August 7, 2024 • 45 mins
Tasmin Carter works as an executive assistant at a financial services firm. But her story to stability and success was full of obstacles. A survivor of childhood abuse, an unhealthy marriage, and stage three colon cancer, Tasmin’s story is one of incredible resilience, and we're incredibly thankful to Tasmin for sharing her story with us for the first time publicly. On this episode of She Pivots, Tasmin recounts the secret of her father’s affair, the aftermath of the heart-wrenching decision to put her child up for adoption at 17, the decision to leave her husband, her courageous battle with colon cancer, and the creation of her nonprofit "Forward Hope," which helps kids aging out of the foster care system.
She Pivots was created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. To learn more about Tasmin, follow us on Instagram @ShePivotsThePodcast or visit shepivotsthepodcast.com.
Support the show: https://www.shepivotsthepodcast.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, welcome back to She Pivots. This is Tasmin Carter.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
women who dared to pivot out of one career and
into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm honored to have Tasmin Carter on the show to
share her story and with the world for the first
time ever. Her story is one of resilience, strength, and
empathy after going through some unimaginable hard times. When I
first met Tasmin, the first thing I recognized was her
warmth and kindness. It radiates around her and you'd never
(00:53):
know the hardship she's gone through. Tasmin is the daughter
of an affair between her mother, who is black, and
her father, a white man with a family from the Midwest.
It was a complicated relationship for Tasman that would eventually
come full circle for her later in life. Beyond her parents,
her childhood was equally tumultuous. She was placed into foster
(01:14):
care when she was a young teen. Then at just seventeen,
she made the heart wrenching decision to place her baby
for adoption. With no high school education and nowhere to go,
Tasman was homeless, staying with anyone who would take her in.
But she knew this couldn't be it for her, so
she worked tirelessly to earn her ged and started applying
for temp jobs. Smart and hard working, it's no surprise
(01:39):
that the very first company she worked for loved her
and kept her on full time. Single handedly pulling herself
out of an incredibly dire situation, Tasmin began to build
a life and a family. She got married, had her son,
got divorced, then put herself through night school and finished
after twelve years. Then Tasman's life took another dramatic turn
(02:04):
when she is diagnosed with stage three cancer, a battle
she faced with unwavering faith and courage. Now Tasman has
channeled her own experience and started Forward Hope, a nonprofit
dedicated to providing a home to those who have aged
out of the foster care system. This is just scratching
the surface of tasman incredibly inspiring story. This truly is
(02:26):
an episode you won't want to miss. Before we get
into Tasman's story, I want to take a moment. To
note that this episode contains references to abuse and other
sensitive topics.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Please listen with care. My name is Tasman Carter. I
am an executive assistant at Tiaa, a financial services firm.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Okay, so we're going to wind all the way back.
Tell us about little Tasman. Where were you born? What
was her family like?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So, little Tasman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, the South,
born and bred. I love to say it that way.
I am the third daughter of my mom and the
third child of my dad. I am the product of
a biracial relationship, which was highly unusual in the seventies
(03:19):
in the South. And in addition to that, my dad
was married, always was married. So he do someone other
than your mother? Yes, So he ended up fathering a
child in the South that his family was unaware of.
He met my mom when he came in town on
a business trip and she was singing in the lounge
of the hotel that he was staying at, and she
(03:40):
got off the stage to take a break and he
called her over, and you know, it was like, hi,
you know, what's your name? And so they ended up
talking and he goes, what's your sign and she goes,
I'm a Taurus. He goes, what's your birthday and she
goes April twenty first, and he was like, that's my
birthday too, and she was like, no, you're lying, pull
out your license, pulls out the line, and then thus
(04:01):
begins the two year affair, which I.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Was the result of. Your mother must have had a
lot of of charismas like a lot of spice.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Did she bring that into the rest of her life. No, Actually,
I'm going to say so. She ended up being the
single parent of three daughters, and I think that that
takes a little bit out of you, trying to do
everything on your own. She would be married a couple
of times here and there, but never anything that had
lasting effects to it. So life just kind of got
the best of her. So she still has it, but
(04:31):
I don't think she ever used it to the potential
that she could have.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What did you picture for your future when you were young?
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was very much in survival mode from the time
I can remember really just taking the day as it
came and almost bracing for each day, not really looking
forward to anything but trying to see how I could
survive the day or endure the day. I can't remember
a time until I was grown that I could look
(05:00):
with anticipation to the future. What was the relationship like
with your father? So I never knew who my dad was.
My mom did not tell me his name until I
was sixteen years old. On my sixteenth birthday, I receive
a card in the mail and it says, happy birthday,
can't wait to see you, love your dad. I was
(05:21):
like what. So I go into my mom like she
proudly hands me the card to like, here, you've got
mail today, and I read the card and I go
what is this? And she goes, he's coming in town.
I said what, I said, what is his name? And
then that's when she told me his name. I didn't
even know the man's name until I turned sixty. You
curious or not even Oh? No, absolutely. I had asked
(05:41):
multiple times about him, like where is my dad? Do
I have any other siblings? Who is my dad? Why
do I look so different than the rest of my siblings?
So all I knew is that my dad was white.
That's all I knew. Yeah, So what was that first
time meeting your dad? That was very uncomfortable? He came
in town and we had dinner, and he's fifteen years
(06:03):
older than my mom, so totally different culture. He's from
the Midwest, we're from the South. And they were just,
you know, getting along so well, and I felt like
I was more of a onlooker. Oh, your mom was there, Yeah,
she went to dinner with us. I didn't want to
be with him alone. I didn't know who this man was.
(06:23):
What did he tell you about the rest of his life?
He said, And I did ask. I said, why haven't
you told your So that's when I found out he
was married. He told me that he was married, and
I said, well, why haven't you told your family that
I exist? And he said that it would kill his
wife if she knew that he had been unfaithful and
(06:44):
had fathered a child outside of their relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, how did that make you feel? Like? Nothing?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Still, she tried to maintain a relationship with her father.
It wasn't the best relationship, so he had set up
a po box for me to write too. He maintained
the secrecy throughout his entire life. He never divulged to
his family that he fathered a child outside of that
primary relationship. So he would call me from time to
(07:13):
time He would write letters for you know, birthdays and
major events, but it was never anything that was It
just didn't have any depth. It was very superficial and
like he would never like I never called him dad.
He never said I loved you. What he would say
at the end of the conversations was.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
God love you.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
That's how he would in the conversations, God Love you.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Tasman's childhood was anything but stable. By just eighteen, she
had moved over sixteen times. They were always very quick.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It would be from not paying the rent, or her
being in domestic violence relationships, in needing to escape. Nothing
was ever planned that I can remember. I remember days
when she would leave and say, okay, I'll be back
tonight and when I come back, I'll bring food. And
she would come home at the end of the day
(08:09):
with a loaf of bread and a pack of sandwich
meat and maybe some kool aid, and that is what
we would eat for that day. I remember often going
to the food pantry, always using food stamps to pay
for food, often just going hungry.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
That charismatic woman that Tasman spoke about earlier didn't show
up for her in that way, let alone protect her
as Tasmin grew up, things got.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Worse, so I was abused from the age of three
to thirteen. At the age of thirteen, I was removed
from my home and put into foster care. I had
told my mom regularly over the years, because she had
three daughters, she was really a magnet for pedophiles, and
(08:59):
she never really grasped that. So me and another sister
would always tell her, you know, we're having to endure
this not only from your husband's she was married five times,
but also from their friends. So pedophiles have friends, and
they bring the friends along whenever they have free reign
to the children. So we told her regularly and often,
(09:19):
and she just refused to believe us. She would say
that we didn't want to see her happy, or we
were lying, or she any excuse that She just did
not want to accept that the man she had chosen
or who had chosen her, was capable of doing this,
so she left us in situations for long periods of time.
(09:40):
So I've been groomed by several pedophiles, had to endure
several of their advances. But when I got to eighteen,
I've learned that pedophiles have a particular type in an
age group that they like. And so at that point
I was starting my body was starting to you know,
I was heading into puberty and his grooming was and
(10:01):
I knew that if I didn't get out of that
home soon, that I would be at a point of
no return, like I wasn't going to be able to
come back from that. I still had some resilience, I
still had some fight, I still had some you're not
doing this to me. But you know, after so long
of an adult not responding to your cries for help,
(10:22):
then you can easily get to the point where you
feel like there's no hope. So I don't know how
they do it today because of all the technology, But
back in the day, there were posters put up on
the walls in my school and it said if you
need help or if you just need someone to talk to,
you can call this number, and it was for kids.
(10:42):
And both of my sisters at this point had left
the home. So now I'm at home by myself. So
you're about thirteen here, and I am knowing that I
need to do something. Now she's not going to do it.
So if something's going to get done, I'm going to
have to do it. So I called the number and
I was just talking to the guy was a young fellow.
His name was Jake. I'll never forget his name, and
(11:04):
he probably was in his twenties. He probably was getting
his graduate degree. And this was probably, you know, hours
towards that, because I could tell he was really young.
And when I started telling him what I was having
to endure at home, he started asking very poignant questions,
what school do you go to? So now I was like,
I'm not telling you that, like you're not wrecking my life.
Like I wanted help, but I didn't know how to
(11:25):
get out of the situation. But he was so good.
He asked me just enough questions to where he could
figure out where I went to school, who my teachers were,
how he could help me. And the very next day,
I'm at school and I get called out from one
of my classrooms into the guidance office and there's a
police officer, there's a social worker, and there's a guardian
at item. And that's when they informed me that I
(11:47):
would not be going back home. And oddly enough, as
scared as I was, my time in foster care was
the safest that I ever felt.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
How you feel safe?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And secure and scared out your mind and truly is
an ox smron But I knew that finally I was safe.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Had you ever thought that you would be taken from
the home like it had been something you had contemplated could happen. No,
it never.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Occurred to me that they In my mind, in that
child's mind, he was going to go and I was
going to get to stay. It never occurred to me
that they were going to take me. But when they
took me, there's what psychologists call a light bulb moment
or memory that you always remember all of the details,
the smells, all of that, and I'll never forget. It
(12:36):
was the very first court hearing, and this court hearing
was going to decide when I was going to be
able to go back home and under what circumstances. And
we're in there and the judge is like, did anyone
tell her mom that this court hearing was happening today?
And they were like, yes, we informed her by several means,
(12:57):
And so he kept pushing off, will go to the
next case, waiting for her to arrive, and so she
never showed up. So on that day they actually put
so the judge said, you will now be a ward
of the state, so she chose the husband.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
She was in and out of facilities in foster homes
for the next several years. Like most child welfare policies,
the goal is always reunification sometimes no matter the circumstance,
and Tasman's experience was no different. She was eventually placed
back into her mother's home. So after I was put
back in the home. So the marriage did not last
(13:38):
between my mom and that husband, so he ended up leaving.
I was able to go back, but the relationship at
that point was not salvageable. We would live together sporadically,
but she would always I would do something and she
would ask me to leave, so I was always in
and out of the home. So by the time I
was seventeen years old, so now we've got a few
(14:01):
years of me being back in the house. I ended
up getting pregnant, and statistics say that children who age
out of the foster care system, sixty percent of the
girls become pregnant within the first year of leaving care,
and that was me. So I found myself pregnant at
the age of seventeen, ended up going back home. She
(14:22):
allowed me to come back home, but when the child
was six weeks old, she asked that we leave. He
had his days and nights mixed up, so he would
be up throughout the night crying, and I didn't have
any place to go.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
So I'm seventeen, I have a six week old baby, newborn,
no pampers, no formula, and a girl that I had
just met.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Her mom said, I will allow you.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
And the baby to come and live in the basement
until you decide what you're going to do. So I
was there for about four weeks and a woman that
I went to church with ended up broke ring a
private adoption. The family that took him for me because
I could not care for him, had agreed to open adoption,
(15:10):
but they did not keep their word. So in the
state of North Carolina, after thirty days, all of the
birth mother's rights are terminated. And so when the thirty
day mark was up, her husband came to the apartment
that I was in with my mom at the time
and said, it's time for you to move on. We're
(15:32):
not going to provide you any updates, any pictures. You
need to move on with your life and we're going
to move on with ours. And so from that point on,
They never responded to any messages, any phone calls, any letters.
They just kind of left me out there. And that
was the beginning of a very very, very dark and
(15:54):
depressed period for me. There's actually large stretches of time
for a few years after that that I have no
memory of at all. It was very difficult. I remember
not being able to hear a child cry. I would
like Mother's Day was the worst day ever. It was
just several years of a very deep and dark depression.
(16:17):
And I was also homeless during that time as well,
just living from pillar to post. I remember one time,
I mean, I can laugh at it now, all of
the belongings that I had in the world actually fit
into a laundry basket. One laundry basket, so everything that
I possibly owned. And when I went from this house
to this house to wherever I could stay for a
(16:37):
couple of days, I had that laundry basket with me,
not even a bag, but a laundry basket.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Tasmin was in an unbelievably hard situation and she was
just seventeen. But Tasman was Tasmin optimistic, kind and hard
working found her way out after the break. We hear
how Tasmin went from one of the hardest times in
our life to breaking into corporate America. Stay tuned. I
(17:18):
think for a lot of our listeners that it's really
when you're in something hard, it's hard to see that
you may ever get out of it. At that time,
you said you were just surviving. Was there a moment
that you felt like, I can get out of this
and I will get out of this.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I was in another state and it was New Year's
Eve going into nineteen ninety nine, and I remember the
clock counting down. I was in a club and I
remember going outside onto the patio and I was smoking
a joint and I was like, Okay, I'm done. I
(17:54):
don't want this life anymore. I want to do something different.
So I came back to North Carolin. I spent nine
months at a facility in the mountains, just detoxing my body,
detoxing my mind, getting back in touch with God and
just finding and accepting peace and really looking at myself,
(18:16):
not my situation, but looking at myself and deciding what
I wanted and how I was going to get it.
And that was the changing point. It took a while
for me to grieve the loss of my child. And
it took a while for me to get just the
effects of what I had done to my body, to
(18:38):
get past that and to want and to find peace,
and then I.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Was ready to move forward. So what did you decide?
What did you want? And how were you going to
do it?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I decided in this order that I wanted a peaceful life,
that I was not going to ever depend on another person,
that I was going to make my own way, and
that I was going to be responsible for it. So
I was going to get an apartment, and I wanted
to get married, and I wanted to have a child.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That is what I decided.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
So got a job, got a temporary job at a
brokerage firm, And while I was at that job, one
of the brokers her husband was an accountant and they
were looking for a receptionist at his accounting job, and
she liked me so much she referred me for the job.
I ended up becoming the receptionist at the accounting firm
and ended up staying there for ten years, slowly working
(19:30):
my way up into the office manager. Wow, congratulations, thank you.
And how did you start like that very first day?
Like what was the first step?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like I think It's important to kind of talk through
this because people see these big changes and they think,
oh my god, like that's so instamountable. I can't even
do this medium change in front of me, Like, do
you remember, like when you left the facility, did you
apply for a job with no address on it? Did
you find an apartment first?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Like?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
How did you take that first step?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
So when I left the facility and I came back
to Charlotte, I was sleeping on the cow coach of
my best friend and she would allow me to drop
her off at her job and I would take her
car and I would go fill out applications. And so
I went to a temp agency and they ended up
placing me at the brokerage firm. What did you come
in with You didn't have a high school degree at
(20:17):
that point, right, No, So when I got pregnant, I
was in high school. But there was not one single
avenue that I did not try to get that degree.
So they had an alternative school for pregnant girls. I
went there. That didn't work out. They offered night classes
at some of the schools within the area. Did that
(20:39):
for a little bit. That didn't work out because I
didn't have a car and being on the bus and
the bus routes they weren't conducive to the school schedule.
So I did that for maybe one semester or two.
Then the community college had classes you could take where
you could actually walk with your graduating class. To me,
that was going to take too long, so I actually
ended up getting my ged. Do you remember when you
(21:00):
first went to the temp agency and you were figuring
out like how to put a resume together, how to
put an application together? What were the hurdles there for
you and what were you leading with as your biggest attributes?
They taught me there, So they had all these computer classes,
So I learned Microsoft Work, I learned Excel, I learned
(21:21):
I didn't really I had a little bit of experience
at the apartment complexes that my mom would live in.
One of them actually had me as their leasing agent,
so I was actually a leasing agent for a few
apartment complexes, so I had a little bit of experience,
but not any in corporate America. It wasn't until I
(21:41):
started applying with the temp agencies that they started putting
me in front of people in corporate America. Yeah, very intimidating. Yeah,
my very first corporate jobs in Uptown Charlotte at a
brokerage firm, and I worked high up on the level
of the skyscraper, which that was intimidating as well. And
I worked with all of these brokers, and I worked
(22:02):
in the cage. And the cage is where they kept
the money and where they posted their trades directly to
the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. So I
learned how to do all of that while I was
there on a tem job. You've referenced how you didn't
have a lot of life skills.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, did you have to learn them in that first
corporate job. Like as you guys went in there, what
felt like, Oh my god, I'm way out of my depth. So,
because we were so poor and I was the youngest
of three girls, I always had the hand me downs
of my sisters, so two children would do the clothes
before they ever got to me. So I never had
(22:40):
like nice clothes at all. And I remember well walking
into that first corporate job and I was like, oh,
these people, And that day you were suited and booted,
like the women had to wear pantyhose, you wore a skirt,
like you were expected to look a certain way, And
you know what ended up doing after my first day.
I ended up going to thrifts, doors to Goodwill, to
(23:01):
Salvation Army and getting these dresses that were appropriate for work.
And I bought all of my clothes second hand, just
so that I could show up looking the part. And
that's the great thing about being able to I'm not
going to say mimic, but I would watch and observe
the people that I was around, and if I didn't
know how to do it, I would watch them and
(23:24):
just mimic what they did.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I think it's probably a survival skill, absolutely, and it
served me well. Her savvy skills got her far, but
Tasmin didn't have the resources or the people around her
to get her to see her potential, and as a result,
she never thought of her life or of a career
beyond receptionist. I never had anyone to tell me that
(23:45):
I could do more. I always thought that I'm just
going to rock the role that I'm in. And oddly enough,
it was a friend of mine. I went out to
eat with her and her boyfriend. I had been at
the accounting firm for maybe at this point five or
six years now, and he goes you're still just the receptionist,
Like haven't you been there forever? And I was like yeah.
He was like, what all do you do? And I
told him everything I did. He was like, you're an
(24:07):
office manager. He was like, you're not a receptionist. I
was like really and he was like yeah, and he goes,
this is what you need to say to your boss
when you go back to work today. And I went
back to work and I had that conversation with my
boss and I was like, I do this, this and this,
and my title should reflect what I do and I
should also get a pay increase for this as well.
(24:28):
And that's exactly what I got. But had he not
told me, I never would have known. You just don't
know what you don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
As she learned to navigate the corporate world, she still
lacked quote life skills. As she says when we come back,
Tasman talks about the impact that had on her after
marrying the wrong man.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
So the very first, very large mistake that I made
was marrying the gentleman that I'm married. I was so
wanting just remember I told you, I decided I want
my own home, I want to be married, and I
want to have a baby.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So I was.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So I had such blinders on that that's what I
was going to do. That the first guy who came along,
who was willing to do it and who was willing
to want to be with me, I was like, I'm in,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Little did I know that he was an addict. Six
maybe six weeks after we were married, I started finding
empty beer and vodka bottles hidden throughout the house. So
that's one of the very large mistakes that I made.
Married him after just knowing him seven months. So just
not knowing, you know, hey, take your time. You want
(25:45):
to see a man in every single season of his
life and believe, but verify right, So and none of
those things I did. Yeah, I just believed everything he said,
hook line and sinker, and I was right there.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But you did get the child that you want? Oh
I did?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh I did. And I wanted to be a mom
so bad. I wanted to be able to be who
I never had and give him what I never received,
and that was very special. We ended up having the
same birthday, so I had him on my birthday and
his due date was actually my parents' birthday, both of them.
(26:22):
Their birthday is April twenty first, so his due date
was actually them, but had him on my birthday and
just the absolute light of my life.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
But so you didn't say you didn't stay with his mother.
I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
He was an addict and he started to become abusive,
although he never abused me.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
He was a mean drunk.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Some people get joyous and other people get weepy. He
got mean. So whenever he drank, he was just the
meanest person you could possibly imagine. And there was one
particular time we got into an argument and I was
doing laundry and my son was at my feet, and
I am very mouthy. I can make a grown man
cry with these words of mine. And we got into
(27:05):
an argument and I was not holding any punches, and
I saw the look in his eyes completely change, and
he started walking towards me, and I knew if he
got to me, he was going to put his hands
on me, so I averted the situation and walked around
to another part of the house. He approached me at
the door, picked me up by my neck, and walked
(27:27):
me back into the kitchen and started going for the
drawer that had the knives in them. So I was
able to talk him down, and at that day, I
realized that this marriage was not going to make it,
and so I started making plans to leave. And you
can't just up and leave when you have a small child.
So I started planning that day to leave. So me
(27:49):
and my son ended up sleeping in a twin bed
in the spare bedroom of a girlfriend's apartment. And I
ended up losing everything that I had that I owned.
All of the vehicles were in my name. I couldn't
afford to continue to pay for all of that and
the daycare and all of that, so credit ended up
(28:09):
getting ruined. He intentionally kept the car and hid the
car and would not pay for the car. Note told
me he would not even give me a divorce unless
I paid him money to do so. So it was
just the worst situation you could imagine. So I ended
up having to start anew and started from scratch, so
I needed to make more money. I couldn't continue to
(28:31):
stay where I was at, so that is when I
ended up going to the company that I'm at now,
And that is when I started to go to school
at night for my undergraduate degree. It took me twelve
years to get my undergraduate degree. So only two percent
of children that come out of foster care go on
(28:53):
to get any extended education, and I am I just
feel like I'm always a statistic, buttistic that was able
to overcome. Finally, on her feet, Tasmin was hitting her stride,
building a beautiful life despite all the bumps in the road.
After the break, Tasmin talks about how she felt compelled
(29:15):
to connect with her father's family after he died of cancer.
So I had promised myself that I would never reach
out to them, and here's the reason why. I feel like.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
People do what they do for a reason, and if
they're not here to give what that reason is, it
is not my place to do that for them. I
felt like it was such a big secret and that
he did what he did for a reason, but he's
not here to explain himself. So I was fine not
(29:57):
reaching out to them. So how I came about reaching
out to my brother and sister is maybe about six
years ago. I had this this thing that would not
leave me alone, that I needed to reach out to them.
I had gone from not wanting to reach out to
them to now I had this thing like, no, you
(30:17):
need to reach out to them, and So it's a
year and this thing is messing with me. But I've
already told myself, you're not going to blow up your dad.
He's not here to defend himself. Just leave these people be.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And I knew, let's be clear, once I reached out
to these people, it was going to rock their world
and I wasn't trying to do that. So after the
year of constant prodding, I know now that was just
God like I need you to I need you to
reach out to these people.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So this is what I did. True story.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
It took me maybe about six months to come up
with how I was going to approach them. So it
has to be like the perfect way, right, because they
can think I'm a cuckoo puff, that I'm wanting something
from them, or that I'm lying Like this could go
in number of ways. So I reached out to my therapist,
who helped me to craft a letter that would be
(31:06):
taken by them without sounding any particular way. And God
is so good. After I had developed this plan and
ran it past all my friends and ran it past
the therapist, I'm sitting next to a girl at my
job who is adopted, and when she overhears a conversation
that I have with someone about the letter, and she goes,
(31:30):
if you only got one shot at these people when
you contact them, here's what you need to cover in
the letter. And she tells me you need to cover this,
you need to cover this, and you need to cover this.
If this is your only shot, and if they never
reach out to you, here's what they're going to want
to know this this, and this was the facts. How
do I know that I'm their family? How did my
(31:53):
parents meet? Give them concrete proof that you are not
some random person reaching out to them trying to pull
a con And so she just gave me the things
to put in there, and that's what I did. So
I said, okay, I said I'm doing it this year.
I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna
give them one holiday. I'm gonna give them Thanksgiving. But
the day after Thanksgiving, I'm sending the letter and I'm
(32:15):
blowing up the spot they're getting.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
My letter, the family will have changed, Okay, correct.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
So they had their Thanksgiving dinner and then Thanksgiving evening
very late, round about midnight, maybe even the day after.
I send the letter simultaneously to the brother and the
sister on social media.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay, so here's what I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I don't know that my sister runs a large philanthropic
arm of a brewery, so she's very popular in the
state of Minnesota, so people reach out to her on
social media that are cuckoo puffs. So I don't know that.
My brother, however, he is much more of a straight lace,
you know. And so he actually reads the letter and
(32:57):
immediately texts my sister and goes, did you get a
letter from someone on social media? And ask her to
take a look at the letter. And so my sister
takes a look at the letter, and her and her
husband then read it and they call me that night,
and so we have a conversation. They asked me very
probing questions because they do think I'm crazy. They think
I'm trying to get over And so there were certain
(33:19):
things that my dad was known for, and I was
able to give them that information, take pictures of letters
that he had written me and send it to them,
and they were like, oh, like, she's for real.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
So we did the DNA test. Of course, the DNA
test comes back and we're related. But the best thing
about all of this is we were only nine months,
so you think I'm empathetic. My sister takes the cake.
She immediately welcomed me into her family. When I went
up to meet them in person, she literally comes flying
(33:53):
out the car.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
It's like sissy, She goes, I always wanted a.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Sister like they have welcomed me with open arms. It
could not have gone any better than how it went.
It was absolutely amazing. That's incredible. But now I know
why I had the impression to meet them. So nine
months into our relationship, my brother goes for his baseline
colonoscopy and they find pollops and so they remove the
(34:20):
pollops and the polyps go get tested and turns out
the polyps are pre cancerous, but the type of cancer
it is is genetically passed. So they say to him,
if you have any siblings, tell them they need to
go get tested immediately. So my sister goes and gets tested.
She has the same pollops, so they remove her pollups
(34:41):
and she goes, are you going to go get tested?
And I'm like, we're just half brother and sister. I'm
way younger than you, guys, I'm good. I was like, no,
I'm straight. So months ago and months ago and one
of my very close friends her mom passed from colon cancer,
and she goes, you can either go on your own
or I'm gonna make the appointment for you and take you.
So I was like, all right, I'll go, so go
(35:04):
and have the colonoscopy and I'll wake up from it.
And they go, oh, we found some things, but we
feel confident it's not cancerous.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
We've removed it.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
We'll call you in a couple of days and we'll
let you know what the LID reports is. Turns out
they were wrong. Turns out it was stage three hole
and cancer. They told me. Had I waited to the
age of fifty to get my baseline, the conversation would
have been how can we keep you comfortable? Instead of
how can we save your life? So had I not
(35:33):
reached out to my brother and sister when I felt
compelled to, I would not be sitting here today. Finally,
through another hurdle, Tasmin was only just able to catch
her breath before she fell into another situation that rocked
her world and her livelihood. I never knew in a
(35:53):
million years. I never thought that I would ever be
starting over from scratch again. So after I fought cancer,
and one cancer leaves its mark on you. You don't
get out of that fight without being scathed. And the chemo.
So I've had several major surgeries, eight months of chemo
(36:16):
and out of work for four years. That's how long
the battle for cancer was. It wasn't it wasn't pretty.
It was very difficult and my cognition. It had really
impacted my memory. My memory was so bad I would
have to write down where I was driving to because
I would forget where I was driving and just drive
(36:37):
around aimlessly until I could figure out what I was
doing my executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills in your
brain are what allow you to function at a very
high level, which is what I do in my corporate
America job. Like I not only keep me in check,
but I keep my team in check, I keep my
boss in check, and I make sure everyone is good.
(36:58):
So unless I'm able to to have my eyes on
ten things at once until you at any given moment
exactly what their status is, I'm not doing my job.
And that is what chemo took for me. I could
barely hold a conversation with someone in my brain if
I could describe it to you. It would be like
a funnel, like I would have all of these thoughts
(37:18):
right here, but that funnel got about this big when
it came time to talk, for me to be able
to express myself and what it was I needed, and
I literally would completely clam up and would not be
able to tell a waitress my order. I remember going
to the eye doctor and just needing contacts, and I
broke down in tears because I could not convey to
(37:38):
the nurse that I was there to pick up contexts.
You get so frustrated with yourself and with your body
because of what the cancer does to you. So because
of that decline, while I'm fighting cancer, my son is
now in crisis. And I meet a gentleman who takes
advantage of that cost native decline that I'm experiencing, and
(38:02):
he fabricates a story that leads me to believe that
I am no longer safe in my home. He convinces
me to sell my home of eighteen years. And this
is huge because I've never had stability, so I'm able
to so after I rebuild from my marriage, I'm finally stable.
(38:25):
I'm finally in my home, and it truly was a
home he leads me to believe that I'm not safe there,
and neither is my son. So I sell my home
and truly a fire sale, leave got rid of everything
in it. And he proposes. And I am so exhausted
now from the fight from cancer, from my son being
(38:46):
in crisis. I am mentally and physically exhausted, and I
don't feel like I can take another step. So dumb me,
I say to him, why don't you take care of
the bills? Now that you know we're going to be
in one household, why don't you take care of the bills.
He goes, great idea, why don't you go get a
certified check from the proceeds of your sale, and let's
go ahead and e merge bank accounts and I'll take
(39:08):
care of everything. Guess who did that? I did, not
knowing any better. No one had ever told me once again,
one of these gaps that you have because you don't
have a solid foundation and footing. No one never told
me you don't do that. You don't give everything to
someone who is not legally bound and responsible for you.
(39:33):
Three or four weeks later, he breaks off the engagement,
keeps the money, takes the ring back and goes. So
now I'm fifty years old, well, we'll be fifty this year,
have no home. I have none of the most treasured
memories that you keep from your babies, you know, the
little hand ornaments that they make, all the little clay
(39:54):
things like the things you can't replace. All of those
things are gone, and those are the things that are true.
We missed the most. How did you start over? Once again,
found myself in.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
The spare bedroom of a girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
This time with my two dogs because my son has
grown now, so I've got two fur babies. And I
was in her spare bedroom on the floor, on the floor,
not even in a bed, on the floor with the dogs,
and I had this i'll caohol it come to Jesus moment,
just a very clear moment, and I realized that how
(40:29):
I felt in that moment was exactly how I felt
as a child in foster care, being incredibly afraid of
the future, not knowing what I was going to do,
not knowing what my next step was. And it was
at that moment I said, you know what, if I
got to rebuild my life. Not only am I going
to rebuild my life, but I'm going to go back
to these kids that are aging out of foster care,
(40:51):
and I am going to help them shore up their foundation.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Motivated by her own experience, she started her organization Forward
Hope as a way to help vulnerable children aging out
of foster care by providing essential things like homes, transportation, education,
and mentorship that they desperately need.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
But most importantly, I can give them meaningful resources. They
don't have to couch surf, they don't have to wonder
where they're going to sleep at at night. They won't
have to carry around their items in a laundry basket
everything that they own. They're going to have a family,
They're going to have a home that will always be
there that they can always come back to, and they're
(41:33):
going to have hope for a future. What is one
moment where at the time you thought this is such
a low point, I just don't know that I can
get myself out of this, and now you actually see
it as something that catapulted you to the success you
are today. Oh, easily, I know exactly what that is.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Cancer.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I hated God for giving me that, and there was
no other way I looked at it. I was like,
out of every thing I've gone through out of the
foster care, out of the divorce, out of you name it,
out out of all of the mountains I've had to climb.
You're gonna give me cancer? Now?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Really? And can't once again cancer For anyone who's already
faced it is no easy fight and have to face
your own mortality. People would come to me and they
would be like, oh, remember God is with you in this,
And I'm like, if God is sitting over there in
that chair watching me go through this and him and
I got a problem like I didn't have. I didn't
want to have anything to do with spirituality. I was
so upset with him for another mountain to climb, and
(42:38):
I was already tired. It was me getting to that
place where I was that raw and that honest with
him that it changed something in me. It brought me
to the end of myself. I realized, oh, I can't
do everything by myself. Oh it hasn't been me doing
it all along. In my mind, I was doing this,
(43:00):
this and this. No, it's not actually you doing all
of this. It's God in you, helping you achieve each
of these milestones. And like you overcame all of those
other things in the past. You're going to overcome this too.
And not only are you going to overcome it, you're
going to be more than an overcomer. You're going to
be more than a conqueror. That was the one thing
(43:24):
that changed the rest of my life. I'll never forget.
This is how raw I got with God. This is
exactly what I said. I was talking to him. I
talked to him the way you and I are talking
right now. And I said, you know what I said,
I don't want a new chapter. I said, I want
a whole new volume. I said, this raggedy ass volume
one that I just finished up right here. I was like,
(43:44):
I don't want that. I said, I want a brand new,
leather bound, gold foiled volume two. That's what I want
my life to look like going into this next half,
and that's what it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Thank you, thank you so much for this. I'm so
appreciative of being here today.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Since her interview, Tasman has been busy. She just closed
on a house specifically to take in children that have
aged out of the foster care system through her organization
Forward Hope. Tasmin is a true inspiration and I'm so
grateful to have had the opportunity to share her story
with the world. Be sure to follow Tasman on Instagram
at Tazzy Underscore Carter and learn more about her organization
(44:39):
at forward hopec dot org. Thanks for listening. Thanks for
listening to this episode of she Pivots. If you made
it this far, you're a true pivoter, so thanks for
being part of this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode,
and if you did leave us a rating, please be
nice and tell your friends about us. To learn more
(45:01):
about our guests, follow us on Instagram at she Pivots
the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter where you
can get exclusive behind the scenes content, or on our
website she Pivots the Podcast Talk to You Next Week
special thanks to the she Pivots team, Executive producer Emily
eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins,
(45:25):
Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator Madeline Sonovak,
and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I endorse she Pivots
Hey, y'all, welcome back to She Pivots. This is Tasmin Carter.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
women who dared to pivot out of one career and
into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm honored to have Tasmin Carter on the show to
share her story and with the world for the first
time ever. Her story is one of resilience, strength, and
empathy after going through some unimaginable hard times. When I
first met Tasmin, the first thing I recognized was her
warmth and kindness. It radiates around her and you'd never
(00:53):
know the hardship she's gone through. Tasmin is the daughter
of an affair between her mother, who is black, and
her father, a white man with a family from the Midwest.
It was a complicated relationship for Tasman that would eventually
come full circle for her later in life. Beyond her parents,
her childhood was equally tumultuous. She was placed into foster
(01:14):
care when she was a young teen. Then at just seventeen,
she made the heart wrenching decision to place her baby
for adoption. With no high school education and nowhere to go,
Tasman was homeless, staying with anyone who would take her in.
But she knew this couldn't be it for her, so
she worked tirelessly to earn her ged and started applying
for temp jobs. Smart and hard working, it's no surprise
(01:39):
that the very first company she worked for loved her
and kept her on full time. Single handedly pulling herself
out of an incredibly dire situation, Tasmin began to build
a life and a family. She got married, had her son,
got divorced, then put herself through night school and finished
after twelve years. Then Tasman's life took another dramatic turn
(02:04):
when she is diagnosed with stage three cancer, a battle
she faced with unwavering faith and courage. Now Tasman has
channeled her own experience and started Forward Hope, a nonprofit
dedicated to providing a home to those who have aged
out of the foster care system. This is just scratching
the surface of tasman incredibly inspiring story. This truly is
(02:26):
an episode you won't want to miss. Before we get
into Tasman's story, I want to take a moment. To
note that this episode contains references to abuse and other
sensitive topics.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Please listen with care. My name is Tasman Carter. I
am an executive assistant at Tiaa, a financial services firm.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Okay, so we're going to wind all the way back.
Tell us about little Tasman. Where were you born? What
was her family like?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So, little Tasman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, the South,
born and bred. I love to say it that way.
I am the third daughter of my mom and the
third child of my dad. I am the product of
a biracial relationship, which was highly unusual in the seventies
(03:19):
in the South. And in addition to that, my dad
was married, always was married. So he do someone other
than your mother? Yes, So he ended up fathering a
child in the South that his family was unaware of.
He met my mom when he came in town on
a business trip and she was singing in the lounge
of the hotel that he was staying at, and she
(03:40):
got off the stage to take a break and he
called her over, and you know, it was like, hi,
you know, what's your name? And so they ended up
talking and he goes, what's your sign and she goes,
I'm a Taurus. He goes, what's your birthday and she
goes April twenty first, and he was like, that's my
birthday too, and she was like, no, you're lying, pull
out your license, pulls out the line, and then thus
(04:01):
begins the two year affair, which I.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Was the result of. Your mother must have had a
lot of of charismas like a lot of spice.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Did she bring that into the rest of her life. No, Actually,
I'm going to say so. She ended up being the
single parent of three daughters, and I think that that
takes a little bit out of you, trying to do
everything on your own. She would be married a couple
of times here and there, but never anything that had
lasting effects to it. So life just kind of got
the best of her. So she still has it, but
(04:31):
I don't think she ever used it to the potential
that she could have.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What did you picture for your future when you were young?
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was very much in survival mode from the time
I can remember really just taking the day as it
came and almost bracing for each day, not really looking
forward to anything but trying to see how I could
survive the day or endure the day. I can't remember
a time until I was grown that I could look
(05:00):
with anticipation to the future. What was the relationship like
with your father? So I never knew who my dad was.
My mom did not tell me his name until I
was sixteen years old. On my sixteenth birthday, I receive
a card in the mail and it says, happy birthday,
can't wait to see you, love your dad. I was
(05:21):
like what. So I go into my mom like she
proudly hands me the card to like, here, you've got
mail today, and I read the card and I go
what is this? And she goes, he's coming in town.
I said what, I said, what is his name? And
then that's when she told me his name. I didn't
even know the man's name until I turned sixty. You
curious or not even Oh? No, absolutely. I had asked
(05:41):
multiple times about him, like where is my dad? Do
I have any other siblings? Who is my dad? Why
do I look so different than the rest of my siblings?
So all I knew is that my dad was white.
That's all I knew. Yeah, So what was that first
time meeting your dad? That was very uncomfortable? He came
in town and we had dinner, and he's fifteen years
(06:03):
older than my mom, so totally different culture. He's from
the Midwest, we're from the South. And they were just,
you know, getting along so well, and I felt like
I was more of a onlooker. Oh, your mom was there, Yeah,
she went to dinner with us. I didn't want to
be with him alone. I didn't know who this man was.
(06:23):
What did he tell you about the rest of his life?
He said, And I did ask. I said, why haven't
you told your So that's when I found out he
was married. He told me that he was married, and
I said, well, why haven't you told your family that
I exist? And he said that it would kill his
wife if she knew that he had been unfaithful and
(06:44):
had fathered a child outside of their relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, how did that make you feel? Like? Nothing?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Still, she tried to maintain a relationship with her father.
It wasn't the best relationship, so he had set up
a po box for me to write too. He maintained
the secrecy throughout his entire life. He never divulged to
his family that he fathered a child outside of that
primary relationship. So he would call me from time to
(07:13):
time He would write letters for you know, birthdays and
major events, but it was never anything that was It
just didn't have any depth. It was very superficial and
like he would never like I never called him dad.
He never said I loved you. What he would say
at the end of the conversations was.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
God love you.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
That's how he would in the conversations, God Love you.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Tasman's childhood was anything but stable. By just eighteen, she
had moved over sixteen times. They were always very quick.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It would be from not paying the rent, or her
being in domestic violence relationships, in needing to escape. Nothing
was ever planned that I can remember. I remember days
when she would leave and say, okay, I'll be back
tonight and when I come back, I'll bring food. And
she would come home at the end of the day
(08:09):
with a loaf of bread and a pack of sandwich
meat and maybe some kool aid, and that is what
we would eat for that day. I remember often going
to the food pantry, always using food stamps to pay
for food, often just going hungry.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
That charismatic woman that Tasman spoke about earlier didn't show
up for her in that way, let alone protect her
as Tasmin grew up, things got.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Worse, so I was abused from the age of three
to thirteen. At the age of thirteen, I was removed
from my home and put into foster care. I had
told my mom regularly over the years, because she had
three daughters, she was really a magnet for pedophiles, and
(08:59):
she never really grasped that. So me and another sister
would always tell her, you know, we're having to endure
this not only from your husband's she was married five times,
but also from their friends. So pedophiles have friends, and
they bring the friends along whenever they have free reign
to the children. So we told her regularly and often,
(09:19):
and she just refused to believe us. She would say
that we didn't want to see her happy, or we
were lying, or she any excuse that She just did
not want to accept that the man she had chosen
or who had chosen her, was capable of doing this,
so she left us in situations for long periods of time.
(09:40):
So I've been groomed by several pedophiles, had to endure
several of their advances. But when I got to eighteen,
I've learned that pedophiles have a particular type in an
age group that they like. And so at that point
I was starting my body was starting to you know,
I was heading into puberty and his grooming was and
(10:01):
I knew that if I didn't get out of that
home soon, that I would be at a point of
no return, like I wasn't going to be able to
come back from that. I still had some resilience, I
still had some fight, I still had some you're not
doing this to me. But you know, after so long
of an adult not responding to your cries for help,
(10:22):
then you can easily get to the point where you
feel like there's no hope. So I don't know how
they do it today because of all the technology, But
back in the day, there were posters put up on
the walls in my school and it said if you
need help or if you just need someone to talk to,
you can call this number, and it was for kids.
(10:42):
And both of my sisters at this point had left
the home. So now I'm at home by myself. So
you're about thirteen here, and I am knowing that I
need to do something. Now she's not going to do it.
So if something's going to get done, I'm going to
have to do it. So I called the number and
I was just talking to the guy was a young fellow.
His name was Jake. I'll never forget his name, and
(11:04):
he probably was in his twenties. He probably was getting
his graduate degree. And this was probably, you know, hours
towards that, because I could tell he was really young.
And when I started telling him what I was having
to endure at home, he started asking very poignant questions,
what school do you go to? So now I was like,
I'm not telling you that, like you're not wrecking my life.
Like I wanted help, but I didn't know how to
(11:25):
get out of the situation. But he was so good.
He asked me just enough questions to where he could
figure out where I went to school, who my teachers were,
how he could help me. And the very next day,
I'm at school and I get called out from one
of my classrooms into the guidance office and there's a
police officer, there's a social worker, and there's a guardian
at item. And that's when they informed me that I
(11:47):
would not be going back home. And oddly enough, as
scared as I was, my time in foster care was
the safest that I ever felt.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
How you feel safe?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And secure and scared out your mind and truly is
an ox smron But I knew that finally I was safe.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Had you ever thought that you would be taken from
the home like it had been something you had contemplated could happen. No,
it never.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Occurred to me that they In my mind, in that
child's mind, he was going to go and I was
going to get to stay. It never occurred to me
that they were going to take me. But when they
took me, there's what psychologists call a light bulb moment
or memory that you always remember all of the details,
the smells, all of that, and I'll never forget. It
(12:36):
was the very first court hearing, and this court hearing
was going to decide when I was going to be
able to go back home and under what circumstances. And
we're in there and the judge is like, did anyone
tell her mom that this court hearing was happening today?
And they were like, yes, we informed her by several means,
(12:57):
And so he kept pushing off, will go to the
next case, waiting for her to arrive, and so she
never showed up. So on that day they actually put
so the judge said, you will now be a ward
of the state, so she chose the husband.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
She was in and out of facilities in foster homes
for the next several years. Like most child welfare policies,
the goal is always reunification sometimes no matter the circumstance,
and Tasman's experience was no different. She was eventually placed
back into her mother's home. So after I was put
back in the home. So the marriage did not last
(13:38):
between my mom and that husband, so he ended up leaving.
I was able to go back, but the relationship at
that point was not salvageable. We would live together sporadically,
but she would always I would do something and she
would ask me to leave, so I was always in
and out of the home. So by the time I
was seventeen years old, so now we've got a few
(14:01):
years of me being back in the house. I ended
up getting pregnant, and statistics say that children who age
out of the foster care system, sixty percent of the
girls become pregnant within the first year of leaving care,
and that was me. So I found myself pregnant at
the age of seventeen, ended up going back home. She
(14:22):
allowed me to come back home, but when the child
was six weeks old, she asked that we leave. He
had his days and nights mixed up, so he would
be up throughout the night crying, and I didn't have
any place to go.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
So I'm seventeen, I have a six week old baby, newborn,
no pampers, no formula, and a girl that I had
just met.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Her mom said, I will allow you.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
And the baby to come and live in the basement
until you decide what you're going to do. So I
was there for about four weeks and a woman that
I went to church with ended up broke ring a
private adoption. The family that took him for me because
I could not care for him, had agreed to open adoption,
(15:10):
but they did not keep their word. So in the
state of North Carolina, after thirty days, all of the
birth mother's rights are terminated. And so when the thirty
day mark was up, her husband came to the apartment
that I was in with my mom at the time
and said, it's time for you to move on. We're
(15:32):
not going to provide you any updates, any pictures. You
need to move on with your life and we're going
to move on with ours. And so from that point on,
They never responded to any messages, any phone calls, any letters.
They just kind of left me out there. And that
was the beginning of a very very, very dark and
(15:54):
depressed period for me. There's actually large stretches of time
for a few years after that that I have no
memory of at all. It was very difficult. I remember
not being able to hear a child cry. I would
like Mother's Day was the worst day ever. It was
just several years of a very deep and dark depression.
(16:17):
And I was also homeless during that time as well,
just living from pillar to post. I remember one time,
I mean, I can laugh at it now, all of
the belongings that I had in the world actually fit
into a laundry basket. One laundry basket, so everything that
I possibly owned. And when I went from this house
to this house to wherever I could stay for a
(16:37):
couple of days, I had that laundry basket with me,
not even a bag, but a laundry basket.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Tasmin was in an unbelievably hard situation and she was
just seventeen. But Tasman was Tasmin optimistic, kind and hard
working found her way out after the break. We hear
how Tasmin went from one of the hardest times in
our life to breaking into corporate America. Stay tuned. I
(17:18):
think for a lot of our listeners that it's really
when you're in something hard, it's hard to see that
you may ever get out of it. At that time,
you said you were just surviving. Was there a moment
that you felt like, I can get out of this
and I will get out of this.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I was in another state and it was New Year's
Eve going into nineteen ninety nine, and I remember the
clock counting down. I was in a club and I
remember going outside onto the patio and I was smoking
a joint and I was like, Okay, I'm done. I
(17:54):
don't want this life anymore. I want to do something different.
So I came back to North Carolin. I spent nine
months at a facility in the mountains, just detoxing my body,
detoxing my mind, getting back in touch with God and
just finding and accepting peace and really looking at myself,
(18:16):
not my situation, but looking at myself and deciding what
I wanted and how I was going to get it.
And that was the changing point. It took a while
for me to grieve the loss of my child. And
it took a while for me to get just the
effects of what I had done to my body, to
(18:38):
get past that and to want and to find peace,
and then I.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Was ready to move forward. So what did you decide?
What did you want? And how were you going to
do it?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I decided in this order that I wanted a peaceful life,
that I was not going to ever depend on another person,
that I was going to make my own way, and
that I was going to be responsible for it. So
I was going to get an apartment, and I wanted
to get married, and I wanted to have a child.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That is what I decided.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
So got a job, got a temporary job at a
brokerage firm, And while I was at that job, one
of the brokers her husband was an accountant and they
were looking for a receptionist at his accounting job, and
she liked me so much she referred me for the job.
I ended up becoming the receptionist at the accounting firm
and ended up staying there for ten years, slowly working
(19:30):
my way up into the office manager. Wow, congratulations, thank you.
And how did you start like that very first day?
Like what was the first step?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like I think It's important to kind of talk through
this because people see these big changes and they think,
oh my god, like that's so instamountable. I can't even
do this medium change in front of me, Like, do
you remember, like when you left the facility, did you
apply for a job with no address on it? Did
you find an apartment first?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Like?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
How did you take that first step?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
So when I left the facility and I came back
to Charlotte, I was sleeping on the cow coach of
my best friend and she would allow me to drop
her off at her job and I would take her
car and I would go fill out applications. And so
I went to a temp agency and they ended up
placing me at the brokerage firm. What did you come
in with You didn't have a high school degree at
(20:17):
that point, right, No, So when I got pregnant, I
was in high school. But there was not one single
avenue that I did not try to get that degree.
So they had an alternative school for pregnant girls. I
went there. That didn't work out. They offered night classes
at some of the schools within the area. Did that
(20:39):
for a little bit. That didn't work out because I
didn't have a car and being on the bus and
the bus routes they weren't conducive to the school schedule.
So I did that for maybe one semester or two.
Then the community college had classes you could take where
you could actually walk with your graduating class. To me,
that was going to take too long, so I actually
ended up getting my ged. Do you remember when you
(21:00):
first went to the temp agency and you were figuring
out like how to put a resume together, how to
put an application together? What were the hurdles there for
you and what were you leading with as your biggest attributes?
They taught me there, So they had all these computer classes,
So I learned Microsoft Work, I learned Excel, I learned
(21:21):
I didn't really I had a little bit of experience
at the apartment complexes that my mom would live in.
One of them actually had me as their leasing agent,
so I was actually a leasing agent for a few
apartment complexes, so I had a little bit of experience,
but not any in corporate America. It wasn't until I
(21:41):
started applying with the temp agencies that they started putting
me in front of people in corporate America. Yeah, very intimidating. Yeah,
my very first corporate jobs in Uptown Charlotte at a
brokerage firm, and I worked high up on the level
of the skyscraper, which that was intimidating as well. And
I worked with all of these brokers, and I worked
(22:02):
in the cage. And the cage is where they kept
the money and where they posted their trades directly to
the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. So I
learned how to do all of that while I was
there on a tem job. You've referenced how you didn't
have a lot of life skills.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, did you have to learn them in that first
corporate job. Like as you guys went in there, what
felt like, Oh my god, I'm way out of my depth. So,
because we were so poor and I was the youngest
of three girls, I always had the hand me downs
of my sisters, so two children would do the clothes
before they ever got to me. So I never had
(22:40):
like nice clothes at all. And I remember well walking
into that first corporate job and I was like, oh,
these people, And that day you were suited and booted,
like the women had to wear pantyhose, you wore a skirt,
like you were expected to look a certain way, And
you know what ended up doing after my first day.
I ended up going to thrifts, doors to Goodwill, to
(23:01):
Salvation Army and getting these dresses that were appropriate for work.
And I bought all of my clothes second hand, just
so that I could show up looking the part. And
that's the great thing about being able to I'm not
going to say mimic, but I would watch and observe
the people that I was around, and if I didn't
know how to do it, I would watch them and
(23:24):
just mimic what they did.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I think it's probably a survival skill, absolutely, and it
served me well. Her savvy skills got her far, but
Tasmin didn't have the resources or the people around her
to get her to see her potential, and as a result,
she never thought of her life or of a career
beyond receptionist. I never had anyone to tell me that
(23:45):
I could do more. I always thought that I'm just
going to rock the role that I'm in. And oddly enough,
it was a friend of mine. I went out to
eat with her and her boyfriend. I had been at
the accounting firm for maybe at this point five or
six years now, and he goes you're still just the receptionist,
Like haven't you been there forever? And I was like yeah.
He was like, what all do you do? And I
told him everything I did. He was like, you're an
(24:07):
office manager. He was like, you're not a receptionist. I
was like really and he was like yeah, and he goes,
this is what you need to say to your boss
when you go back to work today. And I went
back to work and I had that conversation with my
boss and I was like, I do this, this and this,
and my title should reflect what I do and I
should also get a pay increase for this as well.
(24:28):
And that's exactly what I got. But had he not
told me, I never would have known. You just don't
know what you don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
As she learned to navigate the corporate world, she still
lacked quote life skills. As she says when we come back,
Tasman talks about the impact that had on her after
marrying the wrong man.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
So the very first, very large mistake that I made
was marrying the gentleman that I'm married. I was so
wanting just remember I told you, I decided I want
my own home, I want to be married, and I
want to have a baby.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So I was.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So I had such blinders on that that's what I
was going to do. That the first guy who came along,
who was willing to do it and who was willing
to want to be with me, I was like, I'm in,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Little did I know that he was an addict. Six
maybe six weeks after we were married, I started finding
empty beer and vodka bottles hidden throughout the house. So
that's one of the very large mistakes that I made.
Married him after just knowing him seven months. So just
not knowing, you know, hey, take your time. You want
(25:45):
to see a man in every single season of his
life and believe, but verify right, So and none of
those things I did. Yeah, I just believed everything he said,
hook line and sinker, and I was right there.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
But you did get the child that you want? Oh
I did?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Oh I did. And I wanted to be a mom
so bad. I wanted to be able to be who
I never had and give him what I never received,
and that was very special. We ended up having the
same birthday, so I had him on my birthday and
his due date was actually my parents' birthday, both of them.
(26:22):
Their birthday is April twenty first, so his due date
was actually them, but had him on my birthday and
just the absolute light of my life.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
But so you didn't say you didn't stay with his mother.
I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
He was an addict and he started to become abusive,
although he never abused me.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
He was a mean drunk.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Some people get joyous and other people get weepy. He
got mean. So whenever he drank, he was just the
meanest person you could possibly imagine. And there was one
particular time we got into an argument and I was
doing laundry and my son was at my feet, and
I am very mouthy. I can make a grown man
cry with these words of mine. And we got into
(27:05):
an argument and I was not holding any punches, and
I saw the look in his eyes completely change, and
he started walking towards me, and I knew if he
got to me, he was going to put his hands
on me, so I averted the situation and walked around
to another part of the house. He approached me at
the door, picked me up by my neck, and walked
(27:27):
me back into the kitchen and started going for the
drawer that had the knives in them. So I was
able to talk him down, and at that day, I
realized that this marriage was not going to make it,
and so I started making plans to leave. And you
can't just up and leave when you have a small child.
So I started planning that day to leave. So me
(27:49):
and my son ended up sleeping in a twin bed
in the spare bedroom of a girlfriend's apartment. And I
ended up losing everything that I had that I owned.
All of the vehicles were in my name. I couldn't
afford to continue to pay for all of that and
the daycare and all of that, so credit ended up
(28:09):
getting ruined. He intentionally kept the car and hid the
car and would not pay for the car. Note told
me he would not even give me a divorce unless
I paid him money to do so. So it was
just the worst situation you could imagine. So I ended
up having to start anew and started from scratch, so
I needed to make more money. I couldn't continue to
(28:31):
stay where I was at, so that is when I
ended up going to the company that I'm at now,
And that is when I started to go to school
at night for my undergraduate degree. It took me twelve
years to get my undergraduate degree. So only two percent
of children that come out of foster care go on
(28:53):
to get any extended education, and I am I just
feel like I'm always a statistic, buttistic that was able
to overcome. Finally, on her feet, Tasmin was hitting her stride,
building a beautiful life despite all the bumps in the road.
After the break, Tasmin talks about how she felt compelled
(29:15):
to connect with her father's family after he died of cancer.
So I had promised myself that I would never reach
out to them, and here's the reason why. I feel like.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
People do what they do for a reason, and if
they're not here to give what that reason is, it
is not my place to do that for them. I
felt like it was such a big secret and that
he did what he did for a reason, but he's
not here to explain himself. So I was fine not
(29:57):
reaching out to them. So how I came about reaching
out to my brother and sister is maybe about six
years ago. I had this this thing that would not
leave me alone, that I needed to reach out to them.
I had gone from not wanting to reach out to
them to now I had this thing like, no, you
(30:17):
need to reach out to them, and So it's a
year and this thing is messing with me. But I've
already told myself, you're not going to blow up your dad.
He's not here to defend himself. Just leave these people be.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And I knew, let's be clear, once I reached out
to these people, it was going to rock their world
and I wasn't trying to do that. So after the
year of constant prodding, I know now that was just
God like I need you to I need you to
reach out to these people.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So this is what I did. True story.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
It took me maybe about six months to come up
with how I was going to approach them. So it
has to be like the perfect way, right, because they
can think I'm a cuckoo puff, that I'm wanting something
from them, or that I'm lying Like this could go
in number of ways. So I reached out to my therapist,
who helped me to craft a letter that would be
(31:06):
taken by them without sounding any particular way. And God
is so good. After I had developed this plan and
ran it past all my friends and ran it past
the therapist, I'm sitting next to a girl at my
job who is adopted, and when she overhears a conversation
that I have with someone about the letter, and she goes,
(31:30):
if you only got one shot at these people when
you contact them, here's what you need to cover in
the letter. And she tells me you need to cover this,
you need to cover this, and you need to cover this.
If this is your only shot, and if they never
reach out to you, here's what they're going to want
to know this this, and this was the facts. How
do I know that I'm their family? How did my
(31:53):
parents meet? Give them concrete proof that you are not
some random person reaching out to them trying to pull
a con And so she just gave me the things
to put in there, and that's what I did. So
I said, okay, I said I'm doing it this year.
I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna
give them one holiday. I'm gonna give them Thanksgiving. But
the day after Thanksgiving, I'm sending the letter and I'm
(32:15):
blowing up the spot they're getting.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
My letter, the family will have changed, Okay, correct.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
So they had their Thanksgiving dinner and then Thanksgiving evening
very late, round about midnight, maybe even the day after.
I send the letter simultaneously to the brother and the
sister on social media.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay, so here's what I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I don't know that my sister runs a large philanthropic
arm of a brewery, so she's very popular in the
state of Minnesota, so people reach out to her on
social media that are cuckoo puffs. So I don't know that.
My brother, however, he is much more of a straight lace,
you know. And so he actually reads the letter and
(32:57):
immediately texts my sister and goes, did you get a
letter from someone on social media? And ask her to
take a look at the letter. And so my sister
takes a look at the letter, and her and her
husband then read it and they call me that night,
and so we have a conversation. They asked me very
probing questions because they do think I'm crazy. They think
I'm trying to get over And so there were certain
(33:19):
things that my dad was known for, and I was
able to give them that information, take pictures of letters
that he had written me and send it to them,
and they were like, oh, like, she's for real.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
So we did the DNA test. Of course, the DNA
test comes back and we're related. But the best thing
about all of this is we were only nine months,
so you think I'm empathetic. My sister takes the cake.
She immediately welcomed me into her family. When I went
up to meet them in person, she literally comes flying
(33:53):
out the car.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
It's like sissy, She goes, I always wanted a.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Sister like they have welcomed me with open arms. It
could not have gone any better than how it went.
It was absolutely amazing. That's incredible. But now I know
why I had the impression to meet them. So nine
months into our relationship, my brother goes for his baseline
colonoscopy and they find pollops and so they remove the
(34:20):
pollops and the polyps go get tested and turns out
the polyps are pre cancerous, but the type of cancer
it is is genetically passed. So they say to him,
if you have any siblings, tell them they need to
go get tested immediately. So my sister goes and gets tested.
She has the same pollops, so they remove her pollups
(34:41):
and she goes, are you going to go get tested?
And I'm like, we're just half brother and sister. I'm
way younger than you, guys, I'm good. I was like, no,
I'm straight. So months ago and months ago and one
of my very close friends her mom passed from colon cancer,
and she goes, you can either go on your own
or I'm gonna make the appointment for you and take you.
So I was like, all right, I'll go, so go
(35:04):
and have the colonoscopy and I'll wake up from it.
And they go, oh, we found some things, but we
feel confident it's not cancerous.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
We've removed it.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
We'll call you in a couple of days and we'll
let you know what the LID reports is. Turns out
they were wrong. Turns out it was stage three hole
and cancer. They told me. Had I waited to the
age of fifty to get my baseline, the conversation would
have been how can we keep you comfortable? Instead of
how can we save your life? So had I not
(35:33):
reached out to my brother and sister when I felt
compelled to, I would not be sitting here today. Finally,
through another hurdle, Tasmin was only just able to catch
her breath before she fell into another situation that rocked
her world and her livelihood. I never knew in a
(35:53):
million years. I never thought that I would ever be
starting over from scratch again. So after I fought cancer,
and one cancer leaves its mark on you. You don't
get out of that fight without being scathed. And the chemo.
So I've had several major surgeries, eight months of chemo
(36:16):
and out of work for four years. That's how long
the battle for cancer was. It wasn't it wasn't pretty.
It was very difficult and my cognition. It had really
impacted my memory. My memory was so bad I would
have to write down where I was driving to because
I would forget where I was driving and just drive
(36:37):
around aimlessly until I could figure out what I was
doing my executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills in your
brain are what allow you to function at a very
high level, which is what I do in my corporate
America job. Like I not only keep me in check,
but I keep my team in check, I keep my
boss in check, and I make sure everyone is good.
(36:58):
So unless I'm able to to have my eyes on
ten things at once until you at any given moment
exactly what their status is, I'm not doing my job.
And that is what chemo took for me. I could
barely hold a conversation with someone in my brain if
I could describe it to you. It would be like
a funnel, like I would have all of these thoughts
(37:18):
right here, but that funnel got about this big when
it came time to talk, for me to be able
to express myself and what it was I needed, and
I literally would completely clam up and would not be
able to tell a waitress my order. I remember going
to the eye doctor and just needing contacts, and I
broke down in tears because I could not convey to
(37:38):
the nurse that I was there to pick up contexts.
You get so frustrated with yourself and with your body
because of what the cancer does to you. So because
of that decline, while I'm fighting cancer, my son is
now in crisis. And I meet a gentleman who takes
advantage of that cost native decline that I'm experiencing, and
(38:02):
he fabricates a story that leads me to believe that
I am no longer safe in my home. He convinces
me to sell my home of eighteen years. And this
is huge because I've never had stability, so I'm able
to so after I rebuild from my marriage, I'm finally stable.
(38:25):
I'm finally in my home, and it truly was a
home he leads me to believe that I'm not safe there,
and neither is my son. So I sell my home
and truly a fire sale, leave got rid of everything
in it. And he proposes. And I am so exhausted
now from the fight from cancer, from my son being
(38:46):
in crisis. I am mentally and physically exhausted, and I
don't feel like I can take another step. So dumb me,
I say to him, why don't you take care of
the bills? Now that you know we're going to be
in one household, why don't you take care of the bills.
He goes, great idea, why don't you go get a
certified check from the proceeds of your sale, and let's
go ahead and e merge bank accounts and I'll take
(39:08):
care of everything. Guess who did that? I did, not
knowing any better. No one had ever told me once again,
one of these gaps that you have because you don't
have a solid foundation and footing. No one never told
me you don't do that. You don't give everything to
someone who is not legally bound and responsible for you.
(39:33):
Three or four weeks later, he breaks off the engagement,
keeps the money, takes the ring back and goes. So
now I'm fifty years old, well, we'll be fifty this year,
have no home. I have none of the most treasured
memories that you keep from your babies, you know, the
little hand ornaments that they make, all the little clay
(39:54):
things like the things you can't replace. All of those
things are gone, and those are the things that are true.
We missed the most. How did you start over? Once again,
found myself in.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
The spare bedroom of a girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
This time with my two dogs because my son has
grown now, so I've got two fur babies. And I
was in her spare bedroom on the floor, on the floor,
not even in a bed, on the floor with the dogs,
and I had this i'll caohol it come to Jesus moment,
just a very clear moment, and I realized that how
(40:29):
I felt in that moment was exactly how I felt
as a child in foster care, being incredibly afraid of
the future, not knowing what I was going to do,
not knowing what my next step was. And it was
at that moment I said, you know what, if I
got to rebuild my life. Not only am I going
to rebuild my life, but I'm going to go back
to these kids that are aging out of foster care,
(40:51):
and I am going to help them shore up their foundation.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Motivated by her own experience, she started her organization Forward
Hope as a way to help vulnerable children aging out
of foster care by providing essential things like homes, transportation, education,
and mentorship that they desperately need.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
But most importantly, I can give them meaningful resources. They
don't have to couch surf, they don't have to wonder
where they're going to sleep at at night. They won't
have to carry around their items in a laundry basket
everything that they own. They're going to have a family,
They're going to have a home that will always be
there that they can always come back to, and they're
(41:33):
going to have hope for a future. What is one
moment where at the time you thought this is such
a low point, I just don't know that I can
get myself out of this, and now you actually see
it as something that catapulted you to the success you
are today. Oh, easily, I know exactly what that is.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Cancer.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I hated God for giving me that, and there was
no other way I looked at it. I was like,
out of every thing I've gone through out of the
foster care, out of the divorce, out of you name it,
out out of all of the mountains I've had to climb.
You're gonna give me cancer? Now?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Really? And can't once again cancer For anyone who's already
faced it is no easy fight and have to face
your own mortality. People would come to me and they
would be like, oh, remember God is with you in this,
And I'm like, if God is sitting over there in
that chair watching me go through this and him and
I got a problem like I didn't have. I didn't
want to have anything to do with spirituality. I was
so upset with him for another mountain to climb, and
(42:38):
I was already tired. It was me getting to that
place where I was that raw and that honest with
him that it changed something in me. It brought me
to the end of myself. I realized, oh, I can't
do everything by myself. Oh it hasn't been me doing
it all along. In my mind, I was doing this,
(43:00):
this and this. No, it's not actually you doing all
of this. It's God in you, helping you achieve each
of these milestones. And like you overcame all of those
other things in the past. You're going to overcome this too.
And not only are you going to overcome it, you're
going to be more than an overcomer. You're going to
be more than a conqueror. That was the one thing
(43:24):
that changed the rest of my life. I'll never forget.
This is how raw I got with God. This is
exactly what I said. I was talking to him. I
talked to him the way you and I are talking
right now. And I said, you know what I said,
I don't want a new chapter. I said, I want
a whole new volume. I said, this raggedy ass volume
one that I just finished up right here. I was like,
(43:44):
I don't want that. I said, I want a brand new,
leather bound, gold foiled volume two. That's what I want
my life to look like going into this next half,
and that's what it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Thank you, thank you so much for this. I'm so
appreciative of being here today.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Since her interview, Tasman has been busy. She just closed
on a house specifically to take in children that have
aged out of the foster care system through her organization
Forward Hope. Tasmin is a true inspiration and I'm so
grateful to have had the opportunity to share her story
with the world. Be sure to follow Tasman on Instagram
at Tazzy Underscore Carter and learn more about her organization
(44:39):
at forward hopec dot org. Thanks for listening. Thanks for
listening to this episode of she Pivots. If you made
it this far, you're a true pivoter, so thanks for
being part of this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode,
and if you did leave us a rating, please be
nice and tell your friends about us. To learn more
(45:01):
about our guests, follow us on Instagram at she Pivots
the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter where you
can get exclusive behind the scenes content, or on our
website she Pivots the Podcast Talk to You Next Week
special thanks to the she Pivots team, Executive producer Emily
eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins,
(45:25):
Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator Madeline Sonovak,
and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I endorse she Pivots
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