environment that I came from. You know, if the CEO told me to sit down, I sit down. And so I sat there without using the bathroom, without doing anything. And then he comes in and I'm like, may I use the restroom? And he's a house manager to sober living. He's just another dude. I didn't know that. I had no idea. And he's like, Who are you? Yeah, go P. What's wrong with you? Um and so here I am in the real world, ready to become Vanessa. I'm ready to do it. I was saving money to get out of sober living. I was working a job, just making money. And then I started working in treatment. Um and when I worked in treatment, I started as a tech and I started connecting with people, especially those who had been to prison or dealt with similar situations. Um, I still carried my prison ID and I was like, I get it, I understand. And then they would be like, wait, what? You? Um, and so I was helping change lives for other people, which meant Vanessa's got to go away because they're not gonna want Vanessa. They're gonna want this image of this person who runs Spartan races and you know is at the gym six days a week and does all this stuff. So I hit her and pushed her away, kept climbing the corporate ladder and treatment, you know, moved up to multiple director roles and was doing well and getting a well-respected name in the community. And so I'm like, I can't finally the first time in my life, I'm giving back, doing something well. I'm not creating an identity just based off of what people want. I'm myself and people love me. And it was Vanessa had to go, but she was really wanting to come out then because I didn't have booze and other substances to hide her, to scare her away or push her away. So my mental health started struggling. At that point in time, my roommate whom I lived with, uh good, good friend of mine, was actually on the wildland firefighting crew with me on the inside, and we got out, we stayed connected, we worked out together, we did all of these intense uh runs and whatnot together. We supported each other's recovery journey. When we moved in together, he returned to use, and it got worse and worse and worse. Um, I was the director of business development and um admissions at the treatment center. And so, you know, I knew everybody. I could call him up and be like, hey, I need your help. He's got this insurance. What can you do? They would put him in there even if they didn't have open spots. They'd move him in top of the line, which I hate that they did that, but I needed it at that time. Right. And I would get him into locations over and over and over again, and he'd fight him. I'd literally fight him and get kicked out, or the police would bring him back to our doorstep, or I'd pick him up from jail, or whatnot. Um, and it tore me apart it that he was five feet away from me, and I couldn't help him. And that was my role in the community was to help people. And um I would wake up in the morning, he'd be at the bottom of our stairs in a pool of blood. You know, I would miss work because I'm calling the ambulance and dealing with that, and we would have these heartfelt conversations, just bawling and and you know, together, and I couldn't do anything. Um, that was messing with my mental health. Vanessa was coming out. My partner at the time, my girlfriend at the time, had just lost her sister, and they were very close, and so I wanted to be there for her. At this point in time, I had already set a date with my my therapist that I was going to become Vanessa because I saw it was messing with my mental health, and I was afraid I was gonna go back to that time when I was standing on top of the Davita building, and I didn't want to hurt other people ever again. And so I'd already set a date, I was pushing through it, all of these things happened, and all these signs were coming up that I knew that if I didn't work on it, I was gonna go back to my old ways and I was gonna erase my existence or hurt other people. I was gonna use, I was definitely gonna go back. Um and so I set the date, I muscled through it, and I was ready to lose everything. I was ready to lose all the stuff that I had built up. And you were there when I you were one of the first people that I was just like, if I'm gonna do it, I gotta freaking do it. Um it's terrifying, it scared me to death. It still does in certain areas. Um, but I knew that if I was going to do it, I had to not care what other people thought. It's first time in my life, you know, I'm working on my kids being back, it's making progress, but that was a lot of damage. Family, same thing. You know, it's it's hard whenever I feel like they never really wanted me in the first place, and here I am trying to beg them back. But I need that those connections, and I I want, I love it. So when I became Vanessa, 48 years into this journey, I just had to be me and deal with the consequences. I've gone through some stuff. Prison changed me. So I was ready for everything to go away again. Um, but it hasn't. It's been the most beautiful, loving, accepting journey that I've ever been on. Part of me wishes that I would have done it sooner, but I'm glad that I didn't because I needed to be where I was, who I was before I did it. And it's just it's it's been magical. The image you see of me being myself is like freedom. You know, I just get to be me no matter what. Of course there's haters. Haters be hating, but uh I I truly love myself, which just allows me to love everyone else. I see things differently. I mean, I see so much joy in the little things now. Uh it's magical. Um, and I get to meet beautiful people like you who actually see me, which is the most important thing to me, honestly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:39

Yeah. I know a lot of people who are big fans of Vanessa.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:45

They're just they just like the craziness.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:48

No, but it's so you're so, you know. I when I met you, you weren't Vanessa yet. And I wasn't a huge fan. And I I don't I just wasn't. Like it was fine, you know. I knew working together and whatnot. And um then when I got to meet Vanessa, it was like who is this? You know, like it was such a different experience, and not just and and I don't know what goes into the back end of all of the the parts of becoming and letting yourself become that, but you're such a light, you know, and I I mean that so wholeheartedly. Um and also I don't know in this moment if I'm gonna release video or audio, but if I am only releasing audio, please know I cried through most of this. I cried through most of this story. Um and I'm still crying. But I think to just feel where you were so trying to find you for so many years in what feels like a pinball machine, and just getting bounced around both internally and externally in every version of the environment that you've been in, and then knowing that you caused harm in the process of trying to figure out your own stuff, um and feeling all of the remorse and resentment and pain that comes with that, right? And then getting to you know, I don't I don't like to say the other side because I we all never arrive and we're all still going through things, but to getting to the point where I think where the moment of you choosing yourself in recovery, right? And the in that fire and knowing that you're risking something in choosing that, but you can't go back to the other thing that's worse. And then the way that story took a change of people who you were expecting to just and like sort of what I love so much is the moment of surrender of like, okay, like I chose, I know I chose the right thing, even if this is you know, this is gonna be not good. And that the response was respect. And because what it does is it gives you a moment of confidence that you choosing you can have a beautiful outcome, even in the messiness of how that all seemed. And then watching you over the next few years take more steps and more steps in the face of I don't know how this is going to go. And I don't know that this is going to receive be received well at all. But so far, everything else I've tried didn't go well. And so many variations of that that I'm gonna choose me. And that when you finally did, and again, that doesn't mean that there's not still many messy parts to this process, and I want to acknowledge that because that's still ongoing and true, and still things I know you're growing and learning through and becoming. But so much of the part of you that I've gotten to experience is looks nothing like the story that you just told me. You know, and Vanessa that I know her to be is kind and confident and so just willing to jump in and be on a team and say yes and help and give and and you know tear apart the trees to make it happen so that we can help other people. You know, and that's that's so much of what I know you as. And one of the reasons I made a list when I made the podcast of people I wanted to ask, and you were one of the first people I put on it. Because it's so honest. Right? It doesn't mean it was easy, but your willingness to turn and face the whole truth and your struggles with that, and then keep choosing like the next thing, even when it was hard and scary, and even when you didn't know and the feeling I think of knowing that you didn't ever want to hurt people as part of this process, and really you're just trying to find yourself. Yeah, that's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:20

Um thank you. I have I have so much respect for you, and it means a lot coming from anyone, especially those that I respect. It's funny, I didn't really realize it until you had mentioned it, but yeah, when we first met, I had already that was in August. So in January of that year is when I had set the date with my therapist that the following January, February is when I was gonna come out, and I had a year of working on it. So there was a lot of fear. There was a lot of other things going on. My roommate, myself, loss of identity, and here I am starting this new journey with people, and I'm like, I don't know how, I don't know if I can deal with this. So I was not at a happy point in my life, and I was realizing that I was putting more focus on you know, my girlfriend and my roommate than myself, and there was this internal battle inside, and I was terrified about coming out. I was terrified about coming out. I was afraid that I was gonna lose it all, but you you're exactly right. It really goes back to that moment, you know, that I experienced inside of prison. I was terrified of that moment too. It's very similar. It was very similar, but I knew that no matter what, I had to be whom I wanted to be. I had to be this live the life that I knew that I wanted to be. I didn't I didn't care what was gonna happen, and I was really willing to have my life end over the person that I knew that I was gonna be. And I know that I cannot use any substances. I know that I have to focus on my mental health. I know I have to stand up for who I believe I am, ask for help, and go through the tough, tough things. I mean, a lot of people haven't experienced that, and I don't I don't need that. That was my journey. And even working in the recovery community, I still kind of carry some of that with me. You know, I'm it's okay to have those tough conversations. And I will call you out on it, but I will not as much as I possibly can and I'll support you. And like that's what I needed. That's exactly what I needed, and I still need that because there's times to where I mean, I I still struggle. It's hard sometimes in the community when every time when I walk into a gas station and you know somebody says something, or like even at the concert I was at last night, people were saying things from time to time. Um, and it's it's a journey that I'm so happy I'm on. I'm gonna go through the tough times, just like in our recovery tourney. We have tough times, and it's something that I'm uh love, that I'm honored to be a part of, and I know no matter what, it's the right choice. Well, that's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:14

And it's also you know, when you make changes like that, you there's people that you lose. Right? There's people that many of us have lost in choosing something different, something that's true for us, and they can't come with us even as much as we might want them to. And with that, like as much as you know, recovery has community and you know, LGBTQ IA2S plus. Is that do right? But all of that community has so much that comes with it. Like that's so beautiful. And I always talk about the importance of community, of having a person to pick up the phone and that can like because people might not always understand you, but to hold space for you and like just to see you and let you be you, right? And how massively important that is. But also, and along with that can come loneliness, right? Like heavy is the head that wears the crown. And sometimes I have thought in my own journey and aspirations of what I want, but also seen people on different parallel journeys or just different journeys altogether, that the road that you have walked and the road that you continue to walk is incredible, empowerful, impactful, and can also be lonely. You know, when there's not a lot of people that can see and understand all of the aspects of the things that you have gone through. And to continue choosing that, being aware of that and getting support when and where you need to, whether it's therapy, right? Literally traditional therapy of different forms or recovery communities or other communities, any kind of just support that you get to make sure that you keep working on how important it is for you to be okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:13

Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's so true. Um, it's interesting. And when I was working in in the for-profit industry, I remember one of the clinical directors coming to me and talking about how like it's it's they've been in the industry for so long. They started it's this, this, and this. And it's hard for them to go to certain fellowships or certain rooms because they were in recovery, you know, because people that they had met along the way or had helped or had worked with, and so they struggled to find safe places. And, you know, I was able to connect them with certain places that are for those individuals who work in that environment. Um and I never really thought about it, you know, until fast forward years later, and and sometimes that I would need a moment to go into a room and share something or say something that was personal, and I would be there with people that I had had direct service work with before, and I couldn't. And so I started to struggle with it. And fast forward to where I'm at now. Yeah, when Vanessa came out, like I said, I came out with a rock. You truly were one of the first ones there. Because I didn't I didn't want to hinder myself. I wanted to spread, you know, I wanted to. You're gonna do it, you know. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. And um you're right. I started to gain this respect and connection, and people recognize you can't miss me, right? You recognize me. And so now when I do go to certain rooms and stuff, I am seeing people that I used to be their coach, or I used to be their boss, or I used to be something, and I'm just like, gosh, can't say anything here. I need to do this. So sometimes I also just want to go where people don't know me. And that I love where I'm at right now, but that's truly becoming more and more and more of a thing. I mean, gosh, even yesterday at the festival that I went to, I hadn't even walked through security when there were security guards coming up to me, the person checking the bags, people that were coming up and like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. Or yes, I love it. I love it, I love it. We hadn't even made it to the porta potties and I had already taken selfies with so many people that were on the let me take a selfie with you. I love it so, so much. And I just want to be there with them on their journey and show that, you know, all these things. But sometimes, yeah, like I'm gonna go to a restaurant and not be seen. I like going to things to where it's outside of the recovery community and stuff to where nobody knows me. And I don't have to. Um I don't want to like, I don't know, hide in the fringe, if you will, because I get to want to be myself. But yeah, there are times to where I'm just like, you know, I'm I just want to go and have some coffee with my roommate, you know, and not worry about it. But more and more and more when I think I'm in an environment where I'm not gonna know anybody, I'll go to Applebee's. We did here recently, and they were like, And I'm like, oh my god. Um it's great. I love it, but yeah, you're exactly right. So I'm I'm I'm pivoting on that that change right now. Like, where am I able to continue this? I do have my my self-care journeys, um, our activities. I have a hard time with boundaries right now. Not necessarily setting them, but being able to have them come to fruition from the work that I do. Um you know, I set boundaries with my boss on a daily basis, but it it still doesn't come to fruition. Um there's there's a lot of struggle on that end. But personally, yeah, it's it's it's becoming a point to where like I gotta find those nooks and crannies to where I can get away for a minute. My Harley, I talk about it all the time, but that truly is where I can put my helmet on, I put music on, I can't get phone calls, I can't get text messages, I can just go ride, it's loud, it makes me happy, but I'm by myself. I'm there. I can go to the mountains, I can go wherever. Um, with the work that I do, the time to do that is closing more and more and more, so I don't get to do it as often. Um, so you know, I still have my special people that I talk to, that I reach out to, that I text or call, but I'm like, Yeah, we all need that. Here's something. Um, all of this is because I learned it throughout this process, and kind of like last year when or two years ago, I don't even know, when I met you, it was two years ago, yeah. Um that those warning signs were there. Like it was all happening. I could see it, I could feel myself sliding, I could feel myself retracting and getting snippy and grumpy and just not happy. And I knew all of those signs, if I didn't reach out to my sponsor, if I didn't reach out to my therapist, if I didn't do all of this stuff, and if I didn't commit to what I put my word on, then it was gonna fall apart. So the closer I was getting to that date that I had set, I was like, oh, I have to be a person of my word. I have to do this no matter how hard it, no matter how much I want to back out and make excuses and be like, oh, I can't, because what we do. I had to do it because I've learned that in my journey. And so doing that, sometimes going through the hard things puts me in situations like now. You nailed it. Like sometimes it's hard for me to hide away.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:49

Not that I want to often, but there are No, but it's also like valid that you like you are a person that you do a lot. And there's especially us doers that like to be in things and create things and build things and be a part of things and say yes because we can and we want to give back that part of like practicing also saying no and understanding that doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you're not a bad employee or a bad friend or a bad anything, but that you require like those reset moments to take care of yourself because otherwise you end up in a lot of chaos. And chaos can be, you know, being busy is wonderful in many aspects, but sometimes it's it's so loud that you don't hear other things, right? So finding is still something I work on, is like is just when do I say yes and when do I say no? You know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:43

Um, but I have one question also before we wrap up. I uh people always ask like, if you could tell yourself something when you're young, what would you say? And I hate this question because I the me then couldn't have heard anything that I would say.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:00

So it's I get it and I understand the point of the question, but I it never feels true to me because the things I would say, that version of me couldn't have heard or understood, even if, you know. So a question I want to ask you is what do you need to hear the most right now for you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:18

Oh my gosh. I I love that you said that because again, we get asked that question all the time. And I my initial response is exactly what you said. It's like that knucklehead would have no, huh? You didn't want to talk to that knucklehead. And very much so in my recovery tourneys, you know, the old timers, as I like to call them, and now I'm an old timer, is they would say things to me that I'm like, you stop, don't talk to me like that. What are you saying? You don't even know what you're talking about, you know. That's just it's a different time, man. But it really rings true and it sticks with me and stuff, you know, little corny sayings, we're gonna love you till you love yourself, all those things. If I was to tell myself in the past, if I was to be able to sneak a message back there, is that basically like, oh gosh, how would I put this in words? You need to go through what you're gonna go through. That it's not gonna be easy, but you need to do it. I think that kind of might have resonated with me a little bit because life wasn't easy back then. You know, never was, ever. Yeah. Not having money, not having the cool shoes, not having a family, not having guarantee of what school or home I was gonna be in. It was I was taught that it was gonna be hard from a long time. I was just always looking for an escape. But now if I knew that it's gonna just grow through that tough time, keep going, make the best out of it regardless. Even when I was in prison, you make the best out of it. And I made the best out of it, and I loved it. The time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:55

Yes, yes, and I love that. But what I also want to know is what do you Vanessa right now to hear from you. It's real oh, that's the same thing. I love that. Because it's it's true. And as I keep, right? And we both do this, where we lean into something and we say yes, and I want to grow and I want to change and I wanna, you know. And some of it's hard.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:17

It is.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:18

And sometimes I get the thing that I think I want, and it's hard.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:22

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:24

Shit, this comes along with other things.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:27

Yes. No, I I need to hear that now too, because I mean, even though I'm in recovery and I'm about to celebrate eight years of sustained recovery of substances and alcohols, you know, my mental health journey started later. But I still struggle with things. And here recently, you know, somebody totaled my car, and you know, all of these things kept happening, life things kept happening. My Facebook got blocked, but it's interesting. That's a different story for a different time as to why it was offline.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:53

We'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:54

It's because of attacks on transgender. I had to do a lot of fighting for it, but I got it back. Yes, I I get a lot of hate mail. I get a lot of negative messages, I get a lot of stuff, but that's besides the point. But life still throws things at you. Life still does stuff. And one of the things for me is like the things that are out of my control, those are easier to handle for me. Like it sucks. I get it. You know, I should have had gap insurance. I should have had this, you know, like I get it. I learned from the world. Like you can own it, right. The ones that are hard for me to swallow is, you know, life still brings up who I used to be. As in the felony thing comes up quite a bit. Um, you know, the the old person comes up quite a bit. I could not tell you how many times I've got approached for career positions. Um, because of the work that I do and the people that they see me and they're like, oh my gosh, we will do this. Just like the position I hold now, you know, the director came to me and was like, we will create what you want. What do you want? Let's build a position for you. Let's get you there. And I was able to do that. And I have people do that to me now, still on a daily basis. Last Friday I did a stand-up comedy show. Um, and right before I went on, a position that was being curated for me, having known that I had a felony record, having known all of this stuff, um, something that I really wanted to be a part of because it's in the LGBTQ community, and it was gonna cause me to have more free time. All this last minute came to me and was like, your record, we can't offer you this. We're gonna rescind it. It happens to me all the time. So those are the harder ones for me because that was not the person that I knew I was I ever was, but I have to deal with those. I have to own up to those are my choices. I did every bit of that. I hurt those individuals. I hurt myself, I hurt my family, I hurt my community. And you know, here it is almost eight years later. Eight years is nothing compared to the 30-some years of destruction that I love. Those are the times to where those are the hard ones that I need to hear. That advice that I would have given to my old person is like, you gotta go through this hard stuff, even though it it sucks because you do deserve those positions. You do deserve this, these accolades. You know, you you do deserve this, but there's gonna be some more time to get through where you're at right now. I completely understand, but those are the harder peels to swallow than when somebody sideswipes you take your car out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:29

Well, have you how are you on forgiveness work?

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:34

For myself?

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:35

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:37

That truly, and that's one of the things that I talk about a lot too whenever I share my story or I do my speaking engagements, is that that was truly one of the more pivotal moments is when I had to start to begin to like myself. It's easier to forgive other people. I've I've forgiven myself for what I've done. And that was years ago, and I still have to remind myself that it's always going to be a forgiving. You know, you those living amends, it's also towards myself, too, 100%. No, I've I've I did that before I even started working in the industry. So the forgiveness piece, it was hard. You know, I I always share a lot of times too. If you would have seen me years ago, I used to have dreads. I was horrible because I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror from that hatred that I had for myself. I even told the story the other night at a at an event that I ripped the mirrors off the walls in my apartment so I wouldn't have to. The bar I worked at, I knew where the bottles were, so I didn't have to graze the mirror. I could just reach back and grab the grandma. You know, I didn't have to look at it because I didn't want to see this. And whenever I started to love and forgive myself is when I could look in the mirror again. And now you can't stop me from looking the mirror, but the forgiveness piece was and still is there. And I truly do forgive myself for the destruction that was Leland. It's so weird to say that name.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:02

Yeah. Yeah. I forgot it until the fountain thing the other day, and I was like, what the hell? Oh, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:12

It happens all the time. I will randomly call somebody, be like, hey, hey, I haven't talked to you in a little while. And they're like, oh my gosh, this name popped up. Like changing. Yeah. And even yesterday, that was my scene. You know, like I was saying, in the music industry that I ran into so many people I used to play music with. I ran into people that had my albums. You know, I ran into people that were wearing my old band t-shirts, and like they didn't know who I was. A lot of them weren't. It was just discussion that was happening. And I was like, hey, you remember me when I was a dude. Yeah. But that is the environment that, you know, I thought I had to be this certain image for people to like me. And here I am, completely different. It a totally different person. And I was getting the same exact love that I was then on a different scale. And I don't have to try to hide behind an identity that I wasn't was. I mean, that's I I don't need to pretend anymore, but it was just so it was amazing walking around to people being like, hey, did you know a guy named Leland? And they'd be like, Yeah, it was a good great paper or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:17

It was like that's really funny. You know, like, hi, it's me. Um, I'm better. Yeah. Um, I'm curious if you when you, because I know you talk to people about this, but if you were to give advice to someone that is where you used to be, specifically in the identity part of the story. What would you what's the best advice to give someone who finds themselves in that any any part of that story, whether it's just questioning things or not sure about things or thinking you're crazy, or you know, there's a lot of different aspects to that, but finding themselves in the place of where they don't don't feel that they can tell the whole truth about who they are. What's the best what's the best? What do you got?

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:08

I mean That's your heavy qu that's a great question. And I have to I have to say that because all of that work that I put into as my former self, I never made connections in the LGBTQ plus community. You know, I knew people. I have friends and I love them, truly love them and support them, but I don't know what their journey is. I don't know what the letters and numbers and stuff are. I'm learning, but as that individual that I, you know, explained and created an image of who I used to be, we didn't have connections with that. Um, you know, the rainbow colors, the community, I knew they existed. And from my perspective, I love people for who they are. Again, I never wanted to get connected because I didn't think that that was me.

unknown: 1:37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:57

Because I was ignorant of what the definition was. There wasn't a lot around me. And even when I did get into environments where there were, I wasn't in the state of mind to connect, working in the treatment industry. You know, we we would have individuals come in, but when they ask for resources, like, where do I go from here? Or who do I talk to while I'm here because I don't feel comfortable being in that group over there? You know, I was always like, oh my gosh, I didn't think of that. I don't know. And then the prison mindset would suck in like, suck it up, get in there. What do you do? I would try to be helpful as much as I could, but I didn't go out of my way. I was too afraid that, and it seems silly, but like if I connected myself in any sort of way, people would see Vanessa inside, and I wasn't ready for people to see Vanessa, or they would start questioning my masculinity, if you will. And I didn't have those resources. When I became Vanessa and I shot out like a rocket and people saw me, the very first sets of questions really changed from that recovery side to the identity side. And I would get off stage from shoot, you know, speaking at something, and family members would come up and be like, My my daughter or my son just said they want to start transitioning, or they have been transitioning for a while, or they're afraid, you know, in building up to the election time, like it it increased. It went I didn't have conversations of recovery-related stuff. It all shifted and focused. Therapists were calling me, clinical directors are calling me, people are calling me all over, like I have an individual, or I have a family member, or I have this and that. And so I wasn't the person to reach out to for the recovery resources. It switched over to like, oh, I know a transgender individual who's out there like raging it right now. Yeah. Ask them. And when they would, I didn't have the resources. I didn't have anything. And I'd always hear family members talking to me and telling me, like, oh my gosh, you know, I love my child, I love them, but I don't know what to do. And I'm like, you're already leaps and bounds ahead of where I was because I don't have that family support. That right there in itself is going to set them apart from a lot of us. Because what I found in my journey, because I I get to run groups at this center on Colfax for the transgender females, I, you know, set on a policy change maker for one Colorado to help transgender rights. I um was on the Pride, Never Pride Planning Board. All of which happened in a year's time, which is amazing. That's that 19-year-old, uneducated person working up to a corporate trainer type of mentality. And I'm a person of my word. I stand by my word. The word right now for that individual is gosh, what I had to learn in my journey is connect with a community. As hard as you think it is, there are resources out there. If you walk in and connect with that community of all those individuals who felt that same fear and had questions and didn't know. When Vanessa was becoming Vanessa and I made that decision with my therapist, the first thing I did was hop on the old Googlen device and I searched for transgender support groups, and I found a couple of them. And it was very mirror image of when I sat outside my first AA meeting without the judge telling me to go, and it was me making a decision. And I was sitting outside, like, you know, maybe I could do this tomorrow. I don't need to go in there now. Like, this is ridiculous. I'm hungry. I'm gonna go get something to eat. I don't need to be here. You know, like making any reason to not get any reason. Just sitting there, like, oh gosh, I don't know, and then F it, I gotta go in. And it was the exact same thing for that because I hadn't started looking like Vanessa yet. I was still very much my old person. And I knew this is what I was gonna do, but I learned from my recovery journey that I had to connect with a community. And so I walked into my first room, it's a work group, and I hear people talking the same thing. Like, I don't know how to tell my parents. Where do I get hormones? What do I laser my face? Do I raise it or razor it? What do we do? What is eyeshadow? You know, these questions that I'm like, oh my gosh, uh, I didn't know that. I need that. So if I was to give someone advice, is to find a community that fits the area in which you want to follow, like that that identity that you want to be. Because there are communities out there, there are resources out there, and I am still learning to find them all now too. Because again, I didn't have that, but that is now my modality of where I need to focus my attention on. Long-winded answers for a simple question.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:38

But they're so good. I love how much I haven't talked in this episode because I just wanted to hear your whole story, which is so great. And I'm just so appreciative that you said yes without hesitation and with excitement, no less, when I asked you. And just so much thank you for telling the truth.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:01

Because that truth is what helps people who don't know right now. And that's um so much of why I created this space in the first place is to talk about things that I didn't know from when I was younger and growing up, and like so many of us had to meet through it all. And where can we where can we share that and talk about things that maybe other people haven't figured out yet? You know, while they're on their journey. But thank you so much for being here and for telling the truth and just showing up as full of you, and I'm so appreciative, not only that you're here today, but that I get to I get to have you in my life, which is just a really beautiful gift.

SPEAKER_01: 1:43:37

I can say the exact same thing to you. You are a light too, and you're so amazing. I have so much respect, and I look up to you, even from a distance. You're way over there. Thank you for having me. It's truly an honor. And um, like yeah, when you asked if it wasn't the you that you are, my schedule's blocked. You know, I got I've um I got things to do. I want to ride my hardware with it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44:03

Food is always your option.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:04

Yeah, exactly. But as soon as you said that, I was like, yes, let's make this happen 100%. Um, thank you for thinking of me because it truly means the world to me. And I'm glad that I got to be here. So thank you. Love you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:16

You're welcome. And I do. I don't know if I've said it actually out loud, but I love you. And I want you to know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:22

Thank you. I love you too. Oh, I love you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:24

You're welcome. I'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:27

Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for being here. It means more than you know. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a quick rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find the show. If you want more of me, head on over to NatanyaAllison.com and enter your name and email for behind the scenes updates in between shows. New episodes air every Tuesday. We'll see you next week.