Lexi's Can Of Worms Part 2

Refill your box of tissues as Lexi continues the series of events preceding her initial estrangement. Part 2 continues.


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Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:07

You were listening to When the Bell Breaks.

SPEAKER_01: 0:11

And uh they did not get along. And there were always fighting. There was always like fist fights where they would give each other nosebleeds. And my parents would have to break them up. I felt that if they understood me, then maybe they would love me.

SPEAKER_03: 0:35

So the last time we talked, you mentioned sending a letter to your parents explaining why you couldn't have anything to do with them.

SPEAKER_01: 0:43

It was more of like, I don't know, for some reason I thought that there's still a chance that I can still have a loving and growing relationship with my family. My family just needs extra attention or extra help, or they're not understanding me, or you know, maybe one day they'll listen. So I'm thinking maybe just some some time apart where I'm telling them, hey, I'm not gonna talk to you right now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09

Because you thought like if you gave them like a list of reasons, then they might have a chance to digest it and there was some chance of maybe salvaging a relationship of some kind?

SPEAKER_01: 1:18

Yeah, I thought that they would think about it. Um, I don't I don't have the letter. I think it would be triggering for me to read it, but um my letter consisted of, you know, A, B, and C, these are the reasons why I can't really be around you right now, because it's emotionally damaging for me for these reasons. Um, a lot of it was the the way that at this time I didn't know that my mother had narcissistic personality disorder. At the time, I only knew that my sister had. Um, my mother was a lot different. She was a different kind of narcissist, so their personalities weren't the same, so I didn't categorize them in the same, but and it took me a while to realize that the um epicenter of a lot of things that happened to me was my mom.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

So I hadn't figured that out yet. So a lot of my letter was focused on my sister because she was abusive, and I had cut contact with her originally because of that. But yeah, I thought that the time apart and having them have time to think about it, that would somehow improve things later, and that maybe one day they'd be, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that all those things made you feel that way, or I apologize, that wasn't the best parenting move. I expected some kind of conversation, but I didn't get that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:43

So what what did you get?

SPEAKER_01: 2:45

Well, at first, I mean I didn't expect it to happen right away. Um what happened was uh we moved and we didn't tell them our address, and I changed my cell phone number, and my husband kept his open line of communication. My parent parents are they're elderly, and uh I had other siblings, but they're kind of incapable of taking care of them, so but they would never accept our help, and then they would tell everyone we weren't helping them, you know, that kind of stuff. Um we kept the line of communication open, but we said, you know, don't text Lexi. Like don't talk to her. Like if you have an issue, if someone gets hurt, or if someone needs to go to the hospital and there's an emergency, like you can contact, you know, my spouse, and then he will talk to you and he will take care of things. I won't be in the picture.

SPEAKER_02: 3:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 3:42

Don't send me messages through him, please. But that's all they did was just send messages and it was a lot lots of pressure to talk to them, and it was lots of pressure to go back, but there was no um one of the things I mentioned in my letter was I would like you to seek out family counseling. I can't talk to you unless you can get some things sorted out yourself because I don't like the way that we communicate. And um, I was hoping that them going to counseling, they would get some help for, you know, their behavioral issues. And I was hoping, oh, if they fix themselves up a little bit, then maybe I can have a relationship with them. I expected them to change so that I communicate with them, um, which is a really sad kind of wishful thinking. But that was really what I wanted because I really wanted to be understood by my family because I felt that if they understood me, then maybe they would love me.

SPEAKER_03: 4:39

Well, that's the thing. I think that, you know, living without the kind of love that you obviously were craving, there probably still was an assumption that a parental love on some kind did exist. And that if they loved you, then they would follow through with the things that it would take to relate to you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:54

Yeah. I was I I grew up with, you know, there were lots of gestures of love, but I have to say that the majority of my feelings were feelings of fear, feelings of confusion, feelings of shame, um, feelings of disgust, uh, feelings of abandonment and loneliness. And those are very big feelings for a kid.

SPEAKER_03: 5:22

Did you identify them as being those things as a kid, or was that just sort of normal stuff?

SPEAKER_01: 5:27

No, it was just normal stuff. That was my everyday. It was normal that we went to church and everything was perfect, and it was normal when we got in the car, my dad would start yelling at us. It would be normal that someone would end up getting a spankin' before sometime between the time we would leave church and the time we got home. Um, not every Sunday, but you know, definitely if we kicked our dad's chair, or definitely if we were arguing in the backseat, or definitely if we said the wrong thing. Um, and half the time we didn't know what that was. Uh, or if plain just my dad was in a bad mood. Um, any excuse. Uh, and my mom always used to say, How come he drives to church so slow and then when it's finished, he drives like a bat out of hell? Um, but that would happen, that just you know shows like my dad really didn't enjoy the whole experience. He, you know, regardless of what he made everyone think that he enjoyed it, he did not enjoy it. So we would rush home and then you know, he'd be in a bad mood, and you know, something for lunch would be put together, or there would be pot roast or something like that. Um, but it would be a lot of commotion, a lot of aggravation, a lot of um complaining, a lot of pots and pans slamming, and um Was this just from your dad or from everybody? Um, everybody in the house. It would just kind of set the tone for the whole place. And then me and my younger sibling, we were just kind of trying not to cause any more disruption.

SPEAKER_03: 7:06

So you obviously had a lot of self-blame stuff going on as kids.

SPEAKER_01: 7:11

Lots of self-blame. And like when I s when you say self-blame when you're a kid, but when I share these stories, it really kind of puts it into perspective about you know how like my mother, like with narcissistic personality disorder, they um there's a lot of blame shifting. They can't take responsibility for their uh irresponsibilities or their mistakes, or they have a very difficult time doing that. And uh, I remember being, I think, uh four years old, and uh my mother was taking us somewhere, and she was she had placed my baby brother in his car seat, and uh I remember it was like we had a station wagon, and uh my mom she said, Oh, make sure he's buckled like his um the actual seat belt that went around the uh the car seat, you know, the old style. This is like 1987 or something. 1987, yeah, yeah, old time kick carrier, and you just wrap the seat around and they're just buckled in with a little harness, like yeah, they don't use this no more. But um, you know, so I'm buckling the seat belt, and you know that when it clicks, it's it's set. Well I'm four. I'm not fucking thinking about that. But I get it in and I, you know, I pull on it, I make sure that it's snug for a tiny little four-year-old. Sure. So we're sitting in the car, and of course, my mom has to slam on the brakes, and my brother's car seat goes flying forward, sliding forward right in front of the radio. Like he like he wasn't hurt. Um, he didn't get hurt, he didn't get injured, he didn't even cry. I think he like said, like my brother was a he hardly said anything. He was a genius, but whenever he said something, it was like whoa, like everybody listened. Like he just kind of like said, hey. Like he was like just several months old, and it was just kind of like that. But then my mother, she turned around and she said, You were supposed to make sure that he was buckled in.

SPEAKER_03: 9:15

That's a heavy responsibility for a four-year-old.

SPEAKER_01: 9:18

Yeah. And it was at like at that moment, like I felt a heavy responsibility for my brother. And then also I was like, Whoa, I better fucking do everything right.

SPEAKER_03: 9:29

So this is beyond just your normal kid um trying to control their environment stuff. I mean, it it sounds like they dumped a lot of expectations on you that were guaranteed to be disappointed.

SPEAKER_01: 9:39

Just those little those little like tiny little they last a few seconds.

SPEAKER_03: 9:43

But there's a lot of those that make up a childhood.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

Yeah, and like I'm shaking thinking about this. Um, Brian Cardoza, he said, if I were to take all of my stuff and condense it, you know, it it only adds up to what, a couple days. And like, but these moments are like, they're so traumatic and they're so effective. And so from a very young age, I had this heavy responsibility to uh not just my younger brother, but my entire family. I felt that responsibility because it was other instances like that where they would look to me like it was somehow, oh gosh, like whether directly or indirectly, it was my fault. It's Lexi's fault, it's Lexi's fault, somehow, directly or indirectly, or I made it worse somehow. And um I always grew up with that feeling, but not really recognizing that the feelings that I thought I was having, because I would try to talk to my mother about it. Um, and it's hard to go into detail about these conversations. I'm just going to be triggered, but if I kind of, I don't know, trying to skim over this, but if I would try to talk to my mother and explain my, I guess what I was trying to do is explain my feelings. Um, but I couldn't even tell her that. We didn't talk about our feelings. Um, we weren't supposed to feel things. We were just supposed to behave and do the right thing.

SPEAKER_03: 11:02

So did you ever even learn how to articulate certain things?

SPEAKER_01: 11:06

Um, no, we just expressed our feelings physically, like through anger, or if we were feeling upset, we would throw things, or we would go in our room and we would um just be angry.

SPEAKER_03: 11:18

See, because like this this to me I find fascinating because my family, I mean, they were assholes. We had a lot of you and I I think we've got a lot of shared experiences, but where our experiences in a large way part ways is that in my family, everybody fucking talked. Like nobody knew how to shut up. So whereas we were very often dismissed, it wasn't because we weren't like making sense to each other, like we would explain things, we'd use all the right words, we felt like we were getting things across. Yeah, they just weren't received. So I'm genuinely curious, like, what does it look like in a house where people don't know how to use their words? You know, when you say that you expressed yourself like physically or emotionally, like, can you give me like an actual example of what that might look like?

SPEAKER_01: 12:03

Yes, I can. And this is something interesting too. Um, I saw a therapist shortly after, or shortly, or actually just before my estrangement, um, a specific therapist for you know diagnostic things, um, so that I could get, you know, medication for what I needed to handle my anxiety and stress and all that stuff while I was going through this really traumatic time. She had said that I was somewhere like on the autism spectrum. And uh we were talking about those characteristics, and I remember them being kind of amplified in my father and in my brothers. Um we, you know, they we communicated okay. Like my younger brother could communicate okay, but he just didn't. He didn't talk. My younger brother, like, if you really want to call it, he was a selective mute. He didn't talk if he didn't have to. He and I talked. We had a good close relationship when we were little, we played a lot. Um, but as far as like talking and having conversations about feelings or things like that, like we didn't. Like when we learned about sex, it was in front of a television, it was a PBS special.

SPEAKER_03: 13:13

So you weren't you weren't talking about like just normal everyday stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 13:16

Yeah, yeah, it was just it was like, well, what are we having for dinner? It was never like, God, I I was bullied at school all day and I'm feeling really terrible, and I really don't want to go back to that school. Like we weren't even allowed to talk about things like that. That was considered complaining. And if someone was bothering you at school, it was turn the other cheek. And it was don't um don't do anything, stir the pot, don't do it, you know, like don't talk about it. You're just supposed to um forgive and turn the other cheek. And I kept saying, What does turning the other cheek mean? And my mother would say, Well, you just let them keep doing it. And I said, But why? It's hurting me and it's bothering me, and I can't focus at school. And uh, so it was these things, and she said, Well, you need to go and apologize. And I said, Apologize for what? I didn't do anything wrong with it.

SPEAKER_03: 14:10

Apologize to the person who hates you.

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

To the person, yeah, she would always tell me to apologize to the bully. And I would always say, Well, I don't know what I'm apologizing for. I'm sitting there in my class and she's kicking my seat, she's throwing things at me, she's harassing me on the playground, even though I'm not even associating with her, I'm not playing with her. And uh instead of, you know, saying, Oh, talk to the teacher or whatever, no, it was just turn the other cheek, forgive her, and apologize to her. And I said, But why? And she said, Because when you apologize to someone, I don't even remember what she said. It was really it was nonsense.

SPEAKER_03: 14:43

It was just some bullshit.

SPEAKER_01: 14:44

Yeah, and and so, but like I but I went and did it. I went and I was the I was the obedient child and I went and did exactly what my mother said. I obeyed my mother, and I went and did what she said, and and I would apologize, and you know, I'm shaking in front of this girl, and she was, you know, calling me names, were asking me like I'm you know, I'm sorry, and she'd be like, Yeah, you're you know, you're right, you're sorry, and and their harassment just got worse. And then it she took that as permission for her just to get worse.

SPEAKER_03: 15:15

It sounds like you got a couple of really garbage lessons that day, because one is I mean, that's not the way kids should be relating with each other. The other thing that kind of springs to mind is, you know, how did that affect your view of what your mother's expectations of you and her were? Like, did that sort of tell you, hey, you should be apologizing to me when I treat you wrongly?

SPEAKER_01: 15:37

Did that teach you like well, no, because like I knew like my mother would say these things and I would be like, that's not right. I was like, that doesn't solve the problem. I was like, it's a behavior problem. I was like, she needs to change her behavior. I was like, if I say sorry, that doesn't change her behavior. I was like, this is a thing, like, I was like, shouldn't the parents get involved or shouldn't the teachers, you know, like because the teachers they didn't give a shit. But you know, I I wanted the problem to be solved. I couldn't solve it myself, and I was feeling anxious because I was being forced to be in that situation every day. This was just a small little thing. I haven't even talked about this this memory to anybody. Just this is a small little tiny little thing that's like important, but it's an example.

SPEAKER_03: 16:17

That's a far-reaching one though. Just like you're you're going to your mom with a problem. Your mom is not only giving you garbage advice, but it it sounds like she's being kind of dismissive at the same time because you're coming to her with a hurt and she's saying this is exactly the wrong way to handle it.

SPEAKER_01: 16:34

Yeah. And then I would go to her and I would say, Hey, this kind of backfired and it's worse, and I'm really upset. I don't want to go to school. Like, can we talk to the teacher or can we talk to her parents? Um, or can you talk to her? Like, because at that point I was like, somebody needs to help because like she's not listening to me when I talk asked her to stop. She's not listening when I say, Please don't do that. Um, she's not listening when I apologize, like what you said, turn the other cheek. I was like, she just keeps doing it. And um, and then I would tell her that, and again, it was like, well, what were you doing to bother her? And it again, it was always reverted back to what we Lexi, what were you doing wrong? What what is your problem? Why is she still bugging you? And that is the perfect example for every single situation I've ever been in where I felt out of control and hurt and upset and badgered and bullied. And every time I went to my mother for help, that is exactly how she treated the situation. Not only did she do that, but in other circumstances, as I got older, she would continue to push me to be with those same people, um, including like boys I did not like, boys who wouldn't leave me alone, boys who were following me around everywhere, asking me for my number, I would say no. They were asking my friends and like really just did not take no for an answer. And my my parents did nothing. They didn't give a shit. Like they did nothing to make me feel comfortable or safe. And so when I estranged myself, I was thinking, God, maybe they'll just stop and think about all those times when I told them I wasn't I didn't like this, or can you help me? You know, they just ignored me. You know, I don't know. I just thought it would jog their memory somehow, but it didn't.

SPEAKER_03: 18:23

Well, it doesn't sound like your parents were ignoring you from where I sit. It sounds like your parents were actively communicating what they actually thought of you, what they thought you were worth, what they thought you deserved. Like that must have weighed in on you at some point, either as a kid or as an adult.

SPEAKER_01: 18:38

Like And then something I learned by studying narcissist as a personality disorder is I learned that when they say those things, oftentimes it's a reflective of their own reality.

SPEAKER_03: 18:52

Like they're projecting?

SPEAKER_01: 18:54

Yeah, like they're pr yes, very projecting. Uh like my sister's a pathological liar, but she's always accusing me of lying, even though I have concrete evidence that I fucking told the truth. She can't handle anyone else's truth. It has to be hers and it has to be whatever truth she wants.

SPEAKER_02: 19:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 19:10

And but it's like anything that's bad that's true about herself, she'll say, she'll make up a rumor, or she'll say that it's true about me or another person in the room. And so it took me years to really figure that out. And so when I went back and heard all of these things that my sister was saying, You're this, or your voice is terrible, um, uh, it sounds raspy, and you need surgery on your voice, and she would say these things like that to me. Um, or you know, there was always some kind of um insecurity that she was projecting onto me. And then I realized, looking back on it, uh we sang as a family, and I was the better singer, and she was really insecure about that and uncomfortable about that.

SPEAKER_03: 19:56

So, really, you're just getting a glimpse into like how she saw herself.

SPEAKER_01: 19:59

Yes. And and but it's like it really isn't just about how my sister was treating me like a piece of shit. My sister treated me like a piece of shit because she was already in that mindset before I was born. Because I'm sure because because if you think about how my mother is, my sister was raised by the same person. So uh my sister was raised like that. She was the oldest child, so she was the only one around for a few years. And so all of that parenting that my mom thought she had gotten down pat when my younger brother and I were in the picture. My sister must have gotten like much terrible parenting than that, even. And then my uh my older brother, my sister's younger brother, he was more kind of a very sensitive person and more empathic, more emotional. And uh, they did not get along. And there were always fighting, there was always like fist fights where they would give each other nosebleeds and my parents would have to break them up. And um just they really hated each other. And then my my mother, every time my younger brother and I would always have a fight, she would say things like, Don't fight. You know, your older brother and sister used to fight. You want to end up like them, you want to end up like them. And and then we would think, God, you know, we're not supposed to talk about this, but our older brother does drugs, and our older sister, she's kind of mean and crazy. So yeah, we don't want to be like them. So then it was like, okay, well, how do we solve our conflict? Because we don't know how to solve conflict without fighting.

SPEAKER_03: 21:37

Interested in being a guest on the show? Send us an email, wtbb podcast at gmail.com. If you'd like to support the show, leave us a five-star rating on iTunes. So on on top of the fact that, like, you know, you're not getting recognized as your own people, you're just, you know, your brother and sister version two.

SPEAKER_01: 22:06

Yeah, version two. Yep, that's what we were. We the reruns.

SPEAKER_03: 22:09

That's what my fear of you turning out the same way, but they're not actually giving you any guidance into how to And the thing is that we weren't.

SPEAKER_01: 22:18

We weren't the same way. We were trying not to be. And uh my younger brother and I, we were we tried not to be that way. Um, but it was kind of habitual. That was just how we lived in our house in our house. Like it was always like butt head, and it was always just lots of verbal abuse, lots of put-downs, and lots of stupid jokes. Sometimes it was fun, and sometimes we had good moments, and sometimes it was where people were actually were being nice to each other. But there was just a lot of negativity and all this stuff swirling around. And so you're a kid and you're dealing with all this stuff that's going on simultaneously with all these different people, all these different dynamics, older brothers on drugs, older sisters mean and abusive. And even when she's lives, you know, thousands of miles away, she's still can, you know, she can still figure out a way to put you down when she's that far away with a simple phone call, you know, and you're asking your parents for help and they're not listening, and it's just it's very confusing. And so when I finally estranged myself, I was able to cut all that off and just kind of like hit the mute button as best I could, because we were still getting text messages and things like that. And then I would have to tell my spouse, please don't tell me anymore what they said. Yeah, or maybe or or maybe I'll ask when I'm ready.

SPEAKER_03: 23:40

Um, I can identify with that because I mean, like with my estrangement for my my mother, I had to tell certain family and friends, like, I don't want any news. Yeah. Because I mean that that can be really damaging and it's a hard thing because you want to know what's going on with your people, but you can't know.

SPEAKER_01: 23:56

Yes, and the reason for that is is because then it just keeps you attached to them. And when you're attached to them, you're still a part of the toxicity and you're still a part of that abusive cycle. You're still you're you're in it, right? You can't be in it and not be abused, and you can't be in it without picking up any of those habits. You have to separate yourself. It's like a bad drug. You have to detox.

SPEAKER_02: 24:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 24:20

And so I went through emotional like detox. Um, I won't say emotional detox, but I don't know, parental detox or toxic family detox. I don't know. I separated myself and so I was no longer hearing the current like uh manipulation and put downs and lies and rumors, and I'd shut all that off. And I was like, you guys think about this and maybe go to counseling, maybe I'll talk to you. And I'm gonna, you know, take some time by myself. And so I did. I think I talked about this a lot in my pilot episode where I went through a lot of grief because the separation was really hard because I did love my family a lot. Uh probably more than anyone else did in the family. I mean, if I want to really like, you know, put myself on a pedestal for that, I think I made more effort, you know, than most of my family members for the majority of the family and for each individual person. I, you know, whatever, whatever effort I could make. Um, and it just seemed like it was never enough.

SPEAKER_02: 25:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:24

I was never enough. And I I needed to know how to feel like enough for myself, just for myself. Yeah. And so I went through this whole process, this whole real transformation, really, of really becoming myself on my own, not becoming this person who they made me be. I was like, you know what? Next time somebody is shitty to me, I'm not gonna fucking turn the other cheek. I'm gonna be like, you know what, I don't really like your behavior and I don't want to tolerate it. So if you're gonna keep treating me like that, you can just turn around and walk away because I'm not gonna put up with it.

SPEAKER_03: 25:56

Okay, so while while we're back on turning the other cheek, I want to back you up a few steps here before we get too far in. Um, you've spoken quite a bit about your mom and the things that she I don't want to say taught you, but you know, the messages she gave you, if nothing else. She definitely wasn't parenting on a quality level.

SPEAKER_01: 26:15

No.

SPEAKER_03: 26:15

You've talked about your your sister being your sister.

SPEAKER_01: 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:20

I mean, I I don't think we need to go too far into that again. And we we heard about your brother. Now, what I'm curious to hear is where's dad in all this?

SPEAKER_01: 26:32

Dad is working. He worked for like uh, I don't want to say. I don't even want to say what industry was.

SPEAKER_03: 26:42

So his job took him away from home.

SPEAKER_01: 26:44

His job, well, he worked close, but he worked overtime almost every day.

SPEAKER_03: 26:49

So he he may as well have just been out of town then.

SPEAKER_01: 26:52

Yes, because as soon as he came home, he came home late afternoon. I remember we always knew when dad came home because my our mom would go and she would pick him up. We had this old car and it had uh like a feeler on the end. And um because we didn't want to scratch the side of the car against the curb. And so there was this really long feeler, and so we always knew when dad and mom were pulling back up because we would hear that feeler and it would scrape across the sides of the curb. I haven't heard that sound in a long time, but it's still very fresh in my mind. And it wasn't like my dad came home yelling and screaming like he did like after church. My dad was just plain exhausted, and he would come home and he would come home and uh he wouldn't talk to us, he wouldn't look at us, he would say, Hi dad, and it would just be him and his big feet just shuffling across the floor. And um he'd set his bag down, he would go into the den and he would take off his shoes, he would sit in his easy chair, he would turn the TV on. And then you knew once he sat down, don't you fucking make noise, don't fucking move, don't fucking laugh unless he's laughing. Don't argue. If you argue, you're gonna get it. You had to be really quiet. My mom was always saying, Don't bother your dad, don't bother your dad. So we always knew that like my dad had shell shock and stuff from Vietnam. So he had PTSD, but they didn't call it PTSD. She just knew that, hey, if you mess with your dad, he could do something crazy. That's that was the only that was the only understanding we really had.

SPEAKER_02: 28:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 28:58

Because um, I guess when uh my sister was real little, she went to wake him up from a nap once, and his reaction was to grab his gun, but he grabbed my sister by the neck instead. Oh no, and pulled her up off the ground. And once he realized what he'd done, he kind of dropped her.

SPEAKER_03: 29:14

So it was just completely involuntary.

SPEAKER_01: 29:16

Involuntary, completely. So my dad would come home and he would fall asleep in his chair a lot. And then it would be dinner time, and we never sat at the table. We never had family dinners unless it was like a holiday, if we had someone coming over. Um It was very rare and it was very uncomfortable when we did, but um it would be dinner time, and either my mom or she would have one of us kids bring our dad his plate at his chair. And she would say, you know, don't touch him, you know, just call him gently to wake him up. And so we hated doing that because we were still scared that he that we would the high-pitchedness uh, you know, height of our voice. Yeah, yeah, going to poke the bear um with his pork chops and uh hope he doesn't like go grabbing for his gun instead. So um, so we would just try and wake him up and then he would sit and he would, you know, sometimes he would jerk, you know, and then he would the chair would just like almost like lift up off the floor. And then, you know, you would try not to look startled. You would almost expect him to be that way. Like even when we're kids, we're like, okay, he's gonna, he might get startled. So don't look afraid, because if you look afraid, then he'll feel bad that he scared you. So every little step, every little movement around our dad, we we were so, so, so careful.

SPEAKER_03: 30:44

But it was like, he doesn't sound like he was really like a strong parental influence, so much as like an environmental concern.

SPEAKER_01: 30:51

He was very uninvolved, actually. Okay especially very unemotionally uh unapproachable, emotionally unapproachable. Um, but he did not have approachable parents either. And we knew this even as kids. And so we knew that dad was kind of how he was because of his parents, but we still didn't understand why he acted like he like was so angry with us all the time. And because he, I mean, obviously his direct his anger was directed at us, so we figured he must be angry at us. We did something wrong. We were always trying to figure out what are we doing wrong, why doesn't he love us? We were always saying, Dad, can we go out to play? Can we go play baseball? Can we go fly a kike? Can we go freaking do anything except for just sit here and try not to scare the living shit out of you and try not to get yelled at? And it was very difficult to get our dad up and doing anything with us ever. And then when he would do it, it would always be like half-assed, and then we would always be like, you know, embarrassed that like our project wasn't like as nice as some of the other kids, you know. And it wasn't like we were not proud of our work, but it was like the whole relationship part we had grief about. It wasn't like, oh, my car isn't as good as the other kids. It was like, you can tell my dad didn't spend very much time with me.

SPEAKER_03: 32:16

You speak very differently about your father, I noticed. So when you speak about your mom, I get a lot more anger, and I think um really just open resentment. It's it seems really raw with your mom. But when you talk about your dad, it's almost it's a little bit more um wistful. It's like you're I I I don't know how to label it, but I can see there's a lot of love for your dad.

SPEAKER_00: 32:44

There is there is a lot of love for my dad.

SPEAKER_03: 32:47

Um So I mean like coming into this estrangement where you got all this shit with your mom and your sister, your dad is balled into that too. Like I don't want to trigger you here, but I have to ask.

SPEAKER_01: 32:59

No, yeah, you do because this is a big part of it, because um, it's not all one-sided. It's not like, oh, I hated my sister, hated my mother, they treated me terrible, and I want to leave. Uh, when it comes to my dad, I I never really wanted to be estranged from my dad. Um, but I knew that like my my parents come as a whole their package, uh package deal. They do everything together, they go everywhere together, they do everything together. Uh so uh and my dad he can't read well, so if I were to send messages, she would have to, you know, be in there. But um my mom and my dad were two totally different people. My mom was basically the one parenting us. So that was basically our only parenting that we really had was really crappy parenting. You know, you deserve all this shit. You know, we don't deserve you don't deserve for us to defend you or protect you or teach you how to defend yourself or make you feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_03: 33:56

So, from from your perspective, was your dad victimized by your mom in the same way that you and your siblings were?

SPEAKER_01: 34:02

I feel like he was in a lot of ways because my dad did. I feel like my mother enabled him in a lot of ways, and she also uh took advantage of his weaknesses. She took advantage of the fact that he was illiterate. She was the one who controlled all the finances, she was the one who controlled the money. Um, my dad would not take a phone call of business of any kind. He used to get angry when people would call. And I used to say, Why does it make you so mad? Well, that's mommy's business. It's like, but you don't have to be angry. It's just a phone call. And looking back on it as an adult, I know why. It's because my father felt inadequate. He felt like he wasn't enough. And my mother made him feel like shit every day because she never I always said, Dad, why don't you go to school and take a few classes? No, we need the money, we need the money, we need I need to work, I need to work. I said, But you can take classes and you don't have to miss work. And I can help teach you, like my dad felt it took a big hit to his ego when his nine-year-old daughter offered to help him read better, like to teach him to read better.

SPEAKER_02: 35:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 35:17

And um his pride got in the way of that, like it always did, even even when he did have time, even when he did have the excuse to to learn, he just he really didn't. My dad did not take change very well with anything. Um, and so uh when I separated myself, I had a lot of grief because I was not only separating myself from people who'd hurt me and I was dealing with that, the pain, but I was separated from people I didn't want to separate myself from because even though things weren't good with me and my dad when I was younger, when we were growing up, he wasn't a good dad. He wasn't. I'm just gonna say that. Like he did the best he could, but he wasn't the dad that we needed him to be. Um, and he knew that, but we didn't want to make him feel so bad about it, but we wanted to give him an opportunity when we were adults, like, hey, we can still spend time with each other. Hey, can we talk now? You know, hey, can we have a conversation? Hey, can we talk about your anger rather than just throwing it out there and pretending that it didn't happen?

SPEAKER_03: 36:20

Do you feel like you know him?

SPEAKER_01: 36:21

I feel like I know my dad, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 36:23

Okay, because you you the way you speak about your mom, I mean, it sounds like you got her number pretty good, but I was just sort of curious to hear I know them both in different ways.

SPEAKER_01: 36:32

Okay. My dad, I didn't know conversely. I I I could tell a lot about him by his behavior because he he uh was a very emotional, like uh he had a lot of outbursts. Um he did cry on occasion. He uh not like cry like he cried when, you know, when something really terrible happened or when he really got upset. So he had emotion, he had empathy for others, but he didn't talk. And my mom kept saying it was because he was abused, it was because he was abused, and I said, Yeah, but he's kind of treating us in a way that makes us feel unloved and unsafe sometimes. And my mother always just said, you know, he can't talk about it, he can't talk about it, but at the same time, she was enabling the behavior, and so for years I had a lot of anger and resentment towards my dad because my mother was enabling the behavior and she was also alienating us from our dad. Uh sometimes it's like, oh, we want to go tell dad about this, and no, don't bother him right now.

SPEAKER_03: 37:41

So, I mean, you got to identify kind of what made him tick in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_01: 37:44

What made him tick when I when I asked him? And how he responded to certain things in certain situations, then we knew how he felt about it because of his reaction.

SPEAKER_03: 37:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 37:52

So even though we didn't talk much, I still knew my dad.

SPEAKER_03: 37:54

Okay. Yeah, I would just Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because observing behavior is one thing.

SPEAKER_01: 38:00

I was just wondering because I talk more about my mom because I have more anger towards more of my anger now, is more well, I don't even have a lot of anger towards my mom right now, per se. It's just more like I know that she has a personality disorder, and I know that this is who she is, and she can't really change herself, and she's getting older now and it's getting worse, and I've kind of just accepted it for what it is. Um but with my dad, it's a bit different because I had all that anger and resentment when I was young because I didn't understand everything that was going on. And when I got older, I realized, you know, there were a lot of chances that I I could have talked to my dad, and my dad would have listened to me, but my mother said, Don't talk to him. Don't address the city.

SPEAKER_03: 38:43

So you didn't get to have the talks like, hey dad, what did you want to be when you grew up? Like, what are your hopes and dreams for the future? Like, none of those conversations.

SPEAKER_00: 38:51

To this day, I don't even know the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_03: 38:54

So, I mean, it's it's kind of hard to figure out entirely like what you're all about, even if you can't even really understand where you come from.

SPEAKER_01: 39:03

It I did not know my dad. Like when I was a kid, I did not know him. Like, I did not know him. Like you said, I didn't know I knew he was colorblind. I knew that. I knew he was colorblind, and I I had there was a few stories from when he was a kid, but um, yeah, I never had sat and had very many talks with my dad, but he talked about being in the army, not about being in Vietnam, but he talked about being in the army. He loved being in the army, like it gave himself discipline and confidence and he was proud of the experience.

SPEAKER_00: 39:34

He felt like the kind of person he wanted to be, I suppose. Going to Vietnam changed all that though.

SPEAKER_01: 39:43

And then he came back feeling um like how you would expect a Vietnam vet to come home.

SPEAKER_00: 39:51

And uh that was very difficult.

SPEAKER_01: 39:57

And so I understood why my mom was creating that. Space, but um she used that as an excuse way too much, and so we grew up having no father. He was there, but he wasn't there and have tissues. Um he was there, but he wasn't there, and and that was just as that was very painful because he was it he he wasn't even stopping to think, hey may maybe my kids need attention today. He wasn't even thinking about us at all. We weren't even as far as he concerned, he's can he was concerned, we weren't even there unless we made noise. Then we were there and then he didn't like us, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 40:37

So I guess in in the way that your your mom had created a uh a situation where your dad was more of an environmental influence, you probably were much the same to him, also because of the way your mom approached things.

SPEAKER_01: 40:51

And be and I understand PTSD and I understand being triggered, and and I understand uh I have kids myself when they make noises and stuff, it's like stop, you know, like he lived through this stuff. We lived through this stuff, yeah. So I I get all that, but he never got counseling, so he never had good coping skills, nobody ever taught him that stuff, and they were never able to communicate with us what was what our dad was experiencing because my mother was against anything that had to do with mental health or psychiatric help or counseling or anything, especially if it was detached from the Christian church.

SPEAKER_02: 41:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 41:32

And the Christian church. I don't want to get into it too much, but the churches that we were involved in, they did not do things well. And um any counseling that you would have received at the churches that we would have gone to, it was more like slapping a band-aid on stuff and no problems got solved, and then you were out like a bunch of money. And then you were expected to, you know, and then then these then these people, these pastors that you knew were trying to counsel you, so they're going off of what they already know you or know about you, and then they start manipulating you, and uh, so then it was like well, she would take me these quacks, and then I would think I don't like trust these people, I don't want to go to counseling. But then I when I was older, I had asked her if I could go. I think I talked about that earlier, and then she said no, and and because I knew I really needed, I was like, I need something. I was like, maybe I just didn't go enough, you know, like because I was so upset and overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_03: 42:34

I'm getting a little bit off track here, but well um let me let me drag you back where I want you to go.

SPEAKER_01: 42:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 42:42

If your dad was sitting here right now, what do you want him to hear from you? If your dad was sitting here right now, what do you want him to hear from you? I know it's hard, but I think this is something that all of us have struggled with in different ways that people are listening.

SPEAKER_00: 43:40

Well, he knows that I love him. I just want him to know that like the estrangement wasn't really his fault.

SPEAKER_01: 43:54

Um he definitely didn't help during the last months when he was going with whatever my mother uh said that they should do regarding my sister. He just kind of always did with what my mom wanted because he loved my mom. And so I felt like he wanted to stay with her because she always took care of things because he couldn't do it himself, and uh he was kind of codependent on my mom, very codependent on my mom, I should say. And so uh I would say I don't I don't blame you. I would say it's more has to do with my with mom and you know the oldest.

SPEAKER_00: 44:41

I would say get your butt into counseling and by yourself and listen and open your mouth and don't just say what's nice. Pull out all that stupid garbage you don't want to talk about, and it's gonna hurt. That's the only way to get through it. You can't just stop in the woods, you have to keep going. It'd take you forever to chop down all those trees. You just have to just like acknowledge everything, look at it, and then keep going. Because what I want more than anything, more than I want a relationship with my dad, I want my dad to get the healing that he needs. Because he's never gonna be the dad that I need him to be if he doesn't have that healing. And that goes for like all strange families, like counseling, counseling, counseling.

SPEAKER_01: 45:42

If you see a counselor that you don't agree with, or they make you feel bad, or they make you feel like shit, or they're saying something stupid, get another one. You don't have to accept the first one that you come across. It's like you gotta date a while. It took me a few tries to find one that I liked and who understood my train of thought and who was good at pulling things out, but it's like you have to go to counseling and do it and do it with someone that's not attached to any religious group because you don't want anyone steering you in any direction. You need to go into the direction of healing that you need to go into, and it might not be in the direction of your religion. And I'm not saying that that you know counseling's gonna pull you away from that. I'm just saying you need to focus on what you know, your your own personal stuff aside from your own religious.

SPEAKER_03: 46:34

Like a counselor's gonna be impartial.

SPEAKER_01: 46:36

Yeah, it's he's gotta be impartial. It's it's I mean, it's okay to see counselors within your religion, especially if your faith has something to do with what's going on in your life. But when it just comes to like the basic emotional stuff, find an impartial person because when you find an impartial person, then you just get someone who just listens to you.

SPEAKER_02: 46:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 46:57

They're not going to say, well, well, in this verse, this is how this is what you should do, and this is what you should say, and this is how you should feel. It's like, but those things don't really line up because I've tried all those things. And uh, or those didn't work in in in my cases, and nothing lined up in my life, no relationships started to tick or started to work, and I didn't start to feel comfortable in my own skin and started until I went to counseling. And so that would just be what I would tell my dad, go to frickin' counseling. It's gonna hurt, but it's gonna be good.

SPEAKER_03: 47:32

Okay, so it's Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_01: 47:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 47:36

What would you say to your mom? I know that's a loaded question.

SPEAKER_00: 47:43

I wish I could say happy Mother's Day, but it's never been happy. You never made me feel good enough. I can't ever say that I was happy to have you as my mother. And that hurts for me to say that. But I still love you, and I understand that you have some things that you can't control, and you had things that happened to you that were terrible. But I can't be around you anymore. But that doesn't change any of my love for any of my family, but I have to do what's right for myself because I have my own family, and I can't allow any of this stuff to leak out on them because I love them too much. And I want what's best for them. I don't want them growing up the way I grew up. It's bullshit. We have to do better for our kids. It's bullshit. It's not about the fucking iPads and the fucking what we buy them or the college degrees.

SPEAKER_01: 48:54

It's about listening to them and helping them develop into the person that they're supposed to be on their own, not who we think they should be or what their religion thinks they should be. That is so damaging when you try and mold someone into something that they're not, it's damaging. You just have to just let people do their thing and just listen to them and take them by the hand and say, I'm with you. I'm right here. Yeah, we're gonna screw up, we're gonna fuck up sometimes, but we're gonna get back up and we're gonna keep going and we're gonna talk about it, and we're gonna fix things. We're not gonna let things sit.

SPEAKER_00: 49:35

Open your goddamn mouth.

unknown: 49:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 49:41

And speak the truth and stop lying. It doesn't do any good.

SPEAKER_03: 49:51

So what kind of mom do you think you are because of your upbringing and because of your experiences?

SPEAKER_00: 49:59

Honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 50:02

Um I definitely don't feel like I'm the mother I want to be or should be. A lot of that is, you know, I snap at my kids a lot. I have PTSD and I get anxious and uh I want quiet immediately. And with four kids, you don't get quiet easily, even with effort. I love my kids, but you know, I I understand uh my dad had those same things too. So I get a bit of both uh both sides of the spectrum here. I so I'm able to kind of catch myself. I'm better at that now, now that I've been out of that environment for a few years and I've been in counseling and I've been rubbing up against other people who have been going through the same thing. Um before the estrangement, I was a terrible parent. I was basically like my mother and my father. All the negative things about my parents, I was. There was no positive things. And uh lot of the negativity was just because I was stuck in deep depression because uh I wasn't being accepted for who I was. Um And even when I felt like I was doing exactly what they wanted, I still didn't feel accepted. And so I didn't I started to think about that, and I I did not want my kids feeling like that. And so I had to start really doing research and reading stories and books and figuring out how to parent my children. I didn't really know how to parent them the way that I needed to be parented, and so then I started in counseling, I started going through um what do they call like you know your inner child parenting, self-parenting your inner child. And I thought that it was really funny and goofy at first. But when I started doing that, I started, you know, whenever I made a mistake, I'd be like, okay, I would think what I would normally say, and then I would catch myself, and then I would say, no, it's okay. It's like it's all right, just pick it back up and start again. And that gentleness that I gave myself almost scared me because I'd never experienced that. I'd never even been kind to myself in my own head, and I'd realized that. And I was like, no wonder I'm a shitty parent. I can't even be nice to myself. And so I had to go through all this self-parenting, and I had to do it in a hurry because my kids needed me, and they needed me to be a good mom, and they needed me there because they were going through grief too, because they went through all this too. They had bad experiences with my parents and other family members, and uh uh they were going through some trauma themselves, and uh they were disclosing things that had happened to them um over time that as they got older, they were able to be more expressive and uh were able to disclose those things. Uh, and then it was more I kind of felt like I was on the same level with my kids. Okay, now we all throw fits sometimes, but at least we're talking about our problems, right? So it kind of got to a point where I was able to communicate with my kids and say, hey, instead of me, you know, acting this way, why don't we just talk about it? And so my kids and I started talking about things more, and uh that was very interesting, and it didn't always go good because it was a struggle, but uh we worked hard at it, and it's still a work in progress, but I'm finding myself when I look at my parenting now, I still see a lot of stress, I still see a lot of anxiety, but I'm definitely like the way that I talk to them is different, the way that I listen to them is different. I try to acknowledge all of their everything good that they did because I was used to all the negative things being brought to attention. Either, oh, my best talents were brought to attention and my worst traits were brought to attention. Everything in between, you were gone. You were nothing. You were either the golden child or you were the scapegoat, you were the piece of shit in the house.

SPEAKER_03: 54:46

But in between, that's where real life is lived.

SPEAKER_01: 54:48

Exactly. And and that was where I was lonely and afraid all the time. And I didn't want my kids feeling like that. And so whenever I would catch myself parenting, and then I would be like, okay, where is this coming from? And then I would get triggered myself going back to this childhood memory where you know my parents did something wrong and it traumatized me or whatever. And then we're like, okay, stop, don't do that. Like, let's change this. What should have happened? Then I had to get myself up to speed and think like a fucking 35-year-old woman again instead of like a seven-year-old. I had to grow up really, really fast. And uh, so then I started, okay, what should have happened? Well, definitely mom would have stepped in and said something. Okay, well, let's do that. I didn't always know what that looked like. I didn't always say the right things to my kids. I didn't always, it didn't always come out right. And then sometimes there would be like percussions from that, and then I would have to be dealing with that, and I would get overwhelmed again and upset.

SPEAKER_03: 55:55

You sort of parenting it from the perspective of a 70-year-old.

SPEAKER_01: 55:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 55:58

Yeah, yes, because emotionally I was, because I hadn't even been allowed to talk about my feelings yet. And it was so frustrating, but it's like now I'm able to talk about it, and I get very emotional with my kids, and we all cry and we talk, and but they know that like it's okay to talk about it though.

SPEAKER_01: 56:16

They talk about and it's okay, and we're solving problems, we're not creating more. Um, they still have habits of doing that. They're still kids.

SPEAKER_03: 56:29

No, but they're kids that are growing up with the kind of parents that you didn't have.

SPEAKER_01: 56:34

Yeah. And that that to me sounds like it's better than the first option.

SPEAKER_03: 56:39

Well, it's it's a big win.

SPEAKER_01: 56:40

I mean Right. I know that like I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but the fact that I'm aware of these things now and I'm correcting them as I go, it feels so much better. And my kids are starting to see it. They have better relationships with me in different ways because I'm not like, oh, stop complaining. It's like, okay, no, no, no, this is bothering her. Like, I would have hated if my parents would have said that to me. You know, just you find yourself saying things that your parents said that you wish you'd never say to your kid. And I hate that. And I grew up thinking, I'm never gonna say it. No, you fucking do all the time. And so I had to start practicing saying other things, say other things. I had to say other things to myself. I practiced saying other things to myself. Then, then by the time you know I had that good habit established with myself, then it's like as soon as my kids, you know, they do something like, you know what? Thank you for doing that. I really appreciate that. Thank you for cleaning up that mess. Like, you didn't even do that and you picked that up. That was really nice of you, and you didn't you thought no one was looking. Like, I just really appreciate that you took the time to help. That was really thoughtful of you. Um because it's like you said, it's those little everyday things. We didn't even have that. We didn't have thank you for doing this. It was just it was expected. Yeah, you clean up after us, don't touch our stuff. Don't clean the house because we don't like it clean, we want it dirty. But if it's dirty, we're gonna complain to you and make you clean it, and it's the whole cycle back over again. So it's those things, and it's like as a mom, I was like, okay, we're not going in that direction. So I had to develop even just like different habits like around the house and things like that. Like you said, those everyday things. And um, I talked to other moms and I talked to other people, and I had to learn how to do simple household things that my mother never did. And uh it was a challenge, but but then I started becoming this person that I never was, and I started to like who I was. I didn't like myself at first because it was all grief and it was all horror and it was all bad memories and bad feelings and feelings of shame and guilt and confusion, and I didn't like myself. But once I got all that out, and I started to be kind to myself and I started to tolerate my own natural behavior. God, I was snot dripping from my nose. I'm a crier. Y'all know I'm a crier. Anyway, I had to relearn how to do things, and I had to learn how to like love myself. And it was only when I started learning to love myself that I was able to love my kids. And this is why you need to go to counseling, because you need to learn to love yourself before you can love anybody else. I really do think that's true. I think it's really hard to really love someone if you don't even love yourself. If you're loving someone, if if you're giving all your love to someone else and none of it to yourself, it's gonna eventually kill you. You have to establish self care and self love because if you don't have the Things you're gonna project whatever you're feeling, and um that's what happens with narcissists is that they have this deep sense of shame or guilt, or whether they remember something or not, they can't expose it, and so they're always putting a band-aid on it to cover up, you know, they have to keep elevating the ego, keep elevating the ego, you know, and so you grow up in that environment and then you feel like you're nothing. You have to learn to love yourself. So I don't know, just like keep saying it again, just go to counseling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:41

I think that we're out of tissues and you're out of things to say. I think I'm out of tears, too. Probably a good place to wrap things up today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:51

I don't want to keep rambling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:52

And and I have to say, like every everything you said, I think is on point. You know, whether it's narcissistic parents or absentee parents or just any kind of asshole parents, it's not enough to look at them and identify the problems. You identify how they've affected you, you get your ass into counseling, you get some help, break the cycle, be the parent for your kids that you didn't have, maybe. I I think this is all solid advice. So I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to sort of take the uh the host role on your show. It's been an absolute honor having you as a guest on your own deal here. It's been wonderful talking to you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:36

I have to say it's been very interesting being in the hot seat. I have to give a lot of credit to my guests who have already been on the show and my future guests. It is not easy doing this. You know, thank you to everyone thus far, including yourself.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:52

I can't seem to get off the show.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:56

I know it's just it's very therapeutic. Um, thank you for co-hosting on When the Bow Breaks. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:08

If you'd like to contact us, you can do so by sending an email to WTBpodcast at gmail.com. Thank you for listening to When the Bow Breaks.