May 27, 2020 • 48 mins
After her father unjustifiably called CPS on her... THREE TIMES, Briar shares with us how to cope as well as thrive after estrangement. Briar also shares her view on forgiveness and how it had led to a thriving life helping others cope with similar trauma and loss.
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http://www.briarharvey.com
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
The following is a Kingfisher Media podcast.
You are listening to When theBell Breaks with your host,
Alexis Aralim.
The following content may bedisturbing for some listeners.
Discretion is advised.
SPEAKER_02 (00:21):
So tell me a little bit about you and how you
decided to be on this show.
SPEAKER_01 (00:30):
Oh goodness, where to start?
Uh, okay.
We'll probably have to start atabout 10, my parents divorced.
I had a three-year-old brotherat the time.
My I think up until then, mychildhood was relatively normal.
(00:55):
Um, and then my mom kind of wentnuts and figured out that she
could, she decided she didn'twant to be a mom anymore,
basically, and went off and dida bunch of drugs.
So I was 10, my brother wasthree.
We ended up living with my dadfull-time, which was not that
(01:18):
great either, although at leastfunctional and stable through my
early teenage years.
And then let's see, my mom diedwhen I was twenty one.
(01:38):
I had just given birth to myfirst child.
Our very last conversationinvolved her asking me for money
to bail her boyfriend out ofjail.
I said no.
She called me a cunt, and thenshe died two weeks later.
(02:03):
My dad uh was up and down withhim as a teenager when my
daughter was six.
My daughter is autistic, and atsix years old, she was still not
potty trained, and she wasnonverbal.
And we were sort of working withearly intervention at the time,
(02:24):
but we were we were living inPhoenix, and public school at
that point for her involvedputting her in a classroom with
about 40 other students, half ofwhom did not speak English.
unknown (02:40):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
And she was nonverbal.
So we were we were obviously wewere struggling with this a lot.
My father was in a differentstate, not around.
So my younger brother gotmarried, and we went out.
My daughter and I went out, andwhen we got back, he promptly,
rather than ever having aconversation with me, or you
(03:01):
know, doing normal parent typethings, right, called CPS on me
and reported me for endangeringmy child.
Not once, not twice, threetimes.
At which point I cut him off.
(03:24):
Right.
And that meant, you know, I cuthim off.
That m also meant cutting mystepmother off, which was no
loss there, but it also meantlosing my brothers, which was a
loss.
Right.
You know, I would I'd send themFacebook messages for their
birthdays for several years, andthen I realized one day that
(03:45):
that was the only contact I hadwith them, that they never
reached out and talked to me.
Right.
And all I ever wanted, you know,was an apology.
This was I wanted my father toadmit that he had behaved badly,
that he had misjudged me, andthat I was doing the best that I
(04:09):
because he had decided that Iwas on drugs.
And that was that was the natureof his report.
Not not that there might besomething wrong with my child
that I was working on.
He had decided that I was ondrugs, and so I was endangering
my child, and that was it.
There was no conversationwhatsoever.
(04:30):
Right.
And I just I just wanted him toacknowledge that he'd fucked up.
Can I cuss?
Yes, yes.
Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_02 (04:41):
I allowed myself to start cussing in therapy because
I was like, I need to be able tolike really say what I feel.
And so I started out, so I waslike, when I started the show, I
was like, I I don't think we cantalk about any of this stuff and
not be, you know, not ever havea curse word slip out.
So I was like, I'm just gonnamake the whole show explicit and
let everyone know and just giveeveryone the freedom to say what
(05:03):
they feel they need to say.
So yeah, you can you can talkfreely.
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
Sometimes they're the only words that work.
So that was, yeah.
So that was the loss of mybrothers, that was the loss of
my father.
I have since lost the rest of myfather's family.
I lost most of my mom's familywhen she died simply because she
(05:29):
was the one that anchored me toher family.
So I have a I have a maternalaunt that I speak to about once
or twice a year, and that's it.
That's the sum total of myrelationship with my family.
(05:50):
And I miss them often, but Idon't miss the drama, and I
certainly don't miss the toxicbehavior, and I don't miss the
gaslighting and the rewriting ofmy history.
Right.
Which happened so relentlessly.
(06:15):
I remember when my husband and Ifirst met, I explained to him,
you know, as we started dating,the nature of my family.
And it's not that he didn'tbelieve me, but he just had no
experience with what these kindof behavior patterns look like.
(06:40):
Right.
It took, it took actually, sowhat it really took was my mom
grabbing his ass and my dadthreatening to beat him up, and
those were two separateconversations for him to go, oh
wow, yes, your family is fuckedup.
SPEAKER_02 (07:03):
Right.
Yeah, and it took my spouse awhile to really like understand.
Like when he first started, hestarted noticing things even
before, like, like this was allmy normal, right?
So he comes into the picture andhe's like, Do they always treat
you like that?
Like, what do you mean?
Yes, and he's like, Do theyalways talk to you like that?
I was like, Well, it's justthat's just how they are.
(07:25):
He's like, That's not right.
Like, he's like, we didn't treateach other, he's like, My family
had problems, we didn't treateach other that way, and so it's
like, yeah, I get that.
SPEAKER_01 (07:35):
You know, and you recognize, I think, even as
small children, we recognizefundamentally that there's a lot
of behavior that's not quiteright, but because it's totally
normalized and tolerated, yeah.
Exactly.
That we we internalize it inways that I mean continue to
manifest well into adulthood.
(07:56):
I'm almost 40, and there arestill things like I at about 20
or so, I realized that Iapologize to everyone all of the
time for everything, and so Istopped.
And in sto I mean, and then Iwent the other way.
I I now have a very difficulttime apologizing, even when I
(08:18):
have done something wrong, and Iknow that I need to apologize
because it feels so conditionedthat I need to apologize for
something, not because I'mwrong, but because I exist.
SPEAKER_02 (08:34):
Is it because you want to make sure that like
you're you you are umcommunicating that for the right
reasons?
Like, is it because you don'twant to you don't want to feel
like you're apologizing becauseyou're conditioned to apologize?
You want to make sure that it'slike sincere and genuine for
you?
Is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Yeah, that's what it's become for me.
And so those apologies havebecome very difficult.
Very difficult.
I've overcre corrected to notapologizing at all, which I'm
trying to get better about.
SPEAKER_02 (09:06):
I was gonna say, what's the contrast?
Like, what are the pros to that?
Because it sounds like, yeah,because I whenever I made
changes, like sometimes I'd belike, I'd make a change and be
like, oh, this is working reallygood, but then I'd like go to
the extreme, be like, okay,we'll like fall back a little
bit, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (09:24):
Well, that's fine, but then I'm not going to
apologize to you.
And sometimes that reallydoesn't feel that great.
SPEAKER_02 (09:33):
So when so when do you now feel like it's
appropriate for you to apologizein situations?
Because that's like because Iwas always I was raised the same
way.
How do you feel about you knowapologizing for things now?
I know you said it's difficult,but you know, when you do
apologize, where's kind of likeyour line for that?
SPEAKER_01 (09:56):
I so this sounds counterintuitive, but now I
apologize for me.
I apologize because I feel likeI need to apologize.
Not that I need a po that Idon't need an apology accepted
(10:21):
anymore.
That's where the transactionaldifference is for me.
It's no longer about having anapology accepted because for so
long I would apologize andexpect to be, you know,
forgiven.
It's conditional forgiveness,right?
You know, it's not real canforgiveness, but it that's what
you were supposed to bereceiving.
(10:43):
So now when I apologize, I'm notlooking for forgiveness.
I'm looking to apologize becauseit makes me feel better.
SPEAKER_02 (10:50):
Yeah.
So what was it like for yougrowing up?
Like because you had those viewsof or you know, the conditional
forgiveness kind of thing, whatwas it like for you with your
relationships with your familywhen someone would wrong each
(11:13):
other?
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
Man, that's a tough question.
I was definitely the black sheepof the family.
So and I'm not sure I canreadily identify which of my
brothers was the golden child,just that I was not, right?
(11:37):
And so there were a lot ofthings that were very stacked
and weighted against me.
I honestly have to believe thatsome of it was due to the fact
that I was not a boy.
And because I was treated muchdifferently as a small child
(12:00):
before my brother was born.
I think that I was the goldenchild for a while, and then my
brother was born, and then I wasnot.
SPEAKER_02 (12:10):
That happens sometimes.
They switch roles.
Yeah, sometimes like um I hearyou using like a lot of terms we
hear like in the narcissisticpersonality kind of thing.
I don't want to ask like ifthey're if that's what they have
or anything like that, but likeit you're using a lot of those
terms, and so I'm thinkingthat's kind of maybe what it is,
(12:31):
but yeah, the black sheep, I Iget I get that whole thing.
Like some parents they'll pickone kid that's like doesn't
belong or whatever, and thenthere's one kid that kind of
like outshines everyone else andcan kind of do no wrong, but I
feel like also there's thosenarcissistic parents or have
narcissistic narcissistictendencies, maybe not the
(12:53):
personality, but they kind ofpick and choose whatever's
convenient for them at the time,like if this child is showing
them more attention or moregratitude, you know, more uh
causing better attention forthem or something like that,
they might be favored more.
And then when the other kid doessomething good, then they're
going to be showered and withattention and stuff like that.
(13:13):
So it kind of can switch rolesand leaving everyone confused
sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (13:18):
Oh, definitely, definitely.
And you know, I think it'simportant to know.
So my mother was diagnosedbipolar.
My father has not been diagnosedanything, but he is most
certainly a narcissist.
SPEAKER_02 (13:33):
And I but I feel like it's important to note that
while I use the language, Iyeah, it's hard because I'll I
can I can maybe explain aboutit's hard getting people in the
door to get help for this and toeven get a diagnosis for for
these issues.
And so, and and it's not likewe're trying to label
(13:54):
narcissists as any kind of youknow bad person per se, but it's
like they do have um certaintendencies that cause a lot of
um friction and a lot of umchaos and confusion um in their
relationships.
And so it's hard to talk aboutit without being so negative
because it's not a whole there'snot a whole lot of positive
(14:17):
aside from you know the actualperson, what's really in there,
besides aside from what theyactually like do to you that
hurts you.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
Yes, you've nailed it.
It's it's it's really, you know,and narcissism aside, my dad was
also a functional, probablystill is a functional alcoholic.
He was two, three a day plus abottle of wine with my stepmom.
So, you know, there was alwaysthese degrees of what was
tolerated versus not tolerated,and you just you learn so many
(14:51):
different coping techniques toprotect yourself as a child that
then do not serve you as anadult.
SPEAKER_02 (15:02):
You go out into the world and you try and do these
things, and you end upjeopardizing relationships
because you're using your copingskills that you actually
developed out of necessity as achild that aren't exactly
healthy, but that were servingyou for the time.
(15:22):
Yeah, no, I get that.
I still have some of thosethings that that, yeah, like my
sleep habits.
Like, I didn't sleep through thenight when I was a kid ever.
Like I had nightmares like everysingle night, and I had a hard
time going to sleep because Iknew once I was asleep I'd have
nightmares, but I still knew Ineeded to sleep.
So I used to like figure out howto sleep.
I used to do these things in myhead at night, but then they
(15:43):
were like making me nuts atnight, and then it became where
it wasn't wasn't enough, so Ihad to obsess about something
else to think about was when Iwas going to sleep, so it became
like frustrating mentally, youknow, and it wasn't working.
It was like as an adult, just Iwas like, I need to clear my
brain, not put more stuff in it.
So I had to switch what I wasdoing to calm myself because
(16:05):
yeah, it doesn't work whenyou're an adult, that stuff
doesn't always serve youforever.
SPEAKER_01 (16:11):
No, but because you're not taught healthy
techniques as a child, you don'tknow any better.
And because you don't know anybetter, you build these layers
of things that become verydifficult to dismantle in
reverse, right?
SPEAKER_02 (16:25):
And sometimes they're intertwined also.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
All of these habits and behaviors that we do to
protect ourselves that becomevery, very detrimental, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
So regarding your estrangement, you know, from
your dad, and you said that, youknow, kind of after that
everything kind of there waslike a domino effect of like
losing your relationships withother family members.
Did you go through like any kindof grief during that, or was it
(16:59):
just kind of like you just wereable to kind of acknowledge it
and you know, like what wereyour feelings during that time?
SPEAKER_01 (17:07):
Oh well, I still grieve.
So uh let's see, it's beenalmost five years now.
Uh, in 2014, my youngest brotherwas getting married.
I had actually planned on goingto his wedding.
I was all set to go and buy aticket when I found out I was
(17:31):
pregnant.
And my due date was exactly aweek after his wedding, and no
airline in their right mindwould let me get on a plane.
So I put off canceling andletting him know and put it off
and put it off and put it off.
And then when I was 36 weekspregnant, I suffered a complete
(17:57):
placental abruption.
I very nearly died.
The baby did die.
Yes.
And so at the time, the onlyperson I really was still on
speaking terms with was mymaternal aunt.
And I called her and I told herwhat happened.
(18:19):
And she was going to mybrother's wedding.
And she called me when she gotback, and she told me what had
happened at the wedding, andapparently she was defending me
to my father and stepmother.
And so they knew we were we werecompletely no contact at this
(18:45):
point in time.
So but they knew, heard,understood that I had had a
child die and still didn't reachout.
And that was another kind ofloss, right?
Because my god, this is myfather.
Shouldn't if anybody should beable to empathize with me on
(19:10):
some level, it should be myfucking dad.
But no, never heard, never hearda word.
Never heard a word.
SPEAKER_02 (19:22):
So I mean, grief is something that's hard to
explain.
Like, what did that look likefor you?
Like you just lost your childand your dad didn't reach out,
and all this stuff is going on.
Like, how did you get throughthat time?
SPEAKER_01 (19:37):
So for me, systems became very, very important.
I had two other kids that I wasactively homeschooling.
I had a business that that thatpart imploded, but that's a
different story for a differentday.
(19:57):
Oh, gotcha.
But I I I had to I had torebuild my life piece by piece
and because of the abruption Iuh I lost a lot of blood and I
was anemic for months afterward.
So I was tired all of the time.
(20:17):
And I would I would get up and Iwould make my bed and then I
would collapse right back on it.
But there but there was also themaking of the bed.
There had to be the making ofthe bed because it was the it
was the thing in an extreme losswhen you've lost a spouse or a
child the the the littledecisions, what to eat, where to
(20:43):
go, what to do, those thingsjust become insurmountable.
And so it's having littleroutines make it that much
easier to not have to make adecision.
SPEAKER_02 (20:58):
Right, right.
Like making your bed, like yousaid, like yeah, everybody says,
Oh, yeah, make your bed in themorning, but it's like so often
we get busy and we just don't doit, or if we're going through a
tough time, we're not thinkingabout that, or we really haven't
had time to, you know, really doanything.
But then we get out of bed, andif we don't make the stink in
bed, we're just gonna get backin it.
Right, right.
(21:19):
So it's like, and then when youstart making the bed, it's like
put the pillows on.
Okay, well, then you're up andyou're doing stuff, and then it
yeah, it creates like anotherdomino effect of everything else
you kind of need to do.
It's like getting up and thenjust getting started sometimes,
like you said, it's just likethe hardest thing.
SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
I find for people who manage grief that it is in
many ways, even if there's notclinical diagnosed depression,
it's obviously it functions inmuch the same way.
Yeah, right.
For me, I am diagnosed bipolaras well as with generalized
(21:59):
anxiety disorder, and now I havepost-traumatic stress disorders.
So I have this laundry list ofoh yes, it's so fun and
exciting.
And the thing that gets methrough it, besides drugs,
obviously the drugs help, isbeing able to predict what's
(22:20):
going to happen next.
Because as unpredictable as lifeis and has been for my entire
life, these are self-defensemechanisms.
SPEAKER_02 (22:31):
Right.
You're trying to the anxiety isum is the fear of the unknown or
the fear of the future, and sobecause you're always trying to
prepare for it, like somethingI've been through a lot of
shitty things, like somethingreally shitty could happen in
this situation, like, and thenyou really start getting
anxious, excuse me, you reallystart getting anxious, and then
(22:51):
you know, like you said, likeyou get that flight or fight,
like you're not sure, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:57):
People who have experienced uh tragedy or loss
uh and and manage to thrive fromit, and the people who don't is
what happened is that people whothrive tend to not
catastrophize.
(23:19):
And that's for people like us,that that's instinct, right?
I catastrophize because that wasprotection, right?
So you have to really unlearnspecifically those behaviors to
(23:39):
to be able to relearn andrediscover the joy in your life,
and that for for me definitely,I would not have been able to
done have done that if my thethe blessing in disguise is that
he didn't contact me because Iwouldn't have been able to do it
with my father in my life.
(23:59):
Right if if he had somehowcontacted me, I probably would
have forgiven him, and then Iwould have invited that toxicity
back into my life, right,through trauma bonding, right?
Right, and there's no whether wemiss them or not, there's for
(24:22):
some relationships, there's nothere's no recovery, there is
nothing to be redeemed therewhether I miss my father or not,
there is no part of thatrelationship that I am ever
going to be able to welcome backinto my life in a way that will
make me feel safe.
Right.
(24:42):
So that's it.
And I but I had to learn that Ihad to I had to go through my
own trauma to really realizethat I'm not forgiving him or me
for him.
(25:03):
I'm I'm forgiving I'm I'm doingit for me.
I have to move on past theboundaries of our relationship.
And I have to in order to dothat, forgiveness is involved,
right?
Right.
This is something we talk abouta lot in therapy.
(25:24):
You have to forgive to move on,but I'm not doing it for him.
Right.
I'm doing it for me.
SPEAKER_02 (25:30):
Even if you do forgive him, it doesn't change
anything for him.
SPEAKER_01 (25:33):
No, it does not.
SPEAKER_02 (25:34):
Yeah.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (25:36):
I and the often in these kinds of familial
situations, you have to ask,does this person actually
deserve to be forgiven?
Have they earned forgiveness?
Because forgiveness, I havelearned, is a gift.
It's something that I that comesfrom within that I give to
(26:00):
myself.
If my relationship with him doesnot benefit from that, then it's
not ever gonna be about him orfor him.
It's always going to be for meand my healing.
SPEAKER_02 (26:18):
Right.
You're not responsible for hishealing.
No, yeah, you're responsible foryours.
SPEAKER_01 (26:25):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (26:26):
Yeah.
No, I think that's a greatapproach to it because so many
times we're expected to bepeople pleasers, and you know, I
think that the world is comingto find out that you have to
kind of make your own happiness.
You have to kind of create thatfor yourself, you have to create
environments where you're aroundpeople who care about you and
(26:46):
who are for you.
You can't ex you can't changepeople, and you can't uh deny
who you are in order to pleaseothers, and forgiveness isn't
something that that is somethingtangible that we can hand
someone, it's just releasingthat debt, it just frees you,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Exactly, exactly.
If I hadn't been able to forgiveand move on, I certainly haven't
forgotten, and that because Ican't, right?
SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
You some some behaviors are not forgettable,
and some keep continuing, whichmakes it more difficult for us
to keep providing forgiveness.
And that, you know, it's notlike um, you know, I at first
when I was first estranged, youknow, people kept saying, Well,
why did you stop talking thatwhat happened?
And I was like, Well, it wasn'treally one thing that just
(27:39):
happened.
Yeah, there was one thing thatkind of initially uh, you know,
gave me the uh idea that yeah,it's time to cut it off, but it
was a whole lifetime of things.
SPEAKER_01 (27:50):
And I couldn't just break camel's back is not ever
actually the right, right.
SPEAKER_02 (27:59):
It was it was like after I'd you know spent time
trying to fix things, and youknow, yeah, it was the last
straw.
I was like, okay, I can onlyhandle it up to this point, and
then finally it got up to thatpoint, but I wasn't able to
forgive them until after I cutit off from them.
I wasn't able to forgive them ifI was if I was still in that
relationship in that situationbecause they were still gonna
(28:20):
keep doing it, they were justgonna keep piling up their debt
against me, really.
And so once I cut it off, Icould forgive, and then there's
no more new debt building pilingup, so I can deal with my own
stuff.
Is that yeah, that makes sense?
Like, yeah, that's I don't know,that's kind of how I felt about
it.
When did you start feelingbetter, you know, after that?
SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
It's always a process.
I mean, I still every year whenmy brother's birthdays roll by,
I think of them and miss them alittle bit.
I grief itself is a process.
I have lots of little ritualsfor the things that I did for,
(29:03):
you know, I plant my mom died onEarth Day, so I always plant
flowers or seeds on Earth Day.
And I always do something for myson's birthday.
But there's no there's a there'sno real like anniversary in
which to commemorate this kindof loss, and in a way that
(29:28):
presents a difficulty because Iat least have some I d man, I
hadn't even thought about this.
I mean maybe if I could do it ona birthday or say, no, this is
this is this is good.
Like I should find someday whereI can go, hmm, hi dad, fuck you.
(29:52):
I is that horrible.
SPEAKER_02 (29:55):
Well, it isn't it isn't because no, I gotta tell
you, like, I tried so hard notto talk about myself on my own
show, but like, no, thathappened to me.
Like, um, you know, a lot of mynightmares I mentioned, I had
them all my life, and you know,my mom she said it was because I
had a demon inside of me.
And I was like seven years old.
(30:15):
I'm like seven years old, so nowI'm really freaking out, okay?
Like, oh my god, like now Igotta worry about this.
So I'm like seven, I'm likeshitting my pants practically
because of what my mother said.
But I had these these uhnightmares all through my life,
like even as an adult, they gotworse.
Like when I got married, myhusband would leave for work
like kind of early and I'd stillbe asleep, and immediately when
(30:37):
he would leave, I would starthaving nightmares again.
So I was having like separationanxiety like as an adult because
of this stupid nightmares, andit wasn't until like it wasn't
until one day I told my sister,I was like, Okay, I can't talk
to you anymore.
Because I was like, because youkeep treating me the way that I
don't like to be treated, and Ican't do this anymore.
(30:57):
And then my nightmares, theystopped, and it took me several
weeks to kind of figure out likewhy they stopped.
And I was like, and I have nothad nightmares like that since,
and it's been it's been likefour years of a nightmare free.
Like, I don't know, like whatkind of freaking miracle is
that?
I mean, you say no and stuffhappens subconsciously, like it
(31:18):
happens, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:20):
Yeah, that's yeah.
I'm I'm gonna actually have toput some thought into that
because I do I'm never going tohave a relationship.
I I say never.
The odds of me having arelationship with my father are
virtually nil.
(31:41):
That said, I would still liketo, I don't know, mourn that
loss.
Right.
So I think there is something inthat for me.
I do because my relationshipwith my mom was obviously very
toxic in and of itself, but Istill have the ability to kind
(32:04):
of memorialize that every yearfor her.
And there it would feel good tome to have some kind of way to
memorialize what were the goodparts of my relationship with my
father, because there were afew.
A few.
Sure, sure.
Right.
(32:24):
What were some of those things?
Oh, my favorite.
When my dad was in the early80s, my dad lost his job.
He was a landman, and he had togo and get a job to pay the
bills, delivering milk.
So his hours changed completely.
(32:47):
And for the first time in mylife, he was home when I got
home from school.
And this was before my brotherwas born, and he would fix me a
bowl of at that time my favoritesnack was sliced strawberries
with some milk on it.
And we would sit on the frontporch and we would talk about
(33:11):
school that day.
And it was lovely.
SPEAKER_02 (33:16):
So when you think about those things, I know that
you said there's a little bit ofgood there, but there must be
some sadness too.
SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (33:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like sometimes I have nohappy memories really, because I
feel like they're alwaysattached to something really bad
that happened.
Do you feel like that sometimes?
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Oh yeah, because I can tell you the how the rest of
that story goes is that after hefound, so he he hated being a
milkman, so he went and got ajob as a li as an in oil and gas
in North Dakota, where he thenproceeded to have an affair,
(34:00):
which is the antecedent to myparents' divorce.
Right.
I mean, there were still hetaught me how to drive.
Aside from the yelling, I dohave slightly fond memories of
that one.
SPEAKER_02 (34:16):
Right, right.
Aside from the yelling, yeah, Ican say that too.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
And now I have a teenage daughter.
So as the parent of a teenager,I can the yelling is totally
excusable.
And in fact, there are so manythings in my life that, you
know, I'll look back on and go,yeah, I really was a terrible
teenager.
I would have, if if, if I had agood relationship with him, I
(34:40):
would totally call and apologizefor being a bitch when I was a
teenager.
SPEAKER_02 (34:47):
Right, right.
So, how did you get to like fromthere to like what you're doing
now?
Like, what are you doing now?
Like, since your estrangementand everything, how are things
different for you now?
SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
Well, so it's been let's see.
My daughter will be 18 thisyear.
My brother's wedding was 12years ago, so it's been 12
years.
Uh I since we've been completelyand totally non-contact.
(35:21):
I would have dealt with him formy younger brother's wedding had
I been able to go to that, butthat would have been the only
breach I have not seen or heardfrom him otherwise.
So, you know, now I do I dosystems work, and that was
(35:42):
mostly for me born out of thedeath of my son.
Prior to that, I was working asa relationship coach.
And it was difficult to workwith people on their postpartum
relationships because that'smostly what I was doing when I
didn't have a baby of my own.
Yeah, that was it must have beenrough.
(36:04):
So I kind of didn't work for acouple years.
My husband supported us, andthen I got slowly back into
writing, and I did someghostwriting and copywriting,
and now I'm doing course designand systems work.
And you know, I am surprisinglynot a prostitute.
(36:30):
I am amazingly still married tomy husband of almost 20 years
now.
We'll be so we'll be renewingour vows next year.
I'm not inviting anyone in myfamily.
I might invite my aunt, butthere's no one else I really
wish to invite because theyhaven't been a part of my life
(36:53):
for the last 20 years.
Right.
The first time we eloped becauseI didn't want to deal with the
drama of having to of my familyat my wedding.
And now I don't have to worryabout that.
So I'm planning, we're planninga big elaborate renewal in my
mother-in-law's yard.
(37:14):
She is making me this beautifulbespoke gown.
I'm just wow.
My life is good without myfamily because I've been able to
build my own.
It took some time, it took a lotof work, uh, a lot of therapy, a
lot of just self-work to be ableto get to this place where I
(37:39):
don't need my family in my lifebecause I have this beautiful,
vibrant family that I've built.
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:49):
If you are experiencing estrangement from a
family member and would like tobe a guest, please email us at
wtvb podcast at gmail.com.
Your privacy is important to us.
Guests have the option to remainanonymous.
SPEAKER_02 (38:11):
So can you tell me a little bit about like your life
coaching stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
So basically, I work uh I work primarily with uh
women mostly who are doing allthe things and struggling to
implement systems.
About half of my clients owntheir own business, half are
(38:39):
working in some other way, andthey just have a million things
that they're doing all of thetime: balls in the air, plates
to manage, however, whateveranalogy you would like to throw
in there.
They're doing it all and theydon't have time and they feel
insane.
And I just go in and weprioritize and we take a look at
(39:05):
what their values are, and thenwe build the life they want from
that.
For women in particular, theability to say no, and man, so
many of us have trauma, right?
There's just so much traumalegacy right now.
(39:27):
I find in my work that all of myclients deal with some
significant disadvantage in someway.
It's either mental health ortrauma, or it's, you know,
(39:47):
racism or sexism or other ismsthat they're dealing with on a
daily basis, oppression thatjust weights their soul.
We so many of us are feeling.
This burden right now, and it isself-care then becomes a form of
(40:09):
resistance, right?
You have to be able to take careof yourself and your life and
your surroundings to be able tothrive.
It's not a choice anymore to beable to construct your life in a
way that's beautiful and healthyfor you.
And I feel like societally,socially, governmentally, we're
(40:35):
not doing the work necessary tomake those things happen.
And so we have to individuallywork around the system.
I feel like that's the best wayfor us to so we build and create
these structures for ourselvesin our lives that allow us to
(40:58):
thrive despite the dailyonslaught that we're still
dealing with.
It never goes away for so manyof us.
It never really goes away.
I lost my son, I've lost myfamily.
Those losses have will never goaway, but I still have to
construct my life in a way thatallows me to thrive.
SPEAKER_02 (41:21):
It sounds like you just that's what you do for
these people.
Like it sounds like you're justgiving them something that
you've learned yourself.
How does that make you feel?
SPEAKER_01 (41:35):
I really love the work that I do.
I I've you know, for a lot ofyears before my son died, I
would I had a lot of littlethings that I like to do that I
siloed off into little differentpieces of me.
And I've stopped doing that.
So I have I have this podcastthat I love.
(42:00):
We talk about kids' movies.
It's called Latch Key Movies.
It's adorable, it's absolutelyand totally unrelated to any of
my work.
That's fine.
I run a local women's circlewhere we get together.
There's not that many of us yet,but we're building.
And as we build, we're growingand supporting each other and
(42:23):
creating community becausethat's what I wanted.
And I couldn't find it in quitethe way that I wanted it, so I
built it.
And that's kind of what Icontinue to go out and do.
I'm seeing that there are all ofthese things that I want in my
life and they don't exist, so Ijust built them.
SPEAKER_02 (42:45):
I'm glad that you talk about building community
because that was something thatI was really trying to kind of
bring to the surface here onthis show.
Because when you estrangeyourself from someone or when
someone cuts you off, you don'tjust lose that relationship.
You lose like your wholecommunity.
Like when I was little, like Iwas basically scapegoated when I
(43:05):
was a child, and I lost mycommunity then.
I lost everybody who cared aboutme.
Nobody cared about me at all.
I had, and I mean, I had to moveout of the house, you know, and
find care for myself and how tofigure out how to do that, like
as a young teen.
And uh that was reallychallenging for me.
And so I really love hearingstories from people like you who
(43:27):
are out there buildingcommunities where there are
needs for that kind of communitybecause there's different kinds
of communities, right?
There's communities for womenand men, and co-ed and estranged
and mothers, fathers, you know,siblings.
I mean, there's all kinds ofcommunities.
And I think that each of us hasa responsibility to the
communities that you know thatwe need and build this.
(43:47):
Is what I was trying to do withthe podcast, just trying to
build a community of people tofigure out how we can support
each other.
So it's great that you bringthat up.
I really love that.
SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
Community is what keeps us going.
I mean, in the aftermath of thedeath of my son, that was what
held me together.
My mother-in-law's church sortof adopted us, and they brought
us meals and they supported us,and they carried us, and then I
(44:22):
had online internet friends whoraised money for us and just,
you know, community we can'tlive without it, and we can't
always communicate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We can't count on the ones we'reborn with, though, necessarily.
(44:44):
I I do envy the people who can.
I sometimes I look at myhusband's family, which is
honestly quite dysfunctional inits own ways, and it's still so
much more vibrant than what Ihad to deal with.
There were the difference inhealth of relationships is just
(45:10):
phenomenal to me how I meanagain, not fully functional
because I think most familiesprobably really aren't.
I think every family has theirdysfunction, but I think that
there are degrees.
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (45:28):
And sometimes there's people willing to do the
work to uh fix those problems inthe relationship, but then
sometimes, like in your case andlike in my case, there's they're
not.
You know, so then we have tobuild our own communities and
move on.
Before we end this segment, doyou have anything else that you
want to talk about or say to ourlisteners?
SPEAKER_01 (45:51):
I think that we've talked a lot about forgiveness,
and I think that I have yet totalk about how I uh include that
as a daily practice, which issomething that's really
important to me.
Yes, daily thing.
I for me, that's a matter ofjournaling.
I use OneNote currently, butreally, whatever system you use,
(46:14):
whether it's actual ink andpaper, morning pages work really
well for this as well.
Whatever you do, forgiveness issomething that you have to
really incorporate into yourlife on a daily basis.
You're because it's that gift,right, that you're giving
yourself, and because it's foryou, you have to be reminded of
(46:34):
it.
It's right, it's it's kind oflike gratitude.
You you think you're aware ofit, you think you recognize it
in your life, but it's not untilyou go and list those three or
five things every day that allowyou to recognize oh, there is
great abundance in my life.
(46:57):
There are things to be gratefulfor, much like gratitude.
Forgiveness works really thesame way as a daily practice.
I have to acknowledge everysingle day that I am worth
forgiving, that I am worthbeautiful things, and that my
(47:17):
life has meaning and value andpurpose, and that it is okay for
me to go out and share that giftwith people.
And those are hard words to say.
SPEAKER_02 (47:32):
Yeah.
Well, Briar, I have to say, thishas been a really great show.
Thank you.
It's been it really has such apleasure to talk with you, Lexi.
We'll have to do this again somepast.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (47:49):
Links in this week's show notes.
Please remember to like, follow,and share.
Thoughts expressed by our guestsdo not necessarily reflect the
views of WTBB or its affiliates.
The views expressed on this showare opinion and experience based
and are not intended as asubstitute for therapy.
Content should not be taken asmedical advice and is here for
informational purposes only.
Please consult your health careprofessional for any medical or
(48:12):
mental health related questions.
Thank you for listening to Whenthe Bell Breaks.
The following is a Kingfisher Media podcast.
You are listening to When theBell Breaks with your host,
Alexis Aralim.
The following content may bedisturbing for some listeners.
Discretion is advised.
SPEAKER_02 (00:21):
So tell me a little bit about you and how you
decided to be on this show.
SPEAKER_01 (00:30):
Oh goodness, where to start?
Uh, okay.
We'll probably have to start atabout 10, my parents divorced.
I had a three-year-old brotherat the time.
My I think up until then, mychildhood was relatively normal.
(00:55):
Um, and then my mom kind of wentnuts and figured out that she
could, she decided she didn'twant to be a mom anymore,
basically, and went off and dida bunch of drugs.
So I was 10, my brother wasthree.
We ended up living with my dadfull-time, which was not that
(01:18):
great either, although at leastfunctional and stable through my
early teenage years.
And then let's see, my mom diedwhen I was twenty one.
(01:38):
I had just given birth to myfirst child.
Our very last conversationinvolved her asking me for money
to bail her boyfriend out ofjail.
I said no.
She called me a cunt, and thenshe died two weeks later.
(02:03):
My dad uh was up and down withhim as a teenager when my
daughter was six.
My daughter is autistic, and atsix years old, she was still not
potty trained, and she wasnonverbal.
And we were sort of working withearly intervention at the time,
(02:24):
but we were we were living inPhoenix, and public school at
that point for her involvedputting her in a classroom with
about 40 other students, half ofwhom did not speak English.
unknown (02:40):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
And she was nonverbal.
So we were we were obviously wewere struggling with this a lot.
My father was in a differentstate, not around.
So my younger brother gotmarried, and we went out.
My daughter and I went out, andwhen we got back, he promptly,
rather than ever having aconversation with me, or you
(03:01):
know, doing normal parent typethings, right, called CPS on me
and reported me for endangeringmy child.
Not once, not twice, threetimes.
At which point I cut him off.
(03:24):
Right.
And that meant, you know, I cuthim off.
That m also meant cutting mystepmother off, which was no
loss there, but it also meantlosing my brothers, which was a
loss.
Right.
You know, I would I'd send themFacebook messages for their
birthdays for several years, andthen I realized one day that
(03:45):
that was the only contact I hadwith them, that they never
reached out and talked to me.
Right.
And all I ever wanted, you know,was an apology.
This was I wanted my father toadmit that he had behaved badly,
that he had misjudged me, andthat I was doing the best that I
(04:09):
because he had decided that Iwas on drugs.
And that was that was the natureof his report.
Not not that there might besomething wrong with my child
that I was working on.
He had decided that I was ondrugs, and so I was endangering
my child, and that was it.
There was no conversationwhatsoever.
(04:30):
Right.
And I just I just wanted him toacknowledge that he'd fucked up.
Can I cuss?
Yes, yes.
Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_02 (04:41):
I allowed myself to start cussing in therapy because
I was like, I need to be able tolike really say what I feel.
And so I started out, so I waslike, when I started the show, I
was like, I I don't think we cantalk about any of this stuff and
not be, you know, not ever havea curse word slip out.
So I was like, I'm just gonnamake the whole show explicit and
let everyone know and just giveeveryone the freedom to say what
(05:03):
they feel they need to say.
So yeah, you can you can talkfreely.
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
Sometimes they're the only words that work.
So that was, yeah.
So that was the loss of mybrothers, that was the loss of
my father.
I have since lost the rest of myfather's family.
I lost most of my mom's familywhen she died simply because she
(05:29):
was the one that anchored me toher family.
So I have a I have a maternalaunt that I speak to about once
or twice a year, and that's it.
That's the sum total of myrelationship with my family.
(05:50):
And I miss them often, but Idon't miss the drama, and I
certainly don't miss the toxicbehavior, and I don't miss the
gaslighting and the rewriting ofmy history.
Right.
Which happened so relentlessly.
(06:15):
I remember when my husband and Ifirst met, I explained to him,
you know, as we started dating,the nature of my family.
And it's not that he didn'tbelieve me, but he just had no
experience with what these kindof behavior patterns look like.
(06:40):
Right.
It took, it took actually, sowhat it really took was my mom
grabbing his ass and my dadthreatening to beat him up, and
those were two separateconversations for him to go, oh
wow, yes, your family is fuckedup.
SPEAKER_02 (07:03):
Right.
Yeah, and it took my spouse awhile to really like understand.
Like when he first started, hestarted noticing things even
before, like, like this was allmy normal, right?
So he comes into the picture andhe's like, Do they always treat
you like that?
Like, what do you mean?
Yes, and he's like, Do theyalways talk to you like that?
I was like, Well, it's justthat's just how they are.
(07:25):
He's like, That's not right.
Like, he's like, we didn't treateach other, he's like, My family
had problems, we didn't treateach other that way, and so it's
like, yeah, I get that.
SPEAKER_01 (07:35):
You know, and you recognize, I think, even as
small children, we recognizefundamentally that there's a lot
of behavior that's not quiteright, but because it's totally
normalized and tolerated, yeah.
Exactly.
That we we internalize it inways that I mean continue to
manifest well into adulthood.
(07:56):
I'm almost 40, and there arestill things like I at about 20
or so, I realized that Iapologize to everyone all of the
time for everything, and so Istopped.
And in sto I mean, and then Iwent the other way.
I I now have a very difficulttime apologizing, even when I
(08:18):
have done something wrong, and Iknow that I need to apologize
because it feels so conditionedthat I need to apologize for
something, not because I'mwrong, but because I exist.
SPEAKER_02 (08:34):
Is it because you want to make sure that like
you're you you are umcommunicating that for the right
reasons?
Like, is it because you don'twant to you don't want to feel
like you're apologizing becauseyou're conditioned to apologize?
You want to make sure that it'slike sincere and genuine for
you?
Is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Yeah, that's what it's become for me.
And so those apologies havebecome very difficult.
Very difficult.
I've overcre corrected to notapologizing at all, which I'm
trying to get better about.
SPEAKER_02 (09:06):
I was gonna say, what's the contrast?
Like, what are the pros to that?
Because it sounds like, yeah,because I whenever I made
changes, like sometimes I'd belike, I'd make a change and be
like, oh, this is working reallygood, but then I'd like go to
the extreme, be like, okay,we'll like fall back a little
bit, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (09:24):
Well, that's fine, but then I'm not going to
apologize to you.
And sometimes that reallydoesn't feel that great.
SPEAKER_02 (09:33):
So when so when do you now feel like it's
appropriate for you to apologizein situations?
Because that's like because Iwas always I was raised the same
way.
How do you feel about you knowapologizing for things now?
I know you said it's difficult,but you know, when you do
apologize, where's kind of likeyour line for that?
SPEAKER_01 (09:56):
I so this sounds counterintuitive, but now I
apologize for me.
I apologize because I feel likeI need to apologize.
Not that I need a po that Idon't need an apology accepted
(10:21):
anymore.
That's where the transactionaldifference is for me.
It's no longer about having anapology accepted because for so
long I would apologize andexpect to be, you know,
forgiven.
It's conditional forgiveness,right?
You know, it's not real canforgiveness, but it that's what
you were supposed to bereceiving.
(10:43):
So now when I apologize, I'm notlooking for forgiveness.
I'm looking to apologize becauseit makes me feel better.
SPEAKER_02 (10:50):
Yeah.
So what was it like for yougrowing up?
Like because you had those viewsof or you know, the conditional
forgiveness kind of thing, whatwas it like for you with your
relationships with your familywhen someone would wrong each
(11:13):
other?
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
Man, that's a tough question.
I was definitely the black sheepof the family.
So and I'm not sure I canreadily identify which of my
brothers was the golden child,just that I was not, right?
(11:37):
And so there were a lot ofthings that were very stacked
and weighted against me.
I honestly have to believe thatsome of it was due to the fact
that I was not a boy.
And because I was treated muchdifferently as a small child
(12:00):
before my brother was born.
I think that I was the goldenchild for a while, and then my
brother was born, and then I wasnot.
SPEAKER_02 (12:10):
That happens sometimes.
They switch roles.
Yeah, sometimes like um I hearyou using like a lot of terms we
hear like in the narcissisticpersonality kind of thing.
I don't want to ask like ifthey're if that's what they have
or anything like that, but likeit you're using a lot of those
terms, and so I'm thinkingthat's kind of maybe what it is,
(12:31):
but yeah, the black sheep, I Iget I get that whole thing.
Like some parents they'll pickone kid that's like doesn't
belong or whatever, and thenthere's one kid that kind of
like outshines everyone else andcan kind of do no wrong, but I
feel like also there's thosenarcissistic parents or have
narcissistic narcissistictendencies, maybe not the
(12:53):
personality, but they kind ofpick and choose whatever's
convenient for them at the time,like if this child is showing
them more attention or moregratitude, you know, more uh
causing better attention forthem or something like that,
they might be favored more.
And then when the other kid doessomething good, then they're
going to be showered and withattention and stuff like that.
(13:13):
So it kind of can switch rolesand leaving everyone confused
sometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (13:18):
Oh, definitely, definitely.
And you know, I think it'simportant to know.
So my mother was diagnosedbipolar.
My father has not been diagnosedanything, but he is most
certainly a narcissist.
SPEAKER_02 (13:33):
And I but I feel like it's important to note that
while I use the language, Iyeah, it's hard because I'll I
can I can maybe explain aboutit's hard getting people in the
door to get help for this and toeven get a diagnosis for for
these issues.
And so, and and it's not likewe're trying to label
(13:54):
narcissists as any kind of youknow bad person per se, but it's
like they do have um certaintendencies that cause a lot of
um friction and a lot of umchaos and confusion um in their
relationships.
And so it's hard to talk aboutit without being so negative
because it's not a whole there'snot a whole lot of positive
(14:17):
aside from you know the actualperson, what's really in there,
besides aside from what theyactually like do to you that
hurts you.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
Yes, you've nailed it.
It's it's it's really, you know,and narcissism aside, my dad was
also a functional, probablystill is a functional alcoholic.
He was two, three a day plus abottle of wine with my stepmom.
So, you know, there was alwaysthese degrees of what was
tolerated versus not tolerated,and you just you learn so many
(14:51):
different coping techniques toprotect yourself as a child that
then do not serve you as anadult.
SPEAKER_02 (15:02):
You go out into the world and you try and do these
things, and you end upjeopardizing relationships
because you're using your copingskills that you actually
developed out of necessity as achild that aren't exactly
healthy, but that were servingyou for the time.
(15:22):
Yeah, no, I get that.
I still have some of thosethings that that, yeah, like my
sleep habits.
Like, I didn't sleep through thenight when I was a kid ever.
Like I had nightmares like everysingle night, and I had a hard
time going to sleep because Iknew once I was asleep I'd have
nightmares, but I still knew Ineeded to sleep.
So I used to like figure out howto sleep.
I used to do these things in myhead at night, but then they
(15:43):
were like making me nuts atnight, and then it became where
it wasn't wasn't enough, so Ihad to obsess about something
else to think about was when Iwas going to sleep, so it became
like frustrating mentally, youknow, and it wasn't working.
It was like as an adult, just Iwas like, I need to clear my
brain, not put more stuff in it.
So I had to switch what I wasdoing to calm myself because
(16:05):
yeah, it doesn't work whenyou're an adult, that stuff
doesn't always serve youforever.
SPEAKER_01 (16:11):
No, but because you're not taught healthy
techniques as a child, you don'tknow any better.
And because you don't know anybetter, you build these layers
of things that become verydifficult to dismantle in
reverse, right?
SPEAKER_02 (16:25):
And sometimes they're intertwined also.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
All of these habits and behaviors that we do to
protect ourselves that becomevery, very detrimental, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
So regarding your estrangement, you know, from
your dad, and you said that, youknow, kind of after that
everything kind of there waslike a domino effect of like
losing your relationships withother family members.
Did you go through like any kindof grief during that, or was it
(16:59):
just kind of like you just wereable to kind of acknowledge it
and you know, like what wereyour feelings during that time?
SPEAKER_01 (17:07):
Oh well, I still grieve.
So uh let's see, it's beenalmost five years now.
Uh, in 2014, my youngest brotherwas getting married.
I had actually planned on goingto his wedding.
I was all set to go and buy aticket when I found out I was
(17:31):
pregnant.
And my due date was exactly aweek after his wedding, and no
airline in their right mindwould let me get on a plane.
So I put off canceling andletting him know and put it off
and put it off and put it off.
And then when I was 36 weekspregnant, I suffered a complete
(17:57):
placental abruption.
I very nearly died.
The baby did die.
Yes.
And so at the time, the onlyperson I really was still on
speaking terms with was mymaternal aunt.
And I called her and I told herwhat happened.
(18:19):
And she was going to mybrother's wedding.
And she called me when she gotback, and she told me what had
happened at the wedding, andapparently she was defending me
to my father and stepmother.
And so they knew we were we werecompletely no contact at this
(18:45):
point in time.
So but they knew, heard,understood that I had had a
child die and still didn't reachout.
And that was another kind ofloss, right?
Because my god, this is myfather.
Shouldn't if anybody should beable to empathize with me on
(19:10):
some level, it should be myfucking dad.
But no, never heard, never hearda word.
Never heard a word.
SPEAKER_02 (19:22):
So I mean, grief is something that's hard to
explain.
Like, what did that look likefor you?
Like you just lost your childand your dad didn't reach out,
and all this stuff is going on.
Like, how did you get throughthat time?
SPEAKER_01 (19:37):
So for me, systems became very, very important.
I had two other kids that I wasactively homeschooling.
I had a business that that thatpart imploded, but that's a
different story for a differentday.
(19:57):
Oh, gotcha.
But I I I had to I had torebuild my life piece by piece
and because of the abruption Iuh I lost a lot of blood and I
was anemic for months afterward.
So I was tired all of the time.
(20:17):
And I would I would get up and Iwould make my bed and then I
would collapse right back on it.
But there but there was also themaking of the bed.
There had to be the making ofthe bed because it was the it
was the thing in an extreme losswhen you've lost a spouse or a
child the the the littledecisions, what to eat, where to
(20:43):
go, what to do, those thingsjust become insurmountable.
And so it's having littleroutines make it that much
easier to not have to make adecision.
SPEAKER_02 (20:58):
Right, right.
Like making your bed, like yousaid, like yeah, everybody says,
Oh, yeah, make your bed in themorning, but it's like so often
we get busy and we just don't doit, or if we're going through a
tough time, we're not thinkingabout that, or we really haven't
had time to, you know, really doanything.
But then we get out of bed, andif we don't make the stink in
bed, we're just gonna get backin it.
Right, right.
(21:19):
So it's like, and then when youstart making the bed, it's like
put the pillows on.
Okay, well, then you're up andyou're doing stuff, and then it
yeah, it creates like anotherdomino effect of everything else
you kind of need to do.
It's like getting up and thenjust getting started sometimes,
like you said, it's just likethe hardest thing.
SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
I find for people who manage grief that it is in
many ways, even if there's notclinical diagnosed depression,
it's obviously it functions inmuch the same way.
Yeah, right.
For me, I am diagnosed bipolaras well as with generalized
(21:59):
anxiety disorder, and now I havepost-traumatic stress disorders.
So I have this laundry list ofoh yes, it's so fun and
exciting.
And the thing that gets methrough it, besides drugs,
obviously the drugs help, isbeing able to predict what's
(22:20):
going to happen next.
Because as unpredictable as lifeis and has been for my entire
life, these are self-defensemechanisms.
SPEAKER_02 (22:31):
Right.
You're trying to the anxiety isum is the fear of the unknown or
the fear of the future, and sobecause you're always trying to
prepare for it, like somethingI've been through a lot of
shitty things, like somethingreally shitty could happen in
this situation, like, and thenyou really start getting
anxious, excuse me, you reallystart getting anxious, and then
(22:51):
you know, like you said, likeyou get that flight or fight,
like you're not sure, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:57):
People who have experienced uh tragedy or loss
uh and and manage to thrive fromit, and the people who don't is
what happened is that people whothrive tend to not
catastrophize.
(23:19):
And that's for people like us,that that's instinct, right?
I catastrophize because that wasprotection, right?
So you have to really unlearnspecifically those behaviors to
(23:39):
to be able to relearn andrediscover the joy in your life,
and that for for me definitely,I would not have been able to
done have done that if my thethe blessing in disguise is that
he didn't contact me because Iwouldn't have been able to do it
with my father in my life.
(23:59):
Right if if he had somehowcontacted me, I probably would
have forgiven him, and then Iwould have invited that toxicity
back into my life, right,through trauma bonding, right?
Right, and there's no whether wemiss them or not, there's for
(24:22):
some relationships, there's nothere's no recovery, there is
nothing to be redeemed therewhether I miss my father or not,
there is no part of thatrelationship that I am ever
going to be able to welcome backinto my life in a way that will
make me feel safe.
Right.
(24:42):
So that's it.
And I but I had to learn that Ihad to I had to go through my
own trauma to really realizethat I'm not forgiving him or me
for him.
(25:03):
I'm I'm forgiving I'm I'm doingit for me.
I have to move on past theboundaries of our relationship.
And I have to in order to dothat, forgiveness is involved,
right?
Right.
This is something we talk abouta lot in therapy.
(25:24):
You have to forgive to move on,but I'm not doing it for him.
Right.
I'm doing it for me.
SPEAKER_02 (25:30):
Even if you do forgive him, it doesn't change
anything for him.
SPEAKER_01 (25:33):
No, it does not.
SPEAKER_02 (25:34):
Yeah.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (25:36):
I and the often in these kinds of familial
situations, you have to ask,does this person actually
deserve to be forgiven?
Have they earned forgiveness?
Because forgiveness, I havelearned, is a gift.
It's something that I that comesfrom within that I give to
(26:00):
myself.
If my relationship with him doesnot benefit from that, then it's
not ever gonna be about him orfor him.
It's always going to be for meand my healing.
SPEAKER_02 (26:18):
Right.
You're not responsible for hishealing.
No, yeah, you're responsible foryours.
SPEAKER_01 (26:25):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (26:26):
Yeah.
No, I think that's a greatapproach to it because so many
times we're expected to bepeople pleasers, and you know, I
think that the world is comingto find out that you have to
kind of make your own happiness.
You have to kind of create thatfor yourself, you have to create
environments where you're aroundpeople who care about you and
(26:46):
who are for you.
You can't ex you can't changepeople, and you can't uh deny
who you are in order to pleaseothers, and forgiveness isn't
something that that is somethingtangible that we can hand
someone, it's just releasingthat debt, it just frees you,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Exactly, exactly.
If I hadn't been able to forgiveand move on, I certainly haven't
forgotten, and that because Ican't, right?
SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
You some some behaviors are not forgettable,
and some keep continuing, whichmakes it more difficult for us
to keep providing forgiveness.
And that, you know, it's notlike um, you know, I at first
when I was first estranged, youknow, people kept saying, Well,
why did you stop talking thatwhat happened?
And I was like, Well, it wasn'treally one thing that just
(27:39):
happened.
Yeah, there was one thing thatkind of initially uh, you know,
gave me the uh idea that yeah,it's time to cut it off, but it
was a whole lifetime of things.
SPEAKER_01 (27:50):
And I couldn't just break camel's back is not ever
actually the right, right.
SPEAKER_02 (27:59):
It was it was like after I'd you know spent time
trying to fix things, and youknow, yeah, it was the last
straw.
I was like, okay, I can onlyhandle it up to this point, and
then finally it got up to thatpoint, but I wasn't able to
forgive them until after I cutit off from them.
I wasn't able to forgive them ifI was if I was still in that
relationship in that situationbecause they were still gonna
(28:20):
keep doing it, they were justgonna keep piling up their debt
against me, really.
And so once I cut it off, Icould forgive, and then there's
no more new debt building pilingup, so I can deal with my own
stuff.
Is that yeah, that makes sense?
Like, yeah, that's I don't know,that's kind of how I felt about
it.
When did you start feelingbetter, you know, after that?
SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
It's always a process.
I mean, I still every year whenmy brother's birthdays roll by,
I think of them and miss them alittle bit.
I grief itself is a process.
I have lots of little ritualsfor the things that I did for,
(29:03):
you know, I plant my mom died onEarth Day, so I always plant
flowers or seeds on Earth Day.
And I always do something for myson's birthday.
But there's no there's a there'sno real like anniversary in
which to commemorate this kindof loss, and in a way that
(29:28):
presents a difficulty because Iat least have some I d man, I
hadn't even thought about this.
I mean maybe if I could do it ona birthday or say, no, this is
this is this is good.
Like I should find someday whereI can go, hmm, hi dad, fuck you.
(29:52):
I is that horrible.
SPEAKER_02 (29:55):
Well, it isn't it isn't because no, I gotta tell
you, like, I tried so hard notto talk about myself on my own
show, but like, no, thathappened to me.
Like, um, you know, a lot of mynightmares I mentioned, I had
them all my life, and you know,my mom she said it was because I
had a demon inside of me.
And I was like seven years old.
(30:15):
I'm like seven years old, so nowI'm really freaking out, okay?
Like, oh my god, like now Igotta worry about this.
So I'm like seven, I'm likeshitting my pants practically
because of what my mother said.
But I had these these uhnightmares all through my life,
like even as an adult, they gotworse.
Like when I got married, myhusband would leave for work
like kind of early and I'd stillbe asleep, and immediately when
(30:37):
he would leave, I would starthaving nightmares again.
So I was having like separationanxiety like as an adult because
of this stupid nightmares, andit wasn't until like it wasn't
until one day I told my sister,I was like, Okay, I can't talk
to you anymore.
Because I was like, because youkeep treating me the way that I
don't like to be treated, and Ican't do this anymore.
(30:57):
And then my nightmares, theystopped, and it took me several
weeks to kind of figure out likewhy they stopped.
And I was like, and I have nothad nightmares like that since,
and it's been it's been likefour years of a nightmare free.
Like, I don't know, like whatkind of freaking miracle is
that?
I mean, you say no and stuffhappens subconsciously, like it
(31:18):
happens, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:20):
Yeah, that's yeah.
I'm I'm gonna actually have toput some thought into that
because I do I'm never going tohave a relationship.
I I say never.
The odds of me having arelationship with my father are
virtually nil.
(31:41):
That said, I would still liketo, I don't know, mourn that
loss.
Right.
So I think there is something inthat for me.
I do because my relationshipwith my mom was obviously very
toxic in and of itself, but Istill have the ability to kind
(32:04):
of memorialize that every yearfor her.
And there it would feel good tome to have some kind of way to
memorialize what were the goodparts of my relationship with my
father, because there were afew.
A few.
Sure, sure.
Right.
(32:24):
What were some of those things?
Oh, my favorite.
When my dad was in the early80s, my dad lost his job.
He was a landman, and he had togo and get a job to pay the
bills, delivering milk.
So his hours changed completely.
(32:47):
And for the first time in mylife, he was home when I got
home from school.
And this was before my brotherwas born, and he would fix me a
bowl of at that time my favoritesnack was sliced strawberries
with some milk on it.
And we would sit on the frontporch and we would talk about
(33:11):
school that day.
And it was lovely.
SPEAKER_02 (33:16):
So when you think about those things, I know that
you said there's a little bit ofgood there, but there must be
some sadness too.
SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (33:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like sometimes I have nohappy memories really, because I
feel like they're alwaysattached to something really bad
that happened.
Do you feel like that sometimes?
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Oh yeah, because I can tell you the how the rest of
that story goes is that after hefound, so he he hated being a
milkman, so he went and got ajob as a li as an in oil and gas
in North Dakota, where he thenproceeded to have an affair,
(34:00):
which is the antecedent to myparents' divorce.
Right.
I mean, there were still hetaught me how to drive.
Aside from the yelling, I dohave slightly fond memories of
that one.
SPEAKER_02 (34:16):
Right, right.
Aside from the yelling, yeah, Ican say that too.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
And now I have a teenage daughter.
So as the parent of a teenager,I can the yelling is totally
excusable.
And in fact, there are so manythings in my life that, you
know, I'll look back on and go,yeah, I really was a terrible
teenager.
I would have, if if, if I had agood relationship with him, I
(34:40):
would totally call and apologizefor being a bitch when I was a
teenager.
SPEAKER_02 (34:47):
Right, right.
So, how did you get to like fromthere to like what you're doing
now?
Like, what are you doing now?
Like, since your estrangementand everything, how are things
different for you now?
SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
Well, so it's been let's see.
My daughter will be 18 thisyear.
My brother's wedding was 12years ago, so it's been 12
years.
Uh I since we've been completelyand totally non-contact.
(35:21):
I would have dealt with him formy younger brother's wedding had
I been able to go to that, butthat would have been the only
breach I have not seen or heardfrom him otherwise.
So, you know, now I do I dosystems work, and that was
(35:42):
mostly for me born out of thedeath of my son.
Prior to that, I was working asa relationship coach.
And it was difficult to workwith people on their postpartum
relationships because that'smostly what I was doing when I
didn't have a baby of my own.
Yeah, that was it must have beenrough.
(36:04):
So I kind of didn't work for acouple years.
My husband supported us, andthen I got slowly back into
writing, and I did someghostwriting and copywriting,
and now I'm doing course designand systems work.
And you know, I am surprisinglynot a prostitute.
(36:30):
I am amazingly still married tomy husband of almost 20 years
now.
We'll be so we'll be renewingour vows next year.
I'm not inviting anyone in myfamily.
I might invite my aunt, butthere's no one else I really
wish to invite because theyhaven't been a part of my life
(36:53):
for the last 20 years.
Right.
The first time we eloped becauseI didn't want to deal with the
drama of having to of my familyat my wedding.
And now I don't have to worryabout that.
So I'm planning, we're planninga big elaborate renewal in my
mother-in-law's yard.
(37:14):
She is making me this beautifulbespoke gown.
I'm just wow.
My life is good without myfamily because I've been able to
build my own.
It took some time, it took a lotof work, uh, a lot of therapy, a
lot of just self-work to be ableto get to this place where I
(37:39):
don't need my family in my lifebecause I have this beautiful,
vibrant family that I've built.
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:49):
If you are experiencing estrangement from a
family member and would like tobe a guest, please email us at
wtvb podcast at gmail.com.
Your privacy is important to us.
Guests have the option to remainanonymous.
SPEAKER_02 (38:11):
So can you tell me a little bit about like your life
coaching stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
So basically, I work uh I work primarily with uh
women mostly who are doing allthe things and struggling to
implement systems.
About half of my clients owntheir own business, half are
(38:39):
working in some other way, andthey just have a million things
that they're doing all of thetime: balls in the air, plates
to manage, however, whateveranalogy you would like to throw
in there.
They're doing it all and theydon't have time and they feel
insane.
And I just go in and weprioritize and we take a look at
(39:05):
what their values are, and thenwe build the life they want from
that.
For women in particular, theability to say no, and man, so
many of us have trauma, right?
There's just so much traumalegacy right now.
(39:27):
I find in my work that all of myclients deal with some
significant disadvantage in someway.
It's either mental health ortrauma, or it's, you know,
(39:47):
racism or sexism or other ismsthat they're dealing with on a
daily basis, oppression thatjust weights their soul.
We so many of us are feeling.
This burden right now, and it isself-care then becomes a form of
(40:09):
resistance, right?
You have to be able to take careof yourself and your life and
your surroundings to be able tothrive.
It's not a choice anymore to beable to construct your life in a
way that's beautiful and healthyfor you.
And I feel like societally,socially, governmentally, we're
(40:35):
not doing the work necessary tomake those things happen.
And so we have to individuallywork around the system.
I feel like that's the best wayfor us to so we build and create
these structures for ourselvesin our lives that allow us to
(40:58):
thrive despite the dailyonslaught that we're still
dealing with.
It never goes away for so manyof us.
It never really goes away.
I lost my son, I've lost myfamily.
Those losses have will never goaway, but I still have to
construct my life in a way thatallows me to thrive.
SPEAKER_02 (41:21):
It sounds like you just that's what you do for
these people.
Like it sounds like you're justgiving them something that
you've learned yourself.
How does that make you feel?
SPEAKER_01 (41:35):
I really love the work that I do.
I I've you know, for a lot ofyears before my son died, I
would I had a lot of littlethings that I like to do that I
siloed off into little differentpieces of me.
And I've stopped doing that.
So I have I have this podcastthat I love.
(42:00):
We talk about kids' movies.
It's called Latch Key Movies.
It's adorable, it's absolutelyand totally unrelated to any of
my work.
That's fine.
I run a local women's circlewhere we get together.
There's not that many of us yet,but we're building.
And as we build, we're growingand supporting each other and
(42:23):
creating community becausethat's what I wanted.
And I couldn't find it in quitethe way that I wanted it, so I
built it.
And that's kind of what Icontinue to go out and do.
I'm seeing that there are all ofthese things that I want in my
life and they don't exist, so Ijust built them.
SPEAKER_02 (42:45):
I'm glad that you talk about building community
because that was something thatI was really trying to kind of
bring to the surface here onthis show.
Because when you estrangeyourself from someone or when
someone cuts you off, you don'tjust lose that relationship.
You lose like your wholecommunity.
Like when I was little, like Iwas basically scapegoated when I
(43:05):
was a child, and I lost mycommunity then.
I lost everybody who cared aboutme.
Nobody cared about me at all.
I had, and I mean, I had to moveout of the house, you know, and
find care for myself and how tofigure out how to do that, like
as a young teen.
And uh that was reallychallenging for me.
And so I really love hearingstories from people like you who
(43:27):
are out there buildingcommunities where there are
needs for that kind of communitybecause there's different kinds
of communities, right?
There's communities for womenand men, and co-ed and estranged
and mothers, fathers, you know,siblings.
I mean, there's all kinds ofcommunities.
And I think that each of us hasa responsibility to the
communities that you know thatwe need and build this.
(43:47):
Is what I was trying to do withthe podcast, just trying to
build a community of people tofigure out how we can support
each other.
So it's great that you bringthat up.
I really love that.
SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
Community is what keeps us going.
I mean, in the aftermath of thedeath of my son, that was what
held me together.
My mother-in-law's church sortof adopted us, and they brought
us meals and they supported us,and they carried us, and then I
(44:22):
had online internet friends whoraised money for us and just,
you know, community we can'tlive without it, and we can't
always communicate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We can't count on the ones we'reborn with, though, necessarily.
(44:44):
I I do envy the people who can.
I sometimes I look at myhusband's family, which is
honestly quite dysfunctional inits own ways, and it's still so
much more vibrant than what Ihad to deal with.
There were the difference inhealth of relationships is just
(45:10):
phenomenal to me how I meanagain, not fully functional
because I think most familiesprobably really aren't.
I think every family has theirdysfunction, but I think that
there are degrees.
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (45:28):
And sometimes there's people willing to do the
work to uh fix those problems inthe relationship, but then
sometimes, like in your case andlike in my case, there's they're
not.
You know, so then we have tobuild our own communities and
move on.
Before we end this segment, doyou have anything else that you
want to talk about or say to ourlisteners?
SPEAKER_01 (45:51):
I think that we've talked a lot about forgiveness,
and I think that I have yet totalk about how I uh include that
as a daily practice, which issomething that's really
important to me.
Yes, daily thing.
I for me, that's a matter ofjournaling.
I use OneNote currently, butreally, whatever system you use,
(46:14):
whether it's actual ink andpaper, morning pages work really
well for this as well.
Whatever you do, forgiveness issomething that you have to
really incorporate into yourlife on a daily basis.
You're because it's that gift,right, that you're giving
yourself, and because it's foryou, you have to be reminded of
(46:34):
it.
It's right, it's it's kind oflike gratitude.
You you think you're aware ofit, you think you recognize it
in your life, but it's not untilyou go and list those three or
five things every day that allowyou to recognize oh, there is
great abundance in my life.
(46:57):
There are things to be gratefulfor, much like gratitude.
Forgiveness works really thesame way as a daily practice.
I have to acknowledge everysingle day that I am worth
forgiving, that I am worthbeautiful things, and that my
(47:17):
life has meaning and value andpurpose, and that it is okay for
me to go out and share that giftwith people.
And those are hard words to say.
SPEAKER_02 (47:32):
Yeah.
Well, Briar, I have to say, thishas been a really great show.
Thank you.
It's been it really has such apleasure to talk with you, Lexi.
We'll have to do this again somepast.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (47:49):
Links in this week's show notes.
Please remember to like, follow,and share.
Thoughts expressed by our guestsdo not necessarily reflect the
views of WTBB or its affiliates.
The views expressed on this showare opinion and experience based
and are not intended as asubstitute for therapy.
Content should not be taken asmedical advice and is here for
informational purposes only.
Please consult your health careprofessional for any medical or
(48:12):
mental health related questions.
Thank you for listening to Whenthe Bell Breaks.
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