Fighting for Family

Hey y'all! Jess is still on set fixing your mess! Today, we have two deep stories about managing hardships with family. Tap in!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Carefully Reckless, the production of Our Heart Radio
and the Black Effects, and just like that, we're back
on the air. Welcome back to yet another carefully Reckless
episode with your girl. Just hilarious. Okay, so look, this

(00:21):
is day number nine for me on set, and like
I told y'all last week, I'm going to be helping
y'all and fixing you'all mess and between scenes. So listen,
this is what I'm doing. So if my voice is
horse and I sound like somebody's dad, it's because I've
been screaming to the top of my lungs filming this movie.
By the way, the movie is called Pretty Stoned and

(00:42):
it drops on four on v H one and TV
and all that other good ship the Viacom channels, you know. Anyway,
So unfortunately we do not have voice notes. So I'm
gonna be reading bad with me, Chad, because God, I've
been reading scripts and all of that, and I know,
I let me stop trying to shut on y'all. I'm
not trying to shut on y'all. I'm just saying I'm

(01:03):
goddamn tired of reading. Well, just because y'all don't want
your boyfriends and y'all beloved loved ones and best friends
and all that ship people that y'all following up with
to hear your voice because they recognize you a little
stinking as voices. I got to read, all is nonpunctuality.
So let's jump straight in. Hi. Just see. My name
is Kiki. I'm twenty one from Detroit and I need

(01:25):
your help. Well, there goes anonymous. My father was shot
and killed when I was three years old, so I
grew up without my father and was raised by my mother.
Growing up, I made bad decisions and men and some
women as well, even though my mother did the best
she could raising me and my brother. I'm writing you
this because throughout my life I lost a lot of
people in my family. A year after my father passed,

(01:46):
I lost Grandpa, my dad's father. When I was all right,
you left out a word, but I guess you're trying
to say when I was younger, when I was a baby,
my father's mother passed. My grandfather did reamy years before
I was born, and she is my bonus granny and
I love her. By the time I turned seventeen, I
lost my mentor. She was danced and choir director for

(02:10):
years I never got to say goodbye. By eighteen, I
lost a few of my uncles. By eighteen I lost
one of my uncles, a few months after another uncle.
In I lost my aunt, and most recently in April,
I lost my granny, my mother's mom with her past,
and this one was really hard to accept. She passed

(02:32):
right before her mother's day and right before my twenty
one birthday. What's really eating at me is that the
last conversation we had, we argued a little. She had
always been independent, but just got sick. She was no
longer able to do things on her own, as simple
as just drinking a glass of water or using the bathroom.

(02:53):
The last thing she said, basically was get out, I
don't care. The next day we placed her in the
hospital because she wanted to go. That day, my mom
took her in and she was talking, but by the
time I got off work, she was on a ventilator
and basically in a coma. Oh my god. She never
woke up and passed away two weeks later. I never
got to say her voice again. My question is how

(03:15):
do I manage all of the loss I have seen
and been through all my life and still continue on
gaining happiness for myself. PS. My bad girl for calling
you Jesse. I was typing too fast and didn't realize
until it was already sent. I love you, girl. I
do not mind you calling me Jesse at all. First
and foremost, you are a very strong young woman. I'm

(03:37):
glad that you sought the courage to even reach out
to me and be as vulnerable as you were to
share as much as you did. Losses are not easy,
especially back to back to back to back losses. People
have different ways of dealing with losses. UM. I noticed
that you told me about all the people that you lost,
but you never told me just how you managed to

(03:58):
deal with it or how how you have coped in
the past with it. You said, the hardest loss that
you had to take was your grandmother, and that was
so hard because you guys kind of ended not on
a really bad note, but not really a good note.
You guys argued a little bit. She had told you
to get out. Um, you guys had differences, and Um,

(04:19):
the next day she was placed in the hospital and
two weeks later died after you not even being able
to hear her voice after the argument because you were
at work and didn't get off until later on that day,
and she was already on the ventilator by then. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for all of your losses. However, you're still

(04:39):
twenty one, okay. Nothing can sue the pain, nothing can
bring those those loved ones back. But you, being twenty
one and still at a very young age and still
having so much life to live. I think that you
should take this as a stepping stone for what has
prepared you for this cruel world that we live in today.

(05:00):
We do. We live in a very very cruel world.
We live in a world where you can see somebody
here today and gone today. You can see somebody this morning,
they're gone this afternoon. You know, you can see somebody
the night before they're gone the next day. You've gone
through a lot of that. I think starting your healing
process looks like therapy. And I don't mean just fix
my mask. I mean like some real, real therapy, not

(05:24):
so much deeply rooted issues. You already know what they are.
You already know the deal with your parents and your
grandparents and in all of the branches on your family tree.
I think it's just a matter of you surrounding yourself
with positive energy and going to healing groups. Like Also,
I just recently gave this same advice to someone else

(05:44):
I was helping on this podcast. I'm having a deja
vu moment very vividly as I spoke on this. There
are healing groups and support groups at churches, and if
you're non religious, there are different support groups that are
non religious, um that you can act really participate, and
they have them weekly. Sometimes people need them more than

(06:06):
once a week. People need them daily until they're able
to kind of grasp what that healing looks like, that
self healing looks like, and then you need these groups
less and less. Like I said, surround yourself with positivity,
things that make you happy. There has to be something
that makes you happy and um, all this turmoil and

(06:26):
through all of these losses that you've encountered in your
younger years in life up until now, there has to
be something that you know makes you happy. And you
have to have a happy place to go to. Even
if there's something in particular that doesn't make you happy,
that has to be someplace that brings you good memories, UM,
happiness to look forward to. Something like that. Are you dating?

(06:50):
Do you have many friends? Are you satisfied with the
job that you have. Do you have a pet? Do
you have an emotional support dog? Do you You You know
because I have one. When I was going through not
being able to juggle being a full time mom and
a full time entertainer because my son was in school
and and I was on the road a lot, I

(07:11):
got a dog. I used to take my dog, Vain,
who's a French bull dog by the way, and is
going on three years old. March is his birthday. And
don't play with my dog. He's an aries. I bought him,
and he bought so much joy to my life. He
actually helped me cope with being alone and away from
my son, my biological son, you know, because I say

(07:34):
my dog is my son as well. They're very good
for emotional support. They're very good for when you do
feel only. They're good for breakups. They're good for losses,
They're good for filling that void. And um they never
leave you, they never turn turn on you. UM. I
can't speak for every breed of dog, but I know
that your frenchie will not because mine hasn't. And this
is not my first frenchie. I've had too, but there

(07:56):
are multiple outlets that will help you with where you
are in your life right now and how you feel
like there there can never be happiness, and how it
seems like it's never ending misery for you. There are
different outlets, So I just I want you to take
into account that there is help, but I want you

(08:16):
to go lee on an actual couch and actual therapist
couch and and get through this because you definitely can
check back in with me. I want to make sure
you're fine. I want to make sure you're okay. You know.
I love to do the check ins. Okay, And by
you being so young, I think you're gonna figure it out.
I really do. I see a lot for you. Tell
me a lot more or a little bit more about yourself,

(08:38):
about your social life and are you an introvert like
I want to learn more about you other than just
your losses that you've been through, you know, the loss
of your loved ones. Uh. There there are so many
other things I bet that you can tell me. There
is so much more to you. I know it is,
so check back in and let me know it's a
lot of things you didn't tell me, because I want
to know exactly how I can help you. You gave

(09:00):
me quite a bit, but it's not enough of you.
You didn't tell me about yourself, gave me a lot
about the family tree. So check back in with me,
baby girl. If you love me, you'll listen to this
commercial and then we'll be right back and moving on. Okay,
we have a guy this time. Then he did not
send a voice note in, so I'll be reading his story.

(09:23):
Here we go. If one was interested, how would one
go about being your friend with benefits only sexual benefits,
nothing more. Ask me for a friend. Get the fucking
offer here, ship, I'm trying to help people. You trying
to bust a nut, sir. Look it's going on. Hey, Jays,

(09:44):
I really don't know where to start, but I will say.
I'm a twenty seven year old mother. I have two girls.
The oldest is ten and the youngest is six. My
kids no longer live with me. My aunt did an
emergency custody order on me back in while I was
at work Walmart. But before that, I let her know
that my last child, dad kept popping up to my

(10:05):
crib at all times of the night, accusing me of
laying up because I never answered the phone when he
was calling. At two thirty am, three o'clock am, so
he pop up. Growing up, I was taken from my
mom at three months, from her sisters who had three
boys of their own. But the aunt I was with
first she had two boys and one girl. My mom

(10:25):
had two boys than me. I never really got the
time to be around my mom, so I really don't
know her like that, and she died when I was ten.
I was literally getting passed from both aunts back and forth.
The one who has my kids now have kids that
are mentally not there, and one of them has to
be at least thirty six. He works for when Dixie

(10:46):
and the other got to be at least thirty. He
plays games and works at Walmart. The youngest is in
the military, and he witnessed his older brother doing weird
ship when I was younger, like catching him sniffing my
panties by the washing machine to peek through the cracks
in the bathroom door when we were in a trailer
at the time. Then when I was with the other
aunt and we came down to visit them, me and

(11:08):
my girl cousin would get in trouble for laughing too loud,
so our aunt would make us come in the living room.
We'd fall asleep eventually, but every time we woke up,
her oldest son he'd be in between us. So after
my kids got taken, I moved back and with the
aunt that took me at three months. She'd let anyone

(11:29):
crash at her spot. I had good days just as
well as terrible ones. The aunt with my kids would
come by to visit her sister, so I'd get to
spend five minutes with the kids because she didn't stay long.
And every time the kids see me, they come running
calling me mommy, but my aunt be rolling her eyes.
This the same lady died ten times from a heart

(11:49):
attack in oh six goddamn, and came back to life
acting like a Christian. But she once told me I
was going to be good for nothing but laying on
my back, and she said she was going to haunt
me if she was to ever die, which I felt
like she's already dead because I have custody orders saying
to get my kids on Mother's Day all major holidays.

(12:11):
Last time I tried, which was about two weeks ago,
I show up to our house. She had church music playing.
I sat at her table, opened my folder with my
court documents and a calendar to discuss the days. This
lady just started yelling and telling the girls, tell your mama,
you don't want to be with her, and they started crying.
So I kissed my oldest and told her, Mama, finna leave.

(12:33):
I don't got time for your auntie drama. Me and
my girlfriend of three years moved to Florida in June,
of which is an hour away there in Alabama. It's
like this woman didn't expect me to come from my children,
and it's while she's brainwashing them with mother in their
right mind. Once their little girls living on the couch
with them when God knows who's walking in and out

(12:55):
all times of the night. It was times my car
would break down and nobody would help me to get
work done on it, and not even the ones living
with me at the time because they were too busy
or too sleepy. Then again I got in some mess
back in so I asked my aunt what she get
the kids, because I didn't want neither dad having them

(13:15):
because a lot was going on. Even though my case
didn't come up until mid I'm in the process of
handling that now with a lawyer because I have court
next month. So I'm gonna work on the custody case
right away when I get my chips straight. I've been
at this hotel job for six months. I put a
position in stating she's not going by the court's order,

(13:37):
she's not allowing me to see my children, and I
feel like to take it a step even further to
help my fight. I want to bring up her child
touching me so bad, because honestly, I don't feel comfortable
with my girls living there. What you think about my mess?
This is generational curse that needs to be broken. My
grandmother called Alzheimer's an oh four and the aunt that
I was with at first all he's left me with her.

(14:01):
We had a big household which belonged to my grandmother.
My aunt just took over, moved my kids four hours away,
and she never came to see her mom when she
was sick because she was too busy taking care of
somebody else's mom. I literally had to feed my grandmother med's,
bathe her, feed her. Most of the time she would
spit the meds out. One night, a man knocked on

(14:23):
the door saying he see our grandmother walking towards the
cemetery we lived on a dirt road in the middle
of nowhere. It took an hour to get to a store.
Plus I was barely in school. I had asthma bad,
so I was either in the hospital or home with
my grandmother. As soon as my mom died, she was
living with the aunt that has my kids now, her sister.

(14:43):
I moved in months after that because I kept getting
in trouble. Me and my younger cousin was fighting too much,
so I said I wanted to leave, and once spring
break came, I left. I get with the aunt that
has my kids now, and she's never there. She's out
in the streets coming home, falling on the floor, drunk
as how, and all kinds of stuff. She went Christian

(15:03):
and really got worse. If you ask me, all she
does is mumble under her breath. It's weird. I could
go on and on. Girl you have She's always saying
I'm on drugs, and she labels it badly. All I
do is smoke weed. She calls it dope. But I
don't smoke dope because I know I'm gonna have to
pee clean for my babies, so whenever the time comes,
I'll be good. Okay, So, honey, child, you were ever reware,

(15:28):
and I still don't even know exactly what your question
is as to how I can help you. So I'm
just going to try to assist you as best as
I know how after reading that long, long story. Hold up,
hold up, I know the ship getting good. But listen
to just a couple of seconds of a commercial. If
you love me, you'll listen. So obviously, there are family issues,

(15:51):
just like my girl in the first story, there are
family issues there, and these seeing a bit worse because
it's like your family is not even a damn family
like your aunts and and your cousins, and you know
you're being touched, and then you having to deal with
the fact that the very same house that you grew

(16:13):
up in and you were touched and your kids are
under the care of those same people. You know. So
I can only imagine what you're going through, how it's
making you feel as a parent. You feel helpless, you
feel useless, You probably feel like you can't even help
your children. And the fact that you did mention there
at the end that you know you need your p
to be clean, your urine to be clean. I'm assuming

(16:36):
your own probation supervised, that is, and UM, I don't
know what your charges are. I don't care. You just
need to get your children. You need to get yourself
together so you can get your children, because there's some
things going on with you as well. I'm not gonna
sit here and blame every single thing on your family.
I'm not blaming anything on you either, because now what

(16:56):
what is blaming anyone gonna do for anything right now?
But there are issues that you have as well. There's
trouble that I can tell that you are in and
out of, not just that one time in there is
a demons you're fighting, there are there seems like a
dark cloud over your head wherever you go. I need
for you to get yourself together and get your children.

(17:18):
Your aunt seems to love your babies, but don't really
have the best interest for you. Um. I feel like
she may be bitter and fed up with you. I
think whatever you have done in the past, uh, maybe
in her eyes, you haven't taken life serious. You could
have done more as a mother in her eyes. I

(17:40):
feel like so she's kind of bitter towards you. She
kind of maybe feels like you didn't do enough to
get your children, you know, and and a lot of
people that take on other family members children, they kind
of start resenting whoever the biological parent is because I'm
over here is taking care of your child, your chill drinking.
In a lot of cases, not just one, it's children,

(18:02):
multiple children being taken care of by family member, and
you out here just still on drugs. So you are here,
just still doing what you're doing. And you're just out
here in the fucking streets and ship. You're not even
making an effort to better yourself. So you can show
me that you at least are trying to get on
your fucking feet within a timely fashion. Like you know,
Tom is fucking ticking, and kids grow up. They don't

(18:24):
get younger, they only get older. So you know, I
know a part of your aunt is like, look, I
raised my children, whether they're good boys or not, good boys,
bad boys, good children, whatever I raised my children. I'm
doing you a favor, the due diligence of what a
family should be at all times, because it takes a village.
And she is head of your village because she has

(18:45):
your children and has had your children for a while.
Now that's coming from her side. From your side, you
need to get your children because you don't want them
to go through the same thing you went through. No,
you weren't brutally raped and all that, but you were
touched and it could have gone that way. Your cousins
smelling your panties and all that. Ship And they're now older.
This was when they were younger. Only god knows what

(19:06):
the hell they are into now if they're still that way.
Not saying that, but I'm only going off of what
you told me. One of them in her thirties and
the other one in late twenties or what what have you. Whatever,
you need to get your children, get yourself together, get
a job. I'm talking about, go through the courts, do
it the right way. Don't fight your aunt. Don't try

(19:27):
to reason with her. Don't. She's so angry and still
bitter and still piste off with you right now, you know,
especially how you said the meeting went when you went
to go. You know, when she bought the kids over
to the house for five minutes and she's telling the
kids to tell your mother she y'all don't want to
go with her and all that. And you know your
kids are only getting older, they're going to start seeing

(19:50):
this and developing their own rendition of what family is
in their minds and it cannot be this. So you
have to do what you have to do. Put on
your big girl panties, get yourself together, go get your children,
check back in all right, and if you haven't heard
it in a while, I don't know you, but I
love you. And just like that, we're gonna end this episode.

(20:10):
We had too very painfully emotional stories. Oh my God,
or should I say emotionally painful stories. I'm over here
and between sets about the damn cry Jesus. Both of
these women have gone through traumatic stress, a great deal
of trauma and their families, and um, I'm praying for
both of them, and y'all should do the same. Make

(20:32):
sure you tune into co parents and therapy with Rome
and just that's me a little baby daddy as we're
sitting down with other parents who are trying to create
healthy environments for their children to grow up in and
to raise them amicably, move forward amicably without trying to
be together, so that lives on YouTube. That it's taken
the place right now of reckless discussions while we work

(20:53):
on revamping season two, which is still coming, y'all. Less
in the works. I leave y'all hanging house of jewels coming.
Make sure you tune into Carefully Reckless each and every
Wednesday on your way to work in the mornings and
the evenings wherever you get your podcast at. And then
my deepest pam boys, peace, see you next week. M H.

(22:20):
Carefully Reckless is a production of I Heart Radio and
The Black Effect. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.