May 7, 2025 • 35 mins
What happens if the only constant in your chaotic world is abruptly removed... in handcuffs?
This is the night everything changed.
The adults were upstairs getting high, so it began with another night of trying to sleep in a car. The red and blue lights lit up the night to rescue a neglected kid. Did it really save me, though? Or did it just throw me from the frying pan to the fire?
I take you straight into that moment. Raw, real and unfiltered.
The terror of being woken up by police flashlights.
Watching my mom, my anchor, being arrested.
The guilt I carried, believing it was all my fault.
Moving in with a father I barely knew and his girlfriend, a woman whose violence and volatility created a new kind of danger.
But this isn’t just a story of trauma — it’s a story of survival and the silent scars of being the invisible kid no one checked in on.
My father's feeble attempts at normalcy, enrolling me in Cub Scouts and Taekwondo, only highlighted how different my life was from other children's. As an introverted, anxious child who'd never known stability, these activities became another source of alienation rather than belonging. Each awkward social interaction and failed attempt at fitting in served as a painful reminder that I existed in a world apart from my peers.
The most enduring pain, however, came from the burden of misplaced guilt. For years afterward, my mother continued to remind me that her arrest was my fault—if I hadn't been sleeping in that car, none of it would have happened. As a child, I accepted this blame without question. But this episode serves as a powerful reminder for anyone who has carried similar burdens: it was never your fault; children are not responsible for the failures of their caregivers.
If you've been made to feel guilty for situations that weren't your fault, I'd love to hear your story. Reach out with a message or comment so we can remind each other that the guilt many of us carry simply doesn't belong to us—and it's time to let it go.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back listeners.
It's episode 8 of From Homelessto Mansion.
Thanks so much for tuning backin.
I say that every week.
I need you guys to know that Iappreciate it so much.
I really do.
It means the world to me everytime I get another download,
every time I get another, like acomment, anything.
I love knowing that I'mreaching you guys.
I love knowing that youidentify with my story.
(00:21):
It really makes this all worthit.
So in this episode we going totake kind of a dark turn.
I actually sent this to mymarketing guy, alex, before I
released it to get his thoughtson the episode and he listened
to the entire episode and thenhe messaged me and said that
episode changed my mood.
I'm going to bed.
So this is your warning thatthis is a pretty powerful
(00:43):
episode.
There's a lot of emotion in it.
Yeah, just be prepared for whatyou're gonna hear.
We left off in the last episodewith just moving from place to
place, all these roach infestedhorrible places you know, losing
more of my stuff, gettingevicted, lots of homelessness,
sleeping in cars really, reallyrough period in my life and I
think we left off with all theadults partying upstairs while I
(01:06):
went downstairs to sleep in thecar.
I guess with that, let's reallydive into this episode and
prepare yourself for somedarkness.
It was the middle of the night.
I was trying to sleep in thecar because all the adults were
getting high upstairs and thered and blue flashing lights had
showed up.
Now, to a 10-year-old kid,having the cops show up in the
(01:31):
middle of the night isabsolutely terrifying.
I don't think anyone ever likeshaving the cops show up at any
point, because it's usually apretty scary experience.
But a little kid, you're justtrying to go to sleep because
everyone's high, and the copsshow up to tell you that
something is wrong, like that's.
I mean, that's kind of worldshattering.
(01:51):
Honestly, that's some specialkind of trauma that's a little
bit hard to get over.
Now, obviously, the cops showedup because the neighbors from
the last episode had called themto tell them that there's a kid
sleeping in this car outside.
Like you guys should probablydo something about this, and you
know the cops doing their job,they came to rescue this poor
(02:12):
kid, see what the hell was goingon.
Why is this kid sleeping in thecar by himself?
So the cops were obviously 100%in the right ear.
They did the right thing.
They were doing their job.
I don't fault them for that.
But again, being a little kidand having this happen to you,
when you don't think there'sanything wrong with what you're
(02:33):
doing, because, again, like I,had slept in the car all the
time, that was, you know, kindof the normal thing that we did
Sleeping in the car, in themotels, at friends' houses,
wherever we could stay when wewere homeless.
Right, that was life, that washow we survived.
I didn't see anything wrongwith it.
It was just another night and Iwas just trying to get some
sleep.
But the cops showed up becauseit was wrong.
I wasn't being taken care of bymy parents, obviously, and they
(02:54):
showed up to fix the situation.
But I was terrified.
So the cops show up and theycome and they shine their
flashlights through the windowand, like my heart's racing, I
don't know what the hell isgoing on.
Why are the cops here?
Why are they shining theirflashlights through the window
of this car while I'm trying tosleep?
What have I done wrong?
Am I going to jail forsomething Like?
I have no idea what's happeningright now.
(03:15):
So they knocked on the windowand I don't think I had the
doors locked because you know,this was like late 90s, 2000 or
so, and we didn't really lockdoors all that much back then,
especially out in the country inKentucky.
You know, it's not one of thosebig city things where you have
to have your doors locked allthe time.
So the doors were unlocked andthey opened the doors, you know,
(03:35):
asking what's going on.
Kid, why are you sleeping inthe backseat of the car?
Is everything all right?
And I still hadn't gone tosleep.
So I'm, you know, a littlegrumpy at this point, like, yeah
, I'm just trying to get somesleep.
You know what's going on, likewhat's the problem here?
And of course they're trying tofigure out where my parents are
, why I'm down here, why I'malone.
And uh, I'm sure they couldhear the party going on upstairs
(03:57):
and naturally they made theirway up there.
I think I stayed down in thecar the entire time and they had
an officer stay with me downthere.
So they go upstairs and see thisparty going on.
Of course everyone's gettinghigh, everyone's drunk.
There are kids in there.
I was the only kid who cameoutside.
All the other kids are still upthere like hanging out with
each other, and you know, alittle while later my mom and
(04:20):
her boyfriend come out inhandcuffs.
I mean, this was classic childneglect, right?
You've got your kids sleepingdown in the car while you're
upstairs partying.
You're going to jail for that.
Nine times out of 10, I'mpretty sure.
So they bring them out inhandcuffs, they bring them
downstairs and even through thealcohol and the drugs this high
(04:41):
that they have going on, I cantell that all the adults
upstairs, because it wasn't justmy mom and her boyfriend this
high that they have going on.
I can tell that all the adultsupstairs, because it wasn't just
my mom and her boyfriend, youknow, it was all the adults they
were partying with up there.
They're getting high.
They got drugs around all thesekids, right?
Everyone's getting arrested,everyone's going to jail for
this.
Because why are you doing thisstuff around minors?
You should know better.
But all the adults are pissedand they're pissed at me, right,
(05:07):
because I was the one sleepingin the car.
And now they're all going tojail because I fucked up and I
don't even think any of themreally knew I was down in the
car trying to go to sleep.
Like they all seemed confused,like why were you down here in
the car trying to go to sleep.
You could have been sleepingupstairs, blah, blah, blah, like
, of course, just trying todeflect blame from their shitty
actions.
And I'm the villain here, I'mthe one who fucked up and now we
(05:30):
all have to pay for your fuckup.
Yeah, I mean, that's, that'sjust how it was.
It was on their faces.
The adults were saying stufflike that, like why did you do
this?
It's terrible, it'straumatizing.
Cops middle of the night, 10yearyear-old kid, my mom, the
only like steady rock in my life, even though she was never like
steady right.
She was the only constant in mylife and I've spoken before
(05:52):
about being terrified of beingtaken away from her.
And now here she is finallygoing to jail.
The thing that I've alwaysdreaded, that I always knew was
coming, it's here and I can't doanything about it and it's my
fault.
I have caused my mother to betaken away from me because I
made a stupid decision and wassleeping in this car Like what
the hell is wrong with me, whydid I do this and what's going
(06:13):
to happen to me?
I'm terrified at this point, asyou can imagine.
So the cops got a hold of my dadand he made his way to the
scene of the crime.
He got there a little whilelater.
He lived like an hour away, soit took him some time to get
there.
Got there and you know he'sjust distraught, like oh my god,
I can't believe this is goingon.
(06:33):
How could you?
I'm gonna take you and bringyou to my house and everything's
gonna be okay.
I'm gonna take you away fromthis world.
Like yeah, okay, man, likewhere the hell have you been for
the last 10 years of my lifewhile this shit's been going on?
You didn't care about taking meaway from all this stuff any
other time.
Now suddenly you care.
Whatever, no one's buying it.
But I mean he's the otherparent and it's his right to
(06:55):
take me away.
I mean, where else am I goingto go?
Stay right.
I mean I've got some otherrelatives, but none of them are
as reliable as my dad probablywas, even with as unreliable as
he was.
But he's my other parent, goingto stay with him.
So he load me up in his truckand off to his house.
We go Now.
I don't think I'd ever been tothe place that he was staying at
that time before.
At this time he was currentlyliving in the Double Wide
(07:18):
trailer way out in the country,I mean way, way out there in the
country.
So we get out there middle ofthe night and brings me into the
house.
Now I don't know if you've everbeen in a double-wide, but some
of them are nice, right they.
I mean you can't really tellthe difference between a regular
house and a double-wide if thepeople do it right.
So we go in here and you knowit's just like a house, it's a
single-story house, it's got apretty small kitchen, it's got a
(07:41):
living room, it's got like aden, I think, two bedrooms and
the master bedroom slashbathroom.
It was definitely the nicestplace I had ever been in and at
the time, right, I didn't knowreally what a trailer was, what
a double wide was.
So, like this was sort of likea palace to me.
You know it sounds ridiculous,right, but it was this huge,
(08:02):
nice place out in the countrylots of land, there was a forest
behind him and it was justpeaceful and it was a nice place
to me back then.
But I didn't want to be there.
I had never lived with my dadbefore, I had never stayed with
him for any length of time.
I was terrified my mom had justbeen taken away.
I don't want to go live withhim.
But here I am living with him.
(08:26):
I had to stay with him for Idon't know.
My memory tells me I didn't staywith him Like I can only really
remember living with him forlike a week, but I know my mom
was locked up for longer thanthat because when she got
arrested, right, she hadwarrants out for her arrest, not
to mention the reason she gotarrested for neglecting me and
being high, possessing illegaldrugs, right, things like that.
So I know she had to be lockedup for more than a week, but I
can only really remember beingwith him for a short period of
(08:49):
time.
But that's what a kid's memorydoes to you.
So I was probably with him forat least a month and things were
pretty normal.
I guess he made sure I was inschool every day, because school
was always something that wasimportant to him.
So he took me to school everyday and I don't know Again, you
know, none of the teachers atthis point ever like checked in
(09:11):
to see what the hell is going onwith me.
You know my mom is in jail.
I'm living with someone elsenow and no one's checking in to
see if I'm okay.
So this is still fifth grade andyou know it was kind of hell
for me at that point, like mylife was all over the place.
I didn't know what was going tohappen from day to day and I'd
never lived with this guy and itwas not a good time for me.
(09:34):
And so I guess this is a goodpoint to introduce my dad's
girlfriend.
I've kind of been avoiding thistopic for this whole podcast so
far, partially because it's along topic that takes a lot of
talking about and a lot ofexplaining, but also I guess it
(09:55):
just really hasn't been a goodtime to talk about it.
But now that I'm living with mydad and his girlfriend and her
son, I guess it's a good time tointroduce these people and his
girlfriend and her son guessit's a good time to introduce
these people.
My dad had a girlfriend at thistime named Wanda.
Wanda was the bane of myexistence for my entire
childhood until I turned 18 andgot the fuck away from there.
(10:17):
Wanda was a drug addict.
Of course, my dad sold drugs,so he naturally attracted drug
addicts to him.
Wanda wasn't some young20-something who was attractive
and looking to score and dowhatever she needed to do to
score.
Wanda was around my dad's age,so she was in her 40s.
She was not attractive by anymeans.
(10:37):
She always had her hair shaved.
She was completely addicted tocrack cocaine and you could see
the effects of it in her face,on her body.
She was very much, you know,what we called a tomboy back
then.
There was no femininity to herat all and I don't say these
things to judge her for lackingfemininity.
(10:58):
Right, like you can be a womanand not be feminine.
It's cool.
I'm just trying to paint apicture of this woman for you.
She was probably abused severelyas a young girl and I'm sure
that shaped who she was as anadult.
Her first marriage, her husband, was extremely abusive to her
and I'm sure that also shapedwho she became later on as an
(11:19):
adult.
So there was nothing feminineabout her.
And to a young boy who's justlost the only feminine figure in
his life right, his motherthat's kind of jarring.
Wanda was also illiterate.
She was in her 40s, like I said, and she could not read.
She had two kids, one daughter,one son.
The daughter was a lot olderand, you know, honestly, I'm not
(11:42):
even sure if I've ever actuallymet her daughter in real life.
I actually remember my dadsleeping with Wanda's daughter
at some point.
You know, obviously, she was anadult, they're both adults but
again, he's selling drugs, she'sbuying drugs and he's sleeping
with her daughter.
These are the kinds ofinteractions that just went on
(12:02):
constantly and, yeah, they'reall kinds of fucked up.
But here we are.
Welcome to my life.
Her son, on the other hand, wasa teenager at this point, I
think, probably mid to lateteens, so he was older than I
was and he lived with my dad andwanda and he was into all the
typical teenager things.
But the most important thingthat you need to know about
(12:26):
wanda, she was a bad, meanperson.
She was angry all the time.
When she was high, it was somuch worse.
She would start a fight for noreason, and when I say fight, I
mean physical fight.
She was punching people.
She was dragging you to theground, kicking, screaming,
(12:47):
punching, aggressive.
There was no slapping and hairpulling with this woman.
If she could find a weapon tohit you with, she was going to
hit you with a weapon.
If she could kill you, shewould kill you.
This woman was intense in allthe wrong ways and, as you can
imagine, this was not good for aman who sold drugs to other
(13:10):
women who received sexual favorsin exchange for these drugs.
Multiple times my dad and Wandawere both arrested for domestic
violence because one of themwould start a fight with the
other and again it would be areal fistfight between these two
.
Now Wanda was usually theinstigator, the aggressor in
(13:31):
these situations, but thatdidn't really matter back in the
90s in Kentucky, right, it wason the man to not respond to
that, to basically not defendhimself and to just kind of let
it happen.
For the record, I've neverknown my dad to be a violent
person.
He has never been the kind fordomestic abuse or anything like
(13:51):
that.
You know, these kinds ofsituations can drive even these
peaceful people to violence andjust this constant fighting when
emotions are running so highand you have these personalities
that are just always causingproblems.
But this woman had workedconstruction her entire life.
(14:11):
She worked construction for mydad's company at the time and
she was strong, she had muscles.
This was a big, like butch-typewoman.
So if you were in a fight withher it was a real fight.
You better be defendingyourself for all that you have.
And so back to these women thatmy dad would receive sexual
favors in exchange for drugs.
(14:33):
Wanda would inevitably find outabout it and she would be high
and then it would be so muchworse.
She would figure out where mydad was at, go to wherever this
deal was happening and she wouldfight these women and these
were much smaller, like morefeminine women.
They didn't want to fight, theyjust wanted to get high.
And she would go into thesepeople's houses and she would
(14:55):
drag them outside by the hairand she would beat the shit out
of them on their front lawn.
She would get in the car andchase them.
If they tried to run, she wouldrun them off the road.
She was trying to kill thesepeople.
And my dad stayed with thiswoman my entire childhood.
From the time he left my motherwhen I was about a year old
(15:15):
until well after I had leftKentucky for the military at 18,
he was with this woman.
It didn't matter what she didto me, what she did to my mom,
what she did to anyone.
He lived with this woman thisentire time.
They were together.
I and my siblings and someother people really think that
(15:38):
they got married at some pointand just didn't tell anyone.
I haven't been able to provethat.
My dad won't admit it, butwe're all fairly certain it
happened and he was too ashamedto admit it Because nobody liked
this woman.
Nobody Nobody in the world likedthis woman.
She sent me a friend request onFacebook a couple of years ago
(15:59):
Like what the hell are you doing, woman?
I despise you.
You made my childhood even moreof a hellscape than it needed
to be.
I'm already in poverty,homeless, not eating, living
with roaches.
And here you come, like beatingthe shit out of people and
being aggressive, yelling.
Why the hell would I ever wantto be friends with you?
(16:20):
I don't know Wanda's gonna playa role in some of my stories in
the future, but right now in mystory I'm living with my dad in
his double wide in the countrywith his girlfriend Wanda and
her son Chris.
So, as I said, my dad's placeout here in the country was
really nice to me back then as akid.
It was the nicest place I'dever seen.
His bathroom was pretty largeto me at the time.
(16:42):
He had a hot tub in it and likea standalone shower and the
toilet was in its own separatecloset in the bathroom.
There was a skylight in thebathroom Like, oh my god, I'm in
a mansion at this point, whatthe hell is happening.
So you know, that was prettycool to me as a kid.
I felt like I was living inluxury, but I for sure was not
enjoying where I was livingbecause I was away from my mom.
(17:06):
I was with this psycho, wanda,and her son wasn't too bad.
He tried to take me under hiswing and be kind of like an
older brother to me.
So he tried to like, take meunder his wing and, you know, be
kind of like an older brotherto me.
So that wasn't awful.
He, of course, was showing methings that you probably
shouldn't because, you know,again, he's like in his late
teens and I'm 10 years old.
So I remember he listened toInsane Clown Posse at the time
(17:27):
and kind of got me to startlistening to it a little bit,
and to this day, yes, they'restill one of my favorite bands.
So I don't really care if youjudge me for that, but that's a
little fact about me.
But so we listened to thingslike that.
You know, he was alwayswatching porn and he was okay at
the time.
You know, having Wanda as amother had obviously done some
(17:48):
damage to him.
It had rubbed off on him in alot of the wrong ways, but he
was always really nice to me, soI appreciated that.
And my dad tried to be a fatherto him, I think.
But I mean, my dad couldn'teven be a father to his own kids
so he wasn't really going to bea father to this kid either.
So he tried, I think, but hisefforts were really ultimately
(18:09):
in vain.
My dad had a computer at thisplace and you know it was really
the first computer I had kindof ever been on for any length
of time.
We had some computers at schoolbut I hadn't used them
extensively.
And so he had a computer, hehad the internet and you know I
just I didn't do much on it,like I played some Solitaire
probably, but it was cool.
It was a um, I wonder, like the, uh, the Gateway PCs that they
(18:30):
advertised with the cows back inthe day.
It was one of those.
And you know again, this wasthis was kind of a first for me.
This is a whole new world forme, like the computer, the
internet.
I didn't really know what thehell I was doing and of course,
no one in the house knew whatthey were doing with a computer
or the internet, so I don'tthink it really got much use,
but it was there.
It was a novelty.
I had my own bedroom in thisplace with my own bed, although
(18:51):
it was a waterbed and we didn'thave sheets for it for some
reason.
So I was just kind of sleepingon the straight waterbed with a
blanket over top of me, and ifyou've ever slept on a waterbed
without sheets like those,things get pretty cold and again
, as I've said a thousand timesalready, I was a very tiny kid.
There was no meat on my bones.
I got cold very easily and Istill get cold very easily to
(19:14):
this day.
But sleeping on a waterbed withno sheets, no, that sucked.
That sucked really bad.
The other thing that kind ofsucked about living with him was
that Wanda would cook dinner,and so as an adult now you know
I can appreciate that I finallyhad steady meals.
I was eating every day.
This was great.
I had never really had that inmy life.
(19:35):
But being a 10-year-old kid likeI couldn't fully appreciate it
because the things she wascooking weren't things that I
wanted to eat.
And I was a picky 10-year-oldkid, you know, like most kids
are, so I was stubborn abouteating these things, even though
I finally had food to eat.
One instance in particular Iremember she made some meal with
(19:56):
peas.
It was the first time I'd evereaten peas and they were
disgusting.
I hated peas.
I hate peas.
To this day.
I'm never going to eat a pea.
They're so gross to me.
And so she had all these peas onthe plate and she made me sit
there until I finished this fullplate of food and I couldn't
eat that much.
I'm a tiny little kid and shegives me this full plate of food
that I don't want to eat andinsists that I eat it all.
(20:17):
I sat at that table for hours.
I mean, I was there untilbedtime, long after dinner was
finished, long after everyonehad left the table.
I had to sit there and juststare at these peas that I
wasn't going to eat, because shewouldn't let me get up.
And of course, my dad let thishappen because he doesn't know
how to be a father, so he'sletting this woman, who has no
motherly instincts whatsoever,be in charge of me.
(20:39):
So that kind of sucked,compared to all the other
problems in my life.
Obviously you know you'rerolling your eyes at this one
because it's dumb.
It's not really your problem,but like it was serious to me
back then.
Obviously everything is life ordeath when you're a kid.
Now, while I was living with mydad, he tried to get me involved
in some things.
He brought me to work with himon these construction sites and
(21:01):
like I wasn't helping him workor anything, I was mostly just,
you know, playing around on thedirt mounds.
You know, just being a kid,being a boy, living with him was
probably like one of thehealthiest things that ever
happened to me as a kid because,like I said, I was eating
(21:25):
regularly, I was outside doingthings and it was all around
probably good.
But the factors surroundingthat situation my mom being in
jail, like Wanda trying tofucking raise me, this psycho
those things definitely made itnot ideal for me.
But he tried to get me involvedin some things and one of those
things was Cub Scouts.
For anyone who doesn't know, cubScouts are kind of like the
junior version of Boy Scouts.
You know, when you're too youngfor Boy Scouts, I guess they
put you in Cub Scouts.
I don't know.
I did this for a very, verybrief period of time, you know,
(21:48):
measured in weeks, not years,and I didn't really enjoy it
because, again, back then I wasa super introverted kid.
I didn't want anything to dowith anyone, I just wanted to be
left to myself.
I didn't want to talk to people.
I was super shy.
You know, I was the kind of kidwho was going to stand behind
my parents when I was meetingnew people because I don't want
to talk to these new people.
But he put me in Cub Scouts andit was like a branch of it that
(22:11):
was pretty much with a lot ofthe kids I was already in
elementary school with and Iremember we had to like go to
some sporting goods store andbuy a uniform and buy like the
little scouts handbook orwhatever and I don't know.
You know there's a bunch ofstuff about God and stuff and I
wasn't religious, I had neverbeen to church, so I didn't know
what the hell was going on.
This is a foreign world to meand he would take me to these
(22:32):
meetings and they would be in achurch and they'd be talking
about like all these things thatI'd never been exposed to, you
know, like civility and charity,helping people, things like
that.
You know, these weren't thingsthat I had ever seen in my life.
They definitely weren't valuesI had been raised with.
Thanks to my mom.
She didn't believe in any ofthis stuff.
She believed in takingadvantage of people however she
(22:54):
could.
So this was a brand new worldto me and I hated it.
All these kids came from thesegreat childhoods, these great
backgrounds or at least notterrible backgrounds like I had
come from.
You know, they could afford allthese uniforms and all these
things.
Their dads were there with themto like, encourage them.
They were there every week.
They were out volunteering andhelping the community and stuff
(23:17):
like that.
And I hated these kids.
They had everything I never didand they didn't appreciate it.
It was just another day to them.
I hated these kids.
I think the last time I everwent to one of these Cub Scout
meetings it was, I don't know,some special day.
We were going to be outsidelike playing baseball or
(23:37):
throwing a baseball around.
I had never done anything withsports in my life.
That was not me.
To this day, I'm not athleticat all.
So that sure as hell wasn't meback then and we had to like
bring a catcher's mitt and abaseball to this outside event
of the church and I didn't knowwhat the hell to expect.
So I go to this place and I'vegot my mitt, I've got my
(23:57):
baseball.
I'm walking up with my dad andone of the guys, this much, much
bigger kid named Will.
He's already there and Will wasa nice kid.
I remember he was always tryingto help people, like he was
definitely a Boy Scout throughand through.
And so he's there, he'sthrowing a ball.
He sees me come up and he wastrying to be friendly, get me
involved.
So he throws a baseball towardsme and I don't know what the
(24:19):
hell I'm doing.
I don't even know if I saw itcoming, really, but this thing
hits me straight in thediaphragm.
I went down, I couldn't breathe.
I thought I was dying.
I'd literally just gotten outof the car, walked across the
parking lot to this meetup.
Baseball hits me, knocks thewind out of me.
It was awful.
(24:39):
I think I probably left soonafter that and I don't think I
ever went back.
I know my dad was disappointed.
You know he wanted, like atypical boy who's into sports
and all this other stuff becausethat's what he was into.
He was trying to be like aman's man.
You know and my older brothercertainly wasn't that he's a
huge nerd.
I'm a huge nerd and I don'tthink that's what my dad ever
wanted.
So he's trying to get me intoall these other things.
(25:01):
It didn't work out.
Another thing he tried to getme into was martial arts.
So he took me to thesetaekwondo classes for a while
and I actually really enjoyedthose.
I enjoy learning how to fightand doing all that stuff.
But again, I'm super introverted, like I'm scared of my own
shadow, I'm terrified of beingaround all these other kids, and
so I didn't really take to itvery well and you know, I think
(25:28):
I earned like whatever the firstbelt that you actually earn
after having your white belt is.
But that was it.
You know, I stopped going tothese classes.
I had all the gear but I wasn'tgoing anymore because it's it
wasn't my thing, thing.
Physical activities were not mything and my dad just couldn't
get that through his head.
And I remember one graduationceremony at this taekwondo place
we had to, like you know we'recelebrating.
You know it's kind of like uh,graduation at a university where
(25:51):
you throw your cap up in theair at the end, right.
So we had to take off our beltsand throw those up in the air,
but I was like terrified oflosing my belt among all the
belts that these other kids had.
I don't know, it was littlethings like that that always
scared me when I was a kid and Ididn't want to take part in
them because, like I guess I waskind of anxious about them, I
(26:11):
don't know.
But so everyone else throwstheir belts up in the air and
like I just kind of whip mine upinto the air while I'm still
holding on to it because I'm notletting go of that thing.
What if I lose it?
Oh my God, that's the end ofthe world.
Yeah, so little things likethat got to me as a kid.
But aside from these physicalthings that my dad tried to get
me into I think I'm jumping alittle bit ahead of my story,
(26:31):
but this seems like a good placeto talk about it he would also
try to get me into I don'treally want to say intellectual
things, but I guess that's thebest way to put it Maybe like
stuffy rich white people thingsis the best way to put it, my
dad was always trying to fit inwith people above his station,
we'll say, because he wasthoroughly middle class, lower
(26:53):
middle class at this point.
He made decent money from hisconstruction business but he
still sold drugs.
Right, he's still through andthrough a drug dealer, but
that's not where he wanted to bein life.
He always felt like he wasrobbed from his true potential
in life by all these women thathe would date and would steal
from him, and he refused toacknowledge his own part in this
(27:14):
drama and in holding himselfback in life.
He always felt he should bemore ahead than what he was.
So he would always try toschmooze with these rich people,
these people who were wellahead of him in society in life.
In every way possible he wouldtry to be a part of their group
and he always prided himself onbeing able to fit in with these
people.
But I don't remember him everfitting in with these people so
(27:37):
much as just pretending to.
You know, it's like when yousee movies and there's all these
rich people who are part of agroup and then the outsider
comes in trying to pretend likehe's one of them and you know
they just kind of humor him, butthey're really mocking him
behind his back, like it wasthat kind of situation.
He wasn't one of them, as muchas he wanted to be one of them,
and he took me to a coin auctionone time and he had me dress up
(28:00):
in like whatever the nicestclothes he could find for me
were, which of course, weren'tthat nice.
I mean, I'm sure it was likejeans and tennis shoes, and
maybe he got me a button-upshirt, who knows, but it wasn't
nice clothes really.
And so he went to this thingand he's dressed in his nicest
clothes, which, again, aren'treally anything, because he
doesn't have nice clothes.
He works construction and sellsdrugs.
(28:20):
He's in jeans, he's in maybe apolo, probably like a button up
shirt, no tie, for sure.
He never had dress shoes.
He always had this pair ofcowboy boots that he wore
everywhere and he thought thatthese were like the nicest
things in the world and that'swhat he wore to dress up to
these events, up to these events.
And so we go to this event andit's a bunch of fucking rich
(28:40):
white people.
They're all dressed up in niceclothes.
You know, some of them arewearing suits like ties.
All these nice clothes we donot fucking fit in.
And here he is dragging me tothis event, trying to fit in
with these rich white peoplebecause he wants to be one of
them so desperately and he justcan't get into it.
And so he's just schmoozingwith these rich people and he
sits me down next to this kidwho's there.
(29:01):
I didn't have any fuckinginterest in collecting coins,
could not have cared less.
I was a kid.
I wanted to play Pokemon, Iwanted to play with Power
Rangers, I wanted to go outsideand roughhouse with people.
As much of an introvert and notathletic person as I was, I was
still into roughhousing withother boys.
You know it was fun.
I was a little boy in thecountry.
(29:27):
And so he sits me down with thisfucking coin auction next to
this kid.
I mean, this kid screamed nerd.
And again, I'm a huge nerd.
I read comic books, I playboard games, I play video games.
I'm not disparaging nerds here,but like, if you think of like
a typical, like rich white kidwho's into like stamp collecting
and coin collecting and stufflike that's that's the kind of
image that's happening here.
You know, this kid had reallythick glasses.
He just looked kind of stuffy,I guess, like he was trying to
(29:50):
be way older than he actuallywas.
This was the kind of kid thatif you can just imagine someone
with like a pocket protector andmaybe wearing like a suit with
a bow tie and he's got like hissocks pulled over his pants or
something like that kid probablydidn't actually look like that,
but that's how I remember thiskid in my head, and he was so
(30:14):
into coin collecting.
Now was he actually into coincollecting or had his rich dad
just told him he needed to beinto coin collecting, who knows?
But here he is at this eventand this kid is trying to talk
to me about all these fuckingcoins.
I'm like I don't care.
Talk to me about Pokemon orsomething.
This kid has had none of it.
All he wanted to do was talkabout coins.
That kid probably grew up to bean investment banker or an
(30:35):
insurance salesman or some shitlike that, and he's probably
loving his boring life that hebought with daddy's money.
But I was not into it and hewas so enthusiastic about these
coins and like I just I don'tknow I tried to ignore him.
My dad's over here, like tryingto ask me which coins that are
being auctioned that I'minterested in.
Which ones do you want to buy?
Son Like, oh, that one's reallycool.
(30:57):
Shut up, dad, you don't knowshit about these coins.
Why are you trying to get meinto this?
So he's trying to get me to buyall these coins and I think we
ended up leaving with someancient Roman coin, which,
admittedly, was pretty cool.
I wish I still had it to thisday, but I can appreciate those
things.
Now, right, I couldn'tappreciate those things as a 10
year old kid.
This is a 10 year old kid, butI had this cool Roman coin for a
(31:20):
long time until, you know,naturally, my mom eventually
sold it because it was somethingthat was worth a little bit of
money.
I mean, I think he paid like 50bucks for it, probably, but you
know it was worth a little bitof money.
So, of course, she sold her fordrugs, but that was one cool
thing that happened.
From that, all right, I havetalked for a long time this
episode.
I feel like all I've reallydone is complained about my dad
and the situation that I was in.
But you know, this was a prettypivotal moment in my life.
(31:43):
It was all pretty traumatic andI hated every single second of
it and I think it was really aturning point in my life where
things were already pretty badand this whole situation just
made them go from bad to worse.
You know, nothing was everreally the same after my mom got
arrested.
(32:04):
I talked about it a lot at thebeginning of the episode, like
everyone making me feel guiltyfor being the reason that they
got arrested, and you know thatstuck with me for a really long
time, like even after they gotout of jail later.
They still made me feel reallyshitty about that, like it was
my fault that they got arrested.
If you had just not beensleeping in the car, this never
(32:25):
would have happened.
We wouldn't have gone to jail.
Why did you have to do that?
Like, take some fuckingresponsibility for your actions
as adults, as parents, and maybelook at the situation you're
putting these kids in.
You got arrested for a reason.
I didn't get arrested for doingsomething wrong because you
(32:45):
guys are the ones who were doingsomething wrong, but I did
carry that guilt for a long timeas a kid and if you asked my
mom today if you could still askEarl if he were alive, I
guarantee they would still be alittle upset that they got
arrested because I was sleepingin the car.
I 100% guarantee they wouldstill be a little upset that
they got arrested because I wassleeping in the car.
I 100% guarantee they would nottake responsibility for their
actions.
But I was a kid.
Of course I was going to feelguilt if my mom was basically
(33:07):
telling me that I should feelguilty about this situation.
I didn't know any better, andso I think that that is really
kind of the message that I wantto leave off on for this episode
.
Those of us who went throughterrible situations in our
childhood were usually made tofeel guilty for them, like it
was our fault that our parentswere miserable, that they were
going through this.
(33:27):
You're such a terrible child.
That's why I need to be drunkall the time Things like that.
But you know, it never was.
It was never our fault that ourparents couldn't get their shit
together and provide for us theway that they should have.
It wasn't my fault that she gotarrested for neglecting me, for
being high instead of takingcare of me, and to all these
other kids out there, it's notyour fault that your parents
(33:50):
sucked, that they put you inthese situations, that they
shouldn't have that.
They didn't care for you theway that they should have.
It was never your fault.
Have that.
They didn't care for you theway that they should have.
It was never your fault, andanyone who says otherwise is
just trying to make themselvesfeel better, to redirect their
guilt to someone else becausethey're incapable of addressing
their own shortcomings.
(34:11):
Yeah, I think that's a goodplace to really end this episode
.
If you've ever had somethinglike this happen to you, if
someone's made you feel guiltyfor something that wasn't your
fault because they were unableto accept blame themselves, I
want to hear about it.
Send me a message, drop acomment, get in contact with me
somehow and let me know aboutthis, and I'd love to read those
(34:33):
in the next episode.
I'd love to let people knowthat they're not alone out there
, that we all went through someshit like this in childhood.
You can let go of that guilt.
You know.
Maybe you're still a teenagerlistening to this, maybe you're
an adult and you still haven'tprocessed it, but you can let go
of that.
It's okay.
As always, I want to thank everysingle one of you for tuning in
every week.
(34:54):
It means the world to me.
I know I say it every time.
I'm going to keep saying itbecause I want you guys to know
how much I appreciate you Tunein next week for, hopefully, a
little bit of a brighter episode.
Probably not, but that's whatyou're here for.
Right Is all the shitty partsof my life and trying to learn
from them so you can hopefullyheal your own trauma.
(35:16):
Or maybe you're just for a goodstory, I don't know.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'll see you next week.
Welcome back listeners.
It's episode 8 of From Homelessto Mansion.
Thanks so much for tuning backin.
I say that every week.
I need you guys to know that Iappreciate it so much.
I really do.
It means the world to me everytime I get another download,
every time I get another, like acomment, anything.
I love knowing that I'mreaching you guys.
I love knowing that youidentify with my story.
(00:21):
It really makes this all worthit.
So in this episode we going totake kind of a dark turn.
I actually sent this to mymarketing guy, alex, before I
released it to get his thoughtson the episode and he listened
to the entire episode and thenhe messaged me and said that
episode changed my mood.
I'm going to bed.
So this is your warning thatthis is a pretty powerful
(00:43):
episode.
There's a lot of emotion in it.
Yeah, just be prepared for whatyou're gonna hear.
We left off in the last episodewith just moving from place to
place, all these roach infestedhorrible places you know, losing
more of my stuff, gettingevicted, lots of homelessness,
sleeping in cars really, reallyrough period in my life and I
think we left off with all theadults partying upstairs while I
(01:06):
went downstairs to sleep in thecar.
I guess with that, let's reallydive into this episode and
prepare yourself for somedarkness.
It was the middle of the night.
I was trying to sleep in thecar because all the adults were
getting high upstairs and thered and blue flashing lights had
showed up.
Now, to a 10-year-old kid,having the cops show up in the
(01:31):
middle of the night isabsolutely terrifying.
I don't think anyone ever likeshaving the cops show up at any
point, because it's usually apretty scary experience.
But a little kid, you're justtrying to go to sleep because
everyone's high, and the copsshow up to tell you that
something is wrong, like that's.
I mean, that's kind of worldshattering.
(01:51):
Honestly, that's some specialkind of trauma that's a little
bit hard to get over.
Now, obviously, the cops showedup because the neighbors from
the last episode had called themto tell them that there's a kid
sleeping in this car outside.
Like you guys should probablydo something about this, and you
know the cops doing their job,they came to rescue this poor
(02:12):
kid, see what the hell was goingon.
Why is this kid sleeping in thecar by himself?
So the cops were obviously 100%in the right ear.
They did the right thing.
They were doing their job.
I don't fault them for that.
But again, being a little kidand having this happen to you,
when you don't think there'sanything wrong with what you're
(02:33):
doing, because, again, like I,had slept in the car all the
time, that was, you know, kindof the normal thing that we did
Sleeping in the car, in themotels, at friends' houses,
wherever we could stay when wewere homeless.
Right, that was life, that washow we survived.
I didn't see anything wrongwith it.
It was just another night and Iwas just trying to get some
sleep.
But the cops showed up becauseit was wrong.
I wasn't being taken care of bymy parents, obviously, and they
(02:54):
showed up to fix the situation.
But I was terrified.
So the cops show up and theycome and they shine their
flashlights through the windowand, like my heart's racing, I
don't know what the hell isgoing on.
Why are the cops here?
Why are they shining theirflashlights through the window
of this car while I'm trying tosleep?
What have I done wrong?
Am I going to jail forsomething Like?
I have no idea what's happeningright now.
(03:15):
So they knocked on the windowand I don't think I had the
doors locked because you know,this was like late 90s, 2000 or
so, and we didn't really lockdoors all that much back then,
especially out in the country inKentucky.
You know, it's not one of thosebig city things where you have
to have your doors locked allthe time.
So the doors were unlocked andthey opened the doors, you know,
(03:35):
asking what's going on.
Kid, why are you sleeping inthe backseat of the car?
Is everything all right?
And I still hadn't gone tosleep.
So I'm, you know, a littlegrumpy at this point, like, yeah
, I'm just trying to get somesleep.
You know what's going on, likewhat's the problem here?
And of course they're trying tofigure out where my parents are
, why I'm down here, why I'malone.
And uh, I'm sure they couldhear the party going on upstairs
(03:57):
and naturally they made theirway up there.
I think I stayed down in thecar the entire time and they had
an officer stay with me downthere.
So they go upstairs and see thisparty going on.
Of course everyone's gettinghigh, everyone's drunk.
There are kids in there.
I was the only kid who cameoutside.
All the other kids are still upthere like hanging out with
each other, and you know, alittle while later my mom and
(04:20):
her boyfriend come out inhandcuffs.
I mean, this was classic childneglect, right?
You've got your kids sleepingdown in the car while you're
upstairs partying.
You're going to jail for that.
Nine times out of 10, I'mpretty sure.
So they bring them out inhandcuffs, they bring them
downstairs and even through thealcohol and the drugs this high
(04:41):
that they have going on, I cantell that all the adults
upstairs, because it wasn't justmy mom and her boyfriend this
high that they have going on.
I can tell that all the adultsupstairs, because it wasn't just
my mom and her boyfriend, youknow, it was all the adults they
were partying with up there.
They're getting high.
They got drugs around all thesekids, right?
Everyone's getting arrested,everyone's going to jail for
this.
Because why are you doing thisstuff around minors?
You should know better.
But all the adults are pissedand they're pissed at me, right,
(05:07):
because I was the one sleepingin the car.
And now they're all going tojail because I fucked up and I
don't even think any of themreally knew I was down in the
car trying to go to sleep.
Like they all seemed confused,like why were you down here in
the car trying to go to sleep.
You could have been sleepingupstairs, blah, blah, blah, like
, of course, just trying todeflect blame from their shitty
actions.
And I'm the villain here, I'mthe one who fucked up and now we
(05:30):
all have to pay for your fuckup.
Yeah, I mean, that's, that'sjust how it was.
It was on their faces.
The adults were saying stufflike that, like why did you do
this?
It's terrible, it'straumatizing.
Cops middle of the night, 10yearyear-old kid, my mom, the
only like steady rock in my life, even though she was never like
steady right.
She was the only constant in mylife and I've spoken before
(05:52):
about being terrified of beingtaken away from her.
And now here she is finallygoing to jail.
The thing that I've alwaysdreaded, that I always knew was
coming, it's here and I can't doanything about it and it's my
fault.
I have caused my mother to betaken away from me because I
made a stupid decision and wassleeping in this car Like what
the hell is wrong with me, whydid I do this and what's going
(06:13):
to happen to me?
I'm terrified at this point, asyou can imagine.
So the cops got a hold of my dadand he made his way to the
scene of the crime.
He got there a little whilelater.
He lived like an hour away, soit took him some time to get
there.
Got there and you know he'sjust distraught, like oh my god,
I can't believe this is goingon.
(06:33):
How could you?
I'm gonna take you and bringyou to my house and everything's
gonna be okay.
I'm gonna take you away fromthis world.
Like yeah, okay, man, likewhere the hell have you been for
the last 10 years of my lifewhile this shit's been going on?
You didn't care about taking meaway from all this stuff any
other time.
Now suddenly you care.
Whatever, no one's buying it.
But I mean he's the otherparent and it's his right to
(06:55):
take me away.
I mean, where else am I goingto go?
Stay right.
I mean I've got some otherrelatives, but none of them are
as reliable as my dad probablywas, even with as unreliable as
he was.
But he's my other parent, goingto stay with him.
So he load me up in his truckand off to his house.
We go Now.
I don't think I'd ever been tothe place that he was staying at
that time before.
At this time he was currentlyliving in the Double Wide
(07:18):
trailer way out in the country,I mean way, way out there in the
country.
So we get out there middle ofthe night and brings me into the
house.
Now I don't know if you've everbeen in a double-wide, but some
of them are nice, right they.
I mean you can't really tellthe difference between a regular
house and a double-wide if thepeople do it right.
So we go in here and you knowit's just like a house, it's a
single-story house, it's got apretty small kitchen, it's got a
(07:41):
living room, it's got like aden, I think, two bedrooms and
the master bedroom slashbathroom.
It was definitely the nicestplace I had ever been in and at
the time, right, I didn't knowreally what a trailer was, what
a double wide was.
So, like this was sort of likea palace to me.
You know it sounds ridiculous,right, but it was this huge,
(08:02):
nice place out in the countrylots of land, there was a forest
behind him and it was justpeaceful and it was a nice place
to me back then.
But I didn't want to be there.
I had never lived with my dadbefore, I had never stayed with
him for any length of time.
I was terrified my mom had justbeen taken away.
I don't want to go live withhim.
But here I am living with him.
(08:26):
I had to stay with him for Idon't know.
My memory tells me I didn't staywith him Like I can only really
remember living with him forlike a week, but I know my mom
was locked up for longer thanthat because when she got
arrested, right, she hadwarrants out for her arrest, not
to mention the reason she gotarrested for neglecting me and
being high, possessing illegaldrugs, right, things like that.
So I know she had to be lockedup for more than a week, but I
can only really remember beingwith him for a short period of
(08:49):
time.
But that's what a kid's memorydoes to you.
So I was probably with him forat least a month and things were
pretty normal.
I guess he made sure I was inschool every day, because school
was always something that wasimportant to him.
So he took me to school everyday and I don't know Again, you
know, none of the teachers atthis point ever like checked in
(09:11):
to see what the hell is going onwith me.
You know my mom is in jail.
I'm living with someone elsenow and no one's checking in to
see if I'm okay.
So this is still fifth grade andyou know it was kind of hell
for me at that point, like mylife was all over the place.
I didn't know what was going tohappen from day to day and I'd
never lived with this guy and itwas not a good time for me.
(09:34):
And so I guess this is a goodpoint to introduce my dad's
girlfriend.
I've kind of been avoiding thistopic for this whole podcast so
far, partially because it's along topic that takes a lot of
talking about and a lot ofexplaining, but also I guess it
(09:55):
just really hasn't been a goodtime to talk about it.
But now that I'm living with mydad and his girlfriend and her
son, I guess it's a good time tointroduce these people and his
girlfriend and her son guessit's a good time to introduce
these people.
My dad had a girlfriend at thistime named Wanda.
Wanda was the bane of myexistence for my entire
childhood until I turned 18 andgot the fuck away from there.
(10:17):
Wanda was a drug addict.
Of course, my dad sold drugs,so he naturally attracted drug
addicts to him.
Wanda wasn't some young20-something who was attractive
and looking to score and dowhatever she needed to do to
score.
Wanda was around my dad's age,so she was in her 40s.
She was not attractive by anymeans.
(10:37):
She always had her hair shaved.
She was completely addicted tocrack cocaine and you could see
the effects of it in her face,on her body.
She was very much, you know,what we called a tomboy back
then.
There was no femininity to herat all and I don't say these
things to judge her for lackingfemininity.
(10:58):
Right, like you can be a womanand not be feminine.
It's cool.
I'm just trying to paint apicture of this woman for you.
She was probably abused severelyas a young girl and I'm sure
that shaped who she was as anadult.
Her first marriage, her husband, was extremely abusive to her
and I'm sure that also shapedwho she became later on as an
(11:19):
adult.
So there was nothing feminineabout her.
And to a young boy who's justlost the only feminine figure in
his life right, his motherthat's kind of jarring.
Wanda was also illiterate.
She was in her 40s, like I said, and she could not read.
She had two kids, one daughter,one son.
The daughter was a lot olderand, you know, honestly, I'm not
(11:42):
even sure if I've ever actuallymet her daughter in real life.
I actually remember my dadsleeping with Wanda's daughter
at some point.
You know, obviously, she was anadult, they're both adults but
again, he's selling drugs, she'sbuying drugs and he's sleeping
with her daughter.
These are the kinds ofinteractions that just went on
(12:02):
constantly and, yeah, they'reall kinds of fucked up.
But here we are.
Welcome to my life.
Her son, on the other hand, wasa teenager at this point, I
think, probably mid to lateteens, so he was older than I
was and he lived with my dad andwanda and he was into all the
typical teenager things.
But the most important thingthat you need to know about
(12:26):
wanda, she was a bad, meanperson.
She was angry all the time.
When she was high, it was somuch worse.
She would start a fight for noreason, and when I say fight, I
mean physical fight.
She was punching people.
She was dragging you to theground, kicking, screaming,
(12:47):
punching, aggressive.
There was no slapping and hairpulling with this woman.
If she could find a weapon tohit you with, she was going to
hit you with a weapon.
If she could kill you, shewould kill you.
This woman was intense in allthe wrong ways and, as you can
imagine, this was not good for aman who sold drugs to other
(13:10):
women who received sexual favorsin exchange for these drugs.
Multiple times my dad and Wandawere both arrested for domestic
violence because one of themwould start a fight with the
other and again it would be areal fistfight between these two
.
Now Wanda was usually theinstigator, the aggressor in
(13:31):
these situations, but thatdidn't really matter back in the
90s in Kentucky, right, it wason the man to not respond to
that, to basically not defendhimself and to just kind of let
it happen.
For the record, I've neverknown my dad to be a violent
person.
He has never been the kind fordomestic abuse or anything like
(13:51):
that.
You know, these kinds ofsituations can drive even these
peaceful people to violence andjust this constant fighting when
emotions are running so highand you have these personalities
that are just always causingproblems.
But this woman had workedconstruction her entire life.
(14:11):
She worked construction for mydad's company at the time and
she was strong, she had muscles.
This was a big, like butch-typewoman.
So if you were in a fight withher it was a real fight.
You better be defendingyourself for all that you have.
And so back to these women thatmy dad would receive sexual
favors in exchange for drugs.
(14:33):
Wanda would inevitably find outabout it and she would be high
and then it would be so muchworse.
She would figure out where mydad was at, go to wherever this
deal was happening and she wouldfight these women and these
were much smaller, like morefeminine women.
They didn't want to fight, theyjust wanted to get high.
And she would go into thesepeople's houses and she would
(14:55):
drag them outside by the hairand she would beat the shit out
of them on their front lawn.
She would get in the car andchase them.
If they tried to run, she wouldrun them off the road.
She was trying to kill thesepeople.
And my dad stayed with thiswoman my entire childhood.
From the time he left my motherwhen I was about a year old
(15:15):
until well after I had leftKentucky for the military at 18,
he was with this woman.
It didn't matter what she didto me, what she did to my mom,
what she did to anyone.
He lived with this woman thisentire time.
They were together.
I and my siblings and someother people really think that
(15:38):
they got married at some pointand just didn't tell anyone.
I haven't been able to provethat.
My dad won't admit it, butwe're all fairly certain it
happened and he was too ashamedto admit it Because nobody liked
this woman.
Nobody Nobody in the world likedthis woman.
She sent me a friend request onFacebook a couple of years ago
(15:59):
Like what the hell are you doing, woman?
I despise you.
You made my childhood even moreof a hellscape than it needed
to be.
I'm already in poverty,homeless, not eating, living
with roaches.
And here you come, like beatingthe shit out of people and
being aggressive, yelling.
Why the hell would I ever wantto be friends with you?
(16:20):
I don't know Wanda's gonna playa role in some of my stories in
the future, but right now in mystory I'm living with my dad in
his double wide in the countrywith his girlfriend Wanda and
her son Chris.
So, as I said, my dad's placeout here in the country was
really nice to me back then as akid.
It was the nicest place I'dever seen.
His bathroom was pretty largeto me at the time.
(16:42):
He had a hot tub in it and likea standalone shower and the
toilet was in its own separatecloset in the bathroom.
There was a skylight in thebathroom Like, oh my god, I'm in
a mansion at this point, whatthe hell is happening.
So you know, that was prettycool to me as a kid.
I felt like I was living inluxury, but I for sure was not
enjoying where I was livingbecause I was away from my mom.
(17:06):
I was with this psycho, wanda,and her son wasn't too bad.
He tried to take me under hiswing and be kind of like an
older brother to me.
So he tried to like, take meunder his wing and, you know, be
kind of like an older brotherto me.
So that wasn't awful.
He, of course, was showing methings that you probably
shouldn't because, you know,again, he's like in his late
teens and I'm 10 years old.
So I remember he listened toInsane Clown Posse at the time
(17:27):
and kind of got me to startlistening to it a little bit,
and to this day, yes, they'restill one of my favorite bands.
So I don't really care if youjudge me for that, but that's a
little fact about me.
But so we listened to thingslike that.
You know, he was alwayswatching porn and he was okay at
the time.
You know, having Wanda as amother had obviously done some
(17:48):
damage to him.
It had rubbed off on him in alot of the wrong ways, but he
was always really nice to me, soI appreciated that.
And my dad tried to be a fatherto him, I think.
But I mean, my dad couldn'teven be a father to his own kids
so he wasn't really going to bea father to this kid either.
So he tried, I think, but hisefforts were really ultimately
(18:09):
in vain.
My dad had a computer at thisplace and you know it was really
the first computer I had kindof ever been on for any length
of time.
We had some computers at schoolbut I hadn't used them
extensively.
And so he had a computer, hehad the internet and you know I
just I didn't do much on it,like I played some Solitaire
probably, but it was cool.
It was a um, I wonder, like the, uh, the Gateway PCs that they
(18:30):
advertised with the cows back inthe day.
It was one of those.
And you know again, this wasthis was kind of a first for me.
This is a whole new world forme, like the computer, the
internet.
I didn't really know what thehell I was doing and of course,
no one in the house knew whatthey were doing with a computer
or the internet, so I don'tthink it really got much use,
but it was there.
It was a novelty.
I had my own bedroom in thisplace with my own bed, although
(18:51):
it was a waterbed and we didn'thave sheets for it for some
reason.
So I was just kind of sleepingon the straight waterbed with a
blanket over top of me, and ifyou've ever slept on a waterbed
without sheets like those,things get pretty cold and again
, as I've said a thousand timesalready, I was a very tiny kid.
There was no meat on my bones.
I got cold very easily and Istill get cold very easily to
(19:14):
this day.
But sleeping on a waterbed withno sheets, no, that sucked.
That sucked really bad.
The other thing that kind ofsucked about living with him was
that Wanda would cook dinner,and so as an adult now you know
I can appreciate that I finallyhad steady meals.
I was eating every day.
This was great.
I had never really had that inmy life.
(19:35):
But being a 10-year-old kid likeI couldn't fully appreciate it
because the things she wascooking weren't things that I
wanted to eat.
And I was a picky 10-year-oldkid, you know, like most kids
are, so I was stubborn abouteating these things, even though
I finally had food to eat.
One instance in particular Iremember she made some meal with
(19:56):
peas.
It was the first time I'd evereaten peas and they were
disgusting.
I hated peas.
I hate peas.
To this day.
I'm never going to eat a pea.
They're so gross to me.
And so she had all these peas onthe plate and she made me sit
there until I finished this fullplate of food and I couldn't
eat that much.
I'm a tiny little kid and shegives me this full plate of food
that I don't want to eat andinsists that I eat it all.
(20:17):
I sat at that table for hours.
I mean, I was there untilbedtime, long after dinner was
finished, long after everyonehad left the table.
I had to sit there and juststare at these peas that I
wasn't going to eat, because shewouldn't let me get up.
And of course, my dad let thishappen because he doesn't know
how to be a father, so he'sletting this woman, who has no
motherly instincts whatsoever,be in charge of me.
(20:39):
So that kind of sucked,compared to all the other
problems in my life.
Obviously you know you'rerolling your eyes at this one
because it's dumb.
It's not really your problem,but like it was serious to me
back then.
Obviously everything is life ordeath when you're a kid.
Now, while I was living with mydad, he tried to get me involved
in some things.
He brought me to work with himon these construction sites and
(21:01):
like I wasn't helping him workor anything, I was mostly just,
you know, playing around on thedirt mounds.
You know, just being a kid,being a boy, living with him was
probably like one of thehealthiest things that ever
happened to me as a kid because,like I said, I was eating
(21:25):
regularly, I was outside doingthings and it was all around
probably good.
But the factors surroundingthat situation my mom being in
jail, like Wanda trying tofucking raise me, this psycho
those things definitely made itnot ideal for me.
But he tried to get me involvedin some things and one of those
things was Cub Scouts.
For anyone who doesn't know, cubScouts are kind of like the
junior version of Boy Scouts.
You know, when you're too youngfor Boy Scouts, I guess they
put you in Cub Scouts.
I don't know.
I did this for a very, verybrief period of time, you know,
(21:48):
measured in weeks, not years,and I didn't really enjoy it
because, again, back then I wasa super introverted kid.
I didn't want anything to dowith anyone, I just wanted to be
left to myself.
I didn't want to talk to people.
I was super shy.
You know, I was the kind of kidwho was going to stand behind
my parents when I was meetingnew people because I don't want
to talk to these new people.
But he put me in Cub Scouts andit was like a branch of it that
(22:11):
was pretty much with a lot ofthe kids I was already in
elementary school with and Iremember we had to like go to
some sporting goods store andbuy a uniform and buy like the
little scouts handbook orwhatever and I don't know.
You know there's a bunch ofstuff about God and stuff and I
wasn't religious, I had neverbeen to church, so I didn't know
what the hell was going on.
This is a foreign world to meand he would take me to these
(22:32):
meetings and they would be in achurch and they'd be talking
about like all these things thatI'd never been exposed to, you
know, like civility and charity,helping people, things like
that.
You know, these weren't thingsthat I had ever seen in my life.
They definitely weren't valuesI had been raised with.
Thanks to my mom.
She didn't believe in any ofthis stuff.
She believed in takingadvantage of people however she
(22:54):
could.
So this was a brand new worldto me and I hated it.
All these kids came from thesegreat childhoods, these great
backgrounds or at least notterrible backgrounds like I had
come from.
You know, they could afford allthese uniforms and all these
things.
Their dads were there with themto like, encourage them.
They were there every week.
They were out volunteering andhelping the community and stuff
(23:17):
like that.
And I hated these kids.
They had everything I never didand they didn't appreciate it.
It was just another day to them.
I hated these kids.
I think the last time I everwent to one of these Cub Scout
meetings it was, I don't know,some special day.
We were going to be outsidelike playing baseball or
(23:37):
throwing a baseball around.
I had never done anything withsports in my life.
That was not me.
To this day, I'm not athleticat all.
So that sure as hell wasn't meback then and we had to like
bring a catcher's mitt and abaseball to this outside event
of the church and I didn't knowwhat the hell to expect.
So I go to this place and I'vegot my mitt, I've got my
(23:57):
baseball.
I'm walking up with my dad andone of the guys, this much, much
bigger kid named Will.
He's already there and Will wasa nice kid.
I remember he was always tryingto help people, like he was
definitely a Boy Scout throughand through.
And so he's there, he'sthrowing a ball.
He sees me come up and he wastrying to be friendly, get me
involved.
So he throws a baseball towardsme and I don't know what the
(24:19):
hell I'm doing.
I don't even know if I saw itcoming, really, but this thing
hits me straight in thediaphragm.
I went down, I couldn't breathe.
I thought I was dying.
I'd literally just gotten outof the car, walked across the
parking lot to this meetup.
Baseball hits me, knocks thewind out of me.
It was awful.
(24:39):
I think I probably left soonafter that and I don't think I
ever went back.
I know my dad was disappointed.
You know he wanted, like atypical boy who's into sports
and all this other stuff becausethat's what he was into.
He was trying to be like aman's man.
You know and my older brothercertainly wasn't that he's a
huge nerd.
I'm a huge nerd and I don'tthink that's what my dad ever
wanted.
So he's trying to get me intoall these other things.
(25:01):
It didn't work out.
Another thing he tried to getme into was martial arts.
So he took me to thesetaekwondo classes for a while
and I actually really enjoyedthose.
I enjoy learning how to fightand doing all that stuff.
But again, I'm super introverted, like I'm scared of my own
shadow, I'm terrified of beingaround all these other kids, and
so I didn't really take to itvery well and you know, I think
(25:28):
I earned like whatever the firstbelt that you actually earn
after having your white belt is.
But that was it.
You know, I stopped going tothese classes.
I had all the gear but I wasn'tgoing anymore because it's it
wasn't my thing, thing.
Physical activities were not mything and my dad just couldn't
get that through his head.
And I remember one graduationceremony at this taekwondo place
we had to, like you know we'recelebrating.
You know it's kind of like uh,graduation at a university where
(25:51):
you throw your cap up in theair at the end, right.
So we had to take off our beltsand throw those up in the air,
but I was like terrified oflosing my belt among all the
belts that these other kids had.
I don't know, it was littlethings like that that always
scared me when I was a kid and Ididn't want to take part in
them because, like I guess I waskind of anxious about them, I
(26:11):
don't know.
But so everyone else throwstheir belts up in the air and
like I just kind of whip mine upinto the air while I'm still
holding on to it because I'm notletting go of that thing.
What if I lose it?
Oh my God, that's the end ofthe world.
Yeah, so little things likethat got to me as a kid.
But aside from these physicalthings that my dad tried to get
me into I think I'm jumping alittle bit ahead of my story,
(26:31):
but this seems like a good placeto talk about it he would also
try to get me into I don'treally want to say intellectual
things, but I guess that's thebest way to put it Maybe like
stuffy rich white people thingsis the best way to put it, my
dad was always trying to fit inwith people above his station,
we'll say, because he wasthoroughly middle class, lower
(26:53):
middle class at this point.
He made decent money from hisconstruction business but he
still sold drugs.
Right, he's still through andthrough a drug dealer, but
that's not where he wanted to bein life.
He always felt like he wasrobbed from his true potential
in life by all these women thathe would date and would steal
from him, and he refused toacknowledge his own part in this
(27:14):
drama and in holding himselfback in life.
He always felt he should bemore ahead than what he was.
So he would always try toschmooze with these rich people,
these people who were wellahead of him in society in life.
In every way possible he wouldtry to be a part of their group
and he always prided himself onbeing able to fit in with these
people.
But I don't remember him everfitting in with these people so
(27:37):
much as just pretending to.
You know, it's like when yousee movies and there's all these
rich people who are part of agroup and then the outsider
comes in trying to pretend likehe's one of them and you know
they just kind of humor him, butthey're really mocking him
behind his back, like it wasthat kind of situation.
He wasn't one of them, as muchas he wanted to be one of them,
and he took me to a coin auctionone time and he had me dress up
(28:00):
in like whatever the nicestclothes he could find for me
were, which of course, weren'tthat nice.
I mean, I'm sure it was likejeans and tennis shoes, and
maybe he got me a button-upshirt, who knows, but it wasn't
nice clothes really.
And so he went to this thingand he's dressed in his nicest
clothes, which, again, aren'treally anything, because he
doesn't have nice clothes.
He works construction and sellsdrugs.
(28:20):
He's in jeans, he's in maybe apolo, probably like a button up
shirt, no tie, for sure.
He never had dress shoes.
He always had this pair ofcowboy boots that he wore
everywhere and he thought thatthese were like the nicest
things in the world and that'swhat he wore to dress up to
these events, up to these events.
And so we go to this event andit's a bunch of fucking rich
(28:40):
white people.
They're all dressed up in niceclothes.
You know, some of them arewearing suits like ties.
All these nice clothes we donot fucking fit in.
And here he is dragging me tothis event, trying to fit in
with these rich white peoplebecause he wants to be one of
them so desperately and he justcan't get into it.
And so he's just schmoozingwith these rich people and he
sits me down next to this kidwho's there.
(29:01):
I didn't have any fuckinginterest in collecting coins,
could not have cared less.
I was a kid.
I wanted to play Pokemon, Iwanted to play with Power
Rangers, I wanted to go outsideand roughhouse with people.
As much of an introvert and notathletic person as I was, I was
still into roughhousing withother boys.
You know it was fun.
I was a little boy in thecountry.
(29:27):
And so he sits me down with thisfucking coin auction next to
this kid.
I mean, this kid screamed nerd.
And again, I'm a huge nerd.
I read comic books, I playboard games, I play video games.
I'm not disparaging nerds here,but like, if you think of like
a typical, like rich white kidwho's into like stamp collecting
and coin collecting and stufflike that's that's the kind of
image that's happening here.
You know, this kid had reallythick glasses.
He just looked kind of stuffy,I guess, like he was trying to
(29:50):
be way older than he actuallywas.
This was the kind of kid thatif you can just imagine someone
with like a pocket protector andmaybe wearing like a suit with
a bow tie and he's got like hissocks pulled over his pants or
something like that kid probablydidn't actually look like that,
but that's how I remember thiskid in my head, and he was so
(30:14):
into coin collecting.
Now was he actually into coincollecting or had his rich dad
just told him he needed to beinto coin collecting, who knows?
But here he is at this eventand this kid is trying to talk
to me about all these fuckingcoins.
I'm like I don't care.
Talk to me about Pokemon orsomething.
This kid has had none of it.
All he wanted to do was talkabout coins.
That kid probably grew up to bean investment banker or an
(30:35):
insurance salesman or some shitlike that, and he's probably
loving his boring life that hebought with daddy's money.
But I was not into it and hewas so enthusiastic about these
coins and like I just I don'tknow I tried to ignore him.
My dad's over here, like tryingto ask me which coins that are
being auctioned that I'minterested in.
Which ones do you want to buy?
Son Like, oh, that one's reallycool.
(30:57):
Shut up, dad, you don't knowshit about these coins.
Why are you trying to get meinto this?
So he's trying to get me to buyall these coins and I think we
ended up leaving with someancient Roman coin, which,
admittedly, was pretty cool.
I wish I still had it to thisday, but I can appreciate those
things.
Now, right, I couldn'tappreciate those things as a 10
year old kid.
This is a 10 year old kid, butI had this cool Roman coin for a
(31:20):
long time until, you know,naturally, my mom eventually
sold it because it was somethingthat was worth a little bit of
money.
I mean, I think he paid like 50bucks for it, probably, but you
know it was worth a little bitof money.
So, of course, she sold her fordrugs, but that was one cool
thing that happened.
From that, all right, I havetalked for a long time this
episode.
I feel like all I've reallydone is complained about my dad
and the situation that I was in.
But you know, this was a prettypivotal moment in my life.
(31:43):
It was all pretty traumatic andI hated every single second of
it and I think it was really aturning point in my life where
things were already pretty badand this whole situation just
made them go from bad to worse.
You know, nothing was everreally the same after my mom got
arrested.
(32:04):
I talked about it a lot at thebeginning of the episode, like
everyone making me feel guiltyfor being the reason that they
got arrested, and you know thatstuck with me for a really long
time, like even after they gotout of jail later.
They still made me feel reallyshitty about that, like it was
my fault that they got arrested.
If you had just not beensleeping in the car, this never
(32:25):
would have happened.
We wouldn't have gone to jail.
Why did you have to do that?
Like, take some fuckingresponsibility for your actions
as adults, as parents, and maybelook at the situation you're
putting these kids in.
You got arrested for a reason.
I didn't get arrested for doingsomething wrong because you
(32:45):
guys are the ones who were doingsomething wrong, but I did
carry that guilt for a long timeas a kid and if you asked my
mom today if you could still askEarl if he were alive, I
guarantee they would still be alittle upset that they got
arrested because I was sleepingin the car.
I 100% guarantee they wouldstill be a little upset that
they got arrested because I wassleeping in the car.
I 100% guarantee they would nottake responsibility for their
actions.
But I was a kid.
Of course I was going to feelguilt if my mom was basically
(33:07):
telling me that I should feelguilty about this situation.
I didn't know any better, andso I think that that is really
kind of the message that I wantto leave off on for this episode
.
Those of us who went throughterrible situations in our
childhood were usually made tofeel guilty for them, like it
was our fault that our parentswere miserable, that they were
going through this.
(33:27):
You're such a terrible child.
That's why I need to be drunkall the time Things like that.
But you know, it never was.
It was never our fault that ourparents couldn't get their shit
together and provide for us theway that they should have.
It wasn't my fault that she gotarrested for neglecting me, for
being high instead of takingcare of me, and to all these
other kids out there, it's notyour fault that your parents
(33:50):
sucked, that they put you inthese situations, that they
shouldn't have that.
They didn't care for you theway that they should have.
It was never your fault.
Have that.
They didn't care for you theway that they should have.
It was never your fault, andanyone who says otherwise is
just trying to make themselvesfeel better, to redirect their
guilt to someone else becausethey're incapable of addressing
their own shortcomings.
(34:11):
Yeah, I think that's a goodplace to really end this episode
.
If you've ever had somethinglike this happen to you, if
someone's made you feel guiltyfor something that wasn't your
fault because they were unableto accept blame themselves, I
want to hear about it.
Send me a message, drop acomment, get in contact with me
somehow and let me know aboutthis, and I'd love to read those
(34:33):
in the next episode.
I'd love to let people knowthat they're not alone out there
, that we all went through someshit like this in childhood.
You can let go of that guilt.
You know.
Maybe you're still a teenagerlistening to this, maybe you're
an adult and you still haven'tprocessed it, but you can let go
of that.
It's okay.
As always, I want to thank everysingle one of you for tuning in
every week.
(34:54):
It means the world to me.
I know I say it every time.
I'm going to keep saying itbecause I want you guys to know
how much I appreciate you Tunein next week for, hopefully, a
little bit of a brighter episode.
Probably not, but that's whatyou're here for.
Right Is all the shitty partsof my life and trying to learn
from them so you can hopefullyheal your own trauma.
(35:16):
Or maybe you're just for a goodstory, I don't know.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'll see you next week.
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