November 19, 2025 • 29 mins
WHO'S ALL HERE? Jasmine, along with her siblings Chris and Gladys, and her nephew Elijah, embark on a transformative journey of family healing through therapy. Led by licensed psychotherapist Elliott Connie, this session, we learn more about each person who agreed to participate and who did not. Discover how consistency, cooking, and a shared love of service play pivotal roles in their paths to personal growth and familial connection. Experience the power of vulnerability, honesty, and hope as this unique family works together to create a better future. Perfect for anyone seeking tools and support for their own healing journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to Family Therapy. I'm Elliot Connie, and this
is season two of Family Therapy. We have a new
family joining us this season. I think I would describe
as family as being without an anchor, and a really
really healthy family will we'll have something of a matriarch
(00:26):
or a patriarch that brings a family together for family
routines and family events, like for example, you might have
like a grandmother and everybody everybody congregates there for Christmas,
or you might have a grandfather and everybody congregates there
for a July fourth celebration, or maybe one of the
(00:48):
fathers or aunts and uncles. But there's there's something that
becomes like the center point or the anchor of the
family that causes the family to reconnect and stay connected.
And I think the best way I'd describe this family
as being without those anchor points and you have people
(01:09):
that it's almost like we love each other, but we
don't know how to build a routine that includes one another.
And I think that started early on from the father
of the adult children that will be featured in this season,
because the family was very disconnected almost from the very beginning.
(01:33):
This family never really learned how to build routines and relationships.
And I think this was a journey of not just reconnecting,
but in the reconnection, learning how to build habits and
routines that sustain the reconnection.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Jaman, this is my sister, my brother, my nephew. I
begged for them to be here, so I'm truly grateful.
I'm the youngest on my dad's side. They're the oldest.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Hi, my name is Gladys. I'm super excited to be
here with my family. I am my father's second eldest
of the girls, so I'm just really grateful for this opportunity.
I'm so happy. When Jasmine told me and I was like, yeah,
I was really excited to even hear that I had joined.
(02:42):
And I was like, all right, Auntie, all right, gathering
us all up.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I see, I'm the oldest from my father.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
I'm Chris, so I was the and I don't know
if I'm the last one to be found. We have
a mystery sibling, so we don't know yet. We have
a mystery sibling out there, so it might be the
second to last. But it was wild for the founder.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Wow, Okay, how long how long has it been since
you've been found Chris.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
Well, shoot, almost like twenty years. I was in my
mid thirties, so I'm like fifty two getting up there.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
But but yeah, twenty years.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
Hey, yeah, I'm going by Elisha, and I guess I'm
the odd one out because I don't have any siblings.
So yeah, I am what's it called twenty two years old? Now?
Just turned twenty two a couple of months ago, and
you know, Auntie Jasmine came here and asked me to join.
At first I was a bit skeptical, but after learning
(03:42):
I can you know, have being more non ins I
was like, oh, okay, I'm fine, coming on.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I love it. And so you know you're not one
of their siblings, So what is your familial connection?
Speaker 6 (03:53):
Gladys is my mom and uncle Chris is my uncle.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Elijah is a young man on a journey of authenticity that,
for one reason or another, some things have happened along
his journey that make it hard for him to be
his authentic self. It makes it hard for him to
express his wants, needs, emotions, especially when those emotions might
be negative, and also needing to remind himself that the
(04:22):
things that bring him happiness and joy are things he
needs to make sure are a part of his life.
Gladys is intense. Gladys loves her family so much that
I think sometimes some of her siblings and some of
the family members experience her love is abrasive, and experience
(04:47):
her language and her desires for them as abrasive. And
I think I think Gladys needed to learn throughout this
journey patience to allow people, autonomy, to allow people to
be who they are supposed to be, and she does
not have to control each and every detail.
Speaker 7 (05:11):
Chris.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Chris is interesting to me because I think Chris he
has such leadership qualities and such a desire to be
the leader, to be the patriarch, if you will, and
I think his journey is about learning how to do
that and to bring people in and to be the
person that the younger generation in the family can look
(05:36):
up to and depend on to keep them to continue
to function with routines that are good and healthy for
a family. Jasmine is also on a journey, maybe not
so much of a journey of authenticity as I described
with Elijah, but potentially more so a journey of self
confidence and self esteem, a journey of realizing her own
(05:59):
truth and her own payer hour and realizing that though
mistakes have been made throughout life, like you can still
be the things that you want to still be and
make yourself and others proud of you. I think the
biggest challenge is how easy it is to not build
(06:24):
family sustaining routines. Like we live in a world where
it's just so easy to like live our own lives
and be in our own silo and just be in
our own bubble. And if you do that, before you
know what, you're going to turn around and that cousin
you knew when they were two is now twenty two,
or that uncle you haven't seen in you know, however
(06:47):
long is now passed away. Like it's just so easy
to just live our own lives and to be in
our own bubble. And I think the biggest challenge is
when you are working to reconnect with family, you have
to do some really uncomfortable work, which is I have
(07:10):
to step outside my bubble and do actions that I
wouldn't ordinarily do to reconnect with family. And the other
thing you have to do is you have to expose
yourself to hurts because one of the things that the
family experienced throughout this journey was rejection, because what happens
(07:32):
when you reach out to that cousin or that uncle
or that aunt or that you know, long long lost
sibling you haven't talked to in a minute. You reach
out to them and they don't return your phone call,
don't return your text message, or something gets lost in
translation because we're not super bonded, and you get your
feelings hurt, Like you have to expose yourself to being hurt,
(07:54):
to being rejected, and most people that's not a fun
experience to do. And I think the biggest challenge was
overcoming all of that and being like, in spite of
it being uncomfortable, in spite of it being unusual, it
is valuable and we must do it. So I just
(08:21):
want to kind of get to know, you guys, what
should I know as we go into this experience that
you guys think would be helpful, Like, what's important for
me to know?
Speaker 5 (08:33):
My thing is learning about my siblings, my nephew, about
their struggles, their traumas. That way, I can also be
able to assist and understand their struggles, what they've been through,
they can understand mine, so we can move forward. And
because that's the thing, like I understand what therapy did
for me, how it helped me, and how I can
(08:54):
say that it's okay, you know, to be able to
talk to someone, because mental health is everything. It's one
of the most important things besides having health itself in
the body. So for me, I know how important, you know,
therapy is, and I know how important it is to
have family around you that you can talk to and
express and understand you know, it's okay not to be
(09:16):
okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love
within each other and know that you know, we all
love each other and we have love and have each
other back because sometimes you know, like I come from
a big family from my adopter side, my father's side,
on my mom's side, they're all a big family. And
my nephew, you know, he's the only but like for me,
(09:39):
I have so many siblings, so many cousins. You can
kind of sometimes get separated from family because it's so big,
or you don't always talk to all your siblings or
family members. Sometimes you you know, move apart from them.
So to come together, especially with this and have individuals
that understand you, it makes it easy to go to
(10:02):
your life because it makes it easier to pick up
that phone to be like, oh, I know who I
can call. I know who I have within my family
that I can talk to and relate to.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Chris, do I understand you were adopted and raised in
a different family and then these guys found you?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
What was that like to be found by these guys?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Chris's girlfriend found us?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Chris girlfriend, Chris, why did she do that?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
I had expressed to her, I was trying to find
my family a long time ago.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Through the Navy. It didn't work out. She was in
the Navy with me.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
She had got out and she still does, but she
works for the FBI. Up when I was actually stationed
out here in Florida, I think around oh three be four,
she had asked me, Hey, I remember you know us
talking about you not finding your family. You want to
find your family? She goes, I'm in that position to
do that. I said, I only know my grandmother's name.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
I didn't even know my dad's name. He was not
on my birth certificate. Dad's grandmother, my mom's grandmother. So yeah,
because I didn't know the last time I had seen
our father, I was seven years old. I remember the
day I was like in front of my adopted grandmother's
y already pulled up, like and you know, some small
(11:17):
station wagon budget you know, Puerto Rican family.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Hey, and like hey, I'll take you to the movies.
I was like, oh okay. He was like you want
to do that?
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Like yeah, then boom that was it. Never seen him
dad was young when Yeah. Yeah, he was a teenager
when he had me. So he was trying to get
his life together. And I know he was at that
time back and forth through Puerto Rico and the United States.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
But like I said, I was seven years old when
I last seen him. Yeah, it was like sixteen. He's
like sixteen.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
So I grew up with my adopted family. I had
my traumas.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
I had to get used to being separated from my family,
had a lot of questions why I didn't grow up
with my real family.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
So it was a lot going through.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
I had therapy all the way into I was in
high school because I just went through a lot, you know.
And then Boston is not a great city to go
through something like that because I grew up in Roxburgh.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I grew up in the Burry right on Blue Hill ass.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
And so trying to deal with that, trying to deal
with the inner city was a lot. I had been
locked up dys all that, but like you know, I
went to a couple of therapists, so I found my
right therapists and it helped me.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Like like I said, it helped me.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
But with finding my family was the last piece of
my life, you know, not being complete, like the last puzzle, right,
So when that happened, that was that was cool. I
remember my little sister Jasmine was there with my little
niece at the time, she was a baby, and that
was cool.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
I still got the pictures and everything. It was on
the eleven o'clock news.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Chris, Why was your family reuniting on the news? Lots
of families night, what made yours?
Speaker 5 (13:02):
What happened was when I was four years old, my
mom got in a fight with one of my siblings,
one of my siblings on my mom's side. My youngest brother,
Marcle got into a fight within that fight. It was
a tragedy night, so I was for my My mom
was in there fighting, having a physical fight. She ended
(13:25):
up sustaining a lot of wounds hit her head, so
she had a brain hemage.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
So she died that night during that fight.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
My two year old sister, she was in the Bathtom
alone during that fight, so she had slipped, hit her
head and drowned on the water.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
So that's why he was crazy.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Because my other brother had took our younger brother out
the house to go out and call the police. He
was five, and so that's why it became like a
tragic thing, and it was on the news.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So that's why it made the news.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
All those years later. Your family also made the news. Yeah,
do you remember when you're then girlfriend told you she
found your family.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Well, she surprised it on me.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
The day like they had planned, like they were at
a center that was in Roxbury up in the Mission Hill.
I thought I was just going to see my little sister,
Jasmine for the first time. That's how our dad brought
it to me. He was like, oh, you know your sister,
We're gonna go pick up your sister. I was like,
all right, cool, I'm just going for the ride. She
was like, oh, yeah, your sister, she's at some party.
(14:30):
We got to pick her up from there. I'm like
all right, you know, I'm not you know, I'm just
like all right, that's cool. I'm just trying to see
my sister. I walk in and everybody was there because
my girlfriend at the time, she had told me she
had to go back to DC, back to d C,
so she faked like she left, went back out of town.
(14:51):
So I'm just like, I'm just chilling with my dad
and going and had my son with me. We walked
up in the center, read it by everybody. It was
a big shop because I was like, what was going on?
Speaker 4 (15:01):
You know? But that was cool, you know, and had
the news. I'm looking around like what in the world.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
My younger brother, Marca, was one of the first person
that came up and grabbed me. And I've never seen
my brothers, so that was cool.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
You reminded me of something I don't always think about.
Bluehill Ave. I spent a lot of my childhood. My
dad lived right off of Blue Hill Ave and my
childhood church it was in Georchester and it was right
off Blue Hill AF. It was called Refuge Church of Christ. Yeah,
I think that was where I spent every Sunday in
(15:33):
my childhood.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Mine was St. Patrick's.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh wow, very nice? Okay, cool, all right? What does
anybody else want to share something they think? I need
to know as we go it in this journey. Thank
you Chris Well.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I will share mit. I was a bit skeptical as well.
I can't be an overshare, which makes me nervous about
relationships on my mom's side of the family, so I
coming into this, I wanted to pour into It feels
weird saying like my dad's side, my mom's side, but
(16:07):
my dad, my siblings on my dad's side, because we've
always I feel like since we've found Chris, we've all
tried to stay in contact with each other because we
also found my brother Lance right before we found Chris.
So yeah, it was like since Chris came it kind
(16:27):
of connected that clue, we've always stayed in contact. I've
had a lot of trauma with my siblings on my
mom's side. Now that I'm in a healing space, I
want to pour into my siblings that have been there
for me, which I've been on my dad's side, which
(16:47):
is so weird because my dad didn't raise any of us.
Speaker 7 (16:51):
So out anytime.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
We get together, even if it's two of us, three
of us, five of us, a thousand of us, people
literally think grew up together because we're just so tight
but we haven't even we haven't all been together one time.
My brother's wedding will be the first time we're all
gonna be together, except for the one that's missing.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
We don't know if she's we don't know, We don't
know her.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
But yes, I I I lost my oldest brother and
I lost my oldest sister on my mom's side.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And that's the night to right. No, no, this is
on my mom's side.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
I didn't even know that about Chris. I just learned
this right now.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Hey, Jasmine, can I interpt for a second? How many
kids did your father have?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Oh that.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
You want to Chris is the oldest.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
We don't know if Jasmine's actually the baby, but she's
the baby right now.
Speaker 7 (18:00):
He was the baby.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
But there's a sister who is Italian. Her mother's Italian,
and she is in Connecticut. So our dad really has
helped populate the New England area. The only two siblings
from my father that grown up together from birth and
up is Lewis and I. So my mom had two
(18:21):
children with my father, and my dad does have one
more child. That is she's a young woman who's out
in the world that we would love to connect with.
That's one of the things that just to be fair
about our father growing up, because I was his eldest
without knowing where Chris was. My dad always prayed to
(18:41):
find all his children always, you know it said, like
I just pray, and he always spoke about Chris. So
I grew up knowing I had my big brother Chris,
but I didn't know about Lance, nor did I know
about the youngest sister until later on. But yeah, we're
so much alike all of our siblings that are from
(19:03):
our mother. The interesting thing about us, we don't, like
Jasmine said, it's weird saying my siblings from my mom
because when we're all together, no one separates that that's
just Jasmine's sister. No, we all claim each other's siblings.
I never remembered growing up that the women my dad
(19:24):
had children with, I've never seen our mothers disagree. Our
mothers were always four. Like, if you're going to see
your sibling, go see your siblings. So it's where although
we're just a different family as far as DNA, we
all claim each other.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
So yeah, yeah, so that means they're six right now.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
It is six.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
Dad's biological children are six.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Elijah, what was it like growing up in a family
like this one, discovery uncles and aunts.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
When you something that I wanted to bring up was
sort of uncertainty for me. I grew up with a
lot of uncertainty because my childhood was vastly different from
everyone else's. Here once again the only child. I had
both of my parents in my life for a while,
(20:19):
but it was more because I had to move back
and forth between them. At one point, it was just
different neighborhoods, and then it eventually grew to different states.
I got to see different parts of my family, from
my dad and mom's side and my stepmom's side because
(20:40):
I like stepmom, I got to see different family dynamics.
It has made me through the good and bad, and
very uncertain about certain things. I've always been a loner
by nature, but then also I've also grown up to
be somewhat cynical two and because that's like when you
(21:04):
grow up with so many different people and you see
how much like when people will first present themselves to
be one thing and then they eventually be ill approach
a situation with a certain amount of caution. That has
made me question things about family, love, relationships, myself and
(21:30):
you know, I'm not necessarily Yeah, it's a it's a
very interesting what's it called conversation? Because when you guys,
when all everyone here talks about how you know, it
didn't differentiate between siblings or who's really connected. They just
(21:51):
all adopted each other. For me, it would be I
would be a but more I guess you could say
skeptical and analytical about it, because you know, I just
that's the way I grew up. Like separation was the
name of the game and a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Of instances, how did you deal with that?
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Moving around? I did stuff on my own. I learned
to entertain myself be in my own world. It wasn't
as confusing in that situation. Oftentimes I would be the
oldest of the group, and for a while I learned
to be able to, you know, get people together. Or
(22:36):
if I wasn't on my own, I was with other people,
but I would always either be like the one who
was the quietest or the one who was the loudest.
Like it just depended on the situation, and it was
mostly just adapting to whether the situation needed that. I
learned to do.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Eliza, you use the word confusing a few times about
that upbringing. Would it be good for you if there
was some clarity that came out of this process, some
family clarity.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
I think it would be, but I'm not sure if
that's possible.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
But if it is possible, you think it'd be a
good thing. If we're able to pull it off, that
would be a good thing for you in your life.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Sure you cool?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay, Thanks Elijah. The conversation doesn't stop here. We'll be
right back with more family therapy, anything else that anyone
wants to share that might be helpful and useful for
me as we go into this process.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Well, Elijah, you're like, you're you're full on right just here. Yeah,
you know, thank you so much for bringing up the
confusion and speaking on that, because I do think that
that is important, and I think for me, like Elijah
and I, I've always wanted us to have therapy. So
(24:01):
this is a beautiful opportunity. I just didn't know that
it was going to be in this dynamic of us
being able to speak about everything, as far as whatever
we could clear up between son and mother, because I'm
so I'm big on everything happens at home. You know,
war and peace happened at home, and we bring it
into the world. Elijah has always been a peaceful soulful
(24:27):
old soul, freight straight from the wound, like Homie came
out with a little mustache like he was. There's so
many times I remember that I would just sit down
with him and ask him, like who was he reincarnated for?
And did he really come into the world to, like,
you know, save and help so many people in the world.
(24:49):
So I am opened and elliot, I'm a complete open book.
So I don't know where or what questions you want
to ask, but like, I really want Elijah to be
able to come out of here with as much clarity
as possible, with the support of my siblings as well,
because we've all been around like Chris coming into our
(25:11):
lives was when Elijah was two. Chris has been a
huge part as well as although we didn't know him
growing up, we know each other's children per se like
you know so.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And the reason why I think that stood out to
me is if I put myself in Elijah's shoes, most kids,
it's like, Okay, there's Mom, and there's I know who
my uncles and aunts are, I know my cousins are.
It helps us form the world in Elijah's case, he
was being introduced to, like, oh, you've now got a
new uncle that we didn't know Aunt. Things were moving pieces,
(25:44):
which is not necessarily bad. It would be probably a
wonderful thing to help like clarity and crystallization happen. Because
Elijah said something super important and I agree with you.
There's something about Elijah, Gladdys, there's something about your son
when you describemen as an old soul. I was like, yep,
that's how I experience him too. He seems peaceful in
(26:05):
the zen kind of way. He said something that my
psychotherapy ears really stood out, which is I'm skeptical of relationships,
and I think that speaks to growing up in an
environment where things were moving around him, which isn't anybody's
fault necessarily. Like I'm not saying anyone did a bad
job or anything, but the environment he was in contributes
(26:27):
to him being cautious in those ways now and I
as I hear these the story and I'm just like, Wow,
this is going to be super impactful when we get
it organized and making sense. Because Elijah is like the
next generation. He will experience the impact of that. The
(26:49):
stuff you guys are doing are going to impact Elijah's
unborn children because it'll it'll kind of take the family
and make it make sense because your your family story
is an unusual family story. It's not the typical family story. Again,
it doesn't make it bad in anyway, but it means wow, like,
what if we did some things kind of organize it
(27:10):
in a way that made sense and added safety. You
probably start experiencing Elijah's being more confident and being more
kind of assured of himself as he goes into other
dynamics in his life. And it's exciting. I'm super excited
now to start to start this journey.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I have a special relationship with Elijah and I you know,
there's things, you know, I feel like the best auntie,
so you know, they vent to me a lot. And
because I want to keep you know, our relationship sacred
and I want their voice to be heard, I think
this is going to be a great opportunity for all
(27:49):
of us, but especially Elijah, so.
Speaker 7 (27:52):
His voice can be heard as well.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
This was the beginning the gathering of four family men
with mixed reviews about therapy, coming together for the purpose
of understanding one another more. Chris Gladys Elijah and Jasmine,
four voices, one table and stories on top of stories
of the past and of the present. And as we
(28:18):
proceed in the coming episodes, I will aim to inspire
these stories to pivot towards the future, the stories that
haven't happened yet. But it's important to envision our ideal selves,
who we want to be, how we want to interact,
and the connections we seek to have with our family members.
(28:39):
We'll go deeper into the legacy of trauma, into the
role of survival, into the fragile yet powerful work of
healing between a mother and her son, and how to
get out of your own way. Because this is not
just therapy, this is a family's journey and we are
just getting started. I would love to hear from you
(29:01):
about your healing journey, your family and your feedback. Leave
a review, send a DM, connect with me on socials
at Elliott Speaks. Family Therapy is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect Podcast Network. Special thanks to our
assistant Glendale Seppe. It's produced by jack Quee Thomas and
the executive producer Dolly S.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
S Fisher.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
For more podcasts from The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. The
content presented on the Family Therapy Podcast serves solely for
educational and informational purposes. It should not be considered a
replacement for personalized medical or mental health guidance and does
not constitute a provider patient relationship. It is advisable to
consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any
(29:42):
specific concerns or questions you may have.
Welcome back to Family Therapy. I'm Elliot Connie, and this
is season two of Family Therapy. We have a new
family joining us this season. I think I would describe
as family as being without an anchor, and a really
really healthy family will we'll have something of a matriarch
(00:26):
or a patriarch that brings a family together for family
routines and family events, like for example, you might have
like a grandmother and everybody everybody congregates there for Christmas,
or you might have a grandfather and everybody congregates there
for a July fourth celebration, or maybe one of the
(00:48):
fathers or aunts and uncles. But there's there's something that
becomes like the center point or the anchor of the
family that causes the family to reconnect and stay connected.
And I think the best way I'd describe this family
as being without those anchor points and you have people
(01:09):
that it's almost like we love each other, but we
don't know how to build a routine that includes one another.
And I think that started early on from the father
of the adult children that will be featured in this season,
because the family was very disconnected almost from the very beginning.
(01:33):
This family never really learned how to build routines and relationships.
And I think this was a journey of not just reconnecting,
but in the reconnection, learning how to build habits and
routines that sustain the reconnection.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Jaman, this is my sister, my brother, my nephew. I
begged for them to be here, so I'm truly grateful.
I'm the youngest on my dad's side. They're the oldest.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Hi, my name is Gladys. I'm super excited to be
here with my family. I am my father's second eldest
of the girls, so I'm just really grateful for this opportunity.
I'm so happy. When Jasmine told me and I was like, yeah,
I was really excited to even hear that I had joined.
(02:42):
And I was like, all right, Auntie, all right, gathering
us all up.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I see, I'm the oldest from my father.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
I'm Chris, so I was the and I don't know
if I'm the last one to be found. We have
a mystery sibling, so we don't know yet. We have
a mystery sibling out there, so it might be the
second to last. But it was wild for the founder.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Wow, Okay, how long how long has it been since
you've been found Chris.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
Well, shoot, almost like twenty years. I was in my
mid thirties, so I'm like fifty two getting up there.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
But but yeah, twenty years.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
Hey, yeah, I'm going by Elisha, and I guess I'm
the odd one out because I don't have any siblings.
So yeah, I am what's it called twenty two years old? Now?
Just turned twenty two a couple of months ago, and
you know, Auntie Jasmine came here and asked me to join.
At first I was a bit skeptical, but after learning
(03:42):
I can you know, have being more non ins I
was like, oh, okay, I'm fine, coming on.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I love it. And so you know you're not one
of their siblings, So what is your familial connection?
Speaker 6 (03:53):
Gladys is my mom and uncle Chris is my uncle.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Elijah is a young man on a journey of authenticity that,
for one reason or another, some things have happened along
his journey that make it hard for him to be
his authentic self. It makes it hard for him to
express his wants, needs, emotions, especially when those emotions might
be negative, and also needing to remind himself that the
(04:22):
things that bring him happiness and joy are things he
needs to make sure are a part of his life.
Gladys is intense. Gladys loves her family so much that
I think sometimes some of her siblings and some of
the family members experience her love is abrasive, and experience
(04:47):
her language and her desires for them as abrasive. And
I think I think Gladys needed to learn throughout this
journey patience to allow people, autonomy, to allow people to
be who they are supposed to be, and she does
not have to control each and every detail.
Speaker 7 (05:11):
Chris.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Chris is interesting to me because I think Chris he
has such leadership qualities and such a desire to be
the leader, to be the patriarch, if you will, and
I think his journey is about learning how to do
that and to bring people in and to be the
person that the younger generation in the family can look
(05:36):
up to and depend on to keep them to continue
to function with routines that are good and healthy for
a family. Jasmine is also on a journey, maybe not
so much of a journey of authenticity as I described
with Elijah, but potentially more so a journey of self
confidence and self esteem, a journey of realizing her own
(05:59):
truth and her own payer hour and realizing that though
mistakes have been made throughout life, like you can still
be the things that you want to still be and
make yourself and others proud of you. I think the
biggest challenge is how easy it is to not build
(06:24):
family sustaining routines. Like we live in a world where
it's just so easy to like live our own lives
and be in our own silo and just be in
our own bubble. And if you do that, before you
know what, you're going to turn around and that cousin
you knew when they were two is now twenty two,
or that uncle you haven't seen in you know, however
(06:47):
long is now passed away. Like it's just so easy
to just live our own lives and to be in
our own bubble. And I think the biggest challenge is
when you are working to reconnect with family, you have
to do some really uncomfortable work, which is I have
(07:10):
to step outside my bubble and do actions that I
wouldn't ordinarily do to reconnect with family. And the other
thing you have to do is you have to expose
yourself to hurts because one of the things that the
family experienced throughout this journey was rejection, because what happens
(07:32):
when you reach out to that cousin or that uncle
or that aunt or that you know, long long lost
sibling you haven't talked to in a minute. You reach
out to them and they don't return your phone call,
don't return your text message, or something gets lost in
translation because we're not super bonded, and you get your
feelings hurt, Like you have to expose yourself to being hurt,
(07:54):
to being rejected, and most people that's not a fun
experience to do. And I think the biggest challenge was
overcoming all of that and being like, in spite of
it being uncomfortable, in spite of it being unusual, it
is valuable and we must do it. So I just
(08:21):
want to kind of get to know, you guys, what
should I know as we go into this experience that
you guys think would be helpful, Like, what's important for
me to know?
Speaker 5 (08:33):
My thing is learning about my siblings, my nephew, about
their struggles, their traumas. That way, I can also be
able to assist and understand their struggles, what they've been through,
they can understand mine, so we can move forward. And
because that's the thing, like I understand what therapy did
for me, how it helped me, and how I can
(08:54):
say that it's okay, you know, to be able to
talk to someone, because mental health is everything. It's one
of the most important things besides having health itself in
the body. So for me, I know how important, you know,
therapy is, and I know how important it is to
have family around you that you can talk to and
express and understand you know, it's okay not to be
(09:16):
okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love
within each other and know that you know, we all
love each other and we have love and have each
other back because sometimes you know, like I come from
a big family from my adopter side, my father's side,
on my mom's side, they're all a big family. And
my nephew, you know, he's the only but like for me,
(09:39):
I have so many siblings, so many cousins. You can
kind of sometimes get separated from family because it's so big,
or you don't always talk to all your siblings or
family members. Sometimes you you know, move apart from them.
So to come together, especially with this and have individuals
that understand you, it makes it easy to go to
(10:02):
your life because it makes it easier to pick up
that phone to be like, oh, I know who I
can call. I know who I have within my family
that I can talk to and relate to.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Chris, do I understand you were adopted and raised in
a different family and then these guys found you?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
What was that like to be found by these guys?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Chris's girlfriend found us?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Chris girlfriend, Chris, why did she do that?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
I had expressed to her, I was trying to find
my family a long time ago.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Through the Navy. It didn't work out. She was in
the Navy with me.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
She had got out and she still does, but she
works for the FBI. Up when I was actually stationed
out here in Florida, I think around oh three be four,
she had asked me, Hey, I remember you know us
talking about you not finding your family. You want to
find your family? She goes, I'm in that position to
do that. I said, I only know my grandmother's name.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
I didn't even know my dad's name. He was not
on my birth certificate. Dad's grandmother, my mom's grandmother. So yeah,
because I didn't know the last time I had seen
our father, I was seven years old. I remember the
day I was like in front of my adopted grandmother's
y already pulled up, like and you know, some small
(11:17):
station wagon budget you know, Puerto Rican family.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Hey, and like hey, I'll take you to the movies.
I was like, oh okay. He was like you want
to do that?
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Like yeah, then boom that was it. Never seen him
dad was young when Yeah. Yeah, he was a teenager
when he had me. So he was trying to get
his life together. And I know he was at that
time back and forth through Puerto Rico and the United States.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
But like I said, I was seven years old when
I last seen him. Yeah, it was like sixteen. He's
like sixteen.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
So I grew up with my adopted family. I had
my traumas.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
I had to get used to being separated from my family,
had a lot of questions why I didn't grow up
with my real family.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
So it was a lot going through.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
I had therapy all the way into I was in
high school because I just went through a lot, you know.
And then Boston is not a great city to go
through something like that because I grew up in Roxburgh.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I grew up in the Burry right on Blue Hill ass.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
And so trying to deal with that, trying to deal
with the inner city was a lot. I had been
locked up dys all that, but like you know, I
went to a couple of therapists, so I found my
right therapists and it helped me.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Like like I said, it helped me.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
But with finding my family was the last piece of
my life, you know, not being complete, like the last puzzle, right,
So when that happened, that was that was cool. I
remember my little sister Jasmine was there with my little
niece at the time, she was a baby, and that
was cool.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
I still got the pictures and everything. It was on
the eleven o'clock news.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Chris, Why was your family reuniting on the news? Lots
of families night, what made yours?
Speaker 5 (13:02):
What happened was when I was four years old, my
mom got in a fight with one of my siblings,
one of my siblings on my mom's side. My youngest brother,
Marcle got into a fight within that fight. It was
a tragedy night, so I was for my My mom
was in there fighting, having a physical fight. She ended
(13:25):
up sustaining a lot of wounds hit her head, so
she had a brain hemage.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
So she died that night during that fight.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
My two year old sister, she was in the Bathtom
alone during that fight, so she had slipped, hit her
head and drowned on the water.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
So that's why he was crazy.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Because my other brother had took our younger brother out
the house to go out and call the police. He
was five, and so that's why it became like a
tragic thing, and it was on the news.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So that's why it made the news.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
All those years later. Your family also made the news. Yeah,
do you remember when you're then girlfriend told you she
found your family.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Well, she surprised it on me.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
The day like they had planned, like they were at
a center that was in Roxbury up in the Mission Hill.
I thought I was just going to see my little sister,
Jasmine for the first time. That's how our dad brought
it to me. He was like, oh, you know your sister,
We're gonna go pick up your sister. I was like,
all right, cool, I'm just going for the ride. She
was like, oh, yeah, your sister, she's at some party.
(14:30):
We got to pick her up from there. I'm like
all right, you know, I'm not you know, I'm just
like all right, that's cool. I'm just trying to see
my sister. I walk in and everybody was there because
my girlfriend at the time, she had told me she
had to go back to DC, back to d C,
so she faked like she left, went back out of town.
(14:51):
So I'm just like, I'm just chilling with my dad
and going and had my son with me. We walked
up in the center, read it by everybody. It was
a big shop because I was like, what was going on?
Speaker 4 (15:01):
You know? But that was cool, you know, and had
the news. I'm looking around like what in the world.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
My younger brother, Marca, was one of the first person
that came up and grabbed me. And I've never seen
my brothers, so that was cool.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
You reminded me of something I don't always think about.
Bluehill Ave. I spent a lot of my childhood. My
dad lived right off of Blue Hill Ave and my
childhood church it was in Georchester and it was right
off Blue Hill AF. It was called Refuge Church of Christ. Yeah,
I think that was where I spent every Sunday in
(15:33):
my childhood.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Mine was St. Patrick's.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh wow, very nice? Okay, cool, all right? What does
anybody else want to share something they think? I need
to know as we go it in this journey. Thank
you Chris Well.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I will share mit. I was a bit skeptical as well.
I can't be an overshare, which makes me nervous about
relationships on my mom's side of the family, so I
coming into this, I wanted to pour into It feels
weird saying like my dad's side, my mom's side, but
(16:07):
my dad, my siblings on my dad's side, because we've
always I feel like since we've found Chris, we've all
tried to stay in contact with each other because we
also found my brother Lance right before we found Chris.
So yeah, it was like since Chris came it kind
(16:27):
of connected that clue, we've always stayed in contact. I've
had a lot of trauma with my siblings on my
mom's side. Now that I'm in a healing space, I
want to pour into my siblings that have been there
for me, which I've been on my dad's side, which
(16:47):
is so weird because my dad didn't raise any of us.
Speaker 7 (16:51):
So out anytime.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
We get together, even if it's two of us, three
of us, five of us, a thousand of us, people
literally think grew up together because we're just so tight
but we haven't even we haven't all been together one time.
My brother's wedding will be the first time we're all
gonna be together, except for the one that's missing.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
We don't know if she's we don't know, We don't
know her.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
But yes, I I I lost my oldest brother and
I lost my oldest sister on my mom's side.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And that's the night to right. No, no, this is
on my mom's side.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
I didn't even know that about Chris. I just learned
this right now.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Hey, Jasmine, can I interpt for a second? How many
kids did your father have?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Oh that.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
You want to Chris is the oldest.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
We don't know if Jasmine's actually the baby, but she's
the baby right now.
Speaker 7 (18:00):
He was the baby.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
But there's a sister who is Italian. Her mother's Italian,
and she is in Connecticut. So our dad really has
helped populate the New England area. The only two siblings
from my father that grown up together from birth and
up is Lewis and I. So my mom had two
(18:21):
children with my father, and my dad does have one
more child. That is she's a young woman who's out
in the world that we would love to connect with.
That's one of the things that just to be fair
about our father growing up, because I was his eldest
without knowing where Chris was. My dad always prayed to
(18:41):
find all his children always, you know it said, like
I just pray, and he always spoke about Chris. So
I grew up knowing I had my big brother Chris,
but I didn't know about Lance, nor did I know
about the youngest sister until later on. But yeah, we're
so much alike all of our siblings that are from
(19:03):
our mother. The interesting thing about us, we don't, like
Jasmine said, it's weird saying my siblings from my mom
because when we're all together, no one separates that that's
just Jasmine's sister. No, we all claim each other's siblings.
I never remembered growing up that the women my dad
(19:24):
had children with, I've never seen our mothers disagree. Our
mothers were always four. Like, if you're going to see
your sibling, go see your siblings. So it's where although
we're just a different family as far as DNA, we
all claim each other.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
So yeah, yeah, so that means they're six right now.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
It is six.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
Dad's biological children are six.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Elijah, what was it like growing up in a family
like this one, discovery uncles and aunts.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
When you something that I wanted to bring up was
sort of uncertainty for me. I grew up with a
lot of uncertainty because my childhood was vastly different from
everyone else's. Here once again the only child. I had
both of my parents in my life for a while,
(20:19):
but it was more because I had to move back
and forth between them. At one point, it was just
different neighborhoods, and then it eventually grew to different states.
I got to see different parts of my family, from
my dad and mom's side and my stepmom's side because
(20:40):
I like stepmom, I got to see different family dynamics.
It has made me through the good and bad, and
very uncertain about certain things. I've always been a loner
by nature, but then also I've also grown up to
be somewhat cynical two and because that's like when you
(21:04):
grow up with so many different people and you see
how much like when people will first present themselves to
be one thing and then they eventually be ill approach
a situation with a certain amount of caution. That has
made me question things about family, love, relationships, myself and
(21:30):
you know, I'm not necessarily Yeah, it's a it's a
very interesting what's it called conversation? Because when you guys,
when all everyone here talks about how you know, it
didn't differentiate between siblings or who's really connected. They just
(21:51):
all adopted each other. For me, it would be I
would be a but more I guess you could say
skeptical and analytical about it, because you know, I just
that's the way I grew up. Like separation was the
name of the game and a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Of instances, how did you deal with that?
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Moving around? I did stuff on my own. I learned
to entertain myself be in my own world. It wasn't
as confusing in that situation. Oftentimes I would be the
oldest of the group, and for a while I learned
to be able to, you know, get people together. Or
(22:36):
if I wasn't on my own, I was with other people,
but I would always either be like the one who
was the quietest or the one who was the loudest.
Like it just depended on the situation, and it was
mostly just adapting to whether the situation needed that. I
learned to do.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Eliza, you use the word confusing a few times about
that upbringing. Would it be good for you if there
was some clarity that came out of this process, some
family clarity.
Speaker 6 (23:08):
I think it would be, but I'm not sure if
that's possible.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
But if it is possible, you think it'd be a
good thing. If we're able to pull it off, that
would be a good thing for you in your life.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Sure you cool?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay, Thanks Elijah. The conversation doesn't stop here. We'll be
right back with more family therapy, anything else that anyone
wants to share that might be helpful and useful for
me as we go into this process.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Well, Elijah, you're like, you're you're full on right just here. Yeah,
you know, thank you so much for bringing up the
confusion and speaking on that, because I do think that
that is important, and I think for me, like Elijah
and I, I've always wanted us to have therapy. So
(24:01):
this is a beautiful opportunity. I just didn't know that
it was going to be in this dynamic of us
being able to speak about everything, as far as whatever
we could clear up between son and mother, because I'm
so I'm big on everything happens at home. You know,
war and peace happened at home, and we bring it
into the world. Elijah has always been a peaceful soulful
(24:27):
old soul, freight straight from the wound, like Homie came
out with a little mustache like he was. There's so
many times I remember that I would just sit down
with him and ask him, like who was he reincarnated for?
And did he really come into the world to, like,
you know, save and help so many people in the world.
(24:49):
So I am opened and elliot, I'm a complete open book.
So I don't know where or what questions you want
to ask, but like, I really want Elijah to be
able to come out of here with as much clarity
as possible, with the support of my siblings as well,
because we've all been around like Chris coming into our
(25:11):
lives was when Elijah was two. Chris has been a
huge part as well as although we didn't know him
growing up, we know each other's children per se like
you know so.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And the reason why I think that stood out to
me is if I put myself in Elijah's shoes, most kids,
it's like, Okay, there's Mom, and there's I know who
my uncles and aunts are, I know my cousins are.
It helps us form the world in Elijah's case, he
was being introduced to, like, oh, you've now got a
new uncle that we didn't know Aunt. Things were moving pieces,
(25:44):
which is not necessarily bad. It would be probably a
wonderful thing to help like clarity and crystallization happen. Because
Elijah said something super important and I agree with you.
There's something about Elijah, Gladdys, there's something about your son
when you describemen as an old soul. I was like, yep,
that's how I experience him too. He seems peaceful in
(26:05):
the zen kind of way. He said something that my
psychotherapy ears really stood out, which is I'm skeptical of relationships,
and I think that speaks to growing up in an
environment where things were moving around him, which isn't anybody's
fault necessarily. Like I'm not saying anyone did a bad
job or anything, but the environment he was in contributes
(26:27):
to him being cautious in those ways now and I
as I hear these the story and I'm just like, Wow,
this is going to be super impactful when we get
it organized and making sense. Because Elijah is like the
next generation. He will experience the impact of that. The
(26:49):
stuff you guys are doing are going to impact Elijah's
unborn children because it'll it'll kind of take the family
and make it make sense because your your family story
is an unusual family story. It's not the typical family story. Again,
it doesn't make it bad in anyway, but it means wow, like,
what if we did some things kind of organize it
(27:10):
in a way that made sense and added safety. You
probably start experiencing Elijah's being more confident and being more
kind of assured of himself as he goes into other
dynamics in his life. And it's exciting. I'm super excited
now to start to start this journey.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I have a special relationship with Elijah and I you know,
there's things, you know, I feel like the best auntie,
so you know, they vent to me a lot. And
because I want to keep you know, our relationship sacred
and I want their voice to be heard, I think
this is going to be a great opportunity for all
(27:49):
of us, but especially Elijah, so.
Speaker 7 (27:52):
His voice can be heard as well.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
This was the beginning the gathering of four family men
with mixed reviews about therapy, coming together for the purpose
of understanding one another more. Chris Gladys Elijah and Jasmine,
four voices, one table and stories on top of stories
of the past and of the present. And as we
(28:18):
proceed in the coming episodes, I will aim to inspire
these stories to pivot towards the future, the stories that
haven't happened yet. But it's important to envision our ideal selves,
who we want to be, how we want to interact,
and the connections we seek to have with our family members.
(28:39):
We'll go deeper into the legacy of trauma, into the
role of survival, into the fragile yet powerful work of
healing between a mother and her son, and how to
get out of your own way. Because this is not
just therapy, this is a family's journey and we are
just getting started. I would love to hear from you
(29:01):
about your healing journey, your family and your feedback. Leave
a review, send a DM, connect with me on socials
at Elliott Speaks. Family Therapy is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect Podcast Network. Special thanks to our
assistant Glendale Seppe. It's produced by jack Quee Thomas and
the executive producer Dolly S.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
S Fisher.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
For more podcasts from The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. The
content presented on the Family Therapy Podcast serves solely for
educational and informational purposes. It should not be considered a
replacement for personalized medical or mental health guidance and does
not constitute a provider patient relationship. It is advisable to
consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any
(29:42):
specific concerns or questions you may have.
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