May 19, 2025 • 47 mins
🧡 Trigger Warning: This episode discusses sexual abuse, addiction, suicide, and grief. Please listen with care.
In this deeply moving and powerful episode of Having the Chats with Peter and Sophia, we open our hearts like never before.
Originally set to feature a guest, we found ourselves with an unexpected space, and we chose to fill it by sharing the raw truth of our own stories.
From childhood abuse, addiction, and prison to the loss of loved ones and the long road to healing, this is an unfiltered conversation about the pain we've lived through, the resilience we’ve found, and the love that now guides our lives.
Sophia shares the harrowing experiences of abuse she endured growing up, the impact of addiction, and the profound loss of her sister, and how recovery has helped her rebuild.
Peter reflects on his journey from abandonment, emotional disconnection, and criminality to finding peace, identity, and purpose.
This episode isn’t easy, but it’s real. And it’s needed. Because when stories like these are told, they break silence, reduce shame, and remind others that healing is possible.
If you’ve ever felt alone in your pain, or wondered if things could ever change, this one’s for you.
📢 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, someone you know may need to hear this.📩 Follow us on Instagram @peterandsophiahavingthechats
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
It's top asking questions. Where you going live?
You were waiting for that, won'tyou?
Welcome to having the chats withPeter and Sophia.
In this episode, what me, myselfand Peter are going to do is
(00:32):
we're going to give a brief description of who we are and
why this podcast means so much to us.
We were supposed to have a gueston this week, Doctor Marie
Keenan, but she had to reschedule due to family
commitments. So we have jumped at the
opportunity to give all our listeners and future listeners A
brief idea of who we are, where we came from, and what brought
us here today. So, Peter, anything to say?
(00:54):
No, I'm just sitting here like, it's OK, we're in the studio.
You were waiting for that, weren't you?
It's Julia. It's pretty cool here.
Like, I love it. I feel special.
You are special. Not that kind of special.
I just feel like special. OK, so yeah, who are?
You I'm me tell. Me more about you.
(01:16):
Right, I get going because I need to get.
Because you've got the same behind you.
I mean we need to get another one from.
Behind the wrong seat? Yeah, I go back to the start.
I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, my father serving
18 years in prison for sexually abusing me from a very young age
(01:36):
up until the age of 16. My first memory the abuse is
when I was 3. But I know what's going on
longer than that because I've been told by numerous people
over the years that he was caught doing different things.
Not only did my father sexually abuse me, he physically,
mentally, and emotionally abusedme.
He used to call me horrible names, he used to insult me in
(01:58):
front of my friends. He like he was he was a nasty
man. But I still absolutely loved and
adored him. Like no matter how much he hurt
me, I could never hate him. I was angry at him, I was
frustrated at him. There were times where I wished
he'd die, but I still loved him so much.
(02:19):
It was, it was such a hard thingto navigate as a child.
And I always tried to protect him.
Like any time I felt like when the abuse was happening, if I
thought someone was coming or hewas going to get caught, I'd
protect him. I'd, I'd make him aware that
abuse went down until I was 16, like my childhood.
I was very, very anxious as a child.
(02:41):
And around the age of 14, I reported my father to social
workers and then I retracted thestatements because they brought
me to this place called Rice House and Galway.
And I remember sitting there on the bed, it was like a bunk bed.
I think I'm not, I'm not really sure if it was a bunk bed or
just a normal bed. And I was looking around me and
(03:02):
I was scared shitless. I was petrified because I didn't
want to be in this house. All these other strange girls.
I missed my sister's, my sister Steph was, she was four years
younger than me. And my sister Michaela was 13
years younger than me. So she was only a very small
baby. So I retracted the statements
and I moved back home. But I used to spend a lot of
(03:23):
time on the streets. I'd sleep in sheds, derelict
houses, just anything to avoid going home because it wasn't a
nice place to be. And I didn't have a great
relationship with my mother either.
Umm, when I was 16 and my parents moved from Galway to
Mayo. And I think it's 'cause my
(03:45):
parents were nervous that more people were finding out about my
father because like, I was at the age where I was drinking, I
was taking drugs. I like, I started taking
substances when I was 9. I had my first joint.
I started drinking alcohol when I was 9 and I started working
then at the age of 12. And any bit of wages I got, I
was spending it on ecstasy, bottles of bug fast weed and
(04:07):
then I could get my hands on. And I used to make great tips as
well. So that kind of it was a good
thing and a bad thing. And then I moved to Mayo at 16
and I met my daughter's dad and that wasn't a very good
relationship either. He was very abusive, very
aggressive. But I know at the time I didn't
(04:28):
understand. But looking back now, he had his
own demons. He was dealing with addiction
himself, even though he wouldn'thave known that at the time.
Like no 21 year old kind of understands that, especially not
back when we were younger, 2324 years ago.
Addiction back then was someone sitting in a park drinking
bottles of wine, like winos theycall them back in the day.
(04:50):
I moved to England with him whenI was 16 and I got pregnant with
Sarah when I was 17 and life wasvery, very hard.
As I said, the relationship was very abusive, very aggressive
and I was constantly anxious. I was riddled in anxiety, but no
matter what happened, I didn't want to go home.
(05:11):
So like, I suppose the abuse I suffered from Sarah's dad wasn't
as bad to me as it possibly could have been to someone else
because of the home I came from.As I said, my dad was physically
abusive as well and I could handle a lot of pain.
Do you know? I really could.
(05:31):
But having Sarah saved my life because life over there, drugs
were very easy to get in Englandand heroin was a big thing at
the time. And I'd say if I didn't get
pregnant with Sarah when I did, I definitely would have started
on the heroin. Being a young mom was very hard
(05:52):
because I was on my own. Obviously in England I had
Sarah's dad, but when you're that age, having a baby, you
need support of a mother, don't you?
Well, that's what I thought anyway.
Yeah, as I say, Sarah saved my life.
She was a blessing. And then when Sarah was about
seven months old, I moved back from England.
(06:15):
I caught Sarah's ad cheating on me, so I ran.
Well, he came back after me, andof course, I took him back.
Being I was very vulnerable. I just.
And I wanted Sarah to have a family.
I didn't want to be another single mom at that age.
And I just wanted Sarah to have a family and things were great
for a while. Don't get me wrong.
They were good for a while untilhe started back drinking again.
(06:35):
And then we broke up when Sarah was around 3 and life was OK
from for me for a while. Do you know, I was trying my
best to be a good mom. I was working hard.
I was working seven nights, seven nights a week some weeks
so I could do nice things with her, bring her on breaks away
and stuff like that. And then when I reached the age
(06:56):
of about, I'd say 25, I went AWOL again.
I met up with a guy, we started going out and drinking.
Drugs were wow. It was an everyday occurrence.
And that's when the head shops were around as well.
So that stuff was insane, insane.
That relationship didn't work out.
(07:16):
I moved near my mom and dad. I still kept a relationship with
my mom and dad throughout the years because my dad always
promised me he would never do anything to my sisters and I
believed him. Umm Then when I was about 28
another person came forward, a relative of mine.
(07:39):
She was only about 14 or 15 and she came forward and said that
my dad abused her and of course he denied it.
And that's when I said I can't let him destroy her life.
So I went to my sister's death and that's when Steph admitted
that dad abused her as well. And that really like broke my
(08:02):
heart because I thought with allthe abuse I was getting that it
didn't happen to her. But obviously there was that gap
where I'd left home and it was happening to her from very young
age as well, from her first memories, about 3 or 4 as well.
And that's when I just said I cannot let this man away with
this anymore. So we all, myself and Steph went
(08:24):
to the guards. The guys actually came out to my
house and had a conversation with us and we reported it.
We went in and done statements. The statements were feckin
horrendous. They went down for like 2 solid
weeks, 11-12 hour days in doing these statements.
And that's when it was kind of hitting me.
It's like, Oh my God, this, all this stuff actually happened.
(08:47):
Like I actually am a survivor. Do you know?
Because like, when it's your life, it becomes a norm you
don't like. I knew it wasn't normal what he
was doing to me, but I didn't see it as being as bad as what
it was because like, it was, I'mnot exaggerating this when I say
like, it was an everyday occurrence.
There wasn't a day when I wasn'tin that man's company where he
(09:07):
wasn't groping me or abusing me or calling me names or it was
just horrendous and the statements were done.
Umm, my addiction got really bad.
I started taking Valium. I started, I was even taking
extra umm, what's the tablets a month?
(09:29):
My thyroid, I can't even think of them now.
Altroxen. I even started taking extra
altroxen thinking I'd lose weight.
Like my eating disorder got out of control.
I was taking like 10,00,000 to the day and then I could put
into my body that would alter mymind or my body.
I was fueling myself with it like I could take 10 Valium in a
(09:49):
day and I wouldn't even ever remember it taking half of them.
Like there's one point there hadto call an ambulance for me
where I was drinking alcohol andtaking Valium and I didn't know
what I'd taken and I I was running around the house gone
riots there. Had to ring an ambulance because
I thought I was going to die. I thought my head was going to
explode. I started very bad on the
cocaine then because obviously when I was younger, cocaine
(10:11):
wasn't really a thing because you wouldn't been able to afford
it. And so once that addiction
started it, it was very, very hard to stop.
My sister's Steph was strugglingwith heroin addiction, with
alcohol. We had like, we had a lot of
trauma from family members on mymother's side.
(10:33):
Like they were ringing asking did we enjoy what my father was
doing to us? And it was just horrible.
And I used to see Steph in tears, and I mean tears after
getting these phone calls. She was like, why can't they
just leave us alone? We've done nothing wrong.
So we had all that in our head thinking that we were in the
(10:53):
wrong along with my father because we were getting the
blame for letting it happen to their kids.
Like we weren't living in the house when it happened.
You know, it was, it was just horrible.
And then going on the court, cases came up and I hadn't seen
my dad in about a year and a half.
And like, I used to worry about him being in prison because I
(11:14):
still loved my dad. I cared about him and I used to
be worried, is he getting bullied?
Is he getting tortured because he was in there?
Because because he's a paedophile, you know, that's
just what he is. It's the black and white of it.
And I used to hear horror stories what happens to these
type of people in prisons. And it wasn't nice.
And when I seen him in court forthe first time is like, oh, my
(11:35):
God, that's my dad. All I wanted to do was hug him,
but I knew I couldn't because I didn't want to for one reason.
I didn't want to be judged by anyone for thinking you can't do
that because of what he don't. Yeah.
And the other is I didn't want to hug him because I was afraid
I wouldn't let go because, of course, it's all from my dad.
So the courts went on for a while and then he got sentenced
(11:58):
for abusing my two sisters and another family friend and the
other relative. So he got 10 years for that,
which I thought was very harsh at the time because as I said to
me, it was normal. I didn't see the severity of
what he was doing. And then it came to my court
(12:20):
case. That was such a head fuck my
God, because I was sitting therethinking this man is going to go
to jail because of me. But now I realize he went to
jail because of what he done to me.
And when the judge said I sentenced sentenced him to life
in prison 18 years, I just remember looking at my sister
thinking he doesn't deserve that.
But like, thinking of it now, heshould have got 118 years.
(12:42):
Do you know? And like, even talking like
this, I still, I still don't hate my dad.
Do you know, I went up to do therestorative justice with him
just over a year ago. It was challenging.
It was hard to navigate, but it done me the world of good
(13:04):
because I got to ask him a few questions I wanted to ask him.
Did I get all the answers? No, but I wasn't expecting to
get them all. Like my main answer question to
him was what was idea and the answer I got isn't kind of the
answer I wanted. He was like, you were my baby
girl. And one of the other questions I
asked him is like, why did you keep doing what you were doing?
(13:27):
And this, this answer really like fucked me up a bit.
He was like, because I didn't get into trouble.
And that's when I kind of said to myself, you're not well,
that's when I, that's when I finally accepted that this man
is not well, not alone. He, he is a paedophile, but
(13:48):
there's something chemically imbalanced in his brain.
He should know, like we've had, I've had this conversation with
you, Peter, a couple of nights ago, like when you have a kid,
you should know you don't abuse them.
And that's just the bottom end of it.
Back to after the court cases. I, I like, I lost the plot
myself, I really did. I was missing a lot of work.
(14:11):
I was going to counselling at the time and my counsellor was
fantastic. Sonia was my my Angel at the
time, but I also was lying to her a lot.
And I'm only now opening up to that.
I was smoking a lot of weed and drinking a lot of alcohol.
And I wasn't telling her that because I didn't want her to be
disappointed in me because she really did do a lot of work with
me like she really did. Like if I wasn't using that
(14:35):
woman would have changed my lifecompletely with the work that
she'd done to me. But I just kept falling back
into addiction. Life went on for a while.
Steph was really, really, reallystruggling and of course I was
dealing with my own addiction. I couldn't see it and I'm not
(14:58):
going to lie, part of me didn't want to see it because I didn't
want to accept it. She was rushed into hospital in
2018 or 19 with liver failure. Oh my God, it was absolutely
horrendous watching her. Like she was giving her last
rites and she was told she was going to die.
And I'll never forget it myself.And her husband George, that the
(15:20):
priest was in and she just looked at me and she was like,
Sophia, I don't want to die. Please don't let me die.
And I was like to Jared, what doI say?
Because I can't lie to her. But every single day, all our
family, my dad's sisters, my cousins, me and my sister
Michaela and my daughter Sarah, we did not leave her bedside.
She was months in hospital and we didn't leave her bedside.
(15:43):
And that's how I know that love saved her.
Love really saved that woman. Even Sarah's granny, she was up
everyday blessing her. Teresa is a really holy woman
and she was up blessing her everyday.
Steph pulled through that, thankGod, but she was never the same.
I, I really do believe she had like wet brain because she
(16:05):
didn't look the same, she didn'tact the same.
She just wasn't the same. And she stayed off to drink for
a while, but I was off in my ownworld.
I'm taking immense amount of cocaine.
I got involved with someone and it was endless amounts of it.
Like there wasn't a day that went by, I'd say for a solid
(16:26):
year that I wasn't taking. The only way I could describe it
was like slugs that there was just immense, like nothing was
hitting me. And in that time, Steph had gone
back on the drink and she reallylost her own of herself.
She didn't like she left Jared for a while.
(16:46):
She got involved with a horribleperson who treated her like
shit. And the Steph I know, the Steph
that I grew up, it would not have walked out on Jared and her
kids if she wasn't really, really unwell.
And that's one thing I do try and say to the kids, it wasn't
mommy's fault Mommy wasn't well.And then I got a call.
(17:07):
I, Jared rang me and said Steph was in hospital and he said,
Sophia, she's really, really sick.
So I went up to see her and it was, she was really bad.
And I remember Jared pushing herin in the wheelchair.
And then the next day myself andSarah went off to the hospital
(17:27):
to see her. And COVID was kind of just
finishing at the time and he hadto ring up and the nurse said,
oh, give us half an hour, we're just doing our handover come up
then. And I said, Sarah, fuck it,
we'll go home. Am I so sorry I made that
decision? Because 5:00 the next morning,
(17:49):
we got the call to say, oh, sorry, that they'd water into an
induced coma, that she had a bleed in her brain.
And they went up to the hospital.
And I was like, begging the doctors, like, is there nothing
you can do? And he was like, I don't think
you understand what I'm trying to tell you.
Your sister is dead. But we're just keeping her alive
(18:11):
so the kids can say their goodbyes and the stuff.
And they kept her alive for two days.
And like, the staff and I see you were brilliant.
Like, they let us all in myself there, the kids and my other
sister, my friend Sandy was there.
She was a great support and we just lay there playing music
(18:32):
with her and talking to her and it was so weird because she had
those boots on her legs to stop blood clots.
And every time those went off, we're like, oh, she's moving
When they turn off the life support machine.
I'll never forget it. Like just watching the kids,
(18:54):
watching the kids with her mom for the last time, it was, it
was hard, but they were young. They didn't really understand.
I don't think they probably understand more than I give them
credit for. And the next few days after
that, when she died, it was justlike a complete blur to me.
Like people were saying to me after the funeral, you were off
your head. It was the one time and I don't
(19:16):
know how many years, I did not have a substance in my system
because I wanted to stay sober for the kids.
But I was just floating around on adrenaline.
I didn't know who I was and I don't remember her funeral.
I just remember them putting them, putting her into the
ground and looking over at Jared.
And it was the first time in allthe years I knew Jared I ever
(19:37):
seen him crying. And then I just remember sitting
on the ground with Lily May in my lap but looking down at her.
And it was, it was mental, but moving on.
I know this might sound strange but it's really saved my life.
I lost it running myself for a solid year after she passed
away. Constant drug use and alcohol
(20:00):
use and I didn't give a shit what happened to me.
I didn't care anymore and I whenI seen her head stone a year
after she died and just seen hername and stone it was like
that's when he hit me. Steph wasn't coming back and I
thought I don't want to do that to Sarah and not be there to
support her, so I decided to go into rehab.
And five days after her first anniversary, I went to my Murray
(20:23):
way down to Curry and signed myself in.
Best decision I've ever made in my life.
I saved my life. I done 30 days in residential
treatment. I come out of treatment.
I done really well. I went to meetings for a while
and they didn't work for me. So I just started working on
(20:44):
myself, looking in deeper in myself.
I trained as a personal trainer,got a job in a gym, didn't the
things I'd always dreamed of, but I took on too much.
I was having doing 2 jobs. I was working nights in the
place I was working in and I wasworking in the gym and I was
training. But what I was really doing was
trying to avoid myself. Like there was this still times
(21:06):
as something will happen and I'dbe like, oh, I must ring Steph
and tell her about that. And I just didn't want to sit
with it because I was really feeling my emotions.
I was really feeling what grief was and I was feeling guilty and
shamed for what I'd put my daughter through over the years.
Like that went on for a year andthen I met your glorious self,
(21:31):
changed my life completely. All for the good, all for the
good. And you introduce me to a lot.
You introduce me to meditation, you introduce me to call dips.
But like our relationship is, it's absolutely beautiful.
It's a love I never thought I'd experience in my life.
(21:54):
Like you're my best friend, you're my soul mate, but you've
also helped me become my own best friend.
You've given me a safe place. Like the first few months we
were together weren't easy on meat all.
Because I was in such a safe place, I was able to feel all
the pain. Like I don't know how that you
manage that. Like watching me go through
that, even looking back, it actually gives me nausea.
(22:16):
Like I couldn't sleep. I kept telling myself I can't
breathe. But it was bringing up all the
physical pain from all the abusethat I'd suffered over the
years. Like I'm so grateful that you
did stick by me because if it was you, I was going running a
mile. I'm only talking.
But like life right now is, it'sa life I've always dreamed of.
(22:40):
It really is. Now I know some days aren't the
best, but exactly. But the good days keep me going.
And like I have a great support and you, I have a great support
and my daughter, life is really good.
And like I'm so grateful and I'mso blessed and like to be
(23:00):
sitting here today to be able tostay here and talk about what
I've been through. It's it's mind blowing.
Like if someone told me three years ago, Sophia, you'll be two
years and eight months in recovery.
You'll have a whole new life foryourself.
You'll be journaling, you'll be doing meditation.
(23:21):
You'll be doing all this stuff Ithought was witchcraft years
ago, like I really like. No way you're.
Met with a man who's got a wand.Hocus Pocus and I'm on my own
podcast like Peter, that is like, it's a dream.
And I'm so grateful I get to live my dream with you.
And I said yes, and I'm gratefulthat my sister is my higher
(23:46):
power and she's supporting and guiding me and everything I do
like I I know she is to get so many signs, the lights, the
goosebumps, the lights flicker and they were birthday.
And I have that on video to prove it because no one will
believe me. You know, that's like, I wanted
to share this part of my story, not the part, the whole lot of
(24:07):
it, like wouldn't in a small version.
Because I want to show people that no matter what you've been
through in life, no matter whereyou've come from, what you've
done, change is possible. It's not easy and I'm not going
to sit here and say it is, but my God, it's worth it.
It really is worth it. But you have to put the work in.
You have to trust yourself. You have to believe in yourself,
(24:30):
and you have to love yourself. I know some people, and I did
for a long time, find it hard tosay I love myself.
I don't love myself like as in Ilove myself because myself has
got me to where I am today. I wouldn't change a bit of my
past for anything because it's made me who I am.
I have the amazing people I havein my life because of the life
(24:51):
I've lived. And that's just what I want to
say. Just be nice to yourself and be
nice to people around you because nobody knows what anyone
is going through and why. Are you doing this podcast?
Because it's a space where people, any of our guests coming
(25:12):
on and even ourselves talking, I'd like to think we create a
safe space for people because wecreated for each other.
For people to come on and be rawand authentic and not feel
judged. Be honest and open because
there's so many restrictions on what people think they can say.
Your life is your life. You can say what you want about
(25:34):
yourself and your life and not to feel judged, Not to feel like
I can't say this because people might think, So what?
Let them think they're going to think stuff anyway.
Just be yourself, trust yourselfand give credit to yourself for
how far you've come and just show people love and compassion
because between us, there's not much we haven't been through.
And if I can guide and support someone on any form of journey,
(25:58):
I, I will do my best to do it now.
Peter. Peter.
What? Your turn.
Let us have an idea of who. You are.
You can't go after that. Like what's what is supposed to
say after? That your truth.
My truth, it's a wrap. I don't know a bit.
(26:19):
Go back to the start. Start.
I start from the end. No, I go back to start from the
start, from where I am today. I mean, I've done a lot of the
start. Where I am today is in a
relationship with a woman that Iadore, that I know adores me,
that encourages me, supports me,looks after me and puts up with
(26:41):
me. I'm hard work.
I can be difficult. Not all the time.
I see, since there can't be, I searched for that my entire
life, like my entire life, I've searched for that.
I never found it. I never found it within myself
and I didn't found it, find it anywhere.
I come from a different family than you come from.
(27:02):
You know, I come from a nice family, a good family.
Not saying your family is not nice.
I didn't mean it like that. I come from an environment that
was created to be caring and loving and I was given the
opportunity or placed into that family.
I'm adopted and I was adopted into this family and from the
(27:29):
earliest memory I have, I never felt like I belonged.
I didn't even know I was adoptedat that point.
It was just something different.Just wasn't wasn't comfortable,
wasn't comfortable in myself, wasn't comfortable there.
And that's from like a young, young age.
I was sent to psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists at the
(27:49):
ages of 789 trying to figure outwhat was wrong with this, this,
this kid. And it was told to the
psychologist that I didn't have the capacity to love that I
didn't love properly. I didn't, I didn't know fucking
love. I didn't.
I never had it from from been inthe womb to birth it.
(28:10):
I couldn't tell you what love was.
You know, I searched for my entire life.
I couldn't tell you what it was.I was my birth mother didn't
want to give me up. My birth mother to this day
reckons that she didn't sign anypapers.
You know, I was lucky enough to have a conversation.
I've had a couple of conversations with her.
I've met her and I'm in touch with some of them.
(28:35):
And then, yeah. So what she did was when I was
taken from her when I was born, I was taken from her the room
and I was brought away and she'dgo down there every night and
bring me back and hold me at herat night.
So if anyone knows anything about trauma or how the body
(28:57):
holds trauma, for the first partof my my being on this planet, I
had a bond broken every 24 hoursfor I don't know how long for a
week maybe. I don't know exactly.
So every time she brought me back as a baby and hugged me and
(29:17):
held on to me and every time I was taken from her, that was a
bond that was that was fucking up me like as a as a human, as a
spirit, as a being, as a soul without me having a clue at that
age. How would you?
So that followed me throughout my entire life.
Yeah, throughout my entire life.I found out when I was about 9
(29:39):
or 10, I think, that I was adopted and and that blew my
brains, But I kind of also helped me understand that, OK,
this even at that age, I was like, OK, I'm the kind of, it
made me feel, I don't know, likeunderstanding that This is why I
(30:00):
didn't fit in. But it made it worse.
Like it just reinforced that idea that I didn't fit in.
It reinforced that idea that I was different to reinforce that
idea that I wasn't worthy of love, reinforced that idea that
I couldn't feel love or be lovedor anything like that.
And yeah, that just set something off of me where I
(30:22):
didn't care. And that went on, you know, that
that continued into into the teenage years.
And I was rebellious. I was defiant.
I was, as every school teacher said, I was bold, I was naughty.
I was labeled everything you could think of in the school
system. And I just didn't.
(30:46):
I didn't get with authority, just didn't, didn't get with.
I fought back on every every chance I could get.
And then that went into the street and that's went into when
I, you know, came across it was harsh.
I came across harsh and that gave me such a ease, like I
smoking that that gave me such for just ease.
(31:09):
And then the people who were involved in the selling of it
and where I used to get it, likelooking back on and I'm fucking
sick of myself for even how I felt at that point.
But sure, it is what it is. It's how I felt.
I felt like I belonged. Like I did my utmost best in
every aspect to feel like I could fit in, to get their
approval to, you know, to fit inwith this crowd like, and that
(31:35):
continued like that continued throughout my life in all
different ways. By the age of 18, you know, I
was in a prison system. That's where it went like and
that continued. That continued upon.
I was 36 through 9 of them, two different countries.
I've every system I've been in, every place I've been has left a
(32:01):
little imprint on me. There's there's something there.
There's flashbacks that I get onmost nights, sometimes days.
There's moments where I try and differentiate between what's
real and what's not. I always seek an approval,
always trying to fit in, always trying to understand myself.
(32:23):
Couldn't and then used drink, drugs, behaviours, everything to
escape what I had inside or didn't have inside is the case.
Maybe I've learned now, like I've learned a lot about it and
what it was and why it occurred.But it brought me to some, some
(32:46):
dangerous places and it brought people that loved me.
There's some dangerous places. You know, my family have
supported me throughout everything.
I wouldn't be alive today without the support of my family
and the help they've had. You know what?
18, I was in my first treatment center and I was in a lad, an
(33:06):
adolescent treatment center downin Kilkenny.
And that was an opportunity to to change.
So I was brought to this treatment center from a young
offenders. I didn't want treatment.
I wanted a way out of the young offenders, you know what I mean?
And, and I did treatment and I did everything and I told them
everything they wanted to hear. And I ticked all the boxes and
everything was, was good. And then I left and three weeks
(33:28):
later I was back in the prison system because I wasn't changing
anything. I didn't at that age, I
couldn't. I didn't have a clue who I was,
what I was, what I wanted. I wasn't.
I was a kid in an adult's body up on about 36 years of age.
He was a kid who had kids. You know, I ended up getting
married as 24. My marriage was drug induced,
(33:49):
alcohol induced. It was mental.
It was just a wild ride and it was 13 years of absolute
madness. And I brought like, so I brought
my ex-wife on that Wyatt ride, Lisa, and we had two children
together. And I brought two children into
the world. And I was mad.
(34:11):
I was a child myself. I had no idea how to live in the
world at all. I couldn't comprehend feelings.
I couldn't understand what was going on within.
And because I couldn't, I got sofrustrated and angry.
And the only way I could deal with that is drugs.
(34:31):
Like, drink is a part of my my life and my story, but it's been
drugs. Everyone in my life has told me,
like, you're not an alcoholic, you're just a drug addict.
It's like, yeah, that's true to a point.
But like, if I don't have drugs and I have drink, like I do the
same I did with the drink, you know, I've looked back on things
and people who weren't Alcoholics don't end up in
(34:53):
prison after drinking. I mean, that's, that's, that's
not, that's not normal. Every time I drank too much, I
ended up in a prison system. And yeah, look, it went on.
It was wild. I've been involved in stuff,
Dangerous stuff, Stuff I'm not proud of, stuff that still
(35:14):
haunts me, Stuff to the point that even on a YouTube short
that we put up on the other day,I have a lad from my past
commenting on it. You know what I mean?
Stuff that still haunts me, still follows me.
Stuff that I can't change, can'tget rid of.
The past, right? But as I said to that comment,
like, I can't change the past, but I can make the present and
(35:37):
the future better. And that's what I do and I do my
best to do it. Like, do I get it right all the
time? No, I don't know.
You know, it's a balance. Like I could go into all the
things, like there's no point. Like I LED a chaotic life.
It brought me to dangerous places.
It brought me to doing dangerousthings with dangerous people.
(36:01):
It brought danger to many people's lives.
It brought dangers to my kids life.
My kids have had to endure armedresponse units coming through
front doors, had to endure searches of the house, had to
endure me been on the run in different countries, you know,
for the entire time of my children's life up until I went
into treatment. When we came to visit family in
(36:23):
Ireland, we had to go to the north of Ireland because I was
still on the run in the South. Like this shit was normal to my
children. This, this is what they grew up
with. Like, you know, they grew up
with criminality throughout their life without them even
realizing it. That's what I brought people
into the world to do, like, and yeah, all of that, like, and I
(36:48):
ended up doing to my children what has happened to me with
drinking drugs. I abandoned them.
I ran away from the family home.I think over a space of 13
years, 22 times and I was escaping everything within.
I just get my responsibilities. I was escaping the relationship
I had with my ex-wife, which waschaotic and toxic.
(37:09):
Like I'd be honest. And that's no one's fault.
That's not her fault. It's not my fault.
We were two very unwell people who came together in a very
fucked up situation and created a life for ourselves and it just
got really bad. We just didn't work, you know
what I mean? Like when someone's in a kitchen
(37:30):
couldn't crack while their children are upstairs and their
wife is in bed. Like there's something wrong,
something's not right there. That's to the extent I did to
escape. You know, I did my best to
escape life on so many times. I could go into so many
different stories and tell you all the madness that happened,
but it's pointless. Like absolutely pointless.
I'll tell you one thing, one thing that I remember that's and
(37:54):
I remember I've so much went on to my lifestyle.
I can't even remember. I've buried so much of my life
behind a big door and a box and it's locked.
And it only comes out when I talk to people from my past and
they're like, oh, do you remember this?
And then they'll talk a bit moreabout it.
I remember that now. It's like, I don't want to
remember, but I have to because it's apparent to me.
(38:17):
I can remember the feeling. The feeling was I didn't.
I wasn't Marty. I was unlovable.
I searched for love and everything.
I wasn't capable. I wasn't able.
That's the feelings throughout life that I didn't belong, that
I shouldn't be here. That followed me.
(38:38):
Like at the age of 14, I drank like a shit load of domestic
bleach to try and take my own life, you know?
I mean, I found tablets in my, that was, yeah, there was 14 or
13 in and around that ages, I found tablets in my father's
price. And I scoffed a lot trying to
take my own life. Did not want to be here, you
know, that ended up me asleep for like I think 24 hours or
(39:00):
something. My family have to look after me.
Turned out to be diazepam, whichI ended up loving later on in
life. Like genuinely fucking couldn't
get enough of them. In 2020, I hung myself from a
tree. You know, I went through life
trying to get rid of my own life.
Like I couldn't deal with me being like, just didn't know who
I was. I couldn't deal with it.
Like I went from smoking harsh weed, cannabis, whatever you
(39:24):
want to call it at the age of 12to a full blown heroin addict at
the age of 38. Like I mean full blown, I
couldn't. So when most people wake up in
the morning to an alarm or whatever, they wake up in the
morning, they got up and they gofor a pee.
When my eyes walk in the morning, my hand, the first
thing I do is my hand would go under my pillow to get my pipe
(39:47):
because I couldn't, I couldn't move.
I couldn't do anything until I had a blast of heroin into my
system. At the end of everything, I was
homeless on the streets of London, going from hostile to
hostile, taking any substance toget my hands on, doing anything
I could to get money together, to take anything I could take,
(40:10):
you know, And the feeling was just fucking broken.
I couldn't deal with life. It was miserable in every aspect
of it. I was depressed throughout my
entire life and I know I am as depressed now.
I know why because like who I was, I pushed down.
(40:31):
I depressed the person I was right now because I didn't know
who I was. I was never able to understand
Peter. What's Peter?
I had so many different versionsput on Peter of who Peter is or
what Peter is. You know what I mean?
Getting sent to psychologists ata young age fucked my head.
I thought there was something wrong with me without me even
realizing that there's nothing wrong with me.
I thought there's something wrong with me.
It was just me. I wasn't able to be me in an
(40:54):
environment that I was in because that wasn't my
environment. That's just how it is,
unfortunately. It's not a bad thing.
My parents are lovely people. They're great people.
My family is great. It's a beautiful place to be,
but that wasn't my environment. That's not the place I was put
on this planet to be at that time.
Now, when saying that if I was stayed with my with my birth
family, my birth mother, what would have happened?
(41:14):
Who knows? She was in addiction at the time
to things could have been toxic,chaotic, you know, I went
through life emotionally discharged from everything.
I didn't understand. I couldn't feel, I couldn't
comprehend and I couldn't. I just couldn't.
Like that was, if that's the easiest way to put it, I just
couldn't. I couldn't be.
(41:35):
I've learned to find out who me is and I've learned to not
depress it. I've learned so much about
myself. I went to treatment to give up
drink and to give up drugs, to give up drugs.
I didn't care about to drink at the time.
To be honest. I'd be straight, like, I didn't
care. Well, I gave.
I'm in treatment to give them upso I could go back to drug
leading, so I can go back to been a criminal.
That was my idea. That's how delusional my mind
was. My mind was so twisted.
(41:56):
Like, so, so twisted. Noah's holding me something
there and I can't see. It's yellow paper with writing
on it. No idea what it says. 5 minutes.
All right, OK, Says 5 minutes. Anyway, Noah's our editor and
he's killed dude, So, yeah, Look, I couldn't understand
life. Life was fucked up and, and I
changed. I went into treatment.
(42:16):
I am. I didn't want to go into
treatment really, to be honest. But I went into treatment and I
changed my entire life. And when I came out of
treatment, I did a lot of work on myself.
I went internally. I still go internally to figure
out who I am. I'm still trying to find out who
I am. There's still times I have no
idea who I am, just the times I get lost.
(42:38):
But I've got an environment thatI can be safe to be lost in and
I wanted to do this podcast because people talk about stuff,
but they don't talk about stuff.People mention stuff and just
over. It's superficial.
They don't get into it. I want to give people an
opportunity to talk about stuff.There's stuff that I still
(42:58):
haven't even dived into. There's abuse within my past
that I haven't even looked at. We're going to have a lovely man
coming on that I think I'm goingto get a lot from because he's
very open about his abuse and about what happened to him.
That's what I need. It's healing for me, it's
healing for others, it's healingfor the guest.
And it's like you said, it's change is possible, right?
(43:20):
But it's not only possible, it'smaintainable and it's
achievable. We can do it.
It's fucking tough. Like, yeah, it's hard.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.
And it's still, there's still times where like the old me, the
old programming within me comes forward and I get triggered by
different things and I activatedor whatever the fuck you want to
call it. Like I feel shitty.
That's that's it really. It brings something up.
(43:41):
I can get defensive, I can get angry, I can get frustrated, I
can get sad, I can get hurt. I can get whatever.
And it's absolutely nothing to do with anyone else.
It's everything to do with in inside me.
And there's times when we'll be having conversations or stuff
will go on and I literally will feel sick.
Like my stomach will turn and it's got nothing to do with
anyone else and everything to dowith me and my program.
(44:04):
And I want to talk about that. I want people to hear it.
I want people to be able to comeon and talk about it.
And that's what we did the podcast and give them an
opportunity to and that's it. And even for people that don't
come on the guests, we have comeon and listen to ourselves.
It'll give people hope and they're sitting at home
listening. Because like I said it many
time, if I had someone like me to listen to a few years ago, I
(44:29):
think my journey would have beena lot different because I felt
so alienated. I felt I didn't feel like I was
human at all. I felt like I was the only one
that was going through this. You're not.
No, unfortunately, no, I'm not. There's a whole lot more.
Out there and there's a whole lot more going through
everything that we talk about. I mean, but it's not picked
apart. I mean, it's mentioned, yeah.
(44:50):
It's not the feelings and behindhow it leaves a person feeling
isn't talked about. No, like all the the criminality
and the change within criminality and all the prison
system, all I talked about. But it's not really talked about
like how it leaves you, the trauma leaves you.
What got you there in the first place?
It's all the shit that went on. I mean, as I said, every system
I've been in has an imprint on me.
(45:11):
Like, I mean, I've, I've memories of all sorts.
I've the madness that goes on. Christmas in a system is the
hardest place I've ever been in my entire life.
You think of 400 men cooped up, coming up the Christmas, missing
their families, missing everything.
The tension is, yeah, all that'sthere.
(45:31):
So all these things are still tobe talked about.
We had to come out like, you know, in the way of guests that
come on and and talk about that and I can talk about that with
them. We've guests that come on,
coming on can talk about their experiences with you.
And that's what this is about toactually talk about it, to let
this shit out in the open. You know what I mean?
We did a video at the Rape Crisis center.
Me or a crisis center, right? I'd be straight.
I thought that was going to be helpful.
(45:53):
People fucking shield away from it.
We can't mention the word rape in this country because they
don't want to understand or talkabout it.
Well fucking guess what? It happens.
Guess what? There's people who who are left
after it. I've seen statistics.
Yesterday one in four in Dublin had them up.
The latest records they have is that one in three people in
(46:13):
Ireland have suffered some form of sexual abuse.
That is wild. That's mental.
The 3-4 people in this room, youknow, and two of us.
Have had abuse you don't mean like there's men out there who
are committing suicide on a weekly basis because of abuse
that's happened to them adolescents in childhood and
they can't tell anyone or won't tell anyone which we don't have
(46:35):
it. The Rape Crisis centers are
there for men to right but it's not spoken about because no one
will fuck in share the message. Why I see people online sharing
messages of celebrities who've had a fucking baby, you know?
I mean, you'll share the messagewhen your sister or your son or
your father or your husband or your daughter needs their
(46:56):
service, but you'll shy away from it until that.
What the fuck is that about? Anyway?
That's another podcast. I'll let you close this one up,
Peter. What am I going to say?
Like, sorry for getting angry. I very look, no, these are
topics that are close to my hair.
I mean, thank you for listening.And like, I icky as I say, I
(47:17):
hate doing this. But like, subscribe, share, do
all of that mad shit that has tobe done for this to get to the
ears that could benefit from hearing it.
Yeah. As I always say, we all know
someone who needs someone, yeah.Between adoption, addiction,
trauma, sexual abuse and all therest of it.
Grief. Every family in this country has
fucking some effect. Yeah.
(47:38):
So, you know, I mean, like, if it's hit home for anything or if
anything's hit home, tell a friend, share it.
You don't know who's suffering in silence.
Well said, Peter. Cheers.
Thank you. Good night.
That's a wrap over and out.
It's top asking questions. Where you going live?
You were waiting for that, won'tyou?
Welcome to having the chats withPeter and Sophia.
In this episode, what me, myselfand Peter are going to do is
(00:32):
we're going to give a brief description of who we are and
why this podcast means so much to us.
We were supposed to have a gueston this week, Doctor Marie
Keenan, but she had to reschedule due to family
commitments. So we have jumped at the
opportunity to give all our listeners and future listeners A
brief idea of who we are, where we came from, and what brought
us here today. So, Peter, anything to say?
(00:54):
No, I'm just sitting here like, it's OK, we're in the studio.
You were waiting for that, weren't you?
It's Julia. It's pretty cool here.
Like, I love it. I feel special.
You are special. Not that kind of special.
I just feel like special. OK, so yeah, who are?
You I'm me tell. Me more about you.
(01:16):
Right, I get going because I need to get.
Because you've got the same behind you.
I mean we need to get another one from.
Behind the wrong seat? Yeah, I go back to the start.
I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, my father serving
18 years in prison for sexually abusing me from a very young age
(01:36):
up until the age of 16. My first memory the abuse is
when I was 3. But I know what's going on
longer than that because I've been told by numerous people
over the years that he was caught doing different things.
Not only did my father sexually abuse me, he physically,
mentally, and emotionally abusedme.
He used to call me horrible names, he used to insult me in
(01:58):
front of my friends. He like he was he was a nasty
man. But I still absolutely loved and
adored him. Like no matter how much he hurt
me, I could never hate him. I was angry at him, I was
frustrated at him. There were times where I wished
he'd die, but I still loved him so much.
(02:19):
It was, it was such a hard thingto navigate as a child.
And I always tried to protect him.
Like any time I felt like when the abuse was happening, if I
thought someone was coming or hewas going to get caught, I'd
protect him. I'd, I'd make him aware that
abuse went down until I was 16, like my childhood.
I was very, very anxious as a child.
(02:41):
And around the age of 14, I reported my father to social
workers and then I retracted thestatements because they brought
me to this place called Rice House and Galway.
And I remember sitting there on the bed, it was like a bunk bed.
I think I'm not, I'm not really sure if it was a bunk bed or
just a normal bed. And I was looking around me and
(03:02):
I was scared shitless. I was petrified because I didn't
want to be in this house. All these other strange girls.
I missed my sister's, my sister Steph was, she was four years
younger than me. And my sister Michaela was 13
years younger than me. So she was only a very small
baby. So I retracted the statements
and I moved back home. But I used to spend a lot of
(03:23):
time on the streets. I'd sleep in sheds, derelict
houses, just anything to avoid going home because it wasn't a
nice place to be. And I didn't have a great
relationship with my mother either.
Umm, when I was 16 and my parents moved from Galway to
Mayo. And I think it's 'cause my
(03:45):
parents were nervous that more people were finding out about my
father because like, I was at the age where I was drinking, I
was taking drugs. I like, I started taking
substances when I was 9. I had my first joint.
I started drinking alcohol when I was 9 and I started working
then at the age of 12. And any bit of wages I got, I
was spending it on ecstasy, bottles of bug fast weed and
(04:07):
then I could get my hands on. And I used to make great tips as
well. So that kind of it was a good
thing and a bad thing. And then I moved to Mayo at 16
and I met my daughter's dad and that wasn't a very good
relationship either. He was very abusive, very
aggressive. But I know at the time I didn't
(04:28):
understand. But looking back now, he had his
own demons. He was dealing with addiction
himself, even though he wouldn'thave known that at the time.
Like no 21 year old kind of understands that, especially not
back when we were younger, 2324 years ago.
Addiction back then was someone sitting in a park drinking
bottles of wine, like winos theycall them back in the day.
(04:50):
I moved to England with him whenI was 16 and I got pregnant with
Sarah when I was 17 and life wasvery, very hard.
As I said, the relationship was very abusive, very aggressive
and I was constantly anxious. I was riddled in anxiety, but no
matter what happened, I didn't want to go home.
(05:11):
So like, I suppose the abuse I suffered from Sarah's dad wasn't
as bad to me as it possibly could have been to someone else
because of the home I came from.As I said, my dad was physically
abusive as well and I could handle a lot of pain.
Do you know? I really could.
(05:31):
But having Sarah saved my life because life over there, drugs
were very easy to get in Englandand heroin was a big thing at
the time. And I'd say if I didn't get
pregnant with Sarah when I did, I definitely would have started
on the heroin. Being a young mom was very hard
(05:52):
because I was on my own. Obviously in England I had
Sarah's dad, but when you're that age, having a baby, you
need support of a mother, don't you?
Well, that's what I thought anyway.
Yeah, as I say, Sarah saved my life.
She was a blessing. And then when Sarah was about
seven months old, I moved back from England.
(06:15):
I caught Sarah's ad cheating on me, so I ran.
Well, he came back after me, andof course, I took him back.
Being I was very vulnerable. I just.
And I wanted Sarah to have a family.
I didn't want to be another single mom at that age.
And I just wanted Sarah to have a family and things were great
for a while. Don't get me wrong.
They were good for a while untilhe started back drinking again.
(06:35):
And then we broke up when Sarah was around 3 and life was OK
from for me for a while. Do you know, I was trying my
best to be a good mom. I was working hard.
I was working seven nights, seven nights a week some weeks
so I could do nice things with her, bring her on breaks away
and stuff like that. And then when I reached the age
(06:56):
of about, I'd say 25, I went AWOL again.
I met up with a guy, we started going out and drinking.
Drugs were wow. It was an everyday occurrence.
And that's when the head shops were around as well.
So that stuff was insane, insane.
That relationship didn't work out.
(07:16):
I moved near my mom and dad. I still kept a relationship with
my mom and dad throughout the years because my dad always
promised me he would never do anything to my sisters and I
believed him. Umm Then when I was about 28
another person came forward, a relative of mine.
(07:39):
She was only about 14 or 15 and she came forward and said that
my dad abused her and of course he denied it.
And that's when I said I can't let him destroy her life.
So I went to my sister's death and that's when Steph admitted
that dad abused her as well. And that really like broke my
(08:02):
heart because I thought with allthe abuse I was getting that it
didn't happen to her. But obviously there was that gap
where I'd left home and it was happening to her from very young
age as well, from her first memories, about 3 or 4 as well.
And that's when I just said I cannot let this man away with
this anymore. So we all, myself and Steph went
(08:24):
to the guards. The guys actually came out to my
house and had a conversation with us and we reported it.
We went in and done statements. The statements were feckin
horrendous. They went down for like 2 solid
weeks, 11-12 hour days in doing these statements.
And that's when it was kind of hitting me.
It's like, Oh my God, this, all this stuff actually happened.
(08:47):
Like I actually am a survivor. Do you know?
Because like, when it's your life, it becomes a norm you
don't like. I knew it wasn't normal what he
was doing to me, but I didn't see it as being as bad as what
it was because like, it was, I'mnot exaggerating this when I say
like, it was an everyday occurrence.
There wasn't a day when I wasn'tin that man's company where he
(09:07):
wasn't groping me or abusing me or calling me names or it was
just horrendous and the statements were done.
Umm, my addiction got really bad.
I started taking Valium. I started, I was even taking
extra umm, what's the tablets a month?
(09:29):
My thyroid, I can't even think of them now.
Altroxen. I even started taking extra
altroxen thinking I'd lose weight.
Like my eating disorder got out of control.
I was taking like 10,00,000 to the day and then I could put
into my body that would alter mymind or my body.
I was fueling myself with it like I could take 10 Valium in a
(09:49):
day and I wouldn't even ever remember it taking half of them.
Like there's one point there hadto call an ambulance for me
where I was drinking alcohol andtaking Valium and I didn't know
what I'd taken and I I was running around the house gone
riots there. Had to ring an ambulance because
I thought I was going to die. I thought my head was going to
explode. I started very bad on the
cocaine then because obviously when I was younger, cocaine
(10:11):
wasn't really a thing because you wouldn't been able to afford
it. And so once that addiction
started it, it was very, very hard to stop.
My sister's Steph was strugglingwith heroin addiction, with
alcohol. We had like, we had a lot of
trauma from family members on mymother's side.
(10:33):
Like they were ringing asking did we enjoy what my father was
doing to us? And it was just horrible.
And I used to see Steph in tears, and I mean tears after
getting these phone calls. She was like, why can't they
just leave us alone? We've done nothing wrong.
So we had all that in our head thinking that we were in the
(10:53):
wrong along with my father because we were getting the
blame for letting it happen to their kids.
Like we weren't living in the house when it happened.
You know, it was, it was just horrible.
And then going on the court, cases came up and I hadn't seen
my dad in about a year and a half.
And like, I used to worry about him being in prison because I
(11:14):
still loved my dad. I cared about him and I used to
be worried, is he getting bullied?
Is he getting tortured because he was in there?
Because because he's a paedophile, you know, that's
just what he is. It's the black and white of it.
And I used to hear horror stories what happens to these
type of people in prisons. And it wasn't nice.
And when I seen him in court forthe first time is like, oh, my
(11:35):
God, that's my dad. All I wanted to do was hug him,
but I knew I couldn't because I didn't want to for one reason.
I didn't want to be judged by anyone for thinking you can't do
that because of what he don't. Yeah.
And the other is I didn't want to hug him because I was afraid
I wouldn't let go because, of course, it's all from my dad.
So the courts went on for a while and then he got sentenced
(11:58):
for abusing my two sisters and another family friend and the
other relative. So he got 10 years for that,
which I thought was very harsh at the time because as I said to
me, it was normal. I didn't see the severity of
what he was doing. And then it came to my court
(12:20):
case. That was such a head fuck my
God, because I was sitting therethinking this man is going to go
to jail because of me. But now I realize he went to
jail because of what he done to me.
And when the judge said I sentenced sentenced him to life
in prison 18 years, I just remember looking at my sister
thinking he doesn't deserve that.
But like, thinking of it now, heshould have got 118 years.
(12:42):
Do you know? And like, even talking like
this, I still, I still don't hate my dad.
Do you know, I went up to do therestorative justice with him
just over a year ago. It was challenging.
It was hard to navigate, but it done me the world of good
(13:04):
because I got to ask him a few questions I wanted to ask him.
Did I get all the answers? No, but I wasn't expecting to
get them all. Like my main answer question to
him was what was idea and the answer I got isn't kind of the
answer I wanted. He was like, you were my baby
girl. And one of the other questions I
asked him is like, why did you keep doing what you were doing?
(13:27):
And this, this answer really like fucked me up a bit.
He was like, because I didn't get into trouble.
And that's when I kind of said to myself, you're not well,
that's when I, that's when I finally accepted that this man
is not well, not alone. He, he is a paedophile, but
(13:48):
there's something chemically imbalanced in his brain.
He should know, like we've had, I've had this conversation with
you, Peter, a couple of nights ago, like when you have a kid,
you should know you don't abuse them.
And that's just the bottom end of it.
Back to after the court cases. I, I like, I lost the plot
myself, I really did. I was missing a lot of work.
(14:11):
I was going to counselling at the time and my counsellor was
fantastic. Sonia was my my Angel at the
time, but I also was lying to her a lot.
And I'm only now opening up to that.
I was smoking a lot of weed and drinking a lot of alcohol.
And I wasn't telling her that because I didn't want her to be
disappointed in me because she really did do a lot of work with
me like she really did. Like if I wasn't using that
(14:35):
woman would have changed my lifecompletely with the work that
she'd done to me. But I just kept falling back
into addiction. Life went on for a while.
Steph was really, really, reallystruggling and of course I was
dealing with my own addiction. I couldn't see it and I'm not
(14:58):
going to lie, part of me didn't want to see it because I didn't
want to accept it. She was rushed into hospital in
2018 or 19 with liver failure. Oh my God, it was absolutely
horrendous watching her. Like she was giving her last
rites and she was told she was going to die.
And I'll never forget it myself.And her husband George, that the
(15:20):
priest was in and she just looked at me and she was like,
Sophia, I don't want to die. Please don't let me die.
And I was like to Jared, what doI say?
Because I can't lie to her. But every single day, all our
family, my dad's sisters, my cousins, me and my sister
Michaela and my daughter Sarah, we did not leave her bedside.
She was months in hospital and we didn't leave her bedside.
(15:43):
And that's how I know that love saved her.
Love really saved that woman. Even Sarah's granny, she was up
everyday blessing her. Teresa is a really holy woman
and she was up blessing her everyday.
Steph pulled through that, thankGod, but she was never the same.
I, I really do believe she had like wet brain because she
(16:05):
didn't look the same, she didn'tact the same.
She just wasn't the same. And she stayed off to drink for
a while, but I was off in my ownworld.
I'm taking immense amount of cocaine.
I got involved with someone and it was endless amounts of it.
Like there wasn't a day that went by, I'd say for a solid
(16:26):
year that I wasn't taking. The only way I could describe it
was like slugs that there was just immense, like nothing was
hitting me. And in that time, Steph had gone
back on the drink and she reallylost her own of herself.
She didn't like she left Jared for a while.
(16:46):
She got involved with a horribleperson who treated her like
shit. And the Steph I know, the Steph
that I grew up, it would not have walked out on Jared and her
kids if she wasn't really, really unwell.
And that's one thing I do try and say to the kids, it wasn't
mommy's fault Mommy wasn't well.And then I got a call.
(17:07):
I, Jared rang me and said Steph was in hospital and he said,
Sophia, she's really, really sick.
So I went up to see her and it was, she was really bad.
And I remember Jared pushing herin in the wheelchair.
And then the next day myself andSarah went off to the hospital
(17:27):
to see her. And COVID was kind of just
finishing at the time and he hadto ring up and the nurse said,
oh, give us half an hour, we're just doing our handover come up
then. And I said, Sarah, fuck it,
we'll go home. Am I so sorry I made that
decision? Because 5:00 the next morning,
(17:49):
we got the call to say, oh, sorry, that they'd water into an
induced coma, that she had a bleed in her brain.
And they went up to the hospital.
And I was like, begging the doctors, like, is there nothing
you can do? And he was like, I don't think
you understand what I'm trying to tell you.
Your sister is dead. But we're just keeping her alive
(18:11):
so the kids can say their goodbyes and the stuff.
And they kept her alive for two days.
And like, the staff and I see you were brilliant.
Like, they let us all in myself there, the kids and my other
sister, my friend Sandy was there.
She was a great support and we just lay there playing music
(18:32):
with her and talking to her and it was so weird because she had
those boots on her legs to stop blood clots.
And every time those went off, we're like, oh, she's moving
When they turn off the life support machine.
I'll never forget it. Like just watching the kids,
(18:54):
watching the kids with her mom for the last time, it was, it
was hard, but they were young. They didn't really understand.
I don't think they probably understand more than I give them
credit for. And the next few days after
that, when she died, it was justlike a complete blur to me.
Like people were saying to me after the funeral, you were off
your head. It was the one time and I don't
(19:16):
know how many years, I did not have a substance in my system
because I wanted to stay sober for the kids.
But I was just floating around on adrenaline.
I didn't know who I was and I don't remember her funeral.
I just remember them putting them, putting her into the
ground and looking over at Jared.
And it was the first time in allthe years I knew Jared I ever
(19:37):
seen him crying. And then I just remember sitting
on the ground with Lily May in my lap but looking down at her.
And it was, it was mental, but moving on.
I know this might sound strange but it's really saved my life.
I lost it running myself for a solid year after she passed
away. Constant drug use and alcohol
(20:00):
use and I didn't give a shit what happened to me.
I didn't care anymore and I whenI seen her head stone a year
after she died and just seen hername and stone it was like
that's when he hit me. Steph wasn't coming back and I
thought I don't want to do that to Sarah and not be there to
support her, so I decided to go into rehab.
And five days after her first anniversary, I went to my Murray
(20:23):
way down to Curry and signed myself in.
Best decision I've ever made in my life.
I saved my life. I done 30 days in residential
treatment. I come out of treatment.
I done really well. I went to meetings for a while
and they didn't work for me. So I just started working on
(20:44):
myself, looking in deeper in myself.
I trained as a personal trainer,got a job in a gym, didn't the
things I'd always dreamed of, but I took on too much.
I was having doing 2 jobs. I was working nights in the
place I was working in and I wasworking in the gym and I was
training. But what I was really doing was
trying to avoid myself. Like there was this still times
(21:06):
as something will happen and I'dbe like, oh, I must ring Steph
and tell her about that. And I just didn't want to sit
with it because I was really feeling my emotions.
I was really feeling what grief was and I was feeling guilty and
shamed for what I'd put my daughter through over the years.
Like that went on for a year andthen I met your glorious self,
(21:31):
changed my life completely. All for the good, all for the
good. And you introduce me to a lot.
You introduce me to meditation, you introduce me to call dips.
But like our relationship is, it's absolutely beautiful.
It's a love I never thought I'd experience in my life.
(21:54):
Like you're my best friend, you're my soul mate, but you've
also helped me become my own best friend.
You've given me a safe place. Like the first few months we
were together weren't easy on meat all.
Because I was in such a safe place, I was able to feel all
the pain. Like I don't know how that you
manage that. Like watching me go through
that, even looking back, it actually gives me nausea.
(22:16):
Like I couldn't sleep. I kept telling myself I can't
breathe. But it was bringing up all the
physical pain from all the abusethat I'd suffered over the
years. Like I'm so grateful that you
did stick by me because if it was you, I was going running a
mile. I'm only talking.
But like life right now is, it'sa life I've always dreamed of.
(22:40):
It really is. Now I know some days aren't the
best, but exactly. But the good days keep me going.
And like I have a great support and you, I have a great support
and my daughter, life is really good.
And like I'm so grateful and I'mso blessed and like to be
(23:00):
sitting here today to be able tostay here and talk about what
I've been through. It's it's mind blowing.
Like if someone told me three years ago, Sophia, you'll be two
years and eight months in recovery.
You'll have a whole new life foryourself.
You'll be journaling, you'll be doing meditation.
(23:21):
You'll be doing all this stuff Ithought was witchcraft years
ago, like I really like. No way you're.
Met with a man who's got a wand.Hocus Pocus and I'm on my own
podcast like Peter, that is like, it's a dream.
And I'm so grateful I get to live my dream with you.
And I said yes, and I'm gratefulthat my sister is my higher
(23:46):
power and she's supporting and guiding me and everything I do
like I I know she is to get so many signs, the lights, the
goosebumps, the lights flicker and they were birthday.
And I have that on video to prove it because no one will
believe me. You know, that's like, I wanted
to share this part of my story, not the part, the whole lot of
(24:07):
it, like wouldn't in a small version.
Because I want to show people that no matter what you've been
through in life, no matter whereyou've come from, what you've
done, change is possible. It's not easy and I'm not going
to sit here and say it is, but my God, it's worth it.
It really is worth it. But you have to put the work in.
You have to trust yourself. You have to believe in yourself,
(24:30):
and you have to love yourself. I know some people, and I did
for a long time, find it hard tosay I love myself.
I don't love myself like as in Ilove myself because myself has
got me to where I am today. I wouldn't change a bit of my
past for anything because it's made me who I am.
I have the amazing people I havein my life because of the life
(24:51):
I've lived. And that's just what I want to
say. Just be nice to yourself and be
nice to people around you because nobody knows what anyone
is going through and why. Are you doing this podcast?
Because it's a space where people, any of our guests coming
(25:12):
on and even ourselves talking, I'd like to think we create a
safe space for people because wecreated for each other.
For people to come on and be rawand authentic and not feel
judged. Be honest and open because
there's so many restrictions on what people think they can say.
Your life is your life. You can say what you want about
(25:34):
yourself and your life and not to feel judged, Not to feel like
I can't say this because people might think, So what?
Let them think they're going to think stuff anyway.
Just be yourself, trust yourselfand give credit to yourself for
how far you've come and just show people love and compassion
because between us, there's not much we haven't been through.
And if I can guide and support someone on any form of journey,
(25:58):
I, I will do my best to do it now.
Peter. Peter.
What? Your turn.
Let us have an idea of who. You are.
You can't go after that. Like what's what is supposed to
say after? That your truth.
My truth, it's a wrap. I don't know a bit.
(26:19):
Go back to the start. Start.
I start from the end. No, I go back to start from the
start, from where I am today. I mean, I've done a lot of the
start. Where I am today is in a
relationship with a woman that Iadore, that I know adores me,
that encourages me, supports me,looks after me and puts up with
(26:41):
me. I'm hard work.
I can be difficult. Not all the time.
I see, since there can't be, I searched for that my entire
life, like my entire life, I've searched for that.
I never found it. I never found it within myself
and I didn't found it, find it anywhere.
I come from a different family than you come from.
(27:02):
You know, I come from a nice family, a good family.
Not saying your family is not nice.
I didn't mean it like that. I come from an environment that
was created to be caring and loving and I was given the
opportunity or placed into that family.
I'm adopted and I was adopted into this family and from the
(27:29):
earliest memory I have, I never felt like I belonged.
I didn't even know I was adoptedat that point.
It was just something different.Just wasn't wasn't comfortable,
wasn't comfortable in myself, wasn't comfortable there.
And that's from like a young, young age.
I was sent to psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists at the
(27:49):
ages of 789 trying to figure outwhat was wrong with this, this,
this kid. And it was told to the
psychologist that I didn't have the capacity to love that I
didn't love properly. I didn't, I didn't know fucking
love. I didn't.
I never had it from from been inthe womb to birth it.
(28:10):
I couldn't tell you what love was.
You know, I searched for my entire life.
I couldn't tell you what it was.I was my birth mother didn't
want to give me up. My birth mother to this day
reckons that she didn't sign anypapers.
You know, I was lucky enough to have a conversation.
I've had a couple of conversations with her.
I've met her and I'm in touch with some of them.
(28:35):
And then, yeah. So what she did was when I was
taken from her when I was born, I was taken from her the room
and I was brought away and she'dgo down there every night and
bring me back and hold me at herat night.
So if anyone knows anything about trauma or how the body
(28:57):
holds trauma, for the first partof my my being on this planet, I
had a bond broken every 24 hoursfor I don't know how long for a
week maybe. I don't know exactly.
So every time she brought me back as a baby and hugged me and
(29:17):
held on to me and every time I was taken from her, that was a
bond that was that was fucking up me like as a as a human, as a
spirit, as a being, as a soul without me having a clue at that
age. How would you?
So that followed me throughout my entire life.
Yeah, throughout my entire life.I found out when I was about 9
(29:39):
or 10, I think, that I was adopted and and that blew my
brains, But I kind of also helped me understand that, OK,
this even at that age, I was like, OK, I'm the kind of, it
made me feel, I don't know, likeunderstanding that This is why I
(30:00):
didn't fit in. But it made it worse.
Like it just reinforced that idea that I didn't fit in.
It reinforced that idea that I was different to reinforce that
idea that I wasn't worthy of love, reinforced that idea that
I couldn't feel love or be lovedor anything like that.
And yeah, that just set something off of me where I
(30:22):
didn't care. And that went on, you know, that
that continued into into the teenage years.
And I was rebellious. I was defiant.
I was, as every school teacher said, I was bold, I was naughty.
I was labeled everything you could think of in the school
system. And I just didn't.
(30:46):
I didn't get with authority, just didn't, didn't get with.
I fought back on every every chance I could get.
And then that went into the street and that's went into when
I, you know, came across it was harsh.
I came across harsh and that gave me such a ease, like I
smoking that that gave me such for just ease.
(31:09):
And then the people who were involved in the selling of it
and where I used to get it, likelooking back on and I'm fucking
sick of myself for even how I felt at that point.
But sure, it is what it is. It's how I felt.
I felt like I belonged. Like I did my utmost best in
every aspect to feel like I could fit in, to get their
approval to, you know, to fit inwith this crowd like, and that
(31:35):
continued like that continued throughout my life in all
different ways. By the age of 18, you know, I
was in a prison system. That's where it went like and
that continued. That continued upon.
I was 36 through 9 of them, two different countries.
I've every system I've been in, every place I've been has left a
(32:01):
little imprint on me. There's there's something there.
There's flashbacks that I get onmost nights, sometimes days.
There's moments where I try and differentiate between what's
real and what's not. I always seek an approval,
always trying to fit in, always trying to understand myself.
(32:23):
Couldn't and then used drink, drugs, behaviours, everything to
escape what I had inside or didn't have inside is the case.
Maybe I've learned now, like I've learned a lot about it and
what it was and why it occurred.But it brought me to some, some
(32:46):
dangerous places and it brought people that loved me.
There's some dangerous places. You know, my family have
supported me throughout everything.
I wouldn't be alive today without the support of my family
and the help they've had. You know what?
18, I was in my first treatment center and I was in a lad, an
(33:06):
adolescent treatment center downin Kilkenny.
And that was an opportunity to to change.
So I was brought to this treatment center from a young
offenders. I didn't want treatment.
I wanted a way out of the young offenders, you know what I mean?
And, and I did treatment and I did everything and I told them
everything they wanted to hear. And I ticked all the boxes and
everything was, was good. And then I left and three weeks
(33:28):
later I was back in the prison system because I wasn't changing
anything. I didn't at that age, I
couldn't. I didn't have a clue who I was,
what I was, what I wanted. I wasn't.
I was a kid in an adult's body up on about 36 years of age.
He was a kid who had kids. You know, I ended up getting
married as 24. My marriage was drug induced,
(33:49):
alcohol induced. It was mental.
It was just a wild ride and it was 13 years of absolute
madness. And I brought like, so I brought
my ex-wife on that Wyatt ride, Lisa, and we had two children
together. And I brought two children into
the world. And I was mad.
(34:11):
I was a child myself. I had no idea how to live in the
world at all. I couldn't comprehend feelings.
I couldn't understand what was going on within.
And because I couldn't, I got sofrustrated and angry.
And the only way I could deal with that is drugs.
(34:31):
Like, drink is a part of my my life and my story, but it's been
drugs. Everyone in my life has told me,
like, you're not an alcoholic, you're just a drug addict.
It's like, yeah, that's true to a point.
But like, if I don't have drugs and I have drink, like I do the
same I did with the drink, you know, I've looked back on things
and people who weren't Alcoholics don't end up in
(34:53):
prison after drinking. I mean, that's, that's, that's
not, that's not normal. Every time I drank too much, I
ended up in a prison system. And yeah, look, it went on.
It was wild. I've been involved in stuff,
Dangerous stuff, Stuff I'm not proud of, stuff that still
(35:14):
haunts me, Stuff to the point that even on a YouTube short
that we put up on the other day,I have a lad from my past
commenting on it. You know what I mean?
Stuff that still haunts me, still follows me.
Stuff that I can't change, can'tget rid of.
The past, right? But as I said to that comment,
like, I can't change the past, but I can make the present and
(35:37):
the future better. And that's what I do and I do my
best to do it. Like, do I get it right all the
time? No, I don't know.
You know, it's a balance. Like I could go into all the
things, like there's no point. Like I LED a chaotic life.
It brought me to dangerous places.
It brought me to doing dangerousthings with dangerous people.
(36:01):
It brought danger to many people's lives.
It brought dangers to my kids life.
My kids have had to endure armedresponse units coming through
front doors, had to endure searches of the house, had to
endure me been on the run in different countries, you know,
for the entire time of my children's life up until I went
into treatment. When we came to visit family in
(36:23):
Ireland, we had to go to the north of Ireland because I was
still on the run in the South. Like this shit was normal to my
children. This, this is what they grew up
with. Like, you know, they grew up
with criminality throughout their life without them even
realizing it. That's what I brought people
into the world to do, like, and yeah, all of that, like, and I
(36:48):
ended up doing to my children what has happened to me with
drinking drugs. I abandoned them.
I ran away from the family home.I think over a space of 13
years, 22 times and I was escaping everything within.
I just get my responsibilities. I was escaping the relationship
I had with my ex-wife, which waschaotic and toxic.
(37:09):
Like I'd be honest. And that's no one's fault.
That's not her fault. It's not my fault.
We were two very unwell people who came together in a very
fucked up situation and created a life for ourselves and it just
got really bad. We just didn't work, you know
what I mean? Like when someone's in a kitchen
(37:30):
couldn't crack while their children are upstairs and their
wife is in bed. Like there's something wrong,
something's not right there. That's to the extent I did to
escape. You know, I did my best to
escape life on so many times. I could go into so many
different stories and tell you all the madness that happened,
but it's pointless. Like absolutely pointless.
I'll tell you one thing, one thing that I remember that's and
(37:54):
I remember I've so much went on to my lifestyle.
I can't even remember. I've buried so much of my life
behind a big door and a box and it's locked.
And it only comes out when I talk to people from my past and
they're like, oh, do you remember this?
And then they'll talk a bit moreabout it.
I remember that now. It's like, I don't want to
remember, but I have to because it's apparent to me.
(38:17):
I can remember the feeling. The feeling was I didn't.
I wasn't Marty. I was unlovable.
I searched for love and everything.
I wasn't capable. I wasn't able.
That's the feelings throughout life that I didn't belong, that
I shouldn't be here. That followed me.
(38:38):
Like at the age of 14, I drank like a shit load of domestic
bleach to try and take my own life, you know?
I mean, I found tablets in my, that was, yeah, there was 14 or
13 in and around that ages, I found tablets in my father's
price. And I scoffed a lot trying to
take my own life. Did not want to be here, you
know, that ended up me asleep for like I think 24 hours or
(39:00):
something. My family have to look after me.
Turned out to be diazepam, whichI ended up loving later on in
life. Like genuinely fucking couldn't
get enough of them. In 2020, I hung myself from a
tree. You know, I went through life
trying to get rid of my own life.
Like I couldn't deal with me being like, just didn't know who
I was. I couldn't deal with it.
Like I went from smoking harsh weed, cannabis, whatever you
(39:24):
want to call it at the age of 12to a full blown heroin addict at
the age of 38. Like I mean full blown, I
couldn't. So when most people wake up in
the morning to an alarm or whatever, they wake up in the
morning, they got up and they gofor a pee.
When my eyes walk in the morning, my hand, the first
thing I do is my hand would go under my pillow to get my pipe
(39:47):
because I couldn't, I couldn't move.
I couldn't do anything until I had a blast of heroin into my
system. At the end of everything, I was
homeless on the streets of London, going from hostile to
hostile, taking any substance toget my hands on, doing anything
I could to get money together, to take anything I could take,
(40:10):
you know, And the feeling was just fucking broken.
I couldn't deal with life. It was miserable in every aspect
of it. I was depressed throughout my
entire life and I know I am as depressed now.
I know why because like who I was, I pushed down.
(40:31):
I depressed the person I was right now because I didn't know
who I was. I was never able to understand
Peter. What's Peter?
I had so many different versionsput on Peter of who Peter is or
what Peter is. You know what I mean?
Getting sent to psychologists ata young age fucked my head.
I thought there was something wrong with me without me even
realizing that there's nothing wrong with me.
I thought there's something wrong with me.
It was just me. I wasn't able to be me in an
(40:54):
environment that I was in because that wasn't my
environment. That's just how it is,
unfortunately. It's not a bad thing.
My parents are lovely people. They're great people.
My family is great. It's a beautiful place to be,
but that wasn't my environment. That's not the place I was put
on this planet to be at that time.
Now, when saying that if I was stayed with my with my birth
family, my birth mother, what would have happened?
(41:14):
Who knows? She was in addiction at the time
to things could have been toxic,chaotic, you know, I went
through life emotionally discharged from everything.
I didn't understand. I couldn't feel, I couldn't
comprehend and I couldn't. I just couldn't.
Like that was, if that's the easiest way to put it, I just
couldn't. I couldn't be.
(41:35):
I've learned to find out who me is and I've learned to not
depress it. I've learned so much about
myself. I went to treatment to give up
drink and to give up drugs, to give up drugs.
I didn't care about to drink at the time.
To be honest. I'd be straight, like, I didn't
care. Well, I gave.
I'm in treatment to give them upso I could go back to drug
leading, so I can go back to been a criminal.
That was my idea. That's how delusional my mind
was. My mind was so twisted.
(41:56):
Like, so, so twisted. Noah's holding me something
there and I can't see. It's yellow paper with writing
on it. No idea what it says. 5 minutes.
All right, OK, Says 5 minutes. Anyway, Noah's our editor and
he's killed dude, So, yeah, Look, I couldn't understand
life. Life was fucked up and, and I
changed. I went into treatment.
(42:16):
I am. I didn't want to go into
treatment really, to be honest. But I went into treatment and I
changed my entire life. And when I came out of
treatment, I did a lot of work on myself.
I went internally. I still go internally to figure
out who I am. I'm still trying to find out who
I am. There's still times I have no
idea who I am, just the times I get lost.
(42:38):
But I've got an environment thatI can be safe to be lost in and
I wanted to do this podcast because people talk about stuff,
but they don't talk about stuff.People mention stuff and just
over. It's superficial.
They don't get into it. I want to give people an
opportunity to talk about stuff.There's stuff that I still
(42:58):
haven't even dived into. There's abuse within my past
that I haven't even looked at. We're going to have a lovely man
coming on that I think I'm goingto get a lot from because he's
very open about his abuse and about what happened to him.
That's what I need. It's healing for me, it's
healing for others, it's healingfor the guest.
And it's like you said, it's change is possible, right?
(43:20):
But it's not only possible, it'smaintainable and it's
achievable. We can do it.
It's fucking tough. Like, yeah, it's hard.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.
And it's still, there's still times where like the old me, the
old programming within me comes forward and I get triggered by
different things and I activatedor whatever the fuck you want to
call it. Like I feel shitty.
That's that's it really. It brings something up.
(43:41):
I can get defensive, I can get angry, I can get frustrated, I
can get sad, I can get hurt. I can get whatever.
And it's absolutely nothing to do with anyone else.
It's everything to do with in inside me.
And there's times when we'll be having conversations or stuff
will go on and I literally will feel sick.
Like my stomach will turn and it's got nothing to do with
anyone else and everything to dowith me and my program.
(44:04):
And I want to talk about that. I want people to hear it.
I want people to be able to comeon and talk about it.
And that's what we did the podcast and give them an
opportunity to and that's it. And even for people that don't
come on the guests, we have comeon and listen to ourselves.
It'll give people hope and they're sitting at home
listening. Because like I said it many
time, if I had someone like me to listen to a few years ago, I
(44:29):
think my journey would have beena lot different because I felt
so alienated. I felt I didn't feel like I was
human at all. I felt like I was the only one
that was going through this. You're not.
No, unfortunately, no, I'm not. There's a whole lot more.
Out there and there's a whole lot more going through
everything that we talk about. I mean, but it's not picked
apart. I mean, it's mentioned, yeah.
(44:50):
It's not the feelings and behindhow it leaves a person feeling
isn't talked about. No, like all the the criminality
and the change within criminality and all the prison
system, all I talked about. But it's not really talked about
like how it leaves you, the trauma leaves you.
What got you there in the first place?
It's all the shit that went on. I mean, as I said, every system
I've been in has an imprint on me.
(45:11):
Like, I mean, I've, I've memories of all sorts.
I've the madness that goes on. Christmas in a system is the
hardest place I've ever been in my entire life.
You think of 400 men cooped up, coming up the Christmas, missing
their families, missing everything.
The tension is, yeah, all that'sthere.
(45:31):
So all these things are still tobe talked about.
We had to come out like, you know, in the way of guests that
come on and and talk about that and I can talk about that with
them. We've guests that come on,
coming on can talk about their experiences with you.
And that's what this is about toactually talk about it, to let
this shit out in the open. You know what I mean?
We did a video at the Rape Crisis center.
Me or a crisis center, right? I'd be straight.
I thought that was going to be helpful.
(45:53):
People fucking shield away from it.
We can't mention the word rape in this country because they
don't want to understand or talkabout it.
Well fucking guess what? It happens.
Guess what? There's people who who are left
after it. I've seen statistics.
Yesterday one in four in Dublin had them up.
The latest records they have is that one in three people in
(46:13):
Ireland have suffered some form of sexual abuse.
That is wild. That's mental.
The 3-4 people in this room, youknow, and two of us.
Have had abuse you don't mean like there's men out there who
are committing suicide on a weekly basis because of abuse
that's happened to them adolescents in childhood and
they can't tell anyone or won't tell anyone which we don't have
(46:35):
it. The Rape Crisis centers are
there for men to right but it's not spoken about because no one
will fuck in share the message. Why I see people online sharing
messages of celebrities who've had a fucking baby, you know?
I mean, you'll share the messagewhen your sister or your son or
your father or your husband or your daughter needs their
(46:56):
service, but you'll shy away from it until that.
What the fuck is that about? Anyway?
That's another podcast. I'll let you close this one up,
Peter. What am I going to say?
Like, sorry for getting angry. I very look, no, these are
topics that are close to my hair.
I mean, thank you for listening.And like, I icky as I say, I
(47:17):
hate doing this. But like, subscribe, share, do
all of that mad shit that has tobe done for this to get to the
ears that could benefit from hearing it.
Yeah. As I always say, we all know
someone who needs someone, yeah.Between adoption, addiction,
trauma, sexual abuse and all therest of it.
Grief. Every family in this country has
fucking some effect. Yeah.
(47:38):
So, you know, I mean, like, if it's hit home for anything or if
anything's hit home, tell a friend, share it.
You don't know who's suffering in silence.
Well said, Peter. Cheers.
Thank you. Good night.
That's a wrap over and out.
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!