Pandora’s Box

In this deeply personal episode, I open a chapter of my life that I’ve kept sealed for years.

Pandora’s Box takes you back to my childhood, a time shaped by chaos, silence, and survival. I share what it was like growing up in an environment where violence, fear, were present… and how, as children, we learned to cope the only way we knew how  by becoming quiet, by becoming still, by enduring.

This episode isn’t just about what happened it’s about what it did.

How those early experiences shaped my mindset, my responses, and the way I moved through the world long after the moment passed.

If you’ve ever learned to function in dysfunction…

If you’ve ever carried things you never spoke out loud…

This is for you.

This is the barefoot stage — raw, unfiltered, and real.

Stay connected and continue the journey.

This is more than a podcast, it’s a call to become more intentional in how you show up, speak, and move.

If this resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it.

The same voice just wiser, quieter, and more intentional.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Before I begin, I want to say this clearly. What I'm about to share is heavy. It includes violence, abuse, and the impact it has on a child and a family. This is not for gossip. This is not for judgment. This is not for anyone to poke fun at, minimize, or tear apart. This is my truth. And I'm sharing it with intention. This podcast is about reconciling with the past and healing through what we've been through. While I'll share parts of my story here, the full depth, the details are in my book. This is truly something that I lived through in the first in the first quarter of my life. I believe I was maybe eleven, maybe twelve years old. And it was about I don't know, maybe nine, thirty, ten o'clock at night. And I was actually sleep. But I woke up because I heard arguing. My mother and her husband, I heard yelling and arguing, and it was it was really tense. And so I laid there and I didn't move. I just laid there in my bed, still and silent. And I kept hearing my mother over and over saying, No, just stop, no, just stop. Please, come on, just stop. She was pleading with this man to whatever he was doing to stop. Now at the time, my my younger brother and sister and I, we shared a room. We had a two-bedroom house. And so my brother and sister and I shared a room, and I looked over, and they were looking right back at me. And we were all laying in the bed, laying in our separate beds. But we were all laying in the bed quiet, looking at each other, still. And all this yelling, and you could hear hitting, it was like something was hitting the walls. It was a small house, and so you could hear everything. And the echoes of my mother pleading with this man, the please just leave her alone, and him cussing her out and calling her names, and her just screaming, no, please stop, stop, no, just stop. And he did not stop. And I heard him punching my mother, and she was taking all those hits and still just begging this man. No, just please, just stop. And then it got quiet. It got quiet. And I heard him call my mother more names. And I heard my mother get up. It was like she was on the floor outside of our bedroom. And I heard her get up. And she went into the bathroom. And we just laid there. We just laid there. And before I knew it, I had fell asleep. I was quiet. So some time had gone by. So much time had gone by. Like I said, I fell asleep, but I woke up, and my mother came into the bedroom, and she was like, Come on, y'all, let's go. Come on, let's go. So we got out of the bed and we quietly left the house. And we walked to a 7-Eleven that was maybe 10-15 minutes of the street. And we called a cab and um waited on the cab, and the cab took us to my aunt's house. And my aunt, my mother's baby sister, she was her house was always the place that we went. So we knocked on the door and we were knocking on the windows. She came to the door and she she let us in. And she got us settled. And I remember her and my mother were talking. So the next morning, I remember my grandmother, she came to the city. My grandmother lived in what we considered the country, which was about 45 minutes outside of Kansas City. So she came up and she was talking to my mother, and she was asking my mother, okay, now what you what you gonna do this time? This is enough of this. And she wasn't gonna stand for her grandkids to keep going through this. She was very adamant about that. A place, and I'm not going back. So my grandmother went home probably the next morning. And so I was happy because I heard my mother say that she wasn't going back. And so I thought my mother was, you know, looking for a place to for us to move and all the things. And so I remember my mother came to me and she said, Sean, I want to talk to you. She said, um, you know, we've been talking and we're gonna work it out. There's not gonna be any more fight. We're gonna go on and go back. And when I heard my mother say that, it was like I recognized in that moment when you you when is it not gonna be enough? I recognized that something was was really, really wrong. And I thought something was really wrong with my mother. I'm a child and I knew the children did not need to be be in positions like this. And I I I told my mama, I said, Mama, we can't go back. I said, he said that before. And it happened again. I said, what about what about Damon and Fire? And she said, well, we going back. Me, Damon and Fire, we are going back. And I said, Mama, I'm not going back. And she said, well, don't. She said, don't. And so I I didn't. I went to live with my grandmother in the country. And my brother and sister went with my mother back. I want to say this was maybe during maybe June, July was during the summer, and like during the summer, my family would you know, they would all come to Holden, Holden, Missouri, where we again call the country. They would come to Holden every weekend. And so my brother and sister would um ride with my family, and sometimes my mother would come, but a lot of the times my brother and sister would just come with family. And so when they would come, I was always happy because they were coming and I could spend time with my brother and sister. And we would play and do what kids do and you know have a good time with the rest of our family, our cousins. But when it was time for them to leave, when it was time for them to get in the car and go back, I remember that that was so hard. We would be hugging and crying and it was really difficult to say bye. I remember my family. I remember my family saying, I hate that they going through this. My family would be, I I just, you know, I would hear them in the background. I hate this for them. I wish Janet would just leave that man. Caught him something else, but I wish you were just leaving. So during this time, my brother and sister and I were very close. We were very close, and um I started sixth grade um there in the country. It was very different from being in Kansas City and being around all my friends, just being in the city, it was different being in the country. Going to school. I mean, not all I was always in the country, but to go to school in the country, that was something different for me. And so um I remember I started school, and that first week um I did there in Holden, and that Friday I was supposed to go to Kansas City to see my my brother and sister and see my mother. And um I just packed my stuff for the weekend. But went to Kansas City and and I spent time with my my family. And uh my mother was like, you know, Sean, don't you want to come back? And I just I didn't it was like I was torn because I I wanted to be with my brother and my sister and my mother and my mother, but I did not want to go back to him. I missed them so much. And so I said, okay. And I went, I went back um to Kansas City to live with my my mom. And so I told my grandmother, I'm not coming back. And my grandma said, I knew you weren't. I knew you weren't gonna come back. But I just I just did not want to be away from them like that. And so I went back and I started my sixth grade year in Kansas City, did not miss a beat because the schools in the city started after the schools in the country. So um started without missing anything, and um I went back, and it wasn't soon after I went back that he was back fighting my mother. He was back putting her down and calling her names, putting his hands on her, and we were back and forth to my aunt's house. I love my um my aunt Sheila, my mother's baby sister, she and I have a very a very close relationship. We have a close relationship because number one, she's she's um a few years older than me. She's I think when I was born, my aunt may have been 12 years old, so she always treated me like a little sister, and so I love her dearly, but I remember the times that she got out of her bed and left her family to open the door for us, and so I hold a very special place in my heart for her, very special, but this was something that we did time and time again until finally my mother left him finally. She left him when I was oh man, I want to say I was in eighth grade when she finally left him. And when she left him, it was like we had to flee. Hear me out. This man would leave on Friday and not come back until Sunday. Now, I'm a child, and I would say, Mama, you dealing with that? It was so many things that I recognized as a child that to me was wrong. So my mother had a plan, and I remember we literally, when he left that Friday, and he would get sharp as a tag baby. He would get clean, he would be playing his music and drinking his beer and all that, and take that shower and think he was cute. Let me just say this, okay? I'ma say it for the people one time, one time. My mother was the breadwinner, right? She was the one that held all of us down, and that was another thing I just didn't understand. I was like, Mama, you make out the money. It was things that I recognized as a child, but I wanted my mom so bad to understand who she was because I looked at her for a long time and saw how awesome she was and how amazing we could be outside of him. But anyway, this man had the he would be fresh and clean and in his ride that I know my mama paid for. I did, I knew she did. But baby, that mouth, he had a whole mouth that needed repairing. I'm just saying, I am just saying, my mother got his teeth fixed, got his teeth fixed, all the things. All this was my mom. But he got dressed on that Friday, played his music, put his cologne on, put his nice clothes on that I know my mother bought. Bless her heart, but I know she bought it. And he left. And when he left, it was like the Calvary rode in. We got to packing up that house, throwing stuff in the this and the that, and we left. We were free from him. My mother's cousins came and helped us move. My mother's family was boots on the ground and helped us move. And we moved. And for a long time, he didn't know where we were until one night he followed my mother when she got off from work. And that night he beat my mother so bad that she was in the hospital for several days. She had a broken nose and uh her freedom from him. That was it. That's what it cost my mother. But I'm gonna tell you the effects. What it does to children in a situation like that. After that, everything changed for me. I looked at my mother differently. If I'm honest, I judged my mother. I was so mad at her for so long. I looked at my family and I was angry. Because in my mind, I kept thinking, how could you all, how could y'all see mama go through this and you not do anything? I'ma just say. This there were things that my family did. I felt in my mind they didn't do enough. I felt in my mind that they didn't do enough. Again, that's I have I got my my my father's DNA in me as well. That I don't play, that Indian blood, like yeah, that warrior, that warrior blood, I I have it in me. And I just didn't understand how this could go on for so long. And nothing happened. But you know what? I'm gonna tell you something. I I did, I kept living. And and and it said, if you if you keep living long enough, you'll see. What I realized was my family did try. There were moments, real moments, when they stepped in. And I can remember a time when he beat my mother so bad. And my mother and I, it during this time, I want to say she was pregnant with my brother. And it was just my mother and I. We were in the apartment, and he had just beat my mother. And I remember my mother's cousin was inside the apartment with us, and my family was all around the apartment complex that we were staying in, and there was a shootout between my mama's family and his. I remember that. A whole shootout behind my mother and this man that she chose to be with, who is I remember one of my mother's cousins saying, girl, he used to beat your mama for uh from breakfast, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Again, the things that people say that they don't think you internalize, but it was it was real to hear that my mother used to get beat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's real, that's powerful, that stays with you as a child. Yeah. I remember my grandmother. My grandmother, after another time, that he beat my mother. My grandmother came up from the country and she went to go get her baby sister and told her baby sister to just ride with her. My aunt, her baby sister, told me this story. She said, We went to where he lived. And your grandma pulled a gun out of her purse, pointed it to his temple, and said, if you ever lay a hand on my daughter again, I will kill you. That's fact. That's fact. So in that moment, they were angry too. They were sharing my pain, they were protecting in the way that they knew how to protect. That was love. Trying to defend those that they love, right? But here's the deal. Those moments, those split second decisions when my family had a family of their own and chose to shoot it out with a man because he put his hands on their loved one, where my grandmother could have shot and killed a man and spent the rest of her days in the penitentiary. Split second decisions. It clicked for me. Trauma attaches itself to trauma. Pain responds with pain. And what looks like protection really it can turn into destruction. My family was just trying to uh to handle it as best they could. They put themselves, like I said, on the line only for my mother to to go back. Time and time and time again. Yep. Back then I I was angry. I didn't understand. I was a child, I didn't understand I just saw you, hey, what y'all doing? Right? But then you grow up and then you understand things. And I'll tell you something. I internalized a lot, right? When I when I um when I got older and I had my own household, I'm gonna tell you how how children process trauma. So as a little girl living with my mother and her husband, this is just something simple, but I'm gonna just share. Wheat bread because he, her husband, liked wheat bread. When I got grown, I didn't want to buy no wheat bread. I didn't want wheat bread a part of nothing on my grocery list. I just didn't. I didn't want it because he liked it. Anything at all connected to him, I rejected. And for me, that was my way of trying to separate myself from the pain that he caused. It didn't just affect me, it affected everything. My siblings, I really believe that that time that we spent apart, and there were times after that that we spent apart because I did not want to be in that house. And so there was another time where I made the decision to go live with my grandmother. Again, I really believe that affected my relationship between my brother and sister. I do. That's just my thoughts. But I do believe it it impacted me. My relationship with my mother, it it definitely shifted. I was very angry with my mother. I was angry because of the decisions that she made. But I will tell you, before she passed, I'm so very thankful that I was able to forgive her. Very, very um thankful for that. And then there was the extended family, like my mother's husband's family. Like I loved them. We all grew up like family, like it's so crazy because he was terrible, he was a monster, evil, pure evil. But his family, he had nieces and nephews that were my age, and we grew up together, and I loved them. I did, I did. But when my mother left, I wanted everything connected to him gone, even those parts that I cared about, and that's what trauma does. It doesn't separate what I would call cleanly, like a clean break, it doesn't, it spills into everything, it affects the entire household. Children just don't witness it, they carry it, and they really do. And so, with me trying to reconcile and me really knowing that I knew that God, even in this story, would get the glory. I would sit back, scratch my head, and be like, I want him to pay. Like, I want him to pay. I literally said it, felt it between me and God. God knew where I stood with this man. But over time, God's hand, I saw it. God says, vengeance is mine, and I didn't have to do anything. I saw how life unfolded for him, how things deteriorated for him. And it reminds me, God got this. God could do a better job of dealing with people than we ever could. And so all the things he thought he got away with, God said, Vengeance is mine. So the beautiful thing about me and my story is I come from a praying people. And I've seen it time and time again where someone has really done a big one, so they thought of doing you wrong. By the time this man died, he could not care for himself, and I actually had a lot of compassion. I'm just a compassionate woman, I am. I had a lot of compassion for him, and I was I was um, what's the word? I was sorry for my sister that her father passed in the way that he did, but he definitely passed slowly, painfully, and um, you know, the the way that God saw fit. He was just a different man. Yeah. So with time, I definitely grew. I did, I grew, I forgave, I understood. I understood my mother came from trauma. She had lost her her father, the man that was everything to her. She had lost him early, and then she attached herself to what she thought was love. So my mother was battling her own trauma. So I was able to understand that. I forgave, I forgave him even. I did because he definitely had trauma. He definitely came from things that I have no clue about. But I thank God that I forgave. So I want to say this healing doesn't come from just burying the trauma, it comes from facing it. So I want to give you four ways to grow from trauma. All right, so here's the part where I want you to get your pen and your pads out and write it on down for me. So number one, tell the truth. Stop minimizing your pain, stop minimizing your trauma. Speak it. Say it. There is power in just saying it. Call it what it is, because truth is where real healing begins. That messed me up as a child. That really hurt me. My mother hurt me. Her being attached to the wrong man hurt me. So here's another lesson. This is one. This is still in one, but I want to say this. We have to be super careful with who we attach ourselves to, right? So I talk about the leave technique, L-E-A-V-E. It's all associated. I was learning this technique in my quarter one, right here in my childhood. L listening. I was learning to listen. The E is everything is not for everyone. A is attention to detail. V, verbal, nonverbal communication, and how they should align. And the final E is everything is not for, or excuse me, the final E, excuse me, is evaluating and protecting your brand. You are a brand. You represent yourself, your family, your community. So be careful with who you attach yourself to because they can ruin your brand. That dude was ruining my mother's brand. My mother is a rucker, and there is a brand associated with being a rucker. Period. And so I'm just gonna say this: keep those squares out your circle, my people. We cannot have people ruining the brand, okay? Number two, own your feelings. If you feel that way, you feel that way. Your experience is yours. You can have the same mother and have a different experience. I'm sure my experience was different from my brothers and sisters' experience with my mother. We all loved my mother, but my experience was different and it was real. And I loved my mother, I did, but I also went through a whole lot of things that impacted my life that I had to do the work on to heal through some of the decisions that she made. So own your feelings and be good with it. It's okay. And number three, process, don't bury. I tried to bury it. I did, I really did. I thought, you know what? Thank God we got away from that man. But literally, it had me not buying wheat bread for years because I didn't want anything associated with him. It had me for years trying to disassociate from his family, those that I love. I love them. Just because we were not blood, I loved them. And we grew up very close, but I didn't want anything to do with them. So process, don't bury. And number four, speak your peace. Say what needs to be said, even if it's just for you. Because guess what? Silence, it doesn't heal, it won't heal you. So, guys, we can't change what happened. We cannot, but we can choose how it lives in us, and you can choose to not pass it on. I'm gonna encourage you. Don't pass that trauma on, deal with it, work with it so you can be a better you. Well, guys, this is Shantae. This is the she is Shantae, the Putting Your Best Foot Forward series, and we're gonna keep doing the work and we're gonna do it until we're satisfied. Thank you so much for listening. Please share, like, and continue to look for my next uh my next episode. Alright? Alright, guys, thank you again. And remember, put your best foot forward.