Loading summary
Transcript95 lines
- [00:00]
A
Look, if you're still buying weed from some guy named Trevor in a parking lot, you're doing it wrong. Mood.com delivers legal THC products straight to your door. Gummies, vapes, flour, the good stuff. No sketchy DMs, no med card, just add to cart check out and boom, it's at your doorstep. It's legal in all 50 states, thanks to the farm bill. And Mood's products actually work. Seriously? This isn't gas station garbage. It's small batch lab tested real results. Go to mood.com, use code first, 20 for 20% off and never run dry again. That's mood.com, go get lit.
- [00:37]
B
Legally mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [01:01]
A
Of $45 for three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. C mintmobile.com Buying a car in Carvana was so easy. I was able to finance it through them.
- [01:11]
B
I just.
- [01:12]
A
Whoa, wait, you mean finance? Yeah, finance Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget. That's cool that financing through Carvana was so easy. Financed, done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed.
- [01:28]
B
Right?
- [01:28]
A
That's what I said. You can spend time trying to pronounce financing or. Or you can actually finance and buy your car today. On car financing subject to credit approval, additional terms and conditions may apply. All right, folks, welcome back to Shit Show. Saturday we have Shit Show Carol. Not to put you on the spot or anything, Carol, but still stand up comedian.
- [02:01]
B
Well, that's. That's better.
- [02:03]
A
Make this funny.
- [02:04]
B
I kind of have a. I have a mullet. You got a bit. You got a bit line. I have a mullet career because like my forward facing day job is a nutrition coach and then my nighttime party in the back career is stand up comedy.
- [02:20]
A
I love it. I've only done stand up twice. The first time I talked too fast and said too many times. The second time I did better, but it was in Oakland and they were like, what is this white bitch talking About. So, okay, Carol, what song do you want played when you walk into a room?
- [02:36]
B
I did my homework. I don't know how many people do this or not, but, like, right now, I want Good to Be Alive. Andy Grammer, familiar.
- [02:43]
A
I'm looking forward to hearing it.
- [02:54]
B
Good to Be Alive right about now. That's the song about how, like, the man upstairs kept giving me rain, but, you know, now's my time to shine type of thing, so.
- [03:02]
A
Dang it. Okay. What is your favorite? Carbohydrate.
- [03:05]
B
I know you've said in the past that you can't be friends with people that don't like carbs. Carbs. But I come from a family history of diabetes and dementia and heart disease and all these kind of things. So I basically have a low carbohydrate tolerant body. So I'm picking something boring, like avocados.
- [03:23]
A
I think that's a good, solid choice. Who doesn't love avocados? Okay. Cheese.
- [03:28]
B
This also speaks to my mullet personality. I. I can't pick one. I have two. So my trailer trash side loves Velveeta American cheese. Not in the plastic wrap, but like the. Like the government cheese style. Like, square, folded up. So good. And then my bougie princess side loves a cave age cheddar. Like the one with the crunchy salt.
- [03:53]
A
Cheddar is all. Cheddar is the most fave.
- [03:56]
B
Okay.
- [03:56]
A
And condiment.
- [03:57]
B
Trader Joe's Aioli Garlic mustard sauce. Very specific.
- [04:03]
A
I've never tried that before.
- [04:05]
B
Put that shit on everything. It's so good. Yeah.
- [04:07]
A
Are you a condiment gal?
- [04:09]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [04:10]
A
And you're anxious, aren't you?
- [04:12]
B
No. I heard you guess that before. And look, you're an outlier. Maybe. Yeah.
- [04:17]
A
All right. So when did you find out that you were an adult child?
- [04:20]
B
I go back and, like, I remember in my mid teens, my mom saying something about that we were in a. We had a dysfunctional family and that my dad was a dry drunk. I don't know where she got that idea, that information, but that was the only thing I'd heard about it. And. But I. I kind of always had a sense that our family was, you know, that it was a dysfunctional family. So I don't even know when exactly it started, but that was like the first family mention of something like that.
- [04:53]
A
What about for you? Like, the realization that you were impacted by your childhood, what you were experiencing in adulthood was a result of that.
- [05:01]
B
I always had a sense of that. Right. Because I remember always thinking, like, I don't know if I Want to have children? Because who am I? You know, what skills do I have to raise a child correctly? So I just always had a sense that, like, my upbringing was pretty up and I was probably going to be really fucked up, and I didn't learn any good skills about how to be a parent. So. You remember the game Life? My sister and I would play that, and the original version of it, you would. You could have unlimited numbers of children on that game. Every time we would play, I would always have one or no children. My sister would have so many children, they would be falling out of her car as she was driving it around the board. And she has had four children. I've had. I have one. So life was true to life. But, yeah, so I always had a sense that, like, I'd been up by my family and extended family, and I don't know where that. But just a sense of, like, this is wrong.
- [05:57]
A
What about, like, was there, like, what was the moment where you were like, I have to start working on this.
- [06:02]
B
It's always been there. I have degree in psychology, and it was always something like, it was just fascinating by psychology. And I think part of the. The journey of discovering, you know, the. The shit show, dysfunctional family stuff was listening to Loveline, Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla. So I was listening to that in my 20s, and it just so resonated with me. And, like, the way that Dr. Drew could. A woman would just speak or a man would just speak, and he would go, well, what happened to you at nine years old? And they go, how did you know? Like, that fascinated me. And that really solidified the belief that, like, the stuff that happens in our childhood absolutely affects us as adults, and we can kind of get stuck there in our patterns. So there was not like one single moment. It was just kind of like evolving, reinforcing belief system that I had throughout my whole life.
- [06:56]
A
Did you find me through him?
- [06:57]
B
No, I don't. I don't remember the rabbit hole that I found your podcast, but I know that I'd found Crappy Childhood Fairy a while ago. I don't know. And then, because I'm just a constant learner, constantly curious, I'm always diving in, learning as much as I can about everything. And so I do remember, yeah, Crappy Childhood Fairy. And then Tim Fletcher really kind of blew up recently, and I've listened to almost everything he's got. And so I don't remember where your. Your podcast came in there somewhere. And. But I listened to you on Dr. Drew show.
- [07:31]
A
Okay, so let's Backtrack. Tell me about this. This upbringing.
- [07:34]
B
Yeah, so I've done a lot of my family genealogy, but also just knowing, you know, family lore and stories were told, is that there's just a tremendous amount of generational trauma that both my parents are carrying. And while I do believe that they, quote, unquote, did the best they could or tried, I don't think that they did any better than where they came from, unfortunately. So my dad was a police officer and depressed and worked nights, and so he slept during the day. And he had a extremely ragey anger inside of him. So the story we would been told is that he had been beaten repeatedly by his own dad. And so we were lucky because he wasn't beating us. But the rage was always there. And so it's just always walking on eggshells. I mean, for one, you had to be really quiet in the house because he was sleeping. But also, you never knew what it was that was gonna piss him off. And the rage that was in him was terrifying because it always felt like, oh, this is it. This is a time he cracks and I'm gonna get the shit beat out of me. But he never did. And so they say, psychologists say that that can be worse than actually being beat, but I don't know how they can tell. And. But he also was kind of the pair I was closer to, and he liked to take us on little. Or take me on little adventures and things like that. So he was this mixed bag of, like the one parent that was a little more reliable but also terrifying because of his anger. And my. My mother, her. Her career was full time depression. And she. Yeah, the trauma. I don't know whose trauma is worse, but my mother had had two children before me that she gave up for adoption when she was a teenage. So that was the story we were hearing all of the time, was just how depressed she was and how much she was trying to find those children. And I've had a birth regression experience where I was at the moment of my birth, and I felt my father's utter disappointment that I was a girl and not a boy. And then my mother's guilt and shame over the giving up the other children and feeling how she just didn't deserve me. And so I know now that my mom never bonded with me. I didn't know. You only have one life experience. You don't know how it compares to anything else that could have happened. And so I know now that my mother just never bonded with me because she was so guilty and ashamed of Giving up those other children. And so. And I think also that she was jealous of my relationship with my father because he was a terrible husband like he was. He was terrible to her. And so when my sister came along three and a half years later, my mother chose her to be her little. And they've. They've told me, both of my parents have told me, yes, we favored her because we just knew she wasn't as capable as you. You know, she needed more help. So my experience of growing up in the household was, be good, be quiet, be small, have no needs, have no emotions, be a good girl. And I was smart and got straight A's and took care of my own needs because there was nobody, you know, my mom would sleep so much that she wouldn't get up in the morning and make us breakfast. And so very parentified and take care of myself. And. And then my experience then was that both my parents loved my sister more, favored her more, and did more for her consistently. So I was just completely alone. And if I spoke up with any need, it was just, you know, Carol, stop trying to make us feel guilty. We're broke and we can't afford it. Stop asking for things. And so, yeah, and then you said.
- [11:00]
A
That your dad was. He was. He drank and then he. He was. Your mom referred to him as a dry drunk.
- [11:06]
B
That's an interesting story, because my mom. The story I was told growing up was that my dad quit drinking before I was born, that he was a violent, angry alcoholic, and that he quit before I was born. But one day my dad sent me my baby book, and at three months old, it said my favorite food was beer. And so I've asked my mom, I said, hey, if dad quit before I was born, why was there beer in the house at three months old? And my mom is a master dissociator. Like, she can forget anything that's too painful just at the drop of a hat. So her response was like, oh, well, maybe he quit later than that. And she has no memories of that. And so, I mean, I would bet all my money, which isn't much, I would bet all my money that there was something that happened that scared him with me. Right. Because that's kind of, you know, why would you quit when the baby's less than a year old? Somewhere in there, something happened that scared him, that made him quit. So I don't have any active memories of that, but I have a sense that there's something there that.
- [12:13]
A
And so have you never seen him.
- [12:14]
B
Drink before he started drinking again? So we were talking before about like some stuff that's some abuse I've experienced from him maybe like in my early 40s. And he started drinking in my early 40s again. And that's when he started abusing me. So he has four daughters and I'm the oldest. So he's got two sets of daughters from two different women. And I ended up being the.
- [12:38]
A
Are they, are the other two. Are they from a previous marriage or after?
- [12:42]
B
No, they're. They're younger than me. They're 18 and 20 years younger than me. And so I was the identified. Let's pick on Carol. So I knew, you know, about 7:00pm, 7:30 every night, I would start to get the abusive text messages and emails. If I blocked that, he would email me. He would always find another way of belittling me and putting me down and you don't know anything. And so I was like, what is going on? And then I found out from a younger sister that like, he had started drinking again. I was like, oh, I'm the identified target now. And yay, this is. He's. Since. So I saw him last a year ago and he's quit drinking again. I don't know what the timeline is, but, like, he was actively not drinking at my. One of my younger sister's wedding last year.
- [13:27]
A
So, so how. So what was the relationship like between your parents when you were growing up?
- [13:32]
B
I don't even know how to categorize it, but, like, bad in a nutshell bad. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, date night wasn't a thing like I'm Gen X, but like, I don't know of anybody that was like date night. But I never saw any kindness or compassion or lovingness between them. I never saw like a hug or a kiss or anything that wasn't abuse really. What was really interesting though is that they had a really strong psychic connection in that, like, they would tell stories about how they would try to play the game Battleship with each other and they would know where the other one's ships were. And so then they would have to like, imagine their ships were in different spots and then that's how they could beat the other person. So they, they had a really strong mental connection. But yeah, just the relationship was just not good. And my, my dad has a pattern of rescuing women. And so he was. My mom was childhood best friends with one of my dad's sisters. So they grew up together. And so he watched us because she'd given up two children for adoption before I was born. And he'd watched that happen. And so when she was pregnant with the last my sister that's one year older than me, when she was pregnant with her, my dad came up and said, if you get rid of that baby, I'll marry you. And it's an interesting trauma point for my mom because the story I had been told all growing up was that her parents forced her to give up her children for adoption. And so that was the story she told herself and she told everyone. And then it was after we found that sister that's one year older than me that my dad came forward and said, I'm so sorry what I did. And my mom's like, what are you talking about? And so he was the one that said, well, I told you, if you give up the baby, I'll marry you. So she had to face the fact that she'd made that choice to have a husband versus keep her baby. And so my dad rescued her. He saved her. But I never saw, you know, any loving anything between the two of them. And in fact, I saw him just abusing her. And he had this thing he would do that. It's just. I can't understand it just felt disgust when I would watch it. But he would, in front of his daughters when we were young, throughout our whole life, I remember even his teens seeing this, where he would just grab her crotch or boobs with her clothes on in front of us and just laugh. And she would like, get really upset and tell him to stop doing that. And he would laugh, he'd think it was funny. And, you know, it's along the lines of child sexual abuse. He wasn't touching us, but it was still like completely inappropriate stuff to be doing in front of your children and, and to laugh about it. And like, so I saw him inflicting that emotional torture on her all the time and thinking it was a fun thing to do. And so that message for me was, you know, men do things to women, and women are powerless to do anything. You know, she. Despite protesting and screaming and crying about it, she couldn't stop it. And so I grew up with the idea that, well, women just our bodies are for men to do things, and there isn't anything or anyone you can go to about anything that happens. And I told you I was going to do a little family disclaimer, and I forgot to do that. But like family, if you're, if you're listening to this, this isn't about you. This isn't for you. The reason I finally want to feel empowered enough to speak my truth and stop hiding under a bush, to make everybody else happy and not rock the boat and not disturb anybody and not. Not make people feel bad is that. This is. This is my truth. This is my lived experience, and this is my healing journey. So if you don't like this, it makes you feel uncomfortable. Turn the channel, like, scroll on. Yeah.
- [17:10]
A
You shouldn't be listening to this anyways. Turn this off.
- [17:13]
B
Yeah. This isn't. This is not for you. I'm not doing this on purpose because I'm trying to hurt somebody. This is me healing and speaking my truth, so.
- [17:22]
A
Amen, sister. How old were you when they got divorced?
- [17:25]
B
About 16. Yeah. So it was a lot of years of. A lot of fighting, and I just. Were you relieved? I was. I do remember feeling, oh, thank God I won't have to listen to the fighting anymore.
- [17:35]
A
Did it change your dynamics with your relationships with them?
- [17:39]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I went to live with my dad. My sister went to live with my mom. And my mom, you know, abandonment is her biggest wound, and so had a mental breakdown. Just checked out, dissociated completely, and just started doing drugs and compulsive sex. But to this day, she'll be like, I didn't do any drugs. Okay, whatever. So. So it was okay for the first little bit, living with my dad, but he basically wanted me to be his replacement wife. And here's the shopping. Here's some money. You take care of dinner and shopping and all that kind of stuff. But as soon as he was on the hunt for his next wife, and, you know, at that point, he'd already been married twice, so he was married once before my mom, and he was hunting for his next. His next wife. And so I just got discarded as soon as he found his next wife. And, in fact, she was actually very, completely horrible to me. So I had no. I. I had nobody. And I even tried my senior year, high school to go into foster care because the abuse of my stepmother, that my dad just looked the other way. I don't even remember what happened. Like, it must have been bad, but I don't remember specifically what was going on, just that it was like I was desperately trying to find someplace to live so I could finish high school. And I was old for my class, so I was already 18. So they told me I didn't qualify. And so I ended up. I tried living with one of my teachers for a little while, and she said, well, the school district says we can't do this, so you have to find someplace else to go. I Ended up living with one of his ex girlfriends because she was so in love with him that she was hoping if she took care of me that would be a way that he would come back to her, you know, bless her heart and. But it just wasn't working. So I ended up going back with a boyfriend that I'd had kind of through high school. I needed someplace to land, I needed some safety, I needed housing, I needed something. And the small town that I grew up in in Oregon, life goals were get married, get five acres and a double wide mobile home and like your life is done, you know. And so got married at 19 to him and we should never have gotten married, but it was like I didn't know what else to do. Just lots of fighting. He wasn't horrible, but he also was very controlling, very insecure and, and so married for two years to him. And the final straw was, you know, we're just fighting all the time. He didn't, I was going to college and he didn't see the point of that. Like we lived in a town of 2,000 people in Oregon and he says, why are you going to college? Why don't you just work at the grocery store here in town the rest of your life? And it's like a movie scene where the reverberates the rest of your life. The rest of your life. The rest of your life. And I was like, oh my God, I want to go and see the whole world and experience stuff. And he wants to stay in this town the rest of his life. And I just had this wake up call of like, oh my God, this is why you don't get married at 19. It was don't get married as a replacement for not having any safety at home. So yeah, the final straw was him telling me that, well, you need me. You can't do anything on your own there. You could never make it without me. And I was like, oh yeah, watch me. So divorced by 21. I felt like I lived a whole life long time I was single, but two years later I was married to my second husband, which was a whole other level of, of shit show. So he was 14 years older than me and had two children already. And I remember distinctly, so I was like 23. And I remember distinctly the fantasy, I believe the lies that he told me about how their, the children's mother was horrible and that I built this fantasy life in my mind that like he and I were going to get together and we're going to have this perfect marriage and I was going to Parent those children. We were going to have the perfect household. And this was my trauma response, brain building this, like, here's. Here's how I can heal and show I'm whole and healthy. And a year later had my son, and I was like, okay, we're gonna do this. I hope I don't fuck him up too bad. But the whole situation with those boys and the healing work that I've done, I've. I've come to realize that my second husband was. Had a lot of problems I thought was like, oh, he had a quirky personality. But I've come to realize that he actually had very strong narcissistic tendencies and also antisocial personality tendencies, too. So. And now that. Oh, Andrea, now that I'm telling this the story to you, I'm realizing, so that, like, watching my dad torture my mom and laugh about it, my second husband had that same tendency. Now, he wasn't grabbing me physically, but verbally and emotionally torturing me and then laughing about it when I would get upset. And he was just like, it brought him so much joy to see me struggling and unhappy, and it was just so weird. Like, why are you acting like that? And it was seven years of absolute shit show. Like, it was so horrible and bad. And I remember it's just that you have an episode of Dateline or 2020 or a Netflix docu series about all the shit that happened. It was really bad. But I was so dead set on, like, but I'm never going to put my son through a divorce. I'm going to do whatever it takes to not put him through a divorce. And they just got to a point where things were bad and he didn't. He didn't want to be controlled, and he wouldn't, you know, I'm not going to go to therapy, because that's what you want to do. You want to do that. So I'm not doing that. I'm like, okay, well, you figure it out. Then. What are we going to do? Because I don't want to get divorced. And so it was a couple weeks later, he just was like, I want a divorce. So then I was like, all right, peace out. I've learned my own ability to turn off feelings like a light switch, like, okay, don't feel anything. Just move on with my life. And in the first couple of years, he was a really good dad to my son. But then he got his next girlfriend. He started getting really deep into, like, Christian church activities and just then abandoned not only my son, but then his older sons as well and just went off the deep end and was gone for like 10 years. Came back when my son was about 16 and was like, hey, I want to pick him up this weekend, like nothing had happened. And then it's. I don't know how much you want to go into that, but it's a. That's a long story of the. The emotional abuse that he put my son through. Then after that, and as much as my intentions, I didn't want to fuck up my child. I didn't know if I had the skills to do it. I ended up picking a father for him that was, I feel like, is worse than what I went through. And as a mother, you know, logically, I know it's not my fault what his dad did, but I still carry that guilt of, like, the things I haven't done perfectly, the things that I've done that worked weren't great, were bad, whatever label I want to put on him. But then also all the stuff that he went through with his. With his dad, I just carry a tremendous amount of guilt and shame about how that all worked out for him. And I want to be the cycle breaker and didn't succeed.
- [24:39]
A
And have you had those conversations with him?
- [24:42]
B
Yes, Yes, I have. Yeah. Really recently I. I have talked. Yeah. Talked to him. And I had the experience when my parents were divorcing that my mom would talk shit about my dad all the time, and it just made me feel terrible. And so I always had the mindset like, well, I'm not going to do that to my son. I'm not going to make him feel bad and say bad things about his dad. But I think I went too far into not acknowledging the pain my son was experiencing. So when his dad was doing horrible things to him and my son was asking, mom, is my dad crazy? Like, he was looking for an explanation of it. And I didn't want to say, yeah, he's a crazy motherfucker. I was like, oh, I don't know, what do you think? And so I. So, yes, very recently, and my son is 30 now. I did talk to him about, like, I feel like here was my intention, but I feel like I didn't validate your feelings and I want to do that now. I apologize for not doing that at the time. And yes, what you went through was really up and your, Your dad was really abusive to you. And I'm sorry I. I didn't validate for you that. And I do want to validate now that you didn't deserve any of that.
- [25:47]
A
Does he have a relationship with his dad?
- [25:49]
B
Nope. No. No. When he tried coming back when he was 16, it was a whole long thing and ended up going through a counselor. So in Washington State, they require reunification counseling if there's been any distance between the parent and the child. And after three months of work with that therapist, my son, or counselor, coach, whatever her credential was. But her recommendation to the court that it was not in my son's best interest to have any contact with his dad whatsoever. I was shocked. But it was like she did a good job at seeing who he really was and that it was still abusive to him for him to be in his life. And that was, you know, at 16 years old. So I assumed that once he turned 18, that he'd be knocking on her door and beating it down and like, let me see my son. But he hasn't made any attempt to see him since then. And my son has a lot of. A lot of anger inside, justifiably so about all that. And I always hoped that he could have some kind of relationship with him. But also now I'm like, no, it's. It's probably best that it not happen. It's a fantasy world that. That could even be a positive thing. But any. And there was a lot of religious abuse that happened with that, too, with my son. And so he's very angry about religion and church as well. And, yeah, he's got. He's got a lot that's not healed there. That's really deep wounds.
- [27:13]
A
Does he have a relationship with his half sibling?
- [27:15]
B
Not really, because they still have a favorable. Well, one of them has a favorable, favorable opinion of their dad, and my son is too afraid that he would just be judgmental and. And not connect with him. So, like, they've chat on Facebook occasionally or something like that, but there's no. There's no real relationship there between them all. The. His. The youngest of the two kids is actually really angry at his dad. I've talked to him a few times, and he's. He's really angry at what he went through too.
- [27:47]
A
So where would you say that you're at now in your healing?
- [27:51]
B
Yeah, this is all stuff that I knew I needed to work on and do the work and heal and. But didn't fully know what that all entailed. Right. And so my own abandonment and attachment wounds are so severe that. So I actually, I. Oh, your. Your interview with Dr. Ingram Clayton that you shared recently, her talking about how she, like, tried to get all the degrees and everything to, like, that was going to fix everything. And so I kind of went that same route, right? So I want to heal everyone else. And I have, you know, master's degree in nutrition and clinical health psychology, and I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, Right. So I'm going to heal everyone, and in the process, I'll just be healed, too. And so I knew that it was stuff that, like, I needed to do some work on, but things were functioning pretty well, and the masks were really strong that I could wear. And also then trying. Trying to work with therapists myself, I always had. I would always bring up transference and countertransference in the therapist, and they would end up rejecting me. And often I've had experiences where they've traumatized me, where they've, like, I share something really vulnerable. And then later on they go, oh, yeah. And so it's been really difficult to know. I need that close regulation, the co. Regulation of another person. But then not having that in my own family. And even now, like all my siblings, you know, carol, be quiet. Don't rock the boat. The scapegoat. You're the one with the problem. You need therapy. Dad's amazing. So anytime I'd ever, ever try to speak my truth, it was like, that's not true. Dad's not like that. Like, you all copied on the emails that he sent about this. If you witnessed this, you choose not to acknowledge this. So I was forced to just really start to dive into this. I think that I identified the cascade of things. Really started kind of like in 2018, 2019, I actually was having. I had a really successful keto coaching business. My life was. I was on top of the world. Everything was going really. Weight. Wait, wait, what word am I trying to say there? Well and great is weight. Yeah, well and. Well and great is weight.
- [30:01]
A
So it makes sense.
- [30:02]
B
But also, I was working with people with their weight. And just one little thing after another. You know, I had to move and then had a boyfriend that I dated for a little while. That was like the most lying codependent I'd ever experienced. And the pandemic hit. And then I moved to Arizona. But then my mom almost died during triple bypass open heart surgery. And then I lost my housing, I lost my car, I lost all of my belongings. My business went in the toilet. Because I've learned, I have a part of me that when stress is too great, I just completely shut down. And this was like a mountain level of stress after stress after stress after loss. This was kind of my Emotional rock bottom was just all of this loss and my body couldn't. Didn't know how to process or handle any of it. And then not having any stable, like, really intimate support system to go to. Yeah. And then my cats of 19 years, one died one year and the other died the next year. And so I have no. No housing. I'm. I'm bouncing around Airbnb and trying to struggle enough to scrape enough money together. And I don't have a car and I don't. My cat died. I don't even have any of my belongings anymore. And. And it just. It's like a crash. And the part of me that shuts down doesn't even want to be here. There's no motivation to even do anything. I just want to go hide and crawl on a well and not be in this world anymore. And. But it's like there's still part of me that, like, okay, that now's the time that you need to figure this out. Like, I know this is all a trauma response. I know that me shutting down after all these. So I've even had, like, trauma with emdr, Right? Like, so they're, you know, EMDR and all these different great therapies are supposed to be what you turn towards. But I had a former supervisor that was part of my psychology degree training that traumatized me through emdr. He did a session with me when I was like, oh, I don't want to do this. And he just forced it on me. That's horrible. Right? Like, that's horrible. So that I feel like the universe has given me more crap to deal with. Right? Because it's like, that's supposed to be like the gold standard of how you heal from trauma. And I've had a traumatic experience around a therapy and because it's all about.
- [32:16]
A
Grounding, being grounded before you do it. And if you're saying, I don't want to do this, that's so fucked up.
- [32:21]
B
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And then I'm, you know, crying and bawling at the end of it, and I was like, you told me it wasn't going to be like this. So it's just that non consensual. More abuse and betrayal. Right. And so the last therapist I was trying to work with was emdr, but I had shared with her, I said, I said, I have a really hard time trusting. I need to build up a lot of safety with you and feel really safe and comfortable before we can even. Before I can even close my eyes with you. And she just doesn't doesn't connect with me. And I'm going to these sessions going, is this what it's supposed to feel like? Maybe this is the uncomfortableness that I'm supposed to feel. And then a close friend of mine dies the end of last year and he's like a year older than me and he just died of the flu. And then in January, my stepdad dies. And he was somebody a very, I don't know, contentious relationship with, but he was also somebody that he, he was a very violent alcoholic as well. But he quit for. After he almost killed a cat in front of the whole family. So a very contentious relationship with, with him. But the rest of the family all put him on a pedestal. He's amazing, he's wonderful. And so again, I'm the one that's like, carol, what's your problem? Why do you see people for who they are? Why can't you look through these rose colored glasses? So I went to go stay with my mother and I, I, I was the only one, you know, I'm not working, I'll go stay with you, I'll take care of you. Which surprised me because I wasn't close to her. I thought, I'm not the one who's codependent, I'm not the one that's going to go take care of her. But I immediately knee jerk reaction was to go stay with her. And one day I'm expressing like I have some needs and I need a little privacy once in a while. Just need a little space and time to myself. And that, that triggered her abandonment wounds. And she lashed out at me and told me she's never liked me. And that was probably the worst thing that I could have heard from my mother because that was my core feeling my whole life anyways, was that my own mother didn't like me. And then try to share. Wow, that really hurts. Well, yeah, well, you've done way more hurtful things to me. So she's just incapable of facing any hurt that she's done with anyone. So that was like, where's the bottom of this? Where's the bottom of this bottom that I should be hitting? And so Andrea, finally, I think I've got all my ducks in a row. I have an amazing friend that's allowed me to stay with her. And this is probably the most stable environment I've experienced. I've been here an extended period of time and she's not in any hurry for me to leave, which is like the first time in my life that I've Experienced that. And. And then I found Jesse Deal. He's a trauma coach. He works with ifs, which is internal family systems. And that really, really resonates with me. And I've been doing my own work with that the last six months. And so he and I started working together and it's like, finally, oh, I don't want to cry here. But finally, finally I feel like I've got that safe person that can be there for me and that, like, already we're doing work that I know I feel safe with him. Yeah. And you. You know how amazing he is that he's. There's. He's doing. He's doing his calling and work in life right now, doing this work. And so. Yeah, so I'm so happy. Yeah. So I'm working with him one on one. I've got the shit show support and. And it's slow. It's slow work. It's slow as. And I thought, like, nope, I need to hurry up and get my life back together and get everything figured out. But it's like, no, it's going to take time. And I'm so grateful that I have this space, this housing, because it's so hard to do any work, any healing when you don't even have your basic necessities covered, like food and housing. Right. And so I'm just eternally grateful for her that she's allowing me this time and space. And I've got the. I've got the things in process now that. That I'm. I'm examining those hurt little parts of me and those wounds and healing and learn how to regulate my emotions and actually have feelings instead of just completely disconnecting from them. And it's. It's in. It's intense. And I'm finally addressing the stuff that I knew I needed to my entire life, and I was forced to because I just basically lost everything. And even more than I can imagine any person could lose.
- [36:26]
A
Usually how it goes. Force.
- [36:28]
B
Yeah.
- [36:29]
A
No other options.
- [36:31]
B
There's one other option, but I chose not to do that option, so.
- [36:34]
A
Thank God. Well, you're a blessing and a miracle. How. How has it been like having boundaries with your family? Hi, Tito.
- [36:42]
B
Yeah, it's. I've had various experiences of times of like, you know, going no contact or low contact with my family. And I've always kind of been like the black sheep, the lone person anyways. And so it's always these mixed feelings of, like, these people are so abusive to me, but you still want to be accepted by them. Like, you still, there's always that, you know, drive of being included in your, your own family tribe. And so part of it's like, it's my natural instinct to be like, nope, I don't care about you guys, you know, And I find that the universe always tests you when you set those, those boundaries and stuff. And so for a lot of years I was no contact with my dad and then I gave him kind of a short lease. So he's, he's got dementia that's been coming in the last five, seven years. And so he softened a lot. And it's weird because my feelings about him now are just like he's just kind of this sad, pathetic old man. And so I know I've got a lot of hurt and betrayal there still with him, but like I'm able to, you know, email or text him and even I saw him a year ago and we were, I gave him a spot on a stand up comedy show that I was doing near, near his hometown. And that was actually kind of healing for both of us that because I was the one that was in control of the situation and stand up comedy has kind of always been our family's love language of like, you know, jokes and guilt trips were the only two things we had. And so I kind of had this experience of like he should when he's got diabetes, he's got neuropathy really bad and so he's in a lot of pain and he's not drinking and he's never going to apologize for any of the stuff he did or own any of that. But it was like, that was so make. My relationship with him is like pretty low contact. I don't really see him much, but like it's much, it's much better. Whereas my mom is the one. Now that I'm realizing I just thought I wasn't close to my mom most of my life, but I'm realizing now like how abusive she's been and the, the emotional abuse that she does to me. And so I've done more, very low contact with her, just more recently too. And you know, the way that the universe tries to test you on that is like she tried calling me yesterday and. Oh, just trying to see how you're doing. Just trying to check in, you know, and because I blocked her on all social media because she tends to just like spy on everything I do and. Yeah, and it actually like, so there's a family group chat that was her and my, and her two, two other daughters. And I just realized how upsetting it was seeing the messages in there and how they fawn for her and how she's the child that needs constant validation, like sharing little simple things that she's looking for. Good job. I'm so proud of you. And I just so bothers me what a little child she is and how she's still parentifying her daughters and how they fawn over her, fawn to her. What's the term? I don't know. And I realized how upsetting it was to see those messages even though I'm not engaging in them. So I just finally decided the way that I minimize that, you know, upset for me is to not be in that group and to not see it and to disconnect from them. And I felt like it was going to be a lot of backlash and I was going to get the, you know, how could you do that? How could you hurt her like that? From the siblings? And. And it actually just feels freeing. Like, I feel lighter, but I still feel her energy. She tries to intrude with the woo woo. But like, she tries to intrude energetically into me and I have to work a lot on, like, blocking that out of like, this is my body. Stay. Stay out of my space. And don't. Don't be here. So that's part of my life. Yeah. Don't be here.
- [40:12]
A
Yeah, don't be up in here.
- [40:13]
B
I love it. Don't be here.
- [40:16]
A
Okay, well, give me three things that you like about yourself.
- [40:18]
B
I hope this is one that you've never heard, but I have a excellent spatial ability. Yeah. What the hell? My favorite evening would be to get me a piece of IKEA furniture that takes me all night to build it. So, like, spatial understanding of how things relate to each other and how they fit together and like, maps and navigation organization too. Like, I love, like, ordering. Give me somebody's messy pantry and I will just.
- [40:41]
A
I'm sure there's plenty of shit shows that would love your help, but I.
- [40:44]
B
But I don't want to do it as a. Don't pay me to do it. I want to do it because it's fun, not because I have expectations about doing well.
- [40:51]
A
I don't care. Get paid for that shit. Carol, come on.
- [40:54]
B
No, no. See, this is my. I've learned I have the pda. The pathological demand avoidance. So as soon as there's expectations about it, it's not fun.
- [41:01]
A
You want to do it? Okay.
- [41:02]
B
No. Yeah. So I will trim your bushes and make them nice and neat, but don't pay me to. Don't don't expect me to do it a certain way because I want to just quit whenever. So. So, yeah. Strong spatial ability.
- [41:12]
A
Love it. First time hearing that one for sure.
- [41:14]
B
Inherently curious. So I'm just lifelong learner. I'm anything and anyone. I want to learn and understand everything, you know, that makes them tick. And understand everything. And then the third one is, as one of my friends put it, I can make from. I can make friends in an empty room.
- [41:30]
A
You're a froomer.
- [41:32]
B
Where are these blended words? I love it. Yeah, I can make friends in an empty room. So, yeah. Personable and friendly and outgoing.
- [41:40]
A
Those are wonderful. A hope or dream for the future.
- [41:43]
B
I want to rebuild my coaching business blending in this, this keto, healthy nutrition and the trauma work. And I don't think that I'm going to be a trauma therapist, but I want I bring that lens into the work that I'm doing and help people facilitate, especially women. Really passionate about women feeling happy, healthy and their body and in their mind. And so just that empowerment piece of the feminist perspective of women and also working with the addiction piece of food and like the, the love addiction and just substances. I mean, more so just the food lens. This is not very clear. This is not very concise. I think.
- [42:25]
A
No, I think it makes total sense.
- [42:26]
B
Yeah, I, I struggle. Like, I have a vision of like, what. And I have a very small, like, community of women that I'm supporting right now that I've worked with in the past. And so helping women connect with each other and support the work that they're doing in their food relationship with their body and weight loss and letting go of toxic diet culture and then just really healing. What are the subconscious blocks? What are the things. What is food doing for you that your life isn't? And so that's, that's my work. And, and so my, my hope and dream for the future is that I will rebuild my business and my, my career where I'm just having a really positive impact on the lives of a lot of women. Maybe a few men, but like mostly, mostly women.
- [43:09]
A
Well, there is a big need for that.
- [43:11]
B
Yeah.
- [43:12]
A
Well, this has been awesome, Carol.
- [43:14]
B
Thank you so much. Rumor. I love that.
- [43:16]
A
I like, I'm into that word.
- [43:26]
B
What you holding on to? Just let it all go. What's making you small now? Don't let all go.
- [43:35]
A
What you got to do yet.