The Eldest Daughter

Such an important topic that isn't talked about enough. To subscribe to Danyell's blog, click here: www.HardTruthsToMyself.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is cc B, but most people just call
me B. I am thirty nine years young. I've been
through a lot, and I've also put myself through a lot,
and one day I got sick and tired of my
own shit. And that's the day when change started happening.
I stopped lying to myself and started getting painfully honest
with myself. But it was only painful because I had

(00:21):
been lying to myself for so long. About nine or
ten years ago, now give her take, I started writing
books about my journey through my toxic relationships, how I
got out of them and then stayed out of them
by building a healthy relationship with myself. There's nothing that
I say on this podcast that I haven't already had
to say to myself at some point in time, and yes,

(00:42):
in the exact same tone as I say it here.
So if you are sensitive to honesty, girl, this is
not the place for you to be. I don't sugar
coach ship for myself, so I'm not doing it for
anyone else. Besides, how are you going to be more
offended by another woman being honest with you, telling you
the truth than you are by them or men who
lied to you every day? And treat you like shit.

(01:03):
Food for thought? And is your plate? What up? Booz?
Is your girl? B And Welcome back to another episode
of the CIS Get You It's Together Podcast. I hope
that you all are having a great day today. Hope
that you woke up feeling revived and rejuvenated with faith

(01:27):
that everything that you spoke about with your spirit team
the night before is being worked out for you in
the background, somehow, some way. But please remember that you've
got to help your spirit teamil you. Okay. That means
you've got to put yourself in the position to get
the things that you want. Niece to chess, niece to chest,
because that's right. Even the person who wishes to win
the lottery knows that they've got to play the numbers.

(01:48):
It is currently eleven twenty four am here in it's
really nice outside actually in Montreal, Canada. And on today's up,
I'm so excited about today's episode. Today's episode, we're gonna
be talking about the eldest daughter with a little twist.
I got a surprise. Go get a snack, a juice box,
or a glass of wine. Put your triggers to the
side so you got room to open up your mind
and let's get into the episode, shall we. I don't

(02:30):
know if it's just me, but I feel like my
like my intro the music room, my intro is like
sped up or something. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Anyways,
Hi everybody, Hello, Hello, Hello. If you can't tell I
am under the weather, I'm fighting for my life right now.
You guys don't even know. I don't know what type
of cold this is, but it's something something supernatural. I

(02:52):
tell you that. One thing I said this on my
other podcast. One thing about Doane is that you don't
get me sick, because like they're running joke between us.
I'm like, hey, I'm not outside working. I work from home. Okay,
you you out there working outside with these people bringing
back all these coldes and stuff. But the kids do

(03:13):
the kids? Do? Kids? Do we bringing back all kinds
of germs and shit? But anyways, I'm here struggling, So
please excuse my raspy voice and my wheezing, because what
the hell? Every time I hear every time I in
hell is the wheezing. But the show must go on,
ladies and sometimes gentlemen, the show must go on. We

(03:35):
are here today I'm really excited because we're going to
talk about the eldest daughter. But I'm going to read
to you about the eldest daughter first from somebody who
I'm just really excited to introduce into the world. So
I have been, as y'all know, I do, you know,

(03:58):
coaching of many different sorts, and one of the type
of coachings that I do is author coaching, author development,
business coaching, stuff like that, right, And one of my
very very long time students has recently, well recently the
last couple months, signed on for author development, and I

(04:19):
am so fucking proud of her, and I'm so excited
that today we're finally launching her into the world. Her
name is Danielle. She is twenty eight years young, thank
you very much, beautiful inside and out, and she has arrived.
She's arrived. She's arrived. She's arrived. She's worked really really

(04:42):
hard in honing in on her writing, and I just
you know, I'm just so proud of her. So I'm
going to read you a piece today from her brand
new blog. The blog is titled Hard Truths to Myself, Okay,
so you can find it at hard Truths Too Myself

(05:02):
dot com. I'm gonna link it as well in the
show notes. Please do me a favor, y'all. Go show
her some love. Go show her some love on her posts.
Go read the other posts that she has a I
think we have a three posts right now, including the
one I'm going to read. Go over there. Like her posts,
show some love in the comments sections under her post,

(05:26):
she was so nervous, like any artist, do you know
what I mean? Your first time introducing yourself to the world.
It's fucking nerve wracking, you know. And I assured her,
I'm like, listen, man, you gonna be all right. Okay,
my squad mass sketches together. Squad. You know you're part
of the squad, right and they're supportive and they're dope,

(05:49):
and they're going to show you all kinds of love.
So I'm done reading this, you know, Go over there,
show some love. Subscribe to her blog. Let's get it poping. Okay, Okay,
So I'm going to read you her one of her
posts here while I try not to sniffle over the microphone. Okay,

(06:09):
all right, the eldest daughter. Today, I woke up tired
of being the eldest daughter. The many hats that come with.
This role is fucking exhausting, and I'm finally ready to
admit how much I hate it. I used to take
pride in being the eldest sibling, being able to call
the shots when my parents weren't around. The feeling of

(06:30):
being able to provide or show up for my siblings
when my parents couldn't. That type of authority excited me
starting at the tender age of eleven. But as I've
gotten older, I've realized what being the eldest daughter means,
becoming the second mother within my family. I can recall
when my role within my family escalated. I was in college,

(06:52):
working a job that paid nine dollars and twenty five
cents an hour, yet I was the one saving my
family from evictions. I remember feeling so infuriated at any
time i'd be asked for money, I'll pay you back,
they'd promise, but that never happened. And even though they'd
never pay me back, I kept giving because I felt
like it was what I needed to do. More than that,

(07:16):
whenever I would spend money on myself, I'd feel immense
amounts of guilt and fear. What if someone needs help
and you have to say no? Because you spend all
that money on yourself, an anxiety written voice would whisper
from inside me. I hated it, and I hated that
I would allow it to consume me. Back then, I

(07:36):
didn't have the courage to speak up about how I
was feeling. My family was already struggling so much, so
how dare I make things worse? Right? It's taking a
lot of inner work, but slowly I finally began telling
myself that I worked hard for my money and I
deserve to spend it on myself how and when I
want to. And though I've worked up some courage to

(07:59):
speak up a little bit to my family, for the
most part, I still struggle with telling them no when
they asked me for money. I can't help but feel
like being the eldest daughter has robbed me of a
full childhood. I had to grow up so quickly and
had my shit in order so everyone could rely on
me in different ways, from my car to my money

(08:20):
to my credit. I'm their go to person. I don't
know what it feels like to not have my family
rely on me in some way, and to be honest,
I'm exhausted. I tell myself that my parents did the
best they could with where they were emotionally, mentally, and financially.
But still such a big part of me resents them

(08:43):
for normalizing the idea that I'll always be the one
to have things figured out. Most days I resent everyone
in my family for having someone like me to rely
on when I have no one to rely on at all,
And some days I resent my self for never putting
my foot down. I'm sure being the eldest daughter can

(09:05):
be a beautiful thing for some women, but because I
lack boundaries most of my life, being the eldest daughter
has always been a challenge. Writing about this is the
first time I've allowed myself to completely be honest about
my woes around being the eldest daughter, And you know what,
I'm proud of myself for that. For the longest time,
I thought maybe someone will swoop in and save me

(09:28):
one day, or maybe if I move far away from
everything and everyone, then people wouldn't be able to rely
on me anymore. But as I've continued to move through
this chapter of my life that is loaded within her work,
I've had to come face to face with reality. The
root of my exhaustion and resentment has been my own

(09:48):
lack of boundaries and avoiding my truest feelings. I know
I have to put myself first now, and because it'll
be something new to both myself and my family, I
also know that I'm going to and I have to
give myself as much grace as possible as I evolve
into a new woman. Then again, maybe this woman isn't new.

(10:09):
Maybe she's always been with me and I've just been
too afraid to let her live out in the open.
If you are the eldest daughter and this has all
resonated with you, I hope, at the very least you
feel seen, and I hope that I've been able to
inspire you to start working on learning how to set
boundaries and put yourself first. Danielle, Oh goodness. Can we

(10:35):
get a round of applause for Danielle real quick? Please?
And then we can we just so when she first because
she'll send me her pieces for me to read over, obviously,
and then we discuss them. But when she first set
me this piece, I seart to cry. And I think,
you know, I don't think I know. But ever since

(11:01):
I became a parent, I have been diving into my
own I guess parental wounds more than ever in life, right,
because I'm so I guess we're like, I'm always trying
to be the best parent I could be, you know
what I mean. I'm so cautious and so aware. I

(11:24):
think too of how my own parents dropped the ball,
you know what I mean, in so many areas and
so because they were young and so on and so forth. Right,
and gosh, I'm getting emotional. Okay, okay, all right, all right,
all right, pull it together. I can't be sick and emotional.

(11:46):
It's gonna be all these sniffles. But I'm an eldest daughter,
and I too have felt myself recently just being like,
I'm so fucking tired of this, right, I think what
resonated with me was her whole post resonue, And honestly,
everything resonated with me because I, too, am the one

(12:09):
who has broken the generational curse. Right, It stopped with me.
I am too, am the one who, oh gosh, like
you know, love my mom so much. Everybody knows that.
But my mom was very young when she had me,
and naturally, you know, emotionally, emotional immaturity comes with having

(12:32):
kids young. And I felt a lot of my life
as somebody who had to parent my mom, emotionally parent
my mom, you know, and so like as an adult
when people are like, oh, you're you know, you're so wise,
you're so this, you're so that, it's like, yeah, no shit,
I've been you know what I mean, I've been the
go to person since I was five years old. But

(12:54):
that gets weighing because what ends up happening is as
the eldest well, I don't about everybody else, wh I'm
just talking about myself as the eldest sibling, is the
eldest daughter. Yeah, you work so hard. You can't depend

(13:17):
on anybody for the most part, for so many things, right,
but everybody depends on you. And I know in my case,
a lot of the times, I was always checking for people,
but nobody really checked for me because everybody assumed that
I was always okay. Janus thought I was saying because

(13:38):
I took care of so many things, because I was
so independent. Because it's because that nobody really thought to
be like, hey, be you good, like are you okay?
You know, and there was always these comments that were made,
like you know, I never have to like you know,
my mom had said not too long ago, it's just like,
you know, I never had to worry about you because

(14:01):
I knew you were always good, and I was like, well,
I kind of wish you did worry about me. Though,
I kind of wish you did worry about me because
there were times when I was just not fucking good.
You know. There have been many times in my life
where I have just not been good and no one
checked to see if I was okay, you know, and

(14:21):
one could say, you know, yeah, b but you know,
it's like you got to reach out to people and
let them know that you're not okay, you know. But
at the same time, when your family is always in
some type of struggle, you kind of normalize not wanting
to add to their plate, does that make sense? And

(14:43):
you also realize, well, they can't even help themselves, so
what the fuck are they gonna do for me? So
it's not you start to realize that you only got
yourself out here, and I know that's not the best mentality, right,
but that's that ends up how you And for the
most part, in my case, it's not true, right. I

(15:05):
have Okay, Bentley, thank you, I have you know, people
that I can rely on now. But growing up and
being a young adult, and you know, every time you
talk to a family member, they you know, unload other
problems on you. It's kind of like, all right, well,
they got all this shit going on, and so they

(15:26):
can't be there for me, and that's okay. You kind
of just accept it, you know, you're like, that's okay.
But really, as you start to get older and you
start to heal or dig into some of these wounds
and you start to heal them, you realize that it
wasn't okay. I needed somebody to you know. And I
think a lot of times too, as the older sibling,
you know, you beat like you said, like she said,

(15:46):
you know, you become a parent, a second mom, and
then you start realizing, at least in my case, you know,
not I need a parent, Like okay, hello, I need
I need a parent. Hi please, I'm just a baby.
I'm just a baby. I need a parent. This is why,
you know, watching our kids grow up, I'm so I'm

(16:11):
filled with so much joy for them because they'll never
know what it's like not to have a dad, you know,
a dad who's somewhere in the world, or they'll never
know what it's like to feel like they're not wanted
from their dad. You know, they'll never know what it's
like to feel like they have to, you know, parent

(16:32):
their mom or their dad, you know what I mean.
Like they get to have childhoods. You know, they get
to have childhoods. That's that's it. And they get to
be free as children and trust that the adults, their parents,
the people around them, who are who they're who are

(16:52):
caring for them, can and will care for them. You
get what I'm saying. They get to not have an
anxious attach. They get to grow up with the secure attachment,
and that is something that I absolutely love for them.
I'm getting emotional again. That's something that I absolutely love
for them, and it's something that so many of us

(17:15):
wish we had growing up. You know. Yes, everything happens
for a reason. Yes, Da, da da, And I'm the
woman I am today because of what I've been through
and I also put myself through. Yes. But at the
same time, you know, there's always a little girl in
me who still wishes sometimes, you know, or who finds

(17:35):
her self wishing or thinking about how different life could
have been had I just been able to be a kid,
you know, had I just been able to be a kid.
You know, before I took my resignation, my great resignation

(17:57):
from TikTok a while ago, I can't even remember when,
but I had seen them. I seen a TikTok about
a girl saying she was like, raise your hand, someone
that raise your hand. If you're an eldest daughter, raise
your hand if you the reason why you don't want
to have kids is because your eldest daughter and you
feel like you've already raised a bunch of kids like

(18:18):
your siblings, right, And it was so relatable, and in
the comments, we're a whole bunch of women who were
the eldest daughter who felt that they're raising their hand,
you know, they felt that way, like, no, I don't
want to have kids. I'm tired. I feel like I've
raised a bunch of like all my siblings, I've raised
my parents, I've raised my mom like I just want

(18:39):
to I just I don't want to have that responsibility.
I just want to be with me in my plants,
or me and my dog, you know what I mean.
I don't want to have kids. And I think also too,
especially millennials. You know, we come from a time where
like where the fuck were our parents. You know, our
parents were on road. We had keys around our remember

(19:02):
we had keys around our next I don't know where
we live, but I know for us, we'd have those
key chains around our necks, you know. And after school,
we'd let ourselves in. We'd take out the chicken, go
pick up our brothers or whatever. You don't our siblings,
walk them home, be in the house waiting for our
parents to get back from work, or our mom and
getting back from work, you know what I mean. Like

(19:25):
the weekends our parents were out, they were on road,
you know, just fucking different. It was really different times.
I feel like a lot of us learn to be
independent at a really young age because we were always outside, right,
we were always outside, and our parents just weren't fucking home, man,
you know what I mean. For the most part, our

(19:45):
parents were were on road. Especially like you know, like
I said, if you had young parents, forget about it,
you know what I mean. It was just it was
just it's just a different time. I think that part
of the reason why I am so good at my job,
my career, what I do, is because I'm an eldest
you know, I'm an eldest daughter, and I think that
that has really shaped me. Like I'm a good listener,

(20:06):
I'm a good advice giver, I'm a good solution finder.
All of these things. While I like to think that
they're I'd like to tell myself that they come naturally.
I think that now they come naturally, But I think
that they were kind of like there were things I

(20:26):
really had to tap into at a very early age.
You know. Yeah, things I had to tap into at
a very very early age and and then just stayed
with me. And so this is this is the only
role I've ever known, you know what I mean. When
I think about my friends, I realized that all of

(20:48):
my all of my homegirls are the eldest daughters. Actually
we're all the eldest daughters, and we have all carried
huge respect reponsibilities that we've all just I think normalized,
you know. And it wasn't until, like I said, I

(21:09):
became a parent and it started unpacking these things. I
was looking at my friends and myself like, yo, that's
just not normal. You know. I have one of my
friends who one of my good friends who long story short,
her they got abandoned by their mother when they're very
young and ended up in a foster care system, and
so my homegirl. Her whole life, she has been basically

(21:32):
a mother to her sister, right, because that's all they're.
They're all they they are all they have, you know,
And she like the way that she looks out for
her sister, like you said, like that's she might as
well be her mom and how weighing that has been
on her, but she does it because that's her sister
and they she's all she has, and vice versa. And

(21:54):
I'm like, it's a beautiful thing, obviously, but it's also Jesus,
it's a lot of responsibility. You know, we were all
just kids. She was just a kid taking care of
her sister that way, and it's just it's just wild.
I love that, you know, in her post, she speaks
about and she's honest about the resentment that has built up,

(22:18):
you know, and the resentment that she feels. And I
love that she was able to finally realize that, you know,
Like she said, the root of her exhaustion and resentment
was from a lack of her own boundaries, right and
avoiding her truest feelings. It's it's something you do feel
guilty about, right, You're like, fuck, man, I don't. I
don't want to take care of nobody motherfuckers, you know.
I don't want to take care of y'all. I want

(22:39):
to live my life for myself, you know. And it's
such a big testament to the fact that when we
don't have boundaries, this is what happens. It ends up
leading to resentment. You know. Then again on the other side,
you know, how can we how can we build boundaries

(23:01):
if nobody teaches us about boundaries if we don't have
an example of boundaries around us from the people we're
growing up with, right, And that's why so often, like
with my platform, I always try to remind women as
many conversations as we have and as much things as
we talk about here, you know, to not hold grudges

(23:23):
against yourselves for things that nobody ever taught you how
to do, you know, to not beat yourself up for
things that nobody, for nobody ever taught If nobody taught
you what self love was, what self care? So how
are you supposed to know? Right? How are you supposed
to know? And then you just go through life surviving
and doing what you think is what you're supposed to do,
because those are the only examples that you have around you.

(23:46):
Right on the flip side. Simultaneously, I say, now that
it is in your awareness, and we have access to
things like can the internet, you know, and therapy and
all these things have been normalized. You know now that
it's in your consciousness. Now that it's in your awareness,
do your part and get to healing. Right, do your

(24:07):
part and get to learning. Let somebody come in and
teach you now how to set boundaries, how to love yourself,
so on and so forth. Right, do your part in
your self work so that you can evolve into a
woman that you are proud of for yourself. Right. You know, yes,
our environments growing up shaped us. But now as adults,

(24:30):
we don't have to be We don't have to be
a product for our environment. We don't. We really don't,
you know, especially with all the resources that we have
at our fingertips all the time, we really don't. So yeah,
all that said, Danielle, if you're listening, you are. I
am so so proud of you for writing your truths,

(24:52):
for opening up to the world, for sharing your gift
to the world. You know that I'm proud of you,
and I'm so happy and honored that you have entrusted
me to help you launch into the world. So keep
writing because now girl, now we you know we ony

(25:13):
ass now wele onya ass. Right, So now people are
going to subscribe to your blog. People are going to
be looking forward to new posts. So and I'm here
to help you every step of the way. You know that,
all right? To everybody else, I appreciate y'all man. I'll
that you enjoyed today's episode and it made you think
a little bit about you know, your role as the

(25:34):
eldest daughter. And even if you're not the eldest daughter
and you have an older sister, you know, check on her, okay,
check on her, consider the fact that she might not
be okay. You know, she might not be okay. If
you have a friend who's an eldest daughter. You know
the saying check on your strong friends. You know, seriously

(25:55):
check on your strong friends. And when you check on
these people, do me a favor, do them a favor.
If you're gonna check on them, genuinely check on them,
call them and ask them how they are, and really
listen to them. Don't make it about yourself. Don't use
them to check in on yourself. Actually sit with them,

(26:15):
ask them genuinely, how are you give them space, create
space for them to feel seen, to feel to feel heard.
Because I'm telling you right now, most people, most people
don't consider us right, most people are Oh, she got it,
she's good. Right. The go to person usually doesn't have

(26:38):
a go to person, and that's hard. Okay, So if
you have a go to person, an eldest daughter, friend,
or you have an older sister, check on her seriously. Okay,
all right, I'm gonna get out of here because the
way I'm wheezing and sniffling, things are things are? Things

(27:01):
are not it? Man? Okay, do not forget. Go over
to Danielle's blog Hard Truths to Myself dot com. Go
show her some love, go like some posts, let her
know that you are there. It's going to make her
whole entire day. Okay, thank you. It's also LinkedIn. It'll

(27:24):
also be LinkedIn in the description of this episode Random
Life News, Girl, I'm sick and that's it. Okay, that's
the Random Life News. I'm sick and that's it. Something
that I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for all these oranges
I bought yesterday and this time I'm all cold and
flu that helped me sleep through the night, along with

(27:45):
all of the ginger tea that I've been drinking. I've
been drinking so much ginger tea. I don't I don't
even know. I don't even know what to do with
myself's just drinking ginger tea all the time. But I'm grateful.
I'm grateful for that. Okay, you know the drill. Think
of something that your grateful for. Say it out loud,
or write it down. Call a friend, let them know
you appreciate them. I'm sure that it'll make their day.

(28:07):
Ladies and sometimes gentlemen, I appreciate yab man. I hope
you'll have a good rest of your morning's evenings afternoons
wherever the book y'all are in the world. Please be safe,
use condoms, trust your intuition, and use your discernment, and
I'll catch y'all back here another time, sending y'all love.
Go'll be great.