January 1, 2025 • 56 mins
In this raw and real episode of Unhinged Memoirs, we’re diving deep into a heartfelt (and slightly unhinged) love letter to our inner children—the little versions of us who deserved better but got stuck navigating trauma, narcissistic relationships, and chaotic upbringings.
It’s time to say: “Dear inner child, we’re sorry. But also, we’re doing our best now.”
Here’s what we’re unpacking:
1. Meeting Your Inner Child:
• That awkward moment when you realize you’ve been ignoring the kid inside you for years.
• How our inner child shows up in adult life—whether it’s through people-pleasing, perfectionism, or yelling at slow drivers.
2. The Apology Tour:
• Saying sorry to the kid who got blamed for adult problems.
• Owning up to the ways we’ve repeated cycles of pain.
3. Trauma Responses, But Make Them Funny:
• Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn? How we all became trauma-response ninjas in our childhood homes.
• Hilarious stories of how our inner kids show up in the wild (like crying over spilled coffee as if it’s a personal betrayal).
4. Re-Parenting Ourselves:
• Becoming the parent we needed when we were kids (even if that means learning how to actually rest).
• The struggle of balancing healing, growth, and day-to-day adult chaos.
5. Blended Family Edition:
• Raising seven kids while trying not to repeat the trauma cycle—easier said than done.
• The moments when parenting triggers your own childhood wounds, and you have to remind yourself not to hide in the pantry.
Why You Should Listen:
This episode is for anyone who grew up feeling like they had to earn love or walk on eggshells just to survive. We’ll share:
• Sarcastic but relatable stories of childhood chaos.
• The honest truth about what healing looks like (hint: it
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I just want you to know that I'm sorry.
(00:02):
What's up everyone?
Welcome to our fourth episode of our podcast Unhinged Memoirs.
(00:24):
Today we are doing a deep dive into our trauma.
Today's episode is called Dear Interme, Sorry for the Trauma.
We are giving the apologies that we never knew that we needed to ourselves.
We are unpacking all the guilt, the shame, and all the unspoken pain that comes with healing from our trauma.
I'm Jess. I'm Belle. And I'm Liz.
I hope you guys are ready. So buckle up because this episode is about to be real.
(00:48):
It's going to be raw and maybe even a little uncomfortable, but that's where the magic is going to happen in this.
This one will hit a little bit harder than normal because we have spent most of our years being our worst critics.
Judging ourselves and how we reacted to trauma or worse, even how we survived it.
No, but seriously, though, like that's how it works. Like we're our own worst critics.
But like we can critique everybody else, right? We can sit there and say, oh, well, maybe if you did this or maybe if you did that, we can't take our own advice.
(01:15):
We're like 100%. We forget about it. Get out of here. I'm not going to listen to that shit.
So our inner ourselves over here, we're going, please help me. I'm poor.
We need a little help. It's true. So we're going to take today to write some apology letters to ourself, which we've actually done earlier.
But first we're going to set the scene for you, explain what it means to apologize to your inner self.
(01:39):
And for me, it's like sitting down with the kid version of me, the teenage version of me, or even the one that is grown up.
That was even over just a little time ago, who was pretending that she was okay when she wasn't.
And it's really hard because I like the thought of that. I think going from who we are as children to what we morphed into as teenagers from that childhood,
(02:00):
and to who we morphed into as adults. And I know that I'm thinking of my 20 year old self and I'm not the same as I was back then at all.
None of us, none of us are.
And I think that we carry a lot of that stuff. So I think it's really important to kind of take a deep dive and go, you know what, I got you now.
Absolutely. And that's important. I think that where it comes in apology comes in, it's not an excuse to what happened, but at least it's to show that we can survive it.
(02:28):
Our inner selves are always there. Absolutely. We survived. We went through the shit. We've learned from it. And we have things to talk about to ourselves.
And we owe that to ourselves.
It's not even that it's not even excusing what happened to you. It's it's literally about saying like, I see you. I understand you. And I'm sorry for not protecting you better.
Yeah, that's literally like the hardest lesson in life is like, you could have done better if you knew better.
(02:54):
Absolutely.
100%. And I think, because at the end of the day, we all survived. And that's, that's truly the miracle in itself.
That's a damn miracle.
Absolutely.
So we're going to go ahead and read the letters and I'll go ahead and go first. If you girls would want me to do that. Absolutely. All right, so bear with us because this is a little bit like I said before, the more emotional episodes.
(03:17):
So it's not our normal. But okay, so here's my letter. It says, dear younger me, I know you've been hurt, abandoned, betrayed and bruised in ways that no one will ever understand.
You're in a sense take it was taken without permission before you're even able to make a decision. And I know you stood in the shadows of your own pain, quietly holding yourself together while the world saw you only smile.
(03:38):
But I see it all. I watched you search for the love you longed for and men that you never did that never deserved you, only to feel less unlovable and more imperfect than you should have.
I see the tears you've cried when no one was watching.
The nights were we begged for the relief, the days where you carried the weight of everything and still found a way to keep going. And I'm sorry for that.
(03:59):
I'm sorry for all the times I ignored your pain, because I thought being strong meant pretending that everything was fine.
I'm sorry for the years I spent trying to fix everyone else while you fell apart.
I'm sorry for every moment I told you just to get over it when you were begging for me to feel something.
And I'm sorry for letting the wrong people into your life and not listening to you when you were screaming for help.
(04:20):
I'm sorry for blaming you when it was never your fault, and I'm sorry for every time I let someone else's opinions of us dim our light.
You deserved better. But most of all, I'm sorry for not loving you the way you deserved. But I see you.
I see the pieces of yourself you try to hide from the world, the parts that you think are too messy, too broken, or too heavy.
I know the battles you've fought in silence and the strength that has taken for you to carry on.
(04:44):
I see how hard you've worked to hold us all together, and I'm so very proud of you.
I want you to know that it's okay to rest, to trust, and to let go of the battles that aren't yours to fight anymore.
You've spent so long protecting yourself, building walls, shielding your heart that you've forgotten what it feels like to just be.
But you don't have to fight so hard anymore. You're safe now.
You've come so far, survived so much, and grown in ways you can't even see.
(05:09):
You are not the same person you were when those wounds were made.
You are wiser, stronger, and more beautiful in the brokeness than you could have ever imagined.
I love you for your courage, for your resilience, and for the way you keep trying, even when it feels like the world is coming against you.
I love the way you care so deeply, the way you give so much of yourself even when you have so little left to give.
(05:30):
I love every part of you, the messy, the scared, the fierce, and the tender.
And I promise you this, I will never leave you. You are not alone, not now, not never.
I will never stop fighting for us, believing in us, and loving us with everything I have.
With all the love you've ever deserved from the very beginning, me.
So what does that mean to you? Like, what made you write that?
(05:52):
Honestly, I think going over my letter when I was writing it, I just kind of...
As you're supposed to look down on to like my inner child and all the different versions of myself that I've of everything I've gone through from young on.
And I don't know, I feel like it was so important for me to talk about certain things because there's a lot of things that we all deal with silently.
(06:16):
Right? Whether it be depression or it be anxiety or it be just beating ourselves up.
So for me, it was more of addressing those issues that I feel like I have blamed myself for for so long.
And didn't give myself the grace or the time to go, you know what, it's okay to go through those things.
It's okay that you've experienced those things and you need to forgive yourself and also not only that, but apologize to yourself for being so hard on yourself when you're going through those tough times.
(06:44):
Absolutely.
I mean, we're all literally our own worst critics.
Absolutely.
I can sit there and tell you both all day how amazing you are, how I think you're both very successful women in your life, how just unfortunately, you don't have children right now.
They could come, but you've been one of the best aunts to her children and my son.
(07:05):
But you're the greatest mother I think I've ever seen besides my own, you know, I, we can sit there and tell each other about all day, but you guys come back to me and tell me how much you think I'm a great mother.
I'm like, fuck off.
Yeah.
I, okay.
Yeah, great.
I think inside we all feel like failures to a certain extent because as we and I know we brought it up, I think in the first episode of talking about that whole like expectation thing, you know, we set expectations not only for other people,
(07:29):
but for ourselves.
So high.
And when being our own worst critic, when we don't reach those expectations, we feel like we're feeling and realistically, we're not.
It's just not the path we were supposed to take.
And that's what it comes down to and learning to go, okay, what one may consider as a failure is another chance to try again.
You know what I mean?
And life's about choices.
(07:50):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It's a, it's a literally, it's not even like, well, who's doing better?
What's the, which choice did you make today and what path did it lead you on?
Right.
Absolutely.
And I also think making better choices for ourselves.
Absolutely.
And what are we doing for ourselves to better ourselves?
Right.
And coming with these letters and talking to that child that needed to be talked to is so important.
(08:17):
I know for me, I still to this day, I'm not kidding.
I went through a difficult situation a couple of weeks ago and I remember literally holding my chest and talking to my inner self.
Like as weird as that sounds for other people who have never done it, there is actual therapy.
This therapy is so important for people to realize that when you go back to your inner self and you're talking and you're pulling yourself out of those situations as an adult,
(08:41):
you are literally making sure that you're saying in your adult form, I got you.
Because those responses that we are having to situations, very difficult situations usually are rooted in our childhood.
And I hate to always blame it on that, but it's very, very true.
That is 100% of therapy.
I truly believe that's why we're talking about dear inner child, you know what I mean?
(09:04):
Because it's so important to remind ourselves that we need to be kind to ourselves.
We spend, like I said before, we spend so much time beating up ourselves for choices or bad decisions that we've made and things that we've gone through that we even had no
control over.
And that's the promise is we forget to be kind to ourselves, but we will spare all the grace to everybody else and all the kindness to the world and everybody.
(09:25):
Patience.
Right.
But we can't do it for ourselves.
Why?
Very lack of patience.
Yeah.
So I think just learning to be kind to yourself.
Being kind is hard.
It is.
It is.
It's very, it's a hard thing and it's a hard pill to swallow.
Because when you're trying to do your best and you're, you're going through situations and you're not really sure how to handle them and you're going through life and you're going through situations, you gain perspective.
(09:52):
But then you look at those perspectives and go, did I just fuck up?
Yeah.
Like, that's hard for me.
Yeah.
You know, I will, I will say the one thing that I can give in a form of some advice here is, and it comes back to Heffrey when he had given this one time.
I was super struggling at the time, going through a lot and just kind of feeling like I didn't believe in myself at all.
(10:16):
And I remember him calling me up and go, listen, I need you to do me a favor.
I need you to try something.
And I go, okay, because I know this is not stupid.
And I just need you to listen and hear me out for a moment.
Don't fight it.
I just want you to do something.
I want you to sit down and I want you to write a whole bunch of positive things that you love about yourself.
And he goes, and then I want you to go stand in front of the mirror and I want you to read them.
(10:38):
He goes, I do this on the daily.
He goes, because some days you're going to wake up and just feel like, you know what?
I can't take on the world today.
I just can't do it today.
I'm not in the right place today.
I'm just not, I'm not ready.
I can't handle it.
I'm not good enough.
I'm not this.
I'm not that.
And he goes and sometimes when we're in those moments, he goes, we need to hear this.
So if I can give any advice and I truly, I thank him for that.
(11:01):
And I think about him all the time for that is going and standing in front of the mirror and sometimes it's even, you know, that whole thing.
Of like fake it till you make it.
You got to get in front of that mirror and just go, you know what?
I am enough.
I am beautiful.
I am kind.
I am, I am loving.
I'm worthy.
I'm an M enough and keep repeating those things that you need to hear that you want someone else to say to you, we have to have our own backs because that's what supports our inner child.
(11:28):
He is now a pediatric psych nurse.
Everyone I know, and he is an amazing, I think that's the perfect thing for him to be.
Honestly, there was never a better way.
There was never a better field than that for him.
100%.
That was truly his come.
We had said that even the beginning when he was in school, that was a big topic over.
Kids and mental health.
Yeah.
And he was like, no, no, no, no, no kids, no kids.
I mean, I love kids, but I want to do trauma.
(11:49):
Nope.
Yeah.
And that was, and that honestly, that is definitely the feel for him because he is now because of losing his son all about mental health.
And I absolutely love that.
And he's always been good at it.
I think that's he used to, he was so good at that.
Yeah.
And I think it's important.
I think that helps shape you when you start talking to yourself and you're going, I am this, I am that.
(12:12):
It is so important to rewire.
And that's what it was all about.
And I didn't know about any of this stuff until I met him.
And I do think that rewiring your brain to tell yourself that you are these things that you so graciously think of yourself that you're not, but you are.
You know, so I think that it's very important to sit there and go through.
(12:36):
Read dressing who you are as a person and who you are today.
Absolutely.
Mm hmm.
Well, I think that we can go on.
You want to go ahead, who wants to read their letter next?
I mean, I can go.
I can go.
All right.
So we're talking to younger Val here.
(12:59):
I see you.
I see the scared little girl sitting in the corner trying to make herself small, trying to make sense of why the world feels so chaotic.
I see you watching your mom, your sisters and yourself under pain.
No child should ever witness.
I see the way that you cling to hope even when everything around you feels unsafe.
But I need you to know something.
None of this was your fault.
Not then, not now, not ever.
(13:23):
I know how it felt when your mom finally like when your mom finally got you out, how confusing it was to leave behind everything that you knew, including your sisters.
I just seven years old, you were learning to navigate a world that didn't feel fair or kind.
And then when your stepdad came into your life, you finally saw what love could look like.
He was proof that kindness and stability did exist that not all men hurt the ones that they love.
(13:47):
He became your anchor in a sea of uncertainty and for a little while you believed in love again.
But when he was gone, the grief hit you like a tidal wave.
Losing him felt like, oh, losing him felt like losing your safe place all over again.
I'm sorry if I'm crying guys.
And when your mom moved on and left you behind, it felt like another wound you couldn't explain.
(14:08):
Another loss that you didn't know how to process.
You carried so much loneliness and you know, so much longing for someone to stay, someone to see you and someone to love you without conditions or limits.
I'm so sorry that you felt abandoned. You didn't deserve that.
Through it all though, you found your strength even when life tried to knock you down.
You picked yourself up and kept going.
You didn't let the instability of your childhood define your future.
(14:32):
Oh, you worked hard to become a nurse earning your R. N. Degree, a career that gave you the stability that you craved and independence to take care of yourself.
That degree is more than a job.
It's a symbol of how much you overcame and how deeply that you care for others.
You built a life for yourself that no one can take away and that's something to be very proud of.
(14:55):
You wanted connection, stability and love.
And even when you stayed in relationships that you shouldn't have, you did what you needed to do.
Then relationships came and you poured so much of yourself into making it work believing that you could help people heal.
Believing that if you gave enough, they'd meet you where you are.
(15:18):
But you learned and love doesn't work that way.
You spent so much of your life searching for stability and others, but I need you to hear this.
The stability that you've been searching for is within you.
You're not broken because of the things that happened to you.
You are not unworthy because people left and you are not responsible for carrying other people's pain just to prove your value.
(15:39):
You've seen darkness, yes, but you've also seen light.
Your stepdad showed you what love can look like and that's the love that you deserve.
Not the love that you have to fight for or fix, but the love that meets you halfway.
A love that stays and even though that you felt abandoned so many times, you've never truly been alone.
You've carried yourself through every heartbreak, every loss and every lonely night.
You've been your own anchor all along.
(16:01):
It's okay to grieve.
It's okay to feel angry, but I want you to know that those wounds don't define you.
That little girl who lived through so much has grown into a woman who is stronger, wiser and more resilient than she realizes.
And you will keep growing.
You will keep healing.
And one day you'll look back and even though you see not just the pain, but the strength that it gave you, you are enough just as you are.
(16:23):
And you're worthy of the kind of love you once thought was only a dream.
It's out there waiting for you, but it starts with loving yourself first.
I'm so proud of you for everything that you've endured, for everything that you've achieved.
And for the life that you're building with love and all the compassion you deserve, love me.
That's rough.
It is.
And I just like to stop for a second just to appreciate how powerful it is to actually apologize to yourself.
(16:49):
Because I don't think we realize how powerful it truly is and how uncomfortable it can feel at the same time.
I think carrying the burden of our childhood is...
I think that more people go through than we actually realize.
Yes.
That is a part of what makes us.
That's a part of what makes this world.
(17:11):
Everyone has a story to tell.
Everyone has things that they went through that shape them and who they are.
I'm so envious when I look at families that they're like, oh yeah, my mom and dad have been married for 30 years and I have the sisters that I've lived with.
And every family has their problems, but from the outside looking in, I'm like, damn.
I've known people or known of people that have that who go out and fucking hunt with their dads and go out and bake with their moms and still go to shit and they're in their 30s.
(17:42):
I'm like, I don't know what the fuck that feels like.
Yep.
That's something that I carried in as much as I tried to have that relationship with my mom.
I... she's a reason for a lot of my abandonment.
And I know that I think now as she's older, she's trying to make someone of an effort, you know, by calling, but she's never came down to visit me.
(18:11):
She lives a state away and, you know, chose to stay there.
But there's a lot of abandonment that came from that, which supersedes all of her phone calls and efforts.
I mean, I can 100% relate to that.
You know, I mean, I absolutely love and adore my biological father, but in the same aspect, I have felt the same way.
(18:37):
I mean, I've lived in Florida now for shit 20-something years.
When I moved here in what, 98? 97? And I can only think of two times that my dad's actually come down to Florida to come down here.
And both of those times were never to come see me.
One was for my cousin's wedding.
And the other one was to see my grandma.
(18:58):
My grandma drove him over here to see me.
You know what I mean?
And I've gone up once to see him since I've been an adult.
When I was younger, I used to go up and see him, you know, during like summers and stuff.
But it's one of those things where you feel that and it's, it's nothing that like I don't hold any like bad feelings or anything towards them.
Like I've kind of just accepted it, but in the same aspect, it doesn't take away the pain or the hurt that we feel of just wanting our parent to want to be a part of our lives more.
(19:26):
Mm-hmm.
That's a, it's a hard, that's an abandonment 100%.
And I think that's why it's important to talk to the child and us because knowing that I got her.
Okay.
When I'm in my deepest moments and I'm, I'm frustrated, I feel unloved, I feel abandoned, I feel like my life isn't going where it needs to.
(19:55):
That's when I have conversations with that little me of going, I got you.
I got this degree to make sure that we're not going anywhere.
We're stable.
We're good.
We have a good job.
I can take care of myself.
I don't have to depend on anyone.
And that's another thing is that you had to be your own stability.
I'm, I have to be, you know, because I feel like, you know, and that's one thing that my mom did show me is that you don't have to depend on a man.
(20:21):
I do appreciate that part of, of her for teaching me that I don't have to depend on anyone.
But it's also nice to depend on people.
Absolutely.
And I feel like a lot of that, I had a lot of hyper independence because of that.
Absolutely.
Which made me push people away.
Yeah.
I could see that.
(20:42):
I could see that being an issue.
And, you know, it's crazy as a reading newsletter.
It makes you realize like through the healing process that we have all been through some serious pain.
And sometimes hiding it with, with humor and.
Somebody's got to be the funny one of the group.
Right.
Exactly.
And you think we got this funny, funny look at trauma.
(21:04):
It's a trauma response.
No, for real.
So I think that, um, you know, in those moments, it's very important to me.
I don't know if you guys do it, but I know that I quite often talk to my little self.
I'm going to be honest outside of doing like the affirmations that I'll occasionally do.
I've never written a letter or talked to my inner self.
(21:25):
This is my first time.
Um, I guess because I've just had this vision in my head of it's easier to just be the survivor.
Fuck the whole victim personality.
I'm just going to be the survivor and I'm going to keep moving forward.
And that's just the way it's going to go and never stopping back and sitting back and going,
Damn, I'm fucking exhausted.
I need to take a moment to think about myself and.
(21:48):
You know, I guess.
What are you surviving if you don't face it?
You know what I mean?
Like everyone's a go on the survivor.
But you know what I think that comes down to is.
Maybe it's the stereotype of it, of the victim is the one that's constantly like, Whoa, is me.
I went through so much and this and that and, and they live in that every single fucking day.
That's the difference.
(22:09):
Don't live in it.
Right.
No, absolutely.
And I think as a survivor, I do acknowledge like, okay, having shit happen to me by my
cousin when I was a little girl, man, I was fucking five, six years old and having him fucking
do the shit that he did to me without my permission.
You know what I mean?
Like I was warning.
Yeah, sorry.
But what it comes down to is is at the end of the day, I was able to, you know what, I
(22:30):
went through it.
I experienced it.
I'm stronger because of it.
And I just kept moving forward.
And instead I use that to be able to talk to other people who went through it, who had
never talked to people about it and was able to allow them to confront that.
So this way they weren't left dealing with that because I think there's a lot of people
that hold like I said before hold so much and nobody knows what people have gone through.
(22:51):
And so I guess in my mind, I was being a survivor by just going, okay, I see it.
It's there.
I know I went through it.
All right, next.
And I would keep moving forward.
And that's what became exhausting is because and not that I want to sit, go back and I
don't want to like revert and go, oh, look what I went through.
No, but in the same aspect, just to, I guess, in a sense, like I said before is just have
(23:11):
that kindness to myself to go, you know what, I see you.
I see how far you've become and it's more of even though I'm apologizing to the enemy.
I'm also apologizing to me right now.
Me right now as a person that went, you know what, you went through all that and look at
where you're at.
You're still here.
You've survived 100%.
You know, it's so beautiful as when, yes.
And it's so beautiful when you recognize that and you share that and it's very bold that
(23:37):
this is great that we're doing this.
This is a huge eye-opener for a lot of people because acknowledging those things and other
people and other people sharing their stories makes you have a deeper understanding of others.
So when there's responses that you're like, where is that coming from?
You can understand that.
Absolutely.
(23:57):
You know, so I think that's very courageous.
Yeah, I guess.
It is.
It's very courageous to do.
Yeah.
To try to understand people a little bit better and that creates better connection.
I agree.
I agree with that.
All right, Lizzie, do you read your letter?
(24:17):
You look like you're dreading this one.
You've been very quiet.
I am dreading this one.
I hate this, honestly.
I hate it so much, but we're here bearing our souls, right?
Absolutely.
The point of this.
Yeah, I just want to say one thing before you read this because I feel like out of the
three of us, you beat yourself up more than anybody I know.
(24:40):
And I think out of everybody, I think that you need to really learn to be kind to yourself
because you are truly an amazing person.
I know like we talked about this a little bit ago about being like anybody can say anything.
You said that of, you know, I could sit here and tell you're a great mom and you're this
and you're that and you're like, yeah, fuck you.
You're lying to me.
(25:00):
You know what I mean?
Realistically, I think you spend so much time hating yourself for things that you'd
never had control over.
So I just, I really truly hope that you can see how beautiful a person you are inside
and out.
Baby steps.
Baby steps.
Okay, go ahead.
Sorry.
I wasn't trying to like take the spotlight.
(25:21):
I just wanted to say it to you.
Listen, the more you talk, the less I have to.
No, you're going to talk.
We're great.
No, because now we get to see some questions afterwards.
We're going to get you to talk in this episode.
All right, here we go.
Dear younger me, first of all, I want to hug you and give you the love that you were always
(25:42):
searching for from the one who you called mom.
You've been carrying a lot more than a kid ever should.
Let's just say the parent situation.
Yeah, that's not your fault.
None of it, not the yelling, not the silence, not the physical aspects that made you feel
like you were walking on eggshells just to survive.
You are not the trauma or the emotional and physical wounds that she inflicted on you.
(26:05):
You'll spend a lot of time thinking that you have to fix that, but here's the truth.
You don't.
You can't.
That's her job, not yours.
Now I know that you've already started to be the peacekeeper, the overachiever, the
quote unquote good kid who thinks that if you just do everything right, everything will
magically get better.
Again, it won't.
(26:26):
But what will happen is that you'll grow stronger, more resilient, and you'll eventually learn
that being perfect isn't the answer.
Being you is.
Here's the good news.
We make it out due to our dad and the woman who you learn later on after all those terrible
teenage years truly is the mom that you deserved.
They saved us in a time where we saw no way out and the one who birthed us, trigger warning,
(26:50):
she dies, left a lot of the things that were not only unfinished for you, but also for
your sister as well.
As for the circus you call your love life, yeah, you're going to have a front row seat
to some messy, parental inspired patterns there.
It's okay.
You'll learn that just because someone reminds you of home doesn't mean that they're good
for you.
In fact, sometimes the quote unquote familiar is just trauma in disguise.
(27:15):
Red flags will look like fireworks for a while, but don't worry, you'll figure it out.
Oh, and let me go ahead and save you some time.
You are not your mother.
Your choices don't define you.
You'll spend years unlearning the things that she handed down, guilt, shame, and purification,
but you'll replace them with self worth, boundaries, and the freedom to love on your own terms.
(27:37):
Yes, boundaries are a thing and you'll even like them one day.
Laugh often, especially at the at the absurdity of it all, because if you don't laugh, you'll
cry.
And honestly, you'll probably do both at the same time.
And that's okay too.
Just remember that life can be messy and beautiful all at once.
Honestly, keep living in happy endings.
They're real, but they're different than what you think.
(28:00):
They're not just about fixing people or mending the past.
They're about healing yourself and choosing your own joy.
Another newsflash, you're getting a beautiful little boy who you are teaching the things
that you are learning still in life.
You're going to be okay kid.
Actually you're going to be amazing.
(28:21):
There's love, pride, and a whole lot of grace, you're older and way more chill, you.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
Who fucking cut onions in here, man?
Bro.
I think, so backstory to those who don't know my story, and I don't mind telling it.
(28:42):
I really don't.
My biological mom was very, very, very abusive to me and my sister.
She was an alcoholic.
She was a drug user.
She made sure that we probably had the worst life possible.
There were days, weeks, months where we would go without power, food, water, light.
(29:06):
I walked in on her shooting up any kind of drug you can think of, breaking down eight
balls.
I mean, we're trauma dumping here, for sure.
Then she would go on her benders.
I will never, ever forget the smell of gold slogger in my life.
Or remember that when I was six, she would used to tell me that if you drank enough of
(29:29):
it, your poop would be gold.
So there's that.
I hate the smell of licorice now, in case anybody ever wondered.
And then she would go on her benders.
And here I am, six-year-old me, trying to wake her up off the couch because I was hungry
or because I wanted to go outside and play.
(29:50):
And she couldn't get up off the couch.
So when I would wake her, she would beat the shit out of me.
And my last memory of her in my entire life was her sitting on top of my chest and punching
me in the face like I was a man.
So I have a lot of traumatic shit that I keep hidden away.
(30:15):
And I think that has built my exterior shell and why I don't let people in.
Because why would I?
Anything I'd ever knew was, you show your outside, or you show your inner self to the outside,
I'm going to beat the shit out of you.
And that's your mom.
That's my mom.
That's my mom.
That's supposed to be the one that teaches you that this is home for you.
(30:40):
I'm here for you.
I love you.
You're worthy.
That's your foundation.
And my dad, it's not that he was there and not present.
He was in the Navy.
He was gone.
And he didn't get custody of me until he retired from the Navy.
What was he supposed to do while he was away at sea and didn't know any of this?
I was just going to ask that.
(31:00):
Did he know this?
He didn't know a fucking thing.
He didn't know anything until the neighbors were calling him.
My sister was calling him.
All these things were, or I'd show up at his house and I'd have bruises or a black eye
or whatever the case was, or the fact that I knew how to make a drink.
(31:22):
Bartender of one.
Here I am.
I think there's a lot of trauma in our life set.
It's hard to let go of sometimes.
Absolutely.
And learning that healing is definitely not linear.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And some days we feel like we're making progress and other days we feel like we're back in
the trenches.
And I think the hardest part of why as adults now we beat ourselves up so much because when
(31:45):
we feel like we're making progress and then we go backwards, that's where we get angry
with ourselves in that aspect.
It comes and goes and weaves.
Absolutely.
And we have to have to learn that it's okay to sometimes go backwards as long as you eventually
get back up and start moving forward again.
Absolutely.
It's a daily struggle.
(32:06):
Because the goal isn't perfection.
No.
It's not perfect.
I don't expect perfection at all from anybody except myself.
My mom always used to say it's not perfection, it's progress.
Right.
That's really what it is.
That's good.
I just don't know.
Talking to like even coworkers and stuff who open up and say things and talk about their
(32:28):
childhood and their lives and what they went through and I mean just us as a human fucking
race.
Right?
It's just the shit that we go through and to see how amazing we can be in our lives
just with the help of other people and love and support from the people that we make our
(32:50):
family.
I think for those especially who don't have families and who don't have close knits, I
have made my family through my friends.
You know and so many of my coworkers and friends that I met along the way have done the same
thing.
And it's absolutely incredible to see what they can make of their story and I think that's
(33:12):
what's so important is that acknowledging what you went through, not sitting in it.
I mean there's nothing wrong with admitting and talking about what you went through.
There's nothing absolutely at all wrong with that because like I said it gains a deeper
understanding of people and how to appreciate their journey and how they're being and how
(33:33):
they are.
So it's just it's a beautiful thing for me.
It's a beautiful thing for me to see what we all go through and who we become later
on.
It's part of the healing process and healing from it is very important.
And the whole deal is we did the best we could with what we had at the time.
You make up what you got.
(33:54):
Absolutely.
And now you're doing even better.
Right.
Exactly.
And that's what it comes down to is realizing that each time you're doing just a little
bit better.
Especially when you're realizing it.
Right.
And I think making sure taking time for therapy, taking time for you know the work because
there's work that goes into this.
There's absolutely things that go into healing so you don't either A repeat those cycles
(34:17):
or let yourself fall into a victim mentality or let yourself fall into addiction which
a lot of people do.
You know and that's something to kind of touch on too.
The mental illnesses that come from from crazy childhood.
You know.
Anxiety, depression.
(34:38):
Oh my God.
OCD.
You know I mean like there's so many that nobody wants to recognize as a mental health.
Everybody nowadays like oh you're just being a crybaby.
No.
You're being crazy.
Fuck you.
You don't know anything that I went through in my childhood or that made me to who I am
now.
Now I'm not saying that my childhood defines me.
(34:58):
That's huge.
I am not saying my childhood defines me.
Absolutely not because again going back on that victim mentality that victim role.
I don't sit there and go I just I can't do it because the way you're talking to me right
now it's just it's triggering me.
No like I'm not saying that people don't have triggers.
Absolutely I have triggers.
(35:19):
So do everybody does but the thing is I'm not going to sit there and blame it on everything
that happened in my childhood.
And also I would like to point out that it's no one else's responsibility to have to deal
with your triggers.
Correct.
Correct.
It's such a learning deal.
It's such a learning deal.
That's it.
That's exactly it.
(35:39):
It took me a while to go you know and I was doing that too.
I'm like well I'm triggered.
Like I'm pissed off because you triggered me.
That's not their responsibility.
Absolutely.
You know what it comes down to.
By any means.
Yeah and what it really truly like comes down to is it's not even just triggers it's your
emotions.
It's like you are the only person that is in control of your emotions and how you allow
either your own responses or someone else's actions towards you how it's going to affect
(36:03):
you.
And in those situations we have to learn to take more accountability for our own feelings
and in actually realizing what is causing that because like we're just talking about
the mental health issues like prime example anxiety and depression a lot of it.
Now I'm not saying that there isn't actual depression because our hundred percent is
that there are also I and I personally believe there's things called situational depression
(36:27):
is absolutely okay.
And we can become depressed because there's root causes that we have never addressed and
same with anxiety I feel at least for me in my situation I can only speak for myself.
I'm not a doctor.
I don't have my degree and I think dealing.
Yeah my faith my web MD PhD PhD and therapy exactly but no and in all reality like I can
(36:52):
tell you that a lot of my anxiety that I have there's deep rooted issues for why that's
there and I feel like it's easier to take the time to try to figure out what is your
root cause and you have to learn to face that head on or you will stay in that anxiety.
You know like right because I mean I there's a lot of things that comes with depression
(37:15):
and anxiety and I think the biggest thing is feeling a lot of times that abandonment
or feeling like you're alone or feeling unheard or unseen in different things or you know
I'm and I know I also have like just like health awareness anxiety just from dealing
with heart issues in my life that you know my heart starts going up when I have an SVT
attack the first thing I do is anxiety kicks in because I'm like oh my god I'm gonna die
(37:37):
and I mean like and it's addressing those different things but there's there's reasons
for everything and that's what it comes down like that's a root right you know I mean so
I mean what what was it a few weeks ago we were talking to your adopted daughter about
her mother and her situation it was more than a few weeks ago is a couple months ago and
(37:58):
just hearing her story and like listening to her you were so I was like whoa and like
I got triggered and literally she sat on the stairs crying until she had to get up and
walk away and I had a panic attack like I had to lay down like I could not breathe to say
in my fucking life I mean I laid on the bed and I just cried and I cried and I cried
because their stories are so much alike like it's sad like you think yeah okay there's
(38:22):
people out there that go through the same shit you do but her story and my story like
they're like they sink pretty well except for her mother wasn't physically abusive towards
her right you know I mean but she did have other forms of abuse and out from her mother
so it was very triggering especially because there was drug addiction and stuff and and
(38:43):
I can't even hear the way her mother like says certain things to her I was like oh there
she is you know and I learned to not so long ago when I was up in my church in Massachusetts
talking with my cousin who was an addict a lot of like an addict mind they all think
alike mm-hmm yeah they say things they act certain ways they they just mm-hmm it's wild
(39:08):
and they don't realize that they're passing some of those those personalities or traits
or whatever down to their children yeah that's nature versus nurture and that's the nurture
portion of it that comes into place that shapes us especially when we're young mm-hmm and
they don't realize how fragile our minds are and how much we soak up what they're doing
or what they're saying to us absolutely and how it shapes us into be the people that we
(39:30):
are like it's it's a hard mold to break I think also I would like to add that participating
in your own mental healing mm-hmm is super important for people not to stick around in
that victim mentality absolutely because I have met people in my life who have been through
(39:55):
was the shit that you've been through okay mm-hmm and sat there and didn't get the help
that they needed to fix that situation but use it as a crutch to go okay well I am the
way that I am but they don't take an active part in therapy right they don't talk to anyone
(40:19):
they don't they don't try to make an effort to better themselves and do tools and I think
that's a huge part too is that you have to be willing to acknowledge that part that comes
with self-awareness absolutely mm-hmm absolutely mm-hmm and there's definitely some actionable
steps that can be taken once you are self-aware of those issues right and self-aware of that
(40:41):
you need to apologize to yourself or whatever it may be falling back into the whole you
have to apologize into yourself yeah not like give yourself grace but you know when you
go to start writing your letter like don't overthink it just sit down and start writing
that was rough though to write yourself a letter like that you because you have to like
dive back into well shit where do I start you know right like what do I what do I say
(41:04):
because I'm gonna be honest as much as I remember from my past I try to block out a lot of it
right I don't remember that comes with a lot of traumatic experiences in your childhood
we try to block it out so we don't have to relive it absolutely that's truly my first
night that I lived with my dad and my mom real quickly I'm sorry my stepmom who by in
(41:25):
all intents and purposes she's my mother that is the mother that I deserved yes and I love
her to the ends of this earth like the very first night that I live with them I had to
sleep with my door open and I had a nightmare where I screamed in the middle of the night
as a trauma response because I thought my mom was coming in to hit me oh my god and my dad
(41:50):
he still tells the story to this day like he remembers that waking up and then he said
he couldn't sleep the next night or the neck you know the rest of that night or the next
night I mean yeah imagine your kid doing a blood curdling screen because of a pain inflicted
by their wife or ex-wife mm-hmm yeah that's fucking that's terrible yeah I will never
forget that in my in my dad goes you know you can sleep with your door closed and I'm
(42:13):
like what like that's a thing I'm allowed to do that I'm allowed to have privacy you
are so lucky to have the dad no seriously me have because they truly are such amazing
people they are listen I count my blessings every day that I have them and that they saved
my sister and myself yeah so my sister god bless her we fight like cats and dogs but
(42:35):
she guys love each other we do love each other she's eight years older than me and she was
16 years old raising me as I was eight you know I mean or she was eight years old raising
me as a newborn because our mother couldn't do it was your mom when you passed when she
passed hello ghost laughing in a serious or moment but when she passed I was I was 18
(43:00):
when she passed and how old was your mom my mom was fuck I'm gonna be honest I don't even
remember I think she was like in her 40s like she was like 45 46 and she got cancer right
yeah she had a lot of cancer and what the most fucked up part about the whole thing
(43:21):
you're ready for this my sister and I didn't find out that she actually died until two
weeks after the funeral what yeah we weren't allowed to go to the funeral she disowned
us her I have actually I have family up in Montana and Washington state that are her
side of the family that will not contact us anymore don't even know that we exist anymore
(43:44):
because she told them so many lies and said that you know we hated her and we didn't want
to be around her and like we just abandoned her first question I would ask why would
your kids do that well you know when she says you know word is bond you know but you know
(44:04):
whatever it's in the past it's neither here nor there they made the decision they wanted
to make live your life I don't fuck and really no love lost zero because I have my family
down here both blood related in and friend you know what I mean like you guys are my
sisters it is what it is like I have my family I don't give a fuck about anybody else who
doesn't want to be in my life that's so true it's all the decision-based thing here remember
(44:28):
we were just talking about that yeah so well well moving forward what would you guys consider
some actual steps outside of writing a letter to yourself and starting with dear and for
me and then just letting it flow I would say one of them for me just meditating reflecting
on it afterwards was my first one yeah is meditating I don't know about you guys but
(44:49):
music is a huge there ever mean what do you mean what you don't know about you guys pretty
sure all three of us I just want to go back to our 2024 Apple replay I'm pretty sure I
had the most minutes of music out of everybody here okay music is life yeah I mean how many
playlists do we have that sit there in and it is for this mood or for this mood I literally
(45:13):
have a mood I have a playlist for every mood every memory like everything like it is broken
down from like when I left Lord Voldemort's house it says so it begins that's what I was
in that the picture of the U-Haul in the album cover that was a good that was a good playlist
actually when Eric got his accent I made a playlist right away you know I mean like I
(45:34):
do like it's just because music is such a powerful thing in my life and I guess the memory that
I will always hold dear with my dad is and I remember being five years old and me and
him used to play this game and when I was little he was super into music and that's
what kind of gave me my love for music now my mom loves music too but my biological father
was like I mean music was life for him and I remember me and him had built these huge
(45:58):
ass speakers that had like subwoofers on it and everything and he had his little like
CD player in the middle and he had all the CDs which is why I have you know like a hoarding
collection of CDs of like almost 2000 CDs so even though I don't even play them they
just literally sit in a box but that's besides the point yeah but I will never forget we
(46:19):
used to play this game when I was a little girl he would tell me to turn around and I
would face away from speakers like my back to one of the speakers and he would put a
CD in put it to the number of the song and then he would play the song and he would go
name the song name the artist and we used to play that came and I was a little girl until
I like would learn all the songs and so and it grew my love because he listened to everything
(46:41):
from like we listened to like naughty by nature you know and fucking K7 and Bodeen's
and Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and the doors and you know what I mean to me just like when
I tell you like a little bit of everything from Garth Brooks everything like it was literally
just an eclectic music taste of literally just everything and it grew my love for music
so as I grew older I just carried that with me and it became like oh every every moment
(47:07):
there's a song that's there with it too you know I mean that's how like I can literally
listen to a song and when that song plays it will actually recall that memory for me
that's the crazy part it's hard for me to hear Simple Man yeah I'm sure Starwood Heaven
wish you were here yeah and those three blocks listen those three chords of wish you were
(47:31):
here turn the song turn it off and the funny part is I was supposed to get those lyrics
or the the chords actually tattooed on my arm long beforehand because they were my my
mother's father's that was the song that she would play after he passed and so that song
is carried very special me my mom loves Pink Floyd but so that was a song I was gonna get
(47:52):
tattooed because of that because I love that song always have and now it kind of would
hurt me just kind of get messed up but anyway so yeah so meditating reflecting music for
sure I'm a huge practical person so I say therapy absolutely but not everybody can
afford therapy not everybody has insurance so for the ones that don't or even if you
do it is 100% it is I do want to say one thing and that is this if any of our listeners
(48:19):
ever need someone to talk to if you ever just want to venture story you want us to read
about it anything like that please please please I know we've said every episode yeah
you can just write anonymous or put your name whatever you want us to say on there and we
will talk about it we will help you through anything we're always here because I'm a firm
(48:39):
believer that everybody needs somebody and I'm we're so lucky to have our support group
between the three of us here so and we are down to be there just for about any single
person this world so if you guys just need someone to talk to please not trying to segue
out of this or anything I'm just want you guys to know that is a moment of just please
feel free as we always stayed and we'll stay at the end of the episode giving it but I
(49:02):
just want y'all know that we're here for you guys too yes absolutely so please email
us unhinged memoirs and she will go over that a little bit we need to jump ahead yeah
no kidding like I think that's very important we are very we are so lucky that we have each
other this platform that we have and the fact that we have just a relationship that we have
with each other and how Jessica's the therapist I'm the realist and you know the comedy that's
(49:29):
a huge I think I'm a mix of realist and comedy it's true you are it's true I'm like the blunt
one you are the blunt one I think that it's very awesome it's awesome that we have this
process I think that's my trauma response is being blunt and I do all my Tism I'm not
really sure I also want to say another one that's really super important that I just
(49:49):
thought about is also just practicing self-compassion for yourself like every day learning to treat
yourself with the kindness that you would give to a stranger because if you could do
that for yourself I think it would make a major difference and by that that would start
with good old good old Jeff's do affirmations absolutely put that on the mirror 100% because
I used to do that too I'm loved I am worthy I'm courageous I used to have this whole
(50:16):
thing on my mirror I used to man in red lipstick all the things right on there no like legit
I did you don't have to use red lipstick everyone you can just use a marker or even a dry erase
marker works really good on a mirror too it does and absolutely does or be a asshole
like me and just use black eyeliner that'll take you three years to wash it off your
mirror I learned my lesson with that one but they do have those chalk markers now too you
(50:40):
can use they do that's right yeah so anything write it on your mirror give yourself a note
put it on your first thing in the morning use notes in your in your phone absolutely and
have it read it back to you so you hear it in your car mm-hmm that's a thing too that's
a good one I liked I when I was doing it I like to start my day I had it on my mirror
and I would literally walk in the bathroom I'd go pee before when I was done peeing I'd
go up stand the mirror read it and stare at myself and just read it as powerful as I could
(51:05):
no matter if I felt like I meant it or not but I would I would preach that shit like
I was standing on a pulpit you know I mean like just up there like I got this yes no
for real it helps you have to worry about love YouTube also helped I listen to a lot
of YouTube videos yeah an inner child video on YouTube if you type in talking to my inner
(51:27):
child it comes up like a conference it's like a 30-minute conference and that man walks you
through it's kind of like not hypnosis but almost like a it's a guided imagery that's
what it's called a what a guided imagery okay cool thanks sorry that a guy who did
an imagery that was like a fucking what no a guided imagery yeah guide did an imagery
(51:47):
yeah home is where you make it you know that's a lot of so in that if I can just give a blurb
on what this YouTube conference is shut the fuck up came up in a bubble dog so what this
(52:21):
guided imagery it's really fucking cool because he talks about your inner self you picture
your your childhood and you pick the most traumatic list is this is emotional damage
emotional damage sorry I'm sorry ready you're good suck it in there cuz all right so nope
(52:43):
she lied okay I'm done I promise I'm good we're going so you think back to the age
at what you felt most trauma and you look at her and you walk through your environment
you walk through the house you walk through the street you look at your old like friends
(53:06):
that you had and you're like literally getting back into that child things you did at that
age mine was six years old and he has you go through and you're talking to yourself
you're you're now your adult self sitting next to that girl and you start talking to
(53:27):
her or him whatever it may maybe and you listen to what she has to say and then you talk back
and go okay this is who we are now all the things that you're afraid of all the things
that you're worried about all the things you've been through all the things you've heard all
the all the physical abuse the mental abuse all of it I got you now I'm here so it carries
(53:50):
on over into when you're out of it out of that guided image I cried the first time that
he walks through it's like a 30 minute thing and after you're out of it you realize how
much that actually helps and that's why I still do it to this day that's exactly why
when I have these outbursts of feeling I'm abandoned I'm unlovable that is the moment
(54:11):
that I know okay that is the spot that I need to address in my younger self that I need
to talk to so I go and I talk to that little girl because my adult self tells me otherwise
and that's why I go I don't understand why I fucking do this and I said this to you guys
my conscious brain tells me that I shouldn't but I'm just gonna do it anyway you know what
(54:32):
I mean that's the moment when you fucking talk to your little child and go you are not
that person anymore.
What if I caught an intrusive thought?
No for real.
Spank yourself up and say what the fuck are you doing?
No like legit legit that's exactly where it fucking comes from so addressing those feelings
of going I don't know why I'm doing this that's your inner child.
(54:54):
Yeah absolutely.
I just gotta remember you're not alone throughout this whole journey.
Nope.
You always have yourself and you're worthy of love you know what I mean and that's a
big thing I think a lot of people struggle with and you really do have us if you need
to reach out because we're we're good at talking.
Clearly.
Clearly.
We could got a gift to fucking gab as far as I'm concerned.
(55:16):
But anyways I do believe that that is a wrap on Dear Interme sorry for the trauma.
I hope this episode inspired you to start making peace with yourself and we do like
I said before want you to be a part of our conversation so if you need to talk you want
to vent to do any of that type of stuff you got a story question our situation that you
would just love to talk about please send it our way.
(55:39):
With that being said you can reach out to us on any of our social media platforms around
Facebook Instagram TikTok and so forth or you can just go ahead and send us an email
on hingememores at gmail.com and send it to us that way and don't forget to like this
episode leave a review give us a follow and don't forget to share this episode with someone
that could probably absolutely hear it right now.
(56:01):
We are here.
We're here if you need us.
Absolutely.
Well that is a wrap we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
We love you.
Yes.
We love you.
We're here with you and don't forget your herd you're validated absolutely you're worthy
of love.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
I just want you to know that I'm sorry.
(00:02):
What's up everyone?
Welcome to our fourth episode of our podcast Unhinged Memoirs.
(00:24):
Today we are doing a deep dive into our trauma.
Today's episode is called Dear Interme, Sorry for the Trauma.
We are giving the apologies that we never knew that we needed to ourselves.
We are unpacking all the guilt, the shame, and all the unspoken pain that comes with healing from our trauma.
I'm Jess. I'm Belle. And I'm Liz.
I hope you guys are ready. So buckle up because this episode is about to be real.
(00:48):
It's going to be raw and maybe even a little uncomfortable, but that's where the magic is going to happen in this.
This one will hit a little bit harder than normal because we have spent most of our years being our worst critics.
Judging ourselves and how we reacted to trauma or worse, even how we survived it.
No, but seriously, though, like that's how it works. Like we're our own worst critics.
But like we can critique everybody else, right? We can sit there and say, oh, well, maybe if you did this or maybe if you did that, we can't take our own advice.
(01:15):
We're like 100%. We forget about it. Get out of here. I'm not going to listen to that shit.
So our inner ourselves over here, we're going, please help me. I'm poor.
We need a little help. It's true. So we're going to take today to write some apology letters to ourself, which we've actually done earlier.
But first we're going to set the scene for you, explain what it means to apologize to your inner self.
(01:39):
And for me, it's like sitting down with the kid version of me, the teenage version of me, or even the one that is grown up.
That was even over just a little time ago, who was pretending that she was okay when she wasn't.
And it's really hard because I like the thought of that. I think going from who we are as children to what we morphed into as teenagers from that childhood,
(02:00):
and to who we morphed into as adults. And I know that I'm thinking of my 20 year old self and I'm not the same as I was back then at all.
None of us, none of us are.
And I think that we carry a lot of that stuff. So I think it's really important to kind of take a deep dive and go, you know what, I got you now.
Absolutely. And that's important. I think that where it comes in apology comes in, it's not an excuse to what happened, but at least it's to show that we can survive it.
(02:28):
Our inner selves are always there. Absolutely. We survived. We went through the shit. We've learned from it. And we have things to talk about to ourselves.
And we owe that to ourselves.
It's not even that it's not even excusing what happened to you. It's it's literally about saying like, I see you. I understand you. And I'm sorry for not protecting you better.
Yeah, that's literally like the hardest lesson in life is like, you could have done better if you knew better.
(02:54):
Absolutely.
100%. And I think, because at the end of the day, we all survived. And that's, that's truly the miracle in itself.
That's a damn miracle.
Absolutely.
So we're going to go ahead and read the letters and I'll go ahead and go first. If you girls would want me to do that. Absolutely. All right, so bear with us because this is a little bit like I said before, the more emotional episodes.
(03:17):
So it's not our normal. But okay, so here's my letter. It says, dear younger me, I know you've been hurt, abandoned, betrayed and bruised in ways that no one will ever understand.
You're in a sense take it was taken without permission before you're even able to make a decision. And I know you stood in the shadows of your own pain, quietly holding yourself together while the world saw you only smile.
(03:38):
But I see it all. I watched you search for the love you longed for and men that you never did that never deserved you, only to feel less unlovable and more imperfect than you should have.
I see the tears you've cried when no one was watching.
The nights were we begged for the relief, the days where you carried the weight of everything and still found a way to keep going. And I'm sorry for that.
(03:59):
I'm sorry for all the times I ignored your pain, because I thought being strong meant pretending that everything was fine.
I'm sorry for the years I spent trying to fix everyone else while you fell apart.
I'm sorry for every moment I told you just to get over it when you were begging for me to feel something.
And I'm sorry for letting the wrong people into your life and not listening to you when you were screaming for help.
(04:20):
I'm sorry for blaming you when it was never your fault, and I'm sorry for every time I let someone else's opinions of us dim our light.
You deserved better. But most of all, I'm sorry for not loving you the way you deserved. But I see you.
I see the pieces of yourself you try to hide from the world, the parts that you think are too messy, too broken, or too heavy.
I know the battles you've fought in silence and the strength that has taken for you to carry on.
(04:44):
I see how hard you've worked to hold us all together, and I'm so very proud of you.
I want you to know that it's okay to rest, to trust, and to let go of the battles that aren't yours to fight anymore.
You've spent so long protecting yourself, building walls, shielding your heart that you've forgotten what it feels like to just be.
But you don't have to fight so hard anymore. You're safe now.
You've come so far, survived so much, and grown in ways you can't even see.
(05:09):
You are not the same person you were when those wounds were made.
You are wiser, stronger, and more beautiful in the brokeness than you could have ever imagined.
I love you for your courage, for your resilience, and for the way you keep trying, even when it feels like the world is coming against you.
I love the way you care so deeply, the way you give so much of yourself even when you have so little left to give.
(05:30):
I love every part of you, the messy, the scared, the fierce, and the tender.
And I promise you this, I will never leave you. You are not alone, not now, not never.
I will never stop fighting for us, believing in us, and loving us with everything I have.
With all the love you've ever deserved from the very beginning, me.
So what does that mean to you? Like, what made you write that?
(05:52):
Honestly, I think going over my letter when I was writing it, I just kind of...
As you're supposed to look down on to like my inner child and all the different versions of myself that I've of everything I've gone through from young on.
And I don't know, I feel like it was so important for me to talk about certain things because there's a lot of things that we all deal with silently.
(06:16):
Right? Whether it be depression or it be anxiety or it be just beating ourselves up.
So for me, it was more of addressing those issues that I feel like I have blamed myself for for so long.
And didn't give myself the grace or the time to go, you know what, it's okay to go through those things.
It's okay that you've experienced those things and you need to forgive yourself and also not only that, but apologize to yourself for being so hard on yourself when you're going through those tough times.
(06:44):
Absolutely.
I mean, we're all literally our own worst critics.
Absolutely.
I can sit there and tell you both all day how amazing you are, how I think you're both very successful women in your life, how just unfortunately, you don't have children right now.
They could come, but you've been one of the best aunts to her children and my son.
(07:05):
But you're the greatest mother I think I've ever seen besides my own, you know, I, we can sit there and tell each other about all day, but you guys come back to me and tell me how much you think I'm a great mother.
I'm like, fuck off.
Yeah.
I, okay.
Yeah, great.
I think inside we all feel like failures to a certain extent because as we and I know we brought it up, I think in the first episode of talking about that whole like expectation thing, you know, we set expectations not only for other people,
(07:29):
but for ourselves.
So high.
And when being our own worst critic, when we don't reach those expectations, we feel like we're feeling and realistically, we're not.
It's just not the path we were supposed to take.
And that's what it comes down to and learning to go, okay, what one may consider as a failure is another chance to try again.
You know what I mean?
And life's about choices.
(07:50):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It's a, it's a literally, it's not even like, well, who's doing better?
What's the, which choice did you make today and what path did it lead you on?
Right.
Absolutely.
And I also think making better choices for ourselves.
Absolutely.
And what are we doing for ourselves to better ourselves?
Right.
And coming with these letters and talking to that child that needed to be talked to is so important.
(08:17):
I know for me, I still to this day, I'm not kidding.
I went through a difficult situation a couple of weeks ago and I remember literally holding my chest and talking to my inner self.
Like as weird as that sounds for other people who have never done it, there is actual therapy.
This therapy is so important for people to realize that when you go back to your inner self and you're talking and you're pulling yourself out of those situations as an adult,
(08:41):
you are literally making sure that you're saying in your adult form, I got you.
Because those responses that we are having to situations, very difficult situations usually are rooted in our childhood.
And I hate to always blame it on that, but it's very, very true.
That is 100% of therapy.
I truly believe that's why we're talking about dear inner child, you know what I mean?
(09:04):
Because it's so important to remind ourselves that we need to be kind to ourselves.
We spend, like I said before, we spend so much time beating up ourselves for choices or bad decisions that we've made and things that we've gone through that we even had no
control over.
And that's the promise is we forget to be kind to ourselves, but we will spare all the grace to everybody else and all the kindness to the world and everybody.
(09:25):
Patience.
Right.
But we can't do it for ourselves.
Why?
Very lack of patience.
Yeah.
So I think just learning to be kind to yourself.
Being kind is hard.
It is.
It is.
It's very, it's a hard thing and it's a hard pill to swallow.
Because when you're trying to do your best and you're, you're going through situations and you're not really sure how to handle them and you're going through life and you're going through situations, you gain perspective.
(09:52):
But then you look at those perspectives and go, did I just fuck up?
Yeah.
Like, that's hard for me.
Yeah.
You know, I will, I will say the one thing that I can give in a form of some advice here is, and it comes back to Heffrey when he had given this one time.
I was super struggling at the time, going through a lot and just kind of feeling like I didn't believe in myself at all.
(10:16):
And I remember him calling me up and go, listen, I need you to do me a favor.
I need you to try something.
And I go, okay, because I know this is not stupid.
And I just need you to listen and hear me out for a moment.
Don't fight it.
I just want you to do something.
I want you to sit down and I want you to write a whole bunch of positive things that you love about yourself.
And he goes, and then I want you to go stand in front of the mirror and I want you to read them.
(10:38):
He goes, I do this on the daily.
He goes, because some days you're going to wake up and just feel like, you know what?
I can't take on the world today.
I just can't do it today.
I'm not in the right place today.
I'm just not, I'm not ready.
I can't handle it.
I'm not good enough.
I'm not this.
I'm not that.
And he goes and sometimes when we're in those moments, he goes, we need to hear this.
So if I can give any advice and I truly, I thank him for that.
(11:01):
And I think about him all the time for that is going and standing in front of the mirror and sometimes it's even, you know, that whole thing.
Of like fake it till you make it.
You got to get in front of that mirror and just go, you know what?
I am enough.
I am beautiful.
I am kind.
I am, I am loving.
I'm worthy.
I'm an M enough and keep repeating those things that you need to hear that you want someone else to say to you, we have to have our own backs because that's what supports our inner child.
(11:28):
He is now a pediatric psych nurse.
Everyone I know, and he is an amazing, I think that's the perfect thing for him to be.
Honestly, there was never a better way.
There was never a better field than that for him.
100%.
That was truly his come.
We had said that even the beginning when he was in school, that was a big topic over.
Kids and mental health.
Yeah.
And he was like, no, no, no, no, no kids, no kids.
I mean, I love kids, but I want to do trauma.
(11:49):
Nope.
Yeah.
And that was, and that honestly, that is definitely the feel for him because he is now because of losing his son all about mental health.
And I absolutely love that.
And he's always been good at it.
I think that's he used to, he was so good at that.
Yeah.
And I think it's important.
I think that helps shape you when you start talking to yourself and you're going, I am this, I am that.
(12:12):
It is so important to rewire.
And that's what it was all about.
And I didn't know about any of this stuff until I met him.
And I do think that rewiring your brain to tell yourself that you are these things that you so graciously think of yourself that you're not, but you are.
You know, so I think that it's very important to sit there and go through.
(12:36):
Read dressing who you are as a person and who you are today.
Absolutely.
Mm hmm.
Well, I think that we can go on.
You want to go ahead, who wants to read their letter next?
I mean, I can go.
I can go.
All right.
So we're talking to younger Val here.
(12:59):
I see you.
I see the scared little girl sitting in the corner trying to make herself small, trying to make sense of why the world feels so chaotic.
I see you watching your mom, your sisters and yourself under pain.
No child should ever witness.
I see the way that you cling to hope even when everything around you feels unsafe.
But I need you to know something.
None of this was your fault.
Not then, not now, not ever.
(13:23):
I know how it felt when your mom finally like when your mom finally got you out, how confusing it was to leave behind everything that you knew, including your sisters.
I just seven years old, you were learning to navigate a world that didn't feel fair or kind.
And then when your stepdad came into your life, you finally saw what love could look like.
He was proof that kindness and stability did exist that not all men hurt the ones that they love.
(13:47):
He became your anchor in a sea of uncertainty and for a little while you believed in love again.
But when he was gone, the grief hit you like a tidal wave.
Losing him felt like, oh, losing him felt like losing your safe place all over again.
I'm sorry if I'm crying guys.
And when your mom moved on and left you behind, it felt like another wound you couldn't explain.
(14:08):
Another loss that you didn't know how to process.
You carried so much loneliness and you know, so much longing for someone to stay, someone to see you and someone to love you without conditions or limits.
I'm so sorry that you felt abandoned. You didn't deserve that.
Through it all though, you found your strength even when life tried to knock you down.
You picked yourself up and kept going.
You didn't let the instability of your childhood define your future.
(14:32):
Oh, you worked hard to become a nurse earning your R. N. Degree, a career that gave you the stability that you craved and independence to take care of yourself.
That degree is more than a job.
It's a symbol of how much you overcame and how deeply that you care for others.
You built a life for yourself that no one can take away and that's something to be very proud of.
(14:55):
You wanted connection, stability and love.
And even when you stayed in relationships that you shouldn't have, you did what you needed to do.
Then relationships came and you poured so much of yourself into making it work believing that you could help people heal.
Believing that if you gave enough, they'd meet you where you are.
(15:18):
But you learned and love doesn't work that way.
You spent so much of your life searching for stability and others, but I need you to hear this.
The stability that you've been searching for is within you.
You're not broken because of the things that happened to you.
You are not unworthy because people left and you are not responsible for carrying other people's pain just to prove your value.
(15:39):
You've seen darkness, yes, but you've also seen light.
Your stepdad showed you what love can look like and that's the love that you deserve.
Not the love that you have to fight for or fix, but the love that meets you halfway.
A love that stays and even though that you felt abandoned so many times, you've never truly been alone.
You've carried yourself through every heartbreak, every loss and every lonely night.
You've been your own anchor all along.
(16:01):
It's okay to grieve.
It's okay to feel angry, but I want you to know that those wounds don't define you.
That little girl who lived through so much has grown into a woman who is stronger, wiser and more resilient than she realizes.
And you will keep growing.
You will keep healing.
And one day you'll look back and even though you see not just the pain, but the strength that it gave you, you are enough just as you are.
(16:23):
And you're worthy of the kind of love you once thought was only a dream.
It's out there waiting for you, but it starts with loving yourself first.
I'm so proud of you for everything that you've endured, for everything that you've achieved.
And for the life that you're building with love and all the compassion you deserve, love me.
That's rough.
It is.
And I just like to stop for a second just to appreciate how powerful it is to actually apologize to yourself.
(16:49):
Because I don't think we realize how powerful it truly is and how uncomfortable it can feel at the same time.
I think carrying the burden of our childhood is...
I think that more people go through than we actually realize.
Yes.
That is a part of what makes us.
That's a part of what makes this world.
(17:11):
Everyone has a story to tell.
Everyone has things that they went through that shape them and who they are.
I'm so envious when I look at families that they're like, oh yeah, my mom and dad have been married for 30 years and I have the sisters that I've lived with.
And every family has their problems, but from the outside looking in, I'm like, damn.
I've known people or known of people that have that who go out and fucking hunt with their dads and go out and bake with their moms and still go to shit and they're in their 30s.
(17:42):
I'm like, I don't know what the fuck that feels like.
Yep.
That's something that I carried in as much as I tried to have that relationship with my mom.
I... she's a reason for a lot of my abandonment.
And I know that I think now as she's older, she's trying to make someone of an effort, you know, by calling, but she's never came down to visit me.
(18:11):
She lives a state away and, you know, chose to stay there.
But there's a lot of abandonment that came from that, which supersedes all of her phone calls and efforts.
I mean, I can 100% relate to that.
You know, I mean, I absolutely love and adore my biological father, but in the same aspect, I have felt the same way.
(18:37):
I mean, I've lived in Florida now for shit 20-something years.
When I moved here in what, 98? 97? And I can only think of two times that my dad's actually come down to Florida to come down here.
And both of those times were never to come see me.
One was for my cousin's wedding.
And the other one was to see my grandma.
(18:58):
My grandma drove him over here to see me.
You know what I mean?
And I've gone up once to see him since I've been an adult.
When I was younger, I used to go up and see him, you know, during like summers and stuff.
But it's one of those things where you feel that and it's, it's nothing that like I don't hold any like bad feelings or anything towards them.
Like I've kind of just accepted it, but in the same aspect, it doesn't take away the pain or the hurt that we feel of just wanting our parent to want to be a part of our lives more.
(19:26):
Mm-hmm.
That's a, it's a hard, that's an abandonment 100%.
And I think that's why it's important to talk to the child and us because knowing that I got her.
Okay.
When I'm in my deepest moments and I'm, I'm frustrated, I feel unloved, I feel abandoned, I feel like my life isn't going where it needs to.
(19:55):
That's when I have conversations with that little me of going, I got you.
I got this degree to make sure that we're not going anywhere.
We're stable.
We're good.
We have a good job.
I can take care of myself.
I don't have to depend on anyone.
And that's another thing is that you had to be your own stability.
I'm, I have to be, you know, because I feel like, you know, and that's one thing that my mom did show me is that you don't have to depend on a man.
(20:21):
I do appreciate that part of, of her for teaching me that I don't have to depend on anyone.
But it's also nice to depend on people.
Absolutely.
And I feel like a lot of that, I had a lot of hyper independence because of that.
Absolutely.
Which made me push people away.
Yeah.
I could see that.
(20:42):
I could see that being an issue.
And, you know, it's crazy as a reading newsletter.
It makes you realize like through the healing process that we have all been through some serious pain.
And sometimes hiding it with, with humor and.
Somebody's got to be the funny one of the group.
Right.
Exactly.
And you think we got this funny, funny look at trauma.
(21:04):
It's a trauma response.
No, for real.
So I think that, um, you know, in those moments, it's very important to me.
I don't know if you guys do it, but I know that I quite often talk to my little self.
I'm going to be honest outside of doing like the affirmations that I'll occasionally do.
I've never written a letter or talked to my inner self.
(21:25):
This is my first time.
Um, I guess because I've just had this vision in my head of it's easier to just be the survivor.
Fuck the whole victim personality.
I'm just going to be the survivor and I'm going to keep moving forward.
And that's just the way it's going to go and never stopping back and sitting back and going,
Damn, I'm fucking exhausted.
I need to take a moment to think about myself and.
(21:48):
You know, I guess.
What are you surviving if you don't face it?
You know what I mean?
Like everyone's a go on the survivor.
But you know what I think that comes down to is.
Maybe it's the stereotype of it, of the victim is the one that's constantly like, Whoa, is me.
I went through so much and this and that and, and they live in that every single fucking day.
That's the difference.
(22:09):
Don't live in it.
Right.
No, absolutely.
And I think as a survivor, I do acknowledge like, okay, having shit happen to me by my
cousin when I was a little girl, man, I was fucking five, six years old and having him fucking
do the shit that he did to me without my permission.
You know what I mean?
Like I was warning.
Yeah, sorry.
But what it comes down to is is at the end of the day, I was able to, you know what, I
(22:30):
went through it.
I experienced it.
I'm stronger because of it.
And I just kept moving forward.
And instead I use that to be able to talk to other people who went through it, who had
never talked to people about it and was able to allow them to confront that.
So this way they weren't left dealing with that because I think there's a lot of people
that hold like I said before hold so much and nobody knows what people have gone through.
(22:51):
And so I guess in my mind, I was being a survivor by just going, okay, I see it.
It's there.
I know I went through it.
All right, next.
And I would keep moving forward.
And that's what became exhausting is because and not that I want to sit, go back and I
don't want to like revert and go, oh, look what I went through.
No, but in the same aspect, just to, I guess, in a sense, like I said before is just have
(23:11):
that kindness to myself to go, you know what, I see you.
I see how far you've become and it's more of even though I'm apologizing to the enemy.
I'm also apologizing to me right now.
Me right now as a person that went, you know what, you went through all that and look at
where you're at.
You're still here.
You've survived 100%.
You know, it's so beautiful as when, yes.
And it's so beautiful when you recognize that and you share that and it's very bold that
(23:37):
this is great that we're doing this.
This is a huge eye-opener for a lot of people because acknowledging those things and other
people and other people sharing their stories makes you have a deeper understanding of others.
So when there's responses that you're like, where is that coming from?
You can understand that.
Absolutely.
(23:57):
You know, so I think that's very courageous.
Yeah, I guess.
It is.
It's very courageous to do.
Yeah.
To try to understand people a little bit better and that creates better connection.
I agree.
I agree with that.
All right, Lizzie, do you read your letter?
(24:17):
You look like you're dreading this one.
You've been very quiet.
I am dreading this one.
I hate this, honestly.
I hate it so much, but we're here bearing our souls, right?
Absolutely.
The point of this.
Yeah, I just want to say one thing before you read this because I feel like out of the
three of us, you beat yourself up more than anybody I know.
(24:40):
And I think out of everybody, I think that you need to really learn to be kind to yourself
because you are truly an amazing person.
I know like we talked about this a little bit ago about being like anybody can say anything.
You said that of, you know, I could sit here and tell you're a great mom and you're this
and you're that and you're like, yeah, fuck you.
You're lying to me.
(25:00):
You know what I mean?
Realistically, I think you spend so much time hating yourself for things that you'd
never had control over.
So I just, I really truly hope that you can see how beautiful a person you are inside
and out.
Baby steps.
Baby steps.
Okay, go ahead.
Sorry.
I wasn't trying to like take the spotlight.
(25:21):
I just wanted to say it to you.
Listen, the more you talk, the less I have to.
No, you're going to talk.
We're great.
No, because now we get to see some questions afterwards.
We're going to get you to talk in this episode.
All right, here we go.
Dear younger me, first of all, I want to hug you and give you the love that you were always
(25:42):
searching for from the one who you called mom.
You've been carrying a lot more than a kid ever should.
Let's just say the parent situation.
Yeah, that's not your fault.
None of it, not the yelling, not the silence, not the physical aspects that made you feel
like you were walking on eggshells just to survive.
You are not the trauma or the emotional and physical wounds that she inflicted on you.
(26:05):
You'll spend a lot of time thinking that you have to fix that, but here's the truth.
You don't.
You can't.
That's her job, not yours.
Now I know that you've already started to be the peacekeeper, the overachiever, the
quote unquote good kid who thinks that if you just do everything right, everything will
magically get better.
Again, it won't.
(26:26):
But what will happen is that you'll grow stronger, more resilient, and you'll eventually learn
that being perfect isn't the answer.
Being you is.
Here's the good news.
We make it out due to our dad and the woman who you learn later on after all those terrible
teenage years truly is the mom that you deserved.
They saved us in a time where we saw no way out and the one who birthed us, trigger warning,
(26:50):
she dies, left a lot of the things that were not only unfinished for you, but also for
your sister as well.
As for the circus you call your love life, yeah, you're going to have a front row seat
to some messy, parental inspired patterns there.
It's okay.
You'll learn that just because someone reminds you of home doesn't mean that they're good
for you.
In fact, sometimes the quote unquote familiar is just trauma in disguise.
(27:15):
Red flags will look like fireworks for a while, but don't worry, you'll figure it out.
Oh, and let me go ahead and save you some time.
You are not your mother.
Your choices don't define you.
You'll spend years unlearning the things that she handed down, guilt, shame, and purification,
but you'll replace them with self worth, boundaries, and the freedom to love on your own terms.
(27:37):
Yes, boundaries are a thing and you'll even like them one day.
Laugh often, especially at the at the absurdity of it all, because if you don't laugh, you'll
cry.
And honestly, you'll probably do both at the same time.
And that's okay too.
Just remember that life can be messy and beautiful all at once.
Honestly, keep living in happy endings.
They're real, but they're different than what you think.
(28:00):
They're not just about fixing people or mending the past.
They're about healing yourself and choosing your own joy.
Another newsflash, you're getting a beautiful little boy who you are teaching the things
that you are learning still in life.
You're going to be okay kid.
Actually you're going to be amazing.
(28:21):
There's love, pride, and a whole lot of grace, you're older and way more chill, you.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
Who fucking cut onions in here, man?
Bro.
I think, so backstory to those who don't know my story, and I don't mind telling it.
(28:42):
I really don't.
My biological mom was very, very, very abusive to me and my sister.
She was an alcoholic.
She was a drug user.
She made sure that we probably had the worst life possible.
There were days, weeks, months where we would go without power, food, water, light.
(29:06):
I walked in on her shooting up any kind of drug you can think of, breaking down eight
balls.
I mean, we're trauma dumping here, for sure.
Then she would go on her benders.
I will never, ever forget the smell of gold slogger in my life.
Or remember that when I was six, she would used to tell me that if you drank enough of
(29:29):
it, your poop would be gold.
So there's that.
I hate the smell of licorice now, in case anybody ever wondered.
And then she would go on her benders.
And here I am, six-year-old me, trying to wake her up off the couch because I was hungry
or because I wanted to go outside and play.
(29:50):
And she couldn't get up off the couch.
So when I would wake her, she would beat the shit out of me.
And my last memory of her in my entire life was her sitting on top of my chest and punching
me in the face like I was a man.
So I have a lot of traumatic shit that I keep hidden away.
(30:15):
And I think that has built my exterior shell and why I don't let people in.
Because why would I?
Anything I'd ever knew was, you show your outside, or you show your inner self to the outside,
I'm going to beat the shit out of you.
And that's your mom.
That's my mom.
That's my mom.
That's supposed to be the one that teaches you that this is home for you.
(30:40):
I'm here for you.
I love you.
You're worthy.
That's your foundation.
And my dad, it's not that he was there and not present.
He was in the Navy.
He was gone.
And he didn't get custody of me until he retired from the Navy.
What was he supposed to do while he was away at sea and didn't know any of this?
I was just going to ask that.
(31:00):
Did he know this?
He didn't know a fucking thing.
He didn't know anything until the neighbors were calling him.
My sister was calling him.
All these things were, or I'd show up at his house and I'd have bruises or a black eye
or whatever the case was, or the fact that I knew how to make a drink.
(31:22):
Bartender of one.
Here I am.
I think there's a lot of trauma in our life set.
It's hard to let go of sometimes.
Absolutely.
And learning that healing is definitely not linear.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And some days we feel like we're making progress and other days we feel like we're back in
the trenches.
And I think the hardest part of why as adults now we beat ourselves up so much because when
(31:45):
we feel like we're making progress and then we go backwards, that's where we get angry
with ourselves in that aspect.
It comes and goes and weaves.
Absolutely.
And we have to have to learn that it's okay to sometimes go backwards as long as you eventually
get back up and start moving forward again.
Absolutely.
It's a daily struggle.
(32:06):
Because the goal isn't perfection.
No.
It's not perfect.
I don't expect perfection at all from anybody except myself.
My mom always used to say it's not perfection, it's progress.
Right.
That's really what it is.
That's good.
I just don't know.
Talking to like even coworkers and stuff who open up and say things and talk about their
(32:28):
childhood and their lives and what they went through and I mean just us as a human fucking
race.
Right?
It's just the shit that we go through and to see how amazing we can be in our lives
just with the help of other people and love and support from the people that we make our
(32:50):
family.
I think for those especially who don't have families and who don't have close knits, I
have made my family through my friends.
You know and so many of my coworkers and friends that I met along the way have done the same
thing.
And it's absolutely incredible to see what they can make of their story and I think that's
(33:12):
what's so important is that acknowledging what you went through, not sitting in it.
I mean there's nothing wrong with admitting and talking about what you went through.
There's nothing absolutely at all wrong with that because like I said it gains a deeper
understanding of people and how to appreciate their journey and how they're being and how
(33:33):
they are.
So it's just it's a beautiful thing for me.
It's a beautiful thing for me to see what we all go through and who we become later
on.
It's part of the healing process and healing from it is very important.
And the whole deal is we did the best we could with what we had at the time.
You make up what you got.
(33:54):
Absolutely.
And now you're doing even better.
Right.
Exactly.
And that's what it comes down to is realizing that each time you're doing just a little
bit better.
Especially when you're realizing it.
Right.
And I think making sure taking time for therapy, taking time for you know the work because
there's work that goes into this.
There's absolutely things that go into healing so you don't either A repeat those cycles
(34:17):
or let yourself fall into a victim mentality or let yourself fall into addiction which
a lot of people do.
You know and that's something to kind of touch on too.
The mental illnesses that come from from crazy childhood.
You know.
Anxiety, depression.
(34:38):
Oh my God.
OCD.
You know I mean like there's so many that nobody wants to recognize as a mental health.
Everybody nowadays like oh you're just being a crybaby.
No.
You're being crazy.
Fuck you.
You don't know anything that I went through in my childhood or that made me to who I am
now.
Now I'm not saying that my childhood defines me.
(34:58):
That's huge.
I am not saying my childhood defines me.
Absolutely not because again going back on that victim mentality that victim role.
I don't sit there and go I just I can't do it because the way you're talking to me right
now it's just it's triggering me.
No like I'm not saying that people don't have triggers.
Absolutely I have triggers.
(35:19):
So do everybody does but the thing is I'm not going to sit there and blame it on everything
that happened in my childhood.
And also I would like to point out that it's no one else's responsibility to have to deal
with your triggers.
Correct.
Correct.
It's such a learning deal.
It's such a learning deal.
That's it.
That's exactly it.
(35:39):
It took me a while to go you know and I was doing that too.
I'm like well I'm triggered.
Like I'm pissed off because you triggered me.
That's not their responsibility.
Absolutely.
You know what it comes down to.
By any means.
Yeah and what it really truly like comes down to is it's not even just triggers it's your
emotions.
It's like you are the only person that is in control of your emotions and how you allow
either your own responses or someone else's actions towards you how it's going to affect
(36:03):
you.
And in those situations we have to learn to take more accountability for our own feelings
and in actually realizing what is causing that because like we're just talking about
the mental health issues like prime example anxiety and depression a lot of it.
Now I'm not saying that there isn't actual depression because our hundred percent is
that there are also I and I personally believe there's things called situational depression
(36:27):
is absolutely okay.
And we can become depressed because there's root causes that we have never addressed and
same with anxiety I feel at least for me in my situation I can only speak for myself.
I'm not a doctor.
I don't have my degree and I think dealing.
Yeah my faith my web MD PhD PhD and therapy exactly but no and in all reality like I can
(36:52):
tell you that a lot of my anxiety that I have there's deep rooted issues for why that's
there and I feel like it's easier to take the time to try to figure out what is your
root cause and you have to learn to face that head on or you will stay in that anxiety.
You know like right because I mean I there's a lot of things that comes with depression
(37:15):
and anxiety and I think the biggest thing is feeling a lot of times that abandonment
or feeling like you're alone or feeling unheard or unseen in different things or you know
I'm and I know I also have like just like health awareness anxiety just from dealing
with heart issues in my life that you know my heart starts going up when I have an SVT
attack the first thing I do is anxiety kicks in because I'm like oh my god I'm gonna die
(37:37):
and I mean like and it's addressing those different things but there's there's reasons
for everything and that's what it comes down like that's a root right you know I mean so
I mean what what was it a few weeks ago we were talking to your adopted daughter about
her mother and her situation it was more than a few weeks ago is a couple months ago and
(37:58):
just hearing her story and like listening to her you were so I was like whoa and like
I got triggered and literally she sat on the stairs crying until she had to get up and
walk away and I had a panic attack like I had to lay down like I could not breathe to say
in my fucking life I mean I laid on the bed and I just cried and I cried and I cried
because their stories are so much alike like it's sad like you think yeah okay there's
(38:22):
people out there that go through the same shit you do but her story and my story like
they're like they sink pretty well except for her mother wasn't physically abusive towards
her right you know I mean but she did have other forms of abuse and out from her mother
so it was very triggering especially because there was drug addiction and stuff and and
(38:43):
I can't even hear the way her mother like says certain things to her I was like oh there
she is you know and I learned to not so long ago when I was up in my church in Massachusetts
talking with my cousin who was an addict a lot of like an addict mind they all think
alike mm-hmm yeah they say things they act certain ways they they just mm-hmm it's wild
(39:08):
and they don't realize that they're passing some of those those personalities or traits
or whatever down to their children yeah that's nature versus nurture and that's the nurture
portion of it that comes into place that shapes us especially when we're young mm-hmm and
they don't realize how fragile our minds are and how much we soak up what they're doing
or what they're saying to us absolutely and how it shapes us into be the people that we
(39:30):
are like it's it's a hard mold to break I think also I would like to add that participating
in your own mental healing mm-hmm is super important for people not to stick around in
that victim mentality absolutely because I have met people in my life who have been through
(39:55):
was the shit that you've been through okay mm-hmm and sat there and didn't get the help
that they needed to fix that situation but use it as a crutch to go okay well I am the
way that I am but they don't take an active part in therapy right they don't talk to anyone
(40:19):
they don't they don't try to make an effort to better themselves and do tools and I think
that's a huge part too is that you have to be willing to acknowledge that part that comes
with self-awareness absolutely mm-hmm absolutely mm-hmm and there's definitely some actionable
steps that can be taken once you are self-aware of those issues right and self-aware of that
(40:41):
you need to apologize to yourself or whatever it may be falling back into the whole you
have to apologize into yourself yeah not like give yourself grace but you know when you
go to start writing your letter like don't overthink it just sit down and start writing
that was rough though to write yourself a letter like that you because you have to like
dive back into well shit where do I start you know right like what do I what do I say
(41:04):
because I'm gonna be honest as much as I remember from my past I try to block out a lot of it
right I don't remember that comes with a lot of traumatic experiences in your childhood
we try to block it out so we don't have to relive it absolutely that's truly my first
night that I lived with my dad and my mom real quickly I'm sorry my stepmom who by in
(41:25):
all intents and purposes she's my mother that is the mother that I deserved yes and I love
her to the ends of this earth like the very first night that I live with them I had to
sleep with my door open and I had a nightmare where I screamed in the middle of the night
as a trauma response because I thought my mom was coming in to hit me oh my god and my dad
(41:50):
he still tells the story to this day like he remembers that waking up and then he said
he couldn't sleep the next night or the neck you know the rest of that night or the next
night I mean yeah imagine your kid doing a blood curdling screen because of a pain inflicted
by their wife or ex-wife mm-hmm yeah that's fucking that's terrible yeah I will never
forget that in my in my dad goes you know you can sleep with your door closed and I'm
(42:13):
like what like that's a thing I'm allowed to do that I'm allowed to have privacy you
are so lucky to have the dad no seriously me have because they truly are such amazing
people they are listen I count my blessings every day that I have them and that they saved
my sister and myself yeah so my sister god bless her we fight like cats and dogs but
(42:35):
she guys love each other we do love each other she's eight years older than me and she was
16 years old raising me as I was eight you know I mean or she was eight years old raising
me as a newborn because our mother couldn't do it was your mom when you passed when she
passed hello ghost laughing in a serious or moment but when she passed I was I was 18
(43:00):
when she passed and how old was your mom my mom was fuck I'm gonna be honest I don't even
remember I think she was like in her 40s like she was like 45 46 and she got cancer right
yeah she had a lot of cancer and what the most fucked up part about the whole thing
(43:21):
you're ready for this my sister and I didn't find out that she actually died until two
weeks after the funeral what yeah we weren't allowed to go to the funeral she disowned
us her I have actually I have family up in Montana and Washington state that are her
side of the family that will not contact us anymore don't even know that we exist anymore
(43:44):
because she told them so many lies and said that you know we hated her and we didn't want
to be around her and like we just abandoned her first question I would ask why would
your kids do that well you know when she says you know word is bond you know but you know
(44:04):
whatever it's in the past it's neither here nor there they made the decision they wanted
to make live your life I don't fuck and really no love lost zero because I have my family
down here both blood related in and friend you know what I mean like you guys are my
sisters it is what it is like I have my family I don't give a fuck about anybody else who
doesn't want to be in my life that's so true it's all the decision-based thing here remember
(44:28):
we were just talking about that yeah so well well moving forward what would you guys consider
some actual steps outside of writing a letter to yourself and starting with dear and for
me and then just letting it flow I would say one of them for me just meditating reflecting
on it afterwards was my first one yeah is meditating I don't know about you guys but
(44:49):
music is a huge there ever mean what do you mean what you don't know about you guys pretty
sure all three of us I just want to go back to our 2024 Apple replay I'm pretty sure I
had the most minutes of music out of everybody here okay music is life yeah I mean how many
playlists do we have that sit there in and it is for this mood or for this mood I literally
(45:13):
have a mood I have a playlist for every mood every memory like everything like it is broken
down from like when I left Lord Voldemort's house it says so it begins that's what I was
in that the picture of the U-Haul in the album cover that was a good that was a good playlist
actually when Eric got his accent I made a playlist right away you know I mean like I
(45:34):
do like it's just because music is such a powerful thing in my life and I guess the memory that
I will always hold dear with my dad is and I remember being five years old and me and
him used to play this game and when I was little he was super into music and that's
what kind of gave me my love for music now my mom loves music too but my biological father
was like I mean music was life for him and I remember me and him had built these huge
(45:58):
ass speakers that had like subwoofers on it and everything and he had his little like
CD player in the middle and he had all the CDs which is why I have you know like a hoarding
collection of CDs of like almost 2000 CDs so even though I don't even play them they
just literally sit in a box but that's besides the point yeah but I will never forget we
(46:19):
used to play this game when I was a little girl he would tell me to turn around and I
would face away from speakers like my back to one of the speakers and he would put a
CD in put it to the number of the song and then he would play the song and he would go
name the song name the artist and we used to play that came and I was a little girl until
I like would learn all the songs and so and it grew my love because he listened to everything
(46:41):
from like we listened to like naughty by nature you know and fucking K7 and Bodeen's
and Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and the doors and you know what I mean to me just like when
I tell you like a little bit of everything from Garth Brooks everything like it was literally
just an eclectic music taste of literally just everything and it grew my love for music
so as I grew older I just carried that with me and it became like oh every every moment
(47:07):
there's a song that's there with it too you know I mean that's how like I can literally
listen to a song and when that song plays it will actually recall that memory for me
that's the crazy part it's hard for me to hear Simple Man yeah I'm sure Starwood Heaven
wish you were here yeah and those three blocks listen those three chords of wish you were
(47:31):
here turn the song turn it off and the funny part is I was supposed to get those lyrics
or the the chords actually tattooed on my arm long beforehand because they were my my
mother's father's that was the song that she would play after he passed and so that song
is carried very special me my mom loves Pink Floyd but so that was a song I was gonna get
(47:52):
tattooed because of that because I love that song always have and now it kind of would
hurt me just kind of get messed up but anyway so yeah so meditating reflecting music for
sure I'm a huge practical person so I say therapy absolutely but not everybody can
afford therapy not everybody has insurance so for the ones that don't or even if you
do it is 100% it is I do want to say one thing and that is this if any of our listeners
(48:19):
ever need someone to talk to if you ever just want to venture story you want us to read
about it anything like that please please please I know we've said every episode yeah
you can just write anonymous or put your name whatever you want us to say on there and we
will talk about it we will help you through anything we're always here because I'm a firm
(48:39):
believer that everybody needs somebody and I'm we're so lucky to have our support group
between the three of us here so and we are down to be there just for about any single
person this world so if you guys just need someone to talk to please not trying to segue
out of this or anything I'm just want you guys to know that is a moment of just please
feel free as we always stayed and we'll stay at the end of the episode giving it but I
(49:02):
just want y'all know that we're here for you guys too yes absolutely so please email
us unhinged memoirs and she will go over that a little bit we need to jump ahead yeah
no kidding like I think that's very important we are very we are so lucky that we have each
other this platform that we have and the fact that we have just a relationship that we have
with each other and how Jessica's the therapist I'm the realist and you know the comedy that's
(49:29):
a huge I think I'm a mix of realist and comedy it's true you are it's true I'm like the blunt
one you are the blunt one I think that it's very awesome it's awesome that we have this
process I think that's my trauma response is being blunt and I do all my Tism I'm not
really sure I also want to say another one that's really super important that I just
(49:49):
thought about is also just practicing self-compassion for yourself like every day learning to treat
yourself with the kindness that you would give to a stranger because if you could do
that for yourself I think it would make a major difference and by that that would start
with good old good old Jeff's do affirmations absolutely put that on the mirror 100% because
I used to do that too I'm loved I am worthy I'm courageous I used to have this whole
(50:16):
thing on my mirror I used to man in red lipstick all the things right on there no like legit
I did you don't have to use red lipstick everyone you can just use a marker or even a dry erase
marker works really good on a mirror too it does and absolutely does or be a asshole
like me and just use black eyeliner that'll take you three years to wash it off your
mirror I learned my lesson with that one but they do have those chalk markers now too you
(50:40):
can use they do that's right yeah so anything write it on your mirror give yourself a note
put it on your first thing in the morning use notes in your in your phone absolutely and
have it read it back to you so you hear it in your car mm-hmm that's a thing too that's
a good one I liked I when I was doing it I like to start my day I had it on my mirror
and I would literally walk in the bathroom I'd go pee before when I was done peeing I'd
go up stand the mirror read it and stare at myself and just read it as powerful as I could
(51:05):
no matter if I felt like I meant it or not but I would I would preach that shit like
I was standing on a pulpit you know I mean like just up there like I got this yes no
for real it helps you have to worry about love YouTube also helped I listen to a lot
of YouTube videos yeah an inner child video on YouTube if you type in talking to my inner
(51:27):
child it comes up like a conference it's like a 30-minute conference and that man walks you
through it's kind of like not hypnosis but almost like a it's a guided imagery that's
what it's called a what a guided imagery okay cool thanks sorry that a guy who did
an imagery that was like a fucking what no a guided imagery yeah guide did an imagery
(51:47):
yeah home is where you make it you know that's a lot of so in that if I can just give a blurb
on what this YouTube conference is shut the fuck up came up in a bubble dog so what this
(52:21):
guided imagery it's really fucking cool because he talks about your inner self you picture
your your childhood and you pick the most traumatic list is this is emotional damage
emotional damage sorry I'm sorry ready you're good suck it in there cuz all right so nope
(52:43):
she lied okay I'm done I promise I'm good we're going so you think back to the age
at what you felt most trauma and you look at her and you walk through your environment
you walk through the house you walk through the street you look at your old like friends
(53:06):
that you had and you're like literally getting back into that child things you did at that
age mine was six years old and he has you go through and you're talking to yourself
you're you're now your adult self sitting next to that girl and you start talking to
(53:27):
her or him whatever it may maybe and you listen to what she has to say and then you talk back
and go okay this is who we are now all the things that you're afraid of all the things
that you're worried about all the things you've been through all the things you've heard all
the all the physical abuse the mental abuse all of it I got you now I'm here so it carries
(53:50):
on over into when you're out of it out of that guided image I cried the first time that
he walks through it's like a 30 minute thing and after you're out of it you realize how
much that actually helps and that's why I still do it to this day that's exactly why
when I have these outbursts of feeling I'm abandoned I'm unlovable that is the moment
(54:11):
that I know okay that is the spot that I need to address in my younger self that I need
to talk to so I go and I talk to that little girl because my adult self tells me otherwise
and that's why I go I don't understand why I fucking do this and I said this to you guys
my conscious brain tells me that I shouldn't but I'm just gonna do it anyway you know what
(54:32):
I mean that's the moment when you fucking talk to your little child and go you are not
that person anymore.
What if I caught an intrusive thought?
No for real.
Spank yourself up and say what the fuck are you doing?
No like legit legit that's exactly where it fucking comes from so addressing those feelings
of going I don't know why I'm doing this that's your inner child.
(54:54):
Yeah absolutely.
I just gotta remember you're not alone throughout this whole journey.
Nope.
You always have yourself and you're worthy of love you know what I mean and that's a
big thing I think a lot of people struggle with and you really do have us if you need
to reach out because we're we're good at talking.
Clearly.
Clearly.
We could got a gift to fucking gab as far as I'm concerned.
(55:16):
But anyways I do believe that that is a wrap on Dear Interme sorry for the trauma.
I hope this episode inspired you to start making peace with yourself and we do like
I said before want you to be a part of our conversation so if you need to talk you want
to vent to do any of that type of stuff you got a story question our situation that you
would just love to talk about please send it our way.
(55:39):
With that being said you can reach out to us on any of our social media platforms around
Facebook Instagram TikTok and so forth or you can just go ahead and send us an email
on hingememores at gmail.com and send it to us that way and don't forget to like this
episode leave a review give us a follow and don't forget to share this episode with someone
that could probably absolutely hear it right now.
(56:01):
We are here.
We're here if you need us.
Absolutely.
Well that is a wrap we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
We love you.
Yes.
We love you.
We're here with you and don't forget your herd you're validated absolutely you're worthy
of love.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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