Episode 7- From Silence To Strength: how sharing your story rescues you from inner darkness

Uncover the hidden truths of childhood trauma and the path to healing. Join Jennifer and Nancy Ann as they explore a guest's raw journey through abuse and betrayal. Discover how silence affects mental health, the power of boundaries, and the transformative strength of vulnerability. This episode offers practical advice on setting boundaries and finding support, igniting your journey to resilience. Perfect for anyone seeking hope and healing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi friends, it's Jen, and welcome to the Bestie Blend. I'm here today with my best friend Nancy Ann, who is getting her mic all set up, and our special guest for today. She's gonna remain anonymous as we talk through something that matters deeply: privacy boundaries and healing. It's Mental Health Month, and we're truly grateful you're here with us. We also want to make sure that you feel comfortable throughout. So if there's anything you'd rather skip, pause, or reframe, you can absolutely do that.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

You set the pace here. Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Okay, so I believe it was episode four that was mine, and you had to reach out to me after you heard my story.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

What about Jen's story resonated with you that made you want to start talking about what happened in your life?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

What made me want to start this? Actually, it was you, Jen, because she experienced some of the same sexual trauma that I did when I was a kid. Mine wasn't a family member, but it was relatively a family member. They were really close to me. I guess it's just more of you can't trust anybody, even if they are family.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

So as we go through your story, what do you wish people understood about your story that you just couldn't open up to and say that it's okay to stand up for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

You gotta speak up because the longer it goes, the harder it is to work through it, the harder it is to actually tell the truth, and then the more you blame yourself for it. It started when I was ten, and it was by a close family friend, and it went on for six years. Pretty moo, two, three, four times a week. Anytime our families got together, wow, it was happening, and nobody ever caught on to it. It's just he was that good at hiding it and making it look like we were all just hanging out outside or were watching movies or riding in the car together. It was never obvious. So he did this around people?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Mine was private. It was always when nobody was home, but yours sounds like it was people around?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

There were people around. Sometimes it was private too, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Had you ever made any attempt to say anything? I totally get that you just freeze up and you don't say anything, but I never said anything because it was uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

He made it seem like it was just normal. This is what people do. And oh, but you're so pretty, and it's okay for me to do this, and just don't tell anybody because you're my special pet. And it it was always made to seem like I was ten, so I didn't quite understand.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

I think twelve is what I can remember just from that one picture I was talking about. How does that affect your relationships moving forward with friends, possible boyfriends?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

It weighs heavy, it rears its ugly head at the most inopportune times. So that went on for six years, and then when I was eighteen, I still had never been kissed. I had never had sex, nothing. And then at eighteen, my first boyfriend raped me, and I kept telling him, No, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this, but it just happened. And so then it was like, screw it, may as well just carry on now, because what's done is done. And so I kind of put that behind me, but then the trauma still rears its ugly head. When I was twenty-two, my work manager raped me after work. I was closing up and he cornered me in the bar, and so I went home and told my husband that night, and he told me I was a liar and that I was making it up and that I was just whoring around. And so all three of those rear their ugly head. But my husband now is very understanding. And if there comes a point during our time, he'll just stop and just hold me, work through it, or just completely stop and not reschedule, but reschedule if that makes sense. It's or it can be it'll pop up at random times. We'll be driving down the road and I'll go, oh, I remember blah, blah, blah, and start talking about it. But it's hard to let it out because it seems so dramatic. It seems so me too.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

I think that's a problem, though, that's happening now that I think Jen and I both have realized that coming out and finally speaking out on things that people don't necessarily want to hear about, because like our topics are very cringy, even though people need to hear them, is that's one of the reasons why we all just stop talking in the first place. Is because one, we don't think people are gonna believe us. And two, it just makes it easier to deal with because we don't have to ruffle any feathers. And then ultimately, did you ever talk about that time when you were the age of 10? Ever talk either in therapy or with any adult?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

At 16, I ended up telling my mom. After I got through talking to her, we went in and woke my dad up and told him about it, but he seemed upset over it. So the long and short is we ended up talking to it was the three of us, so my parents and me, and then him and his parents. So his dad was a mandated reporter. Which kid is this? When you were 18? No, this is the ten to sixteen. Ten, this was our family friend. And how much older was this person? He's four years older than me. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Got it. And his dad is a mandated reporter and did nothing. Just said, okay, he wasn't gonna want his kid to go to jail. That would tarnish his reputation. Yeah. He was part of our church and was leading Bible studies, got it and such and other things, and yeah, his name couldn't be tarnished, so therefore his son couldn't be held accountable.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Funny is we hear the Catholic religion like it's always out there. The Christian in that portion of faith, you don't hear it because everybody keeps it quiet.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

They're trained to do that. It's in so many different Christian churches, they want and at that age, instead of disciplining them and getting them help, it's just stop it. They're just being kids or being kids. And it's no, because now that all started when they were young and they didn't take care of it when they were young. Adults who are abusing kids. So it's if you don't take care of it early, and now you're talking about it and you're getting this off your chest now after not even being like still not like but it didn't we never talked about it after it came out.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

It just was we moved past it, and I never went to therapy. And now, oh, it's like I I know I'm fast forwarding and jumping back and forth, but now I've got a kid who's experienced it at school, and she went the complete opposite direction that I did, and she's started starving herself and purging and cutting. The scars that she has are the they're she came out and told us last year about it. But raising her in a Christian household is very hard because she's chosen to choose an alternative lifestyle. We love her and we've told her we love you more than anything and unconditionally, but this is not a lifestyle that we support. When she came out and then she told us about this girl at school, it stopped me dead in my tracks because my whole thing is that I've been home to take care of my kids, to protect my kids, and my saying is always, I'll be damned if any of my kids ever get touched. And she did. And so we've got her in therapy. We've got her in counseling, and I was talking to my husband the other day saying, This whole parenting thing, it's hard. Because what I wanted my parents to do, I'm trying to do for my daughter, but she's still stuck in a spot and she's not moving, and it's almost like she wants to be there even though she says she doesn't. So I don't know how to parent that. I don't know how to support that, because it's okay, move on. It's time to move on, pick yourself up, move forward. Right because I had to. So how do you do that and yet not naysay what's happened, but at the same time say she knows what I've been through because I've told her, and that was one of the reasons why she said it took her two months to tell us, is that she didn't want to trigger me. And yet it's yeah, I'm not triggered. I'm hurt because I couldn't protect her. But how do you make her move forward? How do you be sympathetic as a survivor? How do you support another, yeah, survivor, but make a move forward?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I think you just have to remember what you went through. Neither of us had the support that we truly needed when we were younger. And she has this huge support system, but we still have to remember her age. Healing is different for all of us. I have another family member who finally has opened up to me. She's not ready to talk about it, and she struggles every day. But there's no, I don't know how else to get her to move forward other than just being there when she's ready. Right. I don't live with her and I don't see her, and she lives totally in a different area than I do. If it happened in my own household, I don't know what I would do.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah, it's uncharted waters. When we were younger, mental health was looked at as, ooh, don't talk about it, hide it a little bit. And now it's such, like you said, woke, but it's now a popular thing. And I don't have kids, so I don't know what that's like having older kids in high school or whatever. But it seems to me like you can talk and you can, it's not something you hide, but yet you still can't move on. So it's being abused is awesome and it messes with your brain no matter how old you are. I mean, I feel like I was abused by my ex-spouse at times, but he would never say that. But in my head, I was not a participant in that action, and I was crying and I was sad and upset. So it messes with you, especially women's brains.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

That has been a lot. We have a story that you cannot script. We both are remarried, but our exes are insane. My ex was physically abusive, he was chemically dependent, you've got the physical abuse, you've got the mental abuse, and then that kind of feeds into our daughter as well. And you just you can't script it, man.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

As you were growing up and you had the boyfriends, do you ever feel that you pick the people that were gonna do this type thing? Like they had it was like that same type of person without knowing it until you look back now and you see your red flags.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yep. That we talked about. Because me, I wasn't allowed to date until I was sixteen. And I didn't date, yeah, until I turned eighteen, and my parents didn't know about him. Then the second guy I dated, and then it started this long string of losers, I guess. Crappy men. And my parents begged me the cycle to not marry him. But I did it anyway. And then I met my husband a year later, I tell him all the time, I didn't know what love was until him. Because love for me was very different than what it really is now. Like, seriously, we've fought twice, and it's not even worth fighting over. They're lying if they say they do. You learn to give and you learn what grace and forgiveness and true understanding and true unconditional love is, because most things are not worth it. It's just a difference of opinion or pride. And so when you really back down and you look at the situation, you go, Okay, yeah, it's five minutes from now, ten minutes from now, a month from now, is it really gonna matter? No, it doesn't. It's so not worth fighting over. That he protects you, he keeps you safe, and it sounds like he respects you. And he notices me and understands me better than I know me, which is really scary. And to be vulnerable and let him have that is even more scary.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

When you guys obviously you went through with your ex and then you meet him. I really never talked about my abuse with my ex. I think I mentioned it once or twice, but it was just kind of like nonchalant. Oh, yeah, this happened because my dad was always over, like whenever they were in town. I've remarried and with my new relationship, we've talked about it. I don't even remember what we'll just say the trigger, what that was to make me want to tell him a little bit. What was it telling him? How did do you even remember going into by the way? So you're gonna marry trauma, and I need to let you know what happened.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

We both entered in with a bunch of kids. And so it was I come with baggage, you come with baggage, but I was in the middle of court battles and he was in the middle of court battles, and so it just kind of it was a natural, whether it was phone calls or the emails or the texts or visitation or kids moving in and out of our house, or and so we would get a lot of middle of the night phone calls from her. And so that would trigger things to where we wouldn't go back to sleep because we'd talk through whatever she was doing after we could get her off the phone. And then we would talk through, oh hey, that makes me think this happened with my ex. And so we would just talk through those things, or as stupid as it sounds, TV shows. Like to this day, we'll be watching something on TV and we'll pause it and I'll go, Oh, so I remember when this happened, and or he'll say, Oh yeah, she did this, or we did that together, or like his big thing was that she would intentionally embarrass him in public. And so I'm always saying, Okay, I don't want to embarrass you. Did I do something that embarrassed you? Or what can I do? Because I'm not a social person. He is a social butterfly. Me, on the other hand, I'll watch people, but don't you dare make me get out there and do anything with anybody. If we go places, he'll be talking and hanging out, and he's, hey, go talk too, like, go do this, go do that. And I'm sitting there going, I'm not doing it. And I realize that might actually be embarrassing to him because it comes across like I'm this stuck up person and I'm not. It's just I don't want to be vulnerable. And I don't trust people, and I like to watch. I really like to watch people. I get way more out of that than talking. Plus, again, yeah, I don't want to get hurt. Right now I'm trying to be mom and be the fixer because what I'm educated in, be that person. Yeah. And you have to take care of yourself too. Yeah. I can't pour from an empty cup, right? But right now I think that my daughter and my husband need to be the priority before I start working through stuff. Because when you start working through stuff, you need a lot of help. But I can't help them if I need the help right now. So when I can get him to a place where I believe he's good, then I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

We've like we've I'm gonna work on you because I think you would benefit so much by talking to somebody. Yeah. I still Nancy's therapist and I love her. She's faith-based, which makes it so much easier. And I had a session last night. I haven't really gotten into this with my husband yet because his daughter came into town. They haven't seen each other in 10 years. Oh wow. It's different, right? And we I want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can. How I am personally, like I'm very heartened. It's just get over it. You've got all right, it's time. We're done being sad. I can't. I'm like, oh man, he'd probably so love that listening to you right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Tell me. And that's but I do think is that what I was saying about my daughter, I'm like, get over it. It's no big deal. Yeah, we can't do that. Yeah, we can't, but I can't do that. And I I told my husband, I know that I it sounds hard, so I'm trying to figure out how to be gentle, but not enable. It's a real fine line.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

You can give grace, but you know what I realized with me as raised in a Christian home and dealing with the crap that I dealt with my parents and my own self. I was always, I don't want to say super anti-therapy, but I always just was like the glasses half full. You know, I don't need therapy. All is good, everything's great, even though super suffering and behind the scenes and life was horrible. And now going to therapy, I've right. Like we were saying, why didn't I do this so much earlier?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

It's just because that means you're crazy. Yeah. My husband's going to therapy and he's gonna go, yeah, to a biblical counselor. And she's why is he going to therapy? That's gonna fill his head with worldly stuff. And I'm like, She goes, he just needs a biblical counselor. So I do see a biblical counselor, not often, but she was able to help me. Yeah. Through the anger and the resentment. And I I I've never hated my dad, but I was very angry with him and resented him for the things that he had said to me when I told him what had happened to me. When I told him about everything, he started asking me questions, like, why did you allow it? Then two years later, when I was with my first boyfriend, and they found out that I'd had sex outside of marriage, my dad called me a slut. And I held on to that for a long time. And I didn't realize, wow, that it wasn't that he actually meant that, but it took me until two years ago to understand that when I talked to the biblical counselor and she said, Cause I'm not making excuses for your dad, she goes, I love your dad. However, wow, he should never have said that. But put yourself in his shoes, and he is black and white just like me, and you call a spade. And sex outside of marriage, you're a slut, is basically the way that he interpreted the Bible. And so she had told me, Write him an email, tell him how you feel. Since you can't tell him face to face, you write him an email, and then you forgive him and you move forward because the ball's in his court. Now you've said you've hurt me, and you get to deal with your own hurt. It's up to him how he responds and how he takes it. And he immediately responded with, I appreciate your email. I'm gonna think about this, I'm gonna pray about this. And it took him three weeks, and he emailed me back and he said, I stand by what I said. However, I should not have used that wording, and I'm sorry if you're hurt, and hopefully we can move forward. And that was the extent of it. And I was Was that good enough for you? I'm trying to continue on in my walk with the Lord. Hmm. And we are to forgive 70 times seven. So there's that seven number again, it's always in the Bible. It is I'm like, okay, you know what? I there was a lot of peace with letting that go, even though it wasn't the response I wanted. It wasn't the response that I thought I deserved, but I took it a step farther and went, okay, what would I h how how does Christ feel? He was crucified for everyone's sins, and there's no one sin greater than another, and I'm guilty every day of nailing those nails into him. And if he can forgive me, I have to forgive my dad. Right. Point being, I'm sinning continuously and saying, I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry God, and I know every time I sin it hurts him. So my response has to be the right one no matter what. So if my dad has to say, I'm sorry I hurt you, but I stand by it, far be it from me, to not forgive him and just move forward. Yeah, you just give it to God and let him handle it, let him take that burden from you. Because mine's far worse against God than my dad's against me. Yeah, that's always hard not to think people are always gonna do is roll their eyes. Oh gosh, here she goes again with this stupid story. Yep. At what point did you openly say this to his side of the family that this was happening? If that's easy, just in general, do they know your full story?

SPEAKER_01 19:55

I think Jen's talking about your current family right now.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

In-laws. Is that what current means? They only know up until Okay, sorry, brain fog. My current family, I think I don't believe they know. I haven't really told anybody. My husband knows everything in depth. So your knows. Yeah. My kids, on the other hand, yeah. My oldest ones, especially grown kids, they know my whole story. Because I want to make sure that we have transparency and they can talk to me about anything and everything, and I and so they've asked me questions and I've been able to tell them But I I just don't need any more ammo for anybody. Boundaries are obviously a big part of healing. I wish that I would have learned the word no, but I wish I would have had more self-respect because I think it would have saved me from a lot, yeah. With my exploits, I should say. Because it was like after the abuse, it was just this is how you keep a guy, and so you just give him what he wants. And there was no self-respect there, but I just wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to feel like somebody cared. And so in my mind, that was the only way to have a relationship was just to give them what they wanted.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Instead of protecting my heart and having boundaries, and it's not like I was out there whoring around, but I still I didn't set my moral standards high enough to have enough self-respect.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Especially being at the age you were you don't understand any of it. It's just happening. You're not telling anybody, so it's not like they're not confirming that, yeah, you're you're totally right, this is totally wrong. And so those thoughts in your head, I just remember having that. And I talked about it in my episode where if suicide was a thing back then, because as you're going through it, I didn't know anything about that. That just was never talked about, which is probably for the better. Because you constantly think I'm such a crappy person. This has happened to me because I'm a terrible person. That has followed me. Yeah. It still follows me. Can't get something out of my head. And you sit there and all these thoughts are going, you're like, You're a terrible person. And you're like, okay. Wait, stop, time out, take a deep breath. And you're like, all right, Lord, you have to take this because I I'm gonna keep doing that. And then you just get really angry. And it just starts all over again. It's like a never-ending cycle. It sucks.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Do you think that was part of the fear-mongering that we were taught when we were younger, being part of the church or being part of a private Christian school? Because I know I've dealt with the same thing all the time. I still do. What kind of created that in us at such an early age where we can carry that kind of taught so I had to hide everything I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Like my parents didn't know who I was dating, and I would tell them, oh, I'm at work, or oh, I'm at house, or oh, I'm at Bible study or whatever. So they never knew, so I had to keep that hidden. So then you've got that guilt, and then you've got the guilt of, okay, I've slept with this many people. And then you bring that into your marriage, and it's, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

I was always taught you give your husband all of you. Yeah. Every person you sleep with, you're giving them a piece of you. So yeah, then there's lots of tears and guilt. And I didn't give you all of me, and I can't give you all of me. It's horrible. They knew about the molestation, but they didn't know I didn't even tell my mom about the two rape situations until just a few years ago. And I told her while I was telling my girls, because one of my girls had asked, Wow, what is rape? And they were older. I had ended up telling them, This is what it is, and this is what happened to me. My mom dang near crashed the car because we were driving down the road and she's like, That happened to you twice. And so I had told them in in depth all of everything, and it just that was freeing. But there still is so much guilt because it was like she believed me, but I expected her not to. And so then it was like, don't tell dad, which of course they tell each other everything. So maybe he knows, maybe he doesn't. I don't know, I don't care. But I had the fear of her not believing me because it's so extreme. She wasn't gonna believe you, but she did believe you.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

That's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

What's funny that leads right into my next question is what advice would you give someone who feels trapped by judgment or fear? But that is your fear. But that is your fear.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

It was more for my girls that I wanted them to understand and be able to have in their head, hey, this happened to mom. I wanted them to be able to go, wow, look how strong mom is. Mom made it through that.

unknown 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

And I didn't really care if my mom believed me, because my girls needed to hear it. And so it was like, screw it, here it goes. And if my girls can understand, then that's really where I need to focus, because they're my priority. Not I don't live with my parents. I love them to death. Yeah. But I don't care anymore. If they believe me, if they think I'm dramatic, it doesn't matter. My kids are my priority. So if I can save my kids from something, or if I can help them, that's all I care about. I think as parents, we have to, whether you've been abused or have not been abused, you know what's right, what's wrong.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

I think we need to just teach our kids at an early age and that it's okay to come forward to talk about it. Even simple things of drinking when they're younger. I've always told my kids, I don't, I'm not gonna condone you drinking, but you get into a car or you decide to take a drink and you drive, I'm gonna kill you before you get killed. You better call me at three o'clock in the morning. Mom, I'm drunk, I can't drink them, and no questions will be asked. Parents don't make kids feel comfortable enough anymore.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I've told. And so they're afraid, both of my kids, that or I told all of them, but my big ones, yeah. I'm like, I look, I know you smoke weed. I know that you drink, but if you are drunk, you call me, right? You know? If you guys go to a party and you drink, you call me. I'm gonna come pick you up. You'll get in far less trouble than if you drove home. Yeah. You'll still be in trouble, but you call me and I will come and pick you up. Because that's just the way it needs to be. I would never forgive myself or anybody else if you killed someone because you were drunk, right? If you're gonna make a stupid decision, make it and then call me. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

I was just gonna ask one quick question in regards to dealing with your kids. What have you experienced now that you've been talking to your mom or to other people about the things that have happened in your life? What have you learned in this healing journey for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

I wish I would have spoken up earlier. So maybe the answer would be speaking up earlier and risking or being vulnerable. Take the risk to be vulnerable. Yeah. So put yourself out there because it could save you totally years and years, if not a lifetime, of regret or hurt or trauma or whatever. If it happens, just talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, find that support system. You have to and have that. I'm doing a program right now where I'm in training to help victims of human trafficking, sexual abuse, because one of the main reasons I'm doing it is because I feel that if I had that advocate for me, if there was somebody there, we didn't have that. No, I was alone and dealing with all these thoughts of crappiness in my head. And I want to let these kids know that it's okay to talk about it and try to just be there and just be an ear for them and not be a judgy person like the rest of the world these days, because it's so important to talk.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

I told my daughter not that long ago, well, because I asked her, why would you try and hurt yourself? Why are you thinking and she doesn't anymore? She's been I asked her, why would you even think about that? And I said, because here's the point suicide is actually a very selfish thing. And she kind of looked at me shocked, and I said, It is the most selfish thing you could ever do because you won't be in pain anymore. But think about what you're doing to everybody else that you're leaving behind. And I said, I wish you would have come to me earlier. I don't care about your scars because now your scars are a part of you and you're beautiful no matter what. So now they've just become an even hmm more beautiful part of you and they're part of your story. So every time I see them, I don't see ugly, I don't see gross, I see healed pain. I love that. Just want to be able to help. Yeah, so if there's a way, whether it's in church or whatever, to put my story out there and be vulnerable, but yet be able to help one person. If you could help one person, then you've been successful.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

We've been talking about that though, too, is we've got you to come on here and tell your story. And to be honest, I have a feeling that once you disconnect here, you're going to feel a sense of relief just by even talking about it in public. It's mostly women in our age, similar in age to us, who are just now starting to either talk about it or think about talking about it. And I know with Jen and I, it's been so freeing for us. And we have had that mentality. If we just help that one person, if our stories just help that one person out there. And knowing that so many more have so many issues that we've dealt with similar to all the different things we've gone through, it baffles me that we've all grown up in the same time frame and we've all suppressed these things that have happened to us.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

You hit the nail on the head. We've now there's a a fellow participant, not participant, but you know what I'm saying. There's somebody that I can level with and I can be vulnerable with her because she understands. Like we don't have the same story, but we relate. But we do. The healed pain, we're able to get healed together and go, hey, this is how I'm feeling today. How did you deal with this or whatever? And you've just now found a friend. I think that's the whole point of this is that you this is gonna be with us forever.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

There's always gonna be trigger points that come up. You always say, I'm totally fine, I could talk about it, but then you're gonna be sitting in a room and something comes up and it's like those emotions flood back for five minutes, that self-hatred. That I don't think that'll ever go away. We just have to learn how to turn it off, if that's even the correct way to explain it.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

And I think that it all sets you off, or right, places that you're driving, it's like, oh, okay, yeah, that traffic happened there. Oh, I remember that smell. And oh, I don't like this. And it takes me back. Yeah. Horrible.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

I think the more that we talk about it with guests and all different people in general. Like I was on a phone call yesterday. It feels good that you have such this crazy support system. We had no idea that was out there. And the more we talk about things, the more memories start to come back. And you're like, oh my gosh, I totally remember that. Whether it was good or bad. I personally like thinking about it because I want to remember and trying to get timelines for me. And that's my biggest thing is I don't have a timeline. I can't remember everything. And I do want to remember because I feel like that's my proof. But that's how I often feel where I'm like, I can't remember certain things.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Why? Our minds are very powerful. That's your defense mechanism, is is you've blocked it out. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. Cause geez, this was 30 years ago almost, and I've blocked things out, and then they pop up at the most inopportune times.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

I think this is my therapy right here, and my therapist. I think for my husband, I I don't want to give him too much because I don't want to make it difficult because he does love me so much. And I know that there are times I could tell him anything that I want to, but I do hold back with him a little bit just because I'm like, I don't want that to tarnish something, or because it could. He's got such a big heart. So this being able to talk here, and he'll listen and he'll hear things and he'll be okay with it. It's just me going directly to him with that is difficult. He doesn't work. I think it's just me holding back when I'm don't need him to hear all of the dirty details. He when he listened to the story, he said he was shocked and surprised. It wasn't as in-depth, but it was because it was a little bit more than I've really ever talked about. And unless you was point blank asked me exactly what happened, I'll never talk about every incident. I remember when I kind of first brought it up, and then I start talking about it a little bit more. He just sat there and he was like, I had no idea it was this in depth. You know, and then we had to go to his house. And for the first time, I was just like, I don't want to do this, I don't want to go in there. That was the real turning point for me, and seeing him and knowing how much he was disgusted by him made me feel better.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

I hadn't seen that family friend since I was 17. All of a sudden, at 35 years old, I ran into him. Randomly, and we ended up to living in the same place. Like, seriously, how does that happen? Out of all the neighborhoods, I was walking to our community pool and I saw him and I panicked. He could never hurt me again, but I panicked. It was one of those things where I just froze. I had no idea he lived there. Then our kids ended up in the same school and I would see him there. It scared me because I hadn't dealt with it. But to see him and see his wife and see his kids, and then know that my kids were there around him and his kids and his wife. Ugh, I don't even know if his wife knew what happened. It it just was one of the most horrifying things I had ever experienced. Jeez. We ended up moving away. But it's like to see somebody 17 years after that, just on a random day, and then find out that you live literally two streets apart from each other is scary. It's really scary.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

So before we wrap up, is there anything particular you want the listeners to remember most about any of this topic today? Thank you so much to our guest for sharing the story because it's not easy. You don't have to hold everything in silence, and you don't have to move through healing on anyone else's timeline. Your pace matters. If you're listening and you took something from this episode, please share it with a friend who might be in need. Thank you for listening seriously. If anything we shared brought up hard feelings, especially related to suicide or cutting, please know you deserve support, not silence. If you're in the U.S., you can call or text 988. If you're outside the U.S., find your local crisis hotline or emergency number. If you're in immediate danger, contact emergency services. If you want more conversations like this, stay tuned for the next Bestie Blend episode. Bye, Bestie.