Shame and Vulnerability with Michelle H and Larry B

2024 1033 Larry B and Michelle H share their experience as children and adults dealing with the impacts of shame and building walls to keep from being vulnerable until entered recovery and gained the tools to deal effectively with these issues.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning, I'm Rusty and I'm an alcoholic. Hi Rusty. Hi Rusty. Hi Rusty. I'm Tim, I'm an

(00:05):
alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos. This morning we have two of my favorite
folks on the planet. Michelle and Larry are here. Michelle, good morning. Good
morning, how are you? I'm Michelle, alcoholic, ACOA and Al-Anon. I'm Larry,
alcoholic, addict, ACA, Al-Anon, you name it, I got it. And we've all been hanging

(00:28):
out around here for quite some time and it's changed all of our lives. We want
to, we're going to talk about shame today and it's a discussion that you don't
hear about a lot because nobody wants to talk about shame, their own shame. And
shame loves to be in secret. It absolutely loves you not talking about

(00:52):
your shame. So I'm, I was listening to Benet Brown over these last couple of
years and in Daring Greatly, which for me is is the best book she ever put out, she
has a whole chapter on vulnerability and then more chapters on shame. And we have

(01:13):
to have vulnerability, we have to start being vulnerable so that we can get the
shame out because it has to be spoken. And what people don't want to do is they
don't want to tell you the secrets. She says in here that vulnerability isn't
good or bad, it's not what we call a dark emotion, nor is it always a light

(01:37):
positive experience. Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To
feel is to be vulnerable and that's why so many of us we've got the armor on so
thick that we haven't had a feeling in years. She also goes on to divine

(02:00):
vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. It's also taking off
the straitjacket. I love that when I read that. You know I'm so visual anyway,
I can just see myself taking it off. Taking the first step towards what you

(02:22):
fear the very most. And that's what we're going to talk about.
These folks are going to tell you today, including me, about the
things that we feared the most when we got here and how by finally being,
learning to be vulnerable, that we were able to release that from us and it

(02:43):
change, and the change that it's made in all of our lives. Now it is freeing and
liberating but it's also infinitely terrifying and achingly necessary. I
want to read about what she calls the definition of shame. And the definition

(03:04):
of shame is the intensely powerful feeling or experience of believing that
we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. I never knew that see.
That's what I was. I just never, my consciousness could not take that in.

(03:27):
That's one of the reasons I don't like character defects. See those words like
defect. I like what Ernie Larson says it when he says that they are self-defeating
behaviors because it's a behavior that I can overcome if I choose to. Michelle
would you like to start this morning? I would. My brain is pinging and my solar

(03:54):
plexus is where I feel my shame and I feel my emotions now. In the beginning
I've got about 20 plus years sober. I never felt anything. I kept it so checked
and so locked down and just I didn't even have words to describe it. So it's

(04:14):
been a long process. I would say the first time I ever dealt with this shame
looking back was a fourth step or fifth step when I actually told my sponsor and
made the list. And these were more things, actions that I was ashamed of that I had

(04:35):
done in the past and things that I felt were unbecoming. And it was it was a big
risk to tell someone that. I had kept all of those things so close to my chest
that I really they they had become bigger than life. And by telling someone

(04:57):
it really took the power out of it and it was hard. And I didn't work my first
steps perfectly. I was on a mission to learn how this worked and finish and
graduate and move on. And it wasn't that but you know being a good alcoholic I
was gonna try to figure out the system, cheat the system and move on. And

(05:20):
I'm smart and I was gonna do that. And there were a few things I didn't work on
my first fourth and fifth step. And it was funny the first sponsor I got had
that issue and we just worked all that out together. And it was a great release
of shame. I have seen people who do not effectively do the fourth and fifth step

(05:41):
or the eighth step and drink again. I mean to me if working with people that's
the biggest shame releasers that you can start with. And then like now I am on a
very high trajectory really working through this. I read a book The Untethered

(06:04):
Soul to really feel these emotions come up and let them flow through and not get
blocked in my chakras. I'm a yoga person so I'll digress to that for a minute and
really breathe and feel those. And I'm doing some very intense work on

(06:26):
perfectionism. I've got perfectionist parents and I first working the steps in
AA I thought I would be perfect. I could get rid of these defects of character
and and work it all out and and it just isn't that. I find that it is more of a

(06:46):
mechanism of balance rather than overdoing your defects or completely
getting rid of them. Because in every scenario there is a little bit different
amount that you should apply to each various situation. But anyway I am really
working on fear of abandonment and not being lovable and all the shame

(07:12):
surrounding that. And I find that to be my most authentic self and to be
vulnerable enough to let you see that is really the only way I can defeat this
shame and this feeling that can really take me down. Was there for you a

(07:36):
particular thing that had happened to you that had been with you for like
forever that you would share with us this morning? Well that's a good question.
I often wonder if something happened to me or I'm just a little bit different

(07:58):
emotionally and chemically than other people and react differently to the
things that happened to me. But I believe that there were some crazy things that
happened when I was a little girl. I was four years old. I was a big child. I'm six
feet tall and quite a glamazon. And at four years old I was a big girl and

(08:22):
everybody thought I should act and be older than I was and my parents have a
another child that's 12 years older than me and they started me in kindergarten
and I wasn't ready. They might as well have been trying to teach me in Chinese
and the anxiety I would hold on to the steering wheel and they would peel my

(08:44):
hands off and I would cry and it was so traumatic. I'd play sick and the teacher
said if she misses one more day we're gonna have to hold her back and I got the
chickenpox and my parents went in that school and talked those people into
pushing me on into first grade and I could not read until seventh grade. I have

(09:08):
I have the most intelligent brain. I can reason and rationalize. My son has the
same brain. During every developmental stage I was triggered by him because we
had to get him so much support. Well I'm 58 years old so there weren't a lot of
support for ADD and dyslexia and all of these things and so and my parents just

(09:32):
didn't even I don't know if they didn't they were busy with their careers and
man I was really reeling. It was traumatizing and then I learned to cheat.
I didn't know how to read or do math so I learned to figure it out the best I

(09:54):
could and in seventh grade a light came on and I became the top of my class and
became a straight-A student and I don't even know how that happened but it's
really amazing that I really made it through all my drinking and drugging and
all the emotional pain because I believe it's the grace of God and and Alcoholics

(10:21):
Anonymous that saved me and in good groups. That's another thing about shame.
You have to be vulnerable but if you can have a little bit of discernment to find
a safe tribe and I believe that to some degree that trauma makes us overwhelm
people and we will just vomit our toxic stuff onto people around us and not

(10:52):
everyone's equipped to handle that and not everybody is willing to handle that
and sometimes in these groups even though people aren't educated or know
what to do there's a divine prayer and intervention that comes through us when
we work together in Alcoholics Anonymous as a group and it works. I don't know how

(11:16):
it works but you've got to have some discernment and go a little slow.
Sometimes you just got to get it out and it's like pulling a band-aid and I'd say
do that rather than not do that but if you're able find a safer group or a
safe-ish group. In AA there are no guarantees. Nobody is on a pedestal. We

(11:38):
are all equal and people will disappoint you. Don't let that stop you. We are human.
You know as Larry would say if you sober up a horse thief you have a sober horse
thief. So I mean you know you just don't know what you know but at some point you

(11:59):
just have to get started. Larry? I'm Larry and I noticed my getting
choked up as I listened to her. When I choked up with stuff I'm choking on
that I'm going to say possibly but I want to say one thing. You don't sober up
Adolf Hitler and good old Roberts. It's just this is a year for me. I've been
sober 39 years and going through this shame issue with me is opening up a lot

(12:22):
of different areas of my brain that things that I've always went around and
said that I came from a violent family and in listening to Bradshaw what I
realized and it said will turn out violent people. I was violent all my life.
I'd knife fight, whiskey bottle, constantly. I probably had 50 fights in my life when I

(12:44):
was a young man because here's in a buddy of mine one of my best friends
said to me here well back a few years back he said you weren't scared of
anybody and I said no I was scared of everybody but the thing I was most
scared of is the shame of being a coward in your eyes than I was of getting killed.
Oh man, amen Larry. I knew you understand that. Absolutely. Here's another one is

(13:05):
rage and scream. See when I was a kid we would get beat until we cried and then
we would be beat if we cried so that stuff was stuffed inside my soul and
your solar plexus down here in my gut. Rusty and I went to a lady that helped
us get through that a lot of this stuff a lot of this stuff I've worked on but

(13:25):
this is just another part of the onion that I want to peel more off of. The sex
thing for me the violence thing here I'm gonna say this I couldn't have any anger
as a child so what I learned was a passive aggressive don't don't mess with
me if you do I want to tell you one time this what my dad would say to a tell him
one time leave me alone if they don't hit him now that's a great way to live

(13:46):
a life you're hitting people all the time and I'd blow up on people that's my
anger issue I have one with sex also at 13 years old me and a little buddy of mine
were standing at a little grocery store or a little convenience type store in Fort
Gibson these two women pull up and say you guys want to go for a ride well we
go yeah well they sexually abused us I would look at now I wouldn't have been I

(14:07):
thought as a little boy you took that as a badge of honor even though it wasn't
it wasn't intimacy it was sex so I learned that's not intimacy it took me
years to figure that out and going through relationships and stuff when
you're talking about the secrets the secrets are reason I couldn't have
relationships to learn to be intimate with somebody it was I would get all
dressed up I love what the guy said you know you get a divorce you lose weight

(14:31):
and you get to looking better you get shaved you get here and then you go get
your relationship well in about six months the real turkey in you comes out
that's what I would do I would hide that part those parts of myself and here's
here's the things that happened to me some of them that that I have looked at
but they're coming up again one time my dad I'm Sam five years old and I rode in

(14:54):
the pickup down town with him to come back and there's a lady waved at him in
downtown and when I got there I said hey dad who was that lady that waved at you
he said what do you mean said you know the lady that waved at you my mother
said what lady waved at you well he said so and so and she and she said you
hassle well the next thing he said to me is you fat little bee and slapped me well

(15:18):
that's the kind of violence that you you you you take in anyway doing with the
work that I've done has helped me get past a lot of this because I couldn't I
never had business plans things like that my parents didn't know that but to
get to a emotional a financial spiritual life has taken me years to get because I

(15:38):
didn't know what those things but I'm so glad I'm just at the point I am right
now and also the perfectionism I was raised a Pentecostal and I'm not put
down the Pentecostal church but everything had to be perfect long
sleeves long hair this and that so in my dad on nightclubs and bars I was trapped
in this nightclub and bars or the other side I like the nightclub and bar better

(16:00):
and that's the way I went because I could I could act out how I want to act
and I could have sex a lot of things that I didn't know how to do if I went
because you couldn't do any of those things in the Pentecostal church oh I
want to turn over here for a second to something that Bradshaw talks about this
is John Bradshaw who in the 80s and 90s was phenomenal he's passed away now but

(16:26):
if you get a chance to either watch his pot not podcast he's on YouTube or his
book healing the shame that binds that's the same as the same name as is what's
on YouTube it will literally it blows you away I mean there's so much in it so
much that we're talking about today now he talks about toxic shame and he talks

(16:53):
about healthy shame he says that toxic shame says you have a shame based
identity says that toxic shame is spiritual bankruptcy I have no
spirituality if when I'm carrying all this shame wrapped in me now he says

(17:13):
about healthy shame is knowing that you have limits understanding in other words
you have limits you have boundaries see I didn't have any boundaries none of us
do when we get here and if they are there are really sick boundaries healthy
shame is a source source of spirituality and learning and also it lets you know

(17:37):
you have more to learn and that's what I'm hearing from both of you guys that's
why you're here today and I'm here today because I want to learn more and I want
it to be more of the person that came on this planet that little baby that jumped
out and then as time went by circumstances I was thinking about the

(18:00):
most shame based thing that I carried was the sexual abuse that I encountered
when I was seven six seven in that area and what that set me up for and I know
this you don't know any of that at the time you just know it's a secret and

(18:21):
what I what I know today is that I lost trust in people at that time I mean this
was our next-door neighbor he was friends with my folks you know he would
take me right in he wanted me to go ride the horse with him and that's when it
all started down in the barn and so when you're that young and you're

(18:45):
internalizing this you don't realize what's happening to you and then
there's that that part that really confuses the child it's that it it felt
good now there was a time I couldn't even tell you that I could tell you I
sexually abused but the other level was I couldn't tell you that it felt good

(19:07):
because then that would change it and then and within a year of that I was
showing other boys now the only thing I can say about that was they were my age
but still once you had sex you are sexualized there's no going back and so

(19:28):
by the time I were reached 12 or 13 and started realizing what a man's role was
in the world and what a woman's role and this is back in the 50s and it wasn't
like it is today I'll guarantee you you didn't tell nobody so when I got into a
and I finally told my sponsor I had so much shame I couldn't write it in a

(19:50):
four-step I couldn't look at that on paper and it was right at the end of my
fifth step and he said is there anything you want to tell me that you haven't
said rusty and I just blurbed it out and just I couldn't stop crying I just
couldn't stop and at four years Gil said rusty you need to go tell your mom

(20:12):
about this and I didn't want to do it because I didn't want her to feel like
that it was her fault because it wasn't wasn't her fault but what I learned when
I sit down with her and I said that to her she says to me well that's what my

(20:35):
brother did to me and then that started a whole other conversation so that was
it four years I'm at 40 years you know what I'm saying and today it's like it
almost happened to another human being and when I talk about it today I talk

(20:59):
about it because I know that there's some guy some gal that they may have
done that and they're still keeping the secret and I've had people come up to me
and and whisper in my ear after I've taught that happened to me and whether
they ever did anything or not I don't know but that's part of it that's part

(21:21):
of that shame that you carry and so that was the beginning for me of going to
another level and another level and another level and it's been what a
blessing it is what a blessing it is that we've had I mean I've had therapists

(21:42):
I had Donnie's art therapist that Larry and I went to but the day in and day out
of alcoholic synonymous has helped me so much and I go now to try to give back
but I never leave there without have learned something about myself that's
what I that's what I love so dear about it I wanted to talk a little bit about

(22:06):
our parents along with the shame and all that it says parents are supposed to
model for us that's the stuff I grew up with violence I grew up with people
beating on my mom and my mom beating on people so I want to talk a little bit

(22:27):
about how your parents model for you Michelle my parents are hardworking they
come from rural Oklahoma they were dirt farmers and they're very successful now
and my mother's father was an alcoholic a mean alcoholic and my mother was the

(22:48):
oldest of five children my father made an enormous amount of money out of
nothing and I believe that a lot of the things that I feel are somewhat
projected on me from my parents that it wasn't even my stuff to begin with I

(23:10):
didn't come from violence and my parents function highly and they were good to me
and providers but both kind of lack an emotional connection I believe that
we're not we don't talk about that stuff and we pull up our bootstraps and we

(23:33):
just get her done and I believe that my biggest problem has been not feeling
good enough and having low self-esteem and I am really really good I function
high on every level so to feel not good enough it's really missing the mark for

(23:59):
me but I wake up and I have to look in the mirror and remind myself that that
is not true and that's just been happening in the last few years maybe
three or four years I mean until then I had just the most awful self-esteem you
can ever imagine and I can't like there were days I wondered is this ever gonna

(24:25):
end am I ever gonna figure this out and I just kept working on it and I think a
lot of it has to do with co-dependence which I'm really now just starting to
unravel I've been in a lot of really dysfunctional relationships now all of

(24:45):
my friendships with male and women my work relationships I mean my work my
health all these things are really really great and they work well but
where I fail and where I struggle and where I have my most dissatisfaction is
a relationship with my significant other and I have to believe that that modeling

(25:11):
and that way of being together had to come from that route mother and father
oh absolutely I totally agree I was thinking that when I was re-listing this
Bradshaw thing I like the one that said instead of getting even with the
ones that hurt you what you get even with the ones that helped you I thought
what a statement I'd never heard that my family I was I learned to lie early in

(25:35):
life that's my parenting was about lying a lot to they thought you learned a life
or I learned a lot for my parents like they would fight and and they would be
in my two brothers were almost they were five to three years old they would drop
us off at my grandparents and they'd say we would be visibly shaken when you when
your parents are beating each other up it's kind of a nerve-wracking thing for
we go through PTSD at that age I came out with PTSD but then they'd drop us off

(25:59):
they said they're gonna ask you how everything is and you're gonna tell them
fine so we'd go in there and my grandfather my grandmother would say
well what's going on everything's fine so I learned that we didn't and my
parents never I don't remember them ever saying I loved you to us or picking me
up and holding me and that's part of the process of raising children is they need

(26:21):
to be what I've read is they need to be feel secure and they need to feel loved
and they turn out to be pretty good kids well I didn't get that I didn't know
that at that age and when I come in here but and another thing about my mother in
my I know my mother my dad was a truck driver I know he probably screwed around
a bit but my mother she worked at Corning Glass and she was having an

(26:41):
affair with the the guy in HR with her and I'd heard about this several times
but I never confronted it and one time my little cousin I we were sleeping out
in the backyard and my mother drives in with this guy anyway after after I got
sober one of the things I did is like rusty was talked about going to his
mother and I went to my mother and I said mom I need to tell you this because
I've been resentful about this all my life and that you had this fear of the

(27:05):
gosh you said I didn't have a fair with that guy well she died when she died I
went to her funeral well obviously my mom I would go anyway some do some don't
anyway I my uncle and aunt were there with me so we went to lunch and I was
telling my aunt Lucille about this about that she said she lied to you she

(27:25):
dated that guy so I was raised in a family of wise so I was we're as sick as
our secrets and I had so many secrets here the sexual ones the violence all
those things in working it and rusty has been a lifesaver for me you know when I
went through the pain of going through the pain of breaking up in relationships
when you're sober is much more because when you're in the alcohol and drugs you

(27:48):
can kill that pain but inebriated a little while I always had this statement
when I was going through the pain I wanted to go to sleep so I'd be out of
it but also knew that when I woke up depression would be standing beside my
bed waiting on me and that's my mother was a depressed she'd gone to Vanita at
one time she went to a psychiatrist forever she also religion I'm not much

(28:08):
into religion because she would go to religion and get prayed on let me speak
for me I'd go there and get prayed on immersed spit on I'd be slain in the
spirit be laying there thinking how damn long am I supposed to lay here you know
what I mean by the way that's pretty one over there you know it's that kind of
stuff but I've learned to lighten up a lot of life and I want to learn to
lighten up more this this shame thing is really cracked open some things that I

(28:31):
need to look at again and I don't he said to me one time she said you're a
truth-seeker I think everybody at this table is a truth-seeker we want to find
the only way I'm gonna find out have a what is played over said or Socrates
don't done examine life is not worth living I agree with that because I'm
happy most every day the wife I'm with now we don't argue we may have a little
sit to maybe ever three or six months it's such a waste of time I just want

(28:55):
to enjoy my life on the planet and today I get to do that by doing this work or I
could have been that crazy I've been dead by now I was bleeding out every
or was when I got an alcoholics nominates I've been there 39 years it's
the greatest life I ever had and I think everybody that goes into alcoholics
nominates has got immense shame thanks Larry I think that what has helped me

(29:16):
and being vulnerable and being able to say these things out loud has given me
some skills and some tools to know that these feelings aren't gonna kill me and
I will go through the other side and there is pain I mean it isn't pain-free
but the beauty on the other side of working through these is really helpful

(29:44):
and the more times I practice that the more I know the what the outcome is
gonna look like I mean not exactly but that it's gonna be better I'm gonna
relieve myself of these horrible painful memories and the shame and there's
another thing that happens when you confide in people in AA usually you

(30:08):
realize you are not the only one that feels this way and then somehow I have
been able to see the other side of the coin I am not saying that Larry wasn't
beaten Larry you know I didn't you know have trauma in kindergarten but I can
see the other side of the coin which is a more positive instead of the negatives

(30:32):
where I became independent I learned a lot of things that until I worked these
fourth steps and saw these patterns that I wasn't able to see the good that came
out of it and as long as I'm stuck in that negative victimhood I can't get

(30:53):
better and I'm not saying rusty was not victimized as a child he absolutely was
but he was able by speaking his truth and helping other people to find power
to reframe that and to make a connection with his mother that healed probably

(31:14):
some other generational things from his mommy and daddy issues and we get our
power back in order to be able to deal with this and to be okay as adults thank
you so much for that Michelle me I say this what I've learned is we had
children raising children and I say well I pretty much got this shame thing down

(31:35):
and I'd say I really do myself work today is an ocean full compared to a
thimble when I walked in this door but this but it's still here as a young lady
having a meeting going to speak at a meeting at that circle drive circle
theater down I'd never been down there so I thought so I you know I'll probably
be there but the more it came the more my shame of going in and seeing those

(31:56):
people that I didn't know who's gonna be all that stuff so I thought wait a minute
you know how you did do this you'd walk through it it was all fine but it's that
shame that I didn't fit in I was less than someday was out some days I was
less than and some days I was more than you know that eagle tis with an inferiority
complex and it's thing I'm just glad I'm not a ten I'm not a one I'm in trying to

(32:17):
be in the middle just be a five I love about one of my favorite philosophers is
Popeye the sailor man I'm Popeye the sailor man I am who I am in the last
part of what this Bradshaw thing segment was on is your parents couldn't teach
you love yourself because they didn't love themselves also shame becomes

(32:42):
internalized it becomes a state of being I mean it becomes a part of who I was
and I could dress up you know put on my suit in the morning and go out and meet
the world and feeling like I was not worth it's like what Larry talked about
about like going down to that meeting there's times that I would I'd pull out

(33:05):
in the parking lot but I wouldn't go in because I didn't feel worthy to do that
of myself it says that shame runs from generation to generation now I know that
is in my family because my grandparents then my mom and my dad and then down into
me before I got sober for me and I always go back to this because I still

(33:31):
carry some stuff that I I don't know if I should be rid of it or not but it's
that my kids were already grown by the time that I got sober so the damage had
it really been done but I who knows you know I know kids that their parents
didn't get ever sober and they became successful and did everything they ever

(33:53):
wanted to do so I don't know but it's because I wasn't there that I feel the
guilt and the shame does that make sense yes I believe that I felt like I was a
mistake not that I made a mistake that's what it says in here doesn't it it's
the same thing I was a mistake then then this here says some of the most shaming

(34:18):
is sexual abuse issues is sexual issues very and here's the one that we've all
talked about perfectionism shames the most before I got sober I thought that
perfectionism was the greatest thing on the planet I mean my mother man she was

(34:39):
it I mean make that bed that you know the whole the whole life everything had
to be perfect and then I started hearing the recovery that well you really screwed
up and I go well that's when I've been here it all my life I thought
perfectionism was the goal yeah well we're from that society you know we're

(35:02):
to be perfect we ought to be the perfect person and be the perfect size all the
all the things that that I don't need to be today I don't want to be those things
I just want to be happy and free and not and I love what I mentioned this to
rusty here all back about the guilt and shame it pops up on me pretty every
once well and I'll go I reject that thought I learned that at the Unity

(35:22):
Church but and then I read this year while back and it absolutely set me free
to a tremendous degree I have to forgive myself for for not forgiving myself and
that is the most powerful statement I think one of the most powerful statements
I've ever heard for an alcoholic that when we come in here we're lower than I
could do chin-ups on cigarette paper I knew I was a terrible person so what

(35:45):
that's why AA works is they love people they'll love you back to health and I
didn't know what that meant when I got my first year what did they talk about
you right anyway well you talk about this is that you'll go into a meeting
talk about the axe murder and they'll say well keep coming back yeah that's
that's that helps right there believe it or not that helps it does some person
that's coming in and they'll they'll say something and people will go out and

(36:09):
pat them on the back and say you know my name's and come back will you will you
come back for us you know I wasn't a horrible person I'm such a people
pleaser which is basically a liar that I really didn't have a huge immense list I
mean I pretty much strive for perfection I was so worried that you might think

(36:31):
bad of me so I I mean it kept me from actually being a really low-bottom drunk
even but I think one of the components for me is that I was just an extension
of my parents in society so what I did they felt reflected on them and I was
expected to be a certain way and I was never allowed or encouraged to grow a

(36:58):
proper sense of self today the work I'm doing like right now this week or in the
last six months has all been about finding my authentic self feeling okay
with being vulnerable and showing you who that is because I'm a little

(37:25):
different I mean I'd be to a little bit of a different drum but how boring would
life be if we were all vanilla you're right on I want to tell one last
story because it really it means a lot to me it's right after World War two and
I'm about five years old and my mom leaves me leaves my dad he's my dad's a

(37:50):
drunk and me and my little brother Jimmy they had to put us in a home they just
call them or if it is and while I'm there I'm out on the playground and I'm
just this little kid and I'm have to go to the bathroom and three or four boys
get around me and they're you know they're taunting me and I'm crying by
then I'm saying let me go in and I got to go to the bathroom I'm gonna poop my

(38:13):
pants and they just keep on and on and finally I just went in my pants right
there well the matron comes out I still remember she had this white uniform on
she comes out you know takes me by the arm takes me inside has me undressed
and then she takes me in the shower and she turns on the shower she put me in

(38:38):
the corner and had showers come in both ways remember that so clearly and then
she had the kids come through and make fun of me now what she was trying to do
was to teach me a lesson never go crap in my pants again right but what I went
out of there with is that no one's ever gonna make fun of me again that's what I

(39:03):
went out with and that started then and the anger and rate it was raging me and
I started fighting and I fought till I was the last fight I had was 49 years
old all because nobody was going to make fun of me and half the time I didn't

(39:23):
know was he making fun of me or were they just joking around with me it
didn't seem to matter and even as small as I am I mean I would fight a bus off
what I've learned is that's how people take things into the psyche it's how
you walk away from that event somebody might have said okay well I learned that

(39:47):
that I won't I won't do that in my pants anymore and that would be it but for me
what I took it is that no one's ever gonna make fun of me again now in in
saying that I know that whatever happens to somebody and it may sound if I'm
sitting in the room with somebody and they're telling me something and you can

(40:08):
tell they're emotional with this I know that that person is in pain because I
don't know how their psyche process that Larry this is how minor it can be but
how major it can be I I won't say I'm in the third grade and we're playing tag or

(40:30):
something and some little boy behind me pulls my pants down that wasn't a big
deal I pull my pants up it's just an accident but what the big deal was is I
went to the bathroom and I had a skid mark we call them in my underwear yeah
and the embarrassment that was so tremendous to me because it's that
people play shame I've got to yeah I was shamed they didn't shame me but my brain

(40:53):
shamed me that's right it's a just as intense as I'm saying that it's just as
intense as I saw your intensity a minute ago right I had something in about
kindergarten or first grade that was very insignificant but it affected my
life everybody okay so I told you I was a little I had trouble understanding I
was really not ready for school I think this was first grade and it was around

(41:18):
Easter time and we were all supposed to draw bunnies and I drew a little brown
bunny on with my colors and the teacher held that bunny up and I guess I didn't
listen to the instructions or whatever everybody else's bunnies were colorful
but for some reason I was publicly humiliated for making a brown bunny and
to this day and I don't think like rusty I don't think it was the actual act I

(41:46):
think it was the public shaming that was so devastating right absolutely I'll say
this and this is one thing my last ex-wife taught me I dealt with the
client over and grum right it was a very wealthy client and he had a daughter and
one day I said something about the daughter to my wife and my wife said can

(42:06):
you imagine her parents are worth back at that time a hundred million dollars
with a lot of money she said can you imagine how that little child is treated
because their parents is wealthy with me the bunny might not been the issue the
issue now for you it was but might have been the teacher you understand you're
with good to be in yeah get out of that but I just wanted but what she said is

(42:27):
so poignant yes because we don't know that's right and you're still with it
today see how that man popped in there yeah so it didn't start when we're 20
or 30 years old it starts when we're small yeah and the 12 steps alone gives
me the opportunity to open that door and then if I'm doing therapy or whatever

(42:53):
I'm doing that opens it even more hey guys I can't tell you how much my heart
is full today my heart full just thank you for being here and guys thanks for
listening out there this has been a production of children of chaos net and
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(43:15):
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(43:38):
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