October 11, 2024 • 42 mins
Discover a deeply personal journey through grief, trauma, and mental health challenges in this moving episode. We explore childhood loss, the impact of a brother's passing, surviving the tragedy of pregnancy loss, and the long-term effects on mental health, including suicidal ideation and survivor's guilt. With powerful insights into ADHD, ODD, family dynamics, and overcoming grief, this episode sheds light on resilience and hope. Featuring a compelling TED Talk offer on overcoming adversity.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the first episode of The Lonely Road. We're
here on your journey to heal and become a better human.
Many of you may know me for my job or
my other podcast, Roman Talk Shit or MTS. This is
a very different show. We're going to go into a
deep dive of grief and mental health. Whether it's stats
or stories, We're going to explore it all in depth.
After dealing with the trauma I'm currently dealing with, I
looked at my girlfriend and I said, I want to
(00:22):
find a way to help people and kind of be
able to do something that will impact the world. And
everything else. I've already gotten email saying hey, you helped
me with this so much. I wanted to kind of
leave more of an impact with all the stuff that
I'm currently dealing with. So on top of that, half
of the money that this podcast makes ever will be
going into charity, whether that's a charity redo, or we
(00:44):
sit there and give money to a charity or a
family that we know needs help in one of these situations.
And as always, this is brought to you by g
Fuel use card arms. You have to check out for
twenty percent off everything that is on the website. Okay, Jay,
why don't you, Why don't you tell us a little
bit about yourself and.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That I am kJ and I don't. I haven't done
any podcasts or anything. This is my first and it's
actually very nervous for me. I've just done political stuff
on TikTok i Facebook like the rest of the world does.
(01:24):
But for the most part, just the short form TikTok's
is what I've been as far as this, this grief
podcast is concerned. This is this is some pretty heavy
stuff and it hits me to the core. I am
someone who feels absolutely everything and grief.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think the cool part of it for both of us, honestly,
is like if you tell a story or I tell
a story, we can essentially verify the things that have
happened almost all of it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, for sure, because we are She is.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
My godmother, She's been there for every day that I've
been alive since day one, whether we were thousands of
miles apart or you know, not talking at the time.
We are more connected than a lot of people would
genuinely understand. So I think that that adds a hell
of a lot of validity to it. Is we're actually
able to kind of verify what's gone on.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's going to be a good component of
it all as well, since we both you've been dealing
with grief since you were a very very young and
I have been dealing with it since I can remember
as well, and it just never never, ever, never ever
clicked with me. A lot of the things we'll be
(02:41):
touching on and talking about, so this is all very
new to me and I will pick up very quickly.
But that being said, let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, it's just getting comfortable, and I think this, I
think this first topic definitely is kind of near and
dear to both of our hearts, and I kind of
changed both of us more than I think anybody genuinely
would realize, even with us being like the secondary people
that are affected in that situation. It caused my suicidal
ideation for you know, twenty six years. I was just
(03:16):
talking about this on my show Real Men Talk Shit,
and I was like, you know, it's really hard to
kind of just grasp and look at suicidal ideation as
something that's not just the big boogeyman that you know,
you put suicide in any conversation. It's scary okay, well, yeah, yeah,
it's scary, but I handled this section of my life
(03:38):
and the stories that have come from it. I got
offered a TED talk because of this stuff. I got
offered to be able to do a lot of very
interesting things and kind of sharing my story, and I
didn't end up doing them. But it's scary. It diagnosed
me with suicidal ideation at twenty seven, and it started
at the age of four, and that is the story
of my brother's passing when I was a child, and
(04:00):
kind of everything that kind of surrounds that. I have
a whole bunch of stats and everything else, and it's
kind of interesting, but it's sad and depressing because you know,
even as a kid in that situation, it's hard to grasp.
But the interesting part to me, so I looked up
these as I drop whatever I was fidgeting with, I
(04:22):
looked up some stats and obviously I just recently dealt
with the passing of a pregnancy as well after twenty weeks,
and as of twenty twenty one, the statistics of an
occurrence of a death within pregnancy after twenty weeks is
one in one hundred, and that kind of blew my
mind even at twenty twenty one, we're still losing one
out of every hundred pregnancies after twenty weeks, so that's crazy.
(04:48):
My mom's pregnancy ended at twenty six weeks, so this
is even more solidified than that. And it was a
pregnancy with twins my sister who's still here, so positive there,
but as a whole sucks. And the other crazy stats
that I saw is six point four percent of children
(05:09):
nine to ten deal with suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts,
and in children with ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder, which
is a major part of ADHD kids, that number triples
to almost twenty percent of kids dealing with suicidal ideation.
So after looking at that, I don't think that this
(05:30):
was as crazy or as impactful as it seems like
it would have been, because I think anybody in this
situation with two drastic people, my brother being you know,
this light almost towards our family being something new is
going to happen passing away, and then my grandma, who
(05:50):
was essentially my mom for the first three years of
my life, passing as well. Twenty percent, that's all one
in five likelihood to be suicidal at that point, and
you know, I wrote it as the title of my
ted talk when I was writing the paperwork was you know,
life rolls on with or without you. My check is
(06:11):
rolling out the window and kJ as you know, I
wanted to roll out of the window of a four
story building, and I don't think that that would have
been a very positive outlook. So when you look at
this situation, obviously you were my mom's best friend at
the time and you're really really close. How did this
all look from the other side of it? Because I
(06:33):
can only, like my four year old mind can only
grasp so much at that time.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I know where my resentment lies and where I struggle
and where I struggle to see things. But where did
you see problems in this?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean, I was very young and it was not
my first dealing with death, but it was a very
very close dealing. Your mother and I have been very
close for a long time, and there's more than her
(07:13):
being my best friend to this day. That's a component
that she was my first girlfriend, and that puts a
completely another layer onto it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
For me, everything kind of shaded and uncomfortable. I'm sure
it was.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It wasn't really as uncomfortable. I mean, I had gotten
over the uncomfort factor much earlier, and we had chosen
to move on as friends, and we both made that
conscious decision to do so, so it was not as
much of an uncomfortable factor. But it was definitely at
(07:56):
a time where I still had feelings for a person
who was going through the things that I wanted to
go through with her with someone else. So there was
a component of that, but it was a very small
component of that, but another layer nonetheless. But I just remember,
my memories are very sporadic when I deal with anything
(08:20):
in life. Really, I don't have a vivid, vivid memory.
I remember how things made me feel, how people make
me feel. Other than that, I have very scattered, very
scattered memories. A lot of people have these picturesque memories.
I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
But what I do remember by memory with that is
insane and nobody else has it. Because I have something
called a nidetic memory, where it's you know, the autism brain.
I know everything that happened. I can explain this entire situation.
That's why I figured it was easier to start off
with you of trying to feel out what the hell
actually happened in what was going on because I could
(08:58):
well tell so much.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean I was you're Fa, your
your stepdad, you know, we'll call it. He was in
there and then he got told to leave and he
just came out and got me and we both went
into the hallway right basically on the other side of
(09:22):
the door of the operating room. And all I can
remember is just sitting there and him pacing back and
forth and back and forth. And then that was for
a while, and then I just remember being in a
room with your mom, Fa, the baby, and a nurse
and they were passing the baby around to be held,
(09:46):
and I'm I had I had a lot of feelings
about that portion of it. I was asked to take pictures.
That was very hard for me, but it is the
least I could do for my best friend who's laying
there and having this have happened to her. And she
(10:08):
asked me to cut a lock of his hair, and
to this day I still shake when I talk about it.
I did, and I felt like I got too close
to his scalp with the scissors because his hair.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Was you know, it's not a lot, there's not very much.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And to this day that I still I still get
that feeling.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, it's hard to grasp. Yeah, Like I don't want
to fully go into the story, but I had to
deal with something very similar literally a month ago now,
and those pictures traumatize the fuck out of me, us
losing that pregnancy and us trying to deal with all that,
and like, can you take pictures to make sure she's okay?
And I'm like, yes, I will, but like, al like hurts,
(10:56):
Like I didn't let me say this. I didn't even
know that any of that that you just said happened.
That that's never been told to me ever, So like
it's hard. It's really hard because you're grasping at something
that just was there and you are so close to
it being in your hands that it's kind of taken
(11:17):
from you.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, yep, yeah, And it was. It was very very
surreal at the time. It was very surreal. Now it's
very surreal. Yeah, but it was as far as the
act or the day was concerned, it was. It was.
It was horrible, and there's there'll be a cloud over
(11:40):
it over that particular day. Now as far as the
day moving forward, I I have been able to make
a clean, a clean break if you will from that
day continuing on every year. That's not something that a
(12:04):
lot of people have or can do, but I I
chose to do that because of your sister. I didn't
want that to be a.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I think that cloud, that cloud that a lot of
people will hold on to and like make it a
big deal and make it something that's like tangible almost.
I think that's part of what caused my suicidal ideation,
like as it moved forward and stuff like that, like
when I look at this situation and and everything else,
(12:37):
and I really kind of don't want to go out
of order, but it'll it's going to be jagged. Boys.
I'm sorry, I really am, but it's my mind's all
over the place. Like it's hard, it's hard to hear. Well,
I wonder what they would do when you're the kid
that's unequal to the kid that passed. It's hard to
wonder where those kind of feelings and emotions are. Like
(13:00):
they don't say those same things about you because you're there,
So then you feel disconnected because they're trying to feel
about something else that's not there, and it's really kind
of hard to grasp. Yeah, So after my grandma died,
my mom spiraled drastically and it caused a massive depression,
(13:25):
and we ended up losing everything. We lost the apartment
we were in, We ended up having to move and
everything else. We were dealing with Kadi's cerebral palsy and
everything else. And I remember learning that, you know, some
people are just different, Zach, some kids are just different.
And having to learn sign language and having to know
(13:46):
all this stuff. And it's weird because Grandma's passing at
that age affected me more at that point in time,
probably because I was so close to her, You were
very close, and it was it was hard to grasp,
really hard to grasp. I remember starting to have night
(14:07):
terrors and feeling like I was going to lose everything.
And it's it's crazy to look back on because those nightmares,
I still can tell you it's the same exact thing
that happened. I can still tell you all of it. Yeah,
it's weird. It's weird the things that stick out, And
it's weird the things that affect you later on that
(14:29):
didn't affect you when they happened.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's true. It's very very sure this subject. It's particularly
hard to talk about grief, and I think that that's
a lot of the reason why there's not grief podcasts.
There's not a lot on the internet about grief. There's
(14:53):
not a lot of people talking about it because it's
so taboo. But I think it's really important. I think
it's important to have to have the conversations and to
have the experiences that we can share, because.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Part is people actually feeling like whatever they're feeling is okay.
Like you could be angry it happened, you can be
sad it happened. You could be depressed, you could be
you could be happy in some circumstances, and all of
those different circumstances can make you look absolutely fucking insane,
all of them.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah. Yeah, And then then there's the guilt that comes
with it, you know, whether it's survivor's guilt or whether
it's a different kind of guilt, or the way that
you had a relationship with that person or didn't have
a relationship with that person, or you know, whatever comes
definitely comes with the territory in a lot of a
lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, that that survivor's guilt is something that I've always
dealt with, and I think that that's what it developed
into for me. I don't remember when it started. I
think it was when we moved into the apartment after
that house that the one on you know what, you
know what, right, I'm talking about the apartment complex where
(16:09):
there was always a shelf in the living room with
all of his things on it, and my mom always
kind of like applauded it, like it was this big
thing that had to be there. Nobody could touch it,
nobody could question anything about it. It just had to
be to me that grief, that that holding on to
that thing and creating it to be such an unquestionable
(16:33):
thing caused a lot of those feelings of not being
able to move past because it's always right there in
your face.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Did you ever care about it?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I have sense like now that I'm an adult and
like everything that we just dealt with and stuff like that,
I made the same choice. I have stuff for my
son in my office. My girlfriend has a necklace on
with his ashes in it. We've made to a point
where it is important. But at the same time, if
you have a question, ask like I've like I've seen
(17:08):
the negative things of like, Okay, if you make it's
a way, there's no questions. If you make it away
everything's unavailable to be talked about. It's impossible not to
cause pain. Regardless of if that's a little baby or
a ten year old or a thirteen year old, all
of them are going to kind of deal with it
differently and feel it differently. And it's it's rough.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Sure, it's interesting that you felt like you couldn't talk
about it or couldn't ask about it at that time.
You know, if you were inquisitive about it and you
wanted to know, you know, you you were a quiet
guy after that, you know, you weren't you, But I was.
(17:51):
I'm curious, you know, curious as to why you didn't
or why you thought that you couldn't.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I remember then and then I was kind of I
think because of Grandma and Grandpa going to church and
everything else. And I remember wondering if God was punishing
me where or like there was something I did wrong,
because I lost so much of my family within seconds,
(18:17):
within seconds of my life. I lost so much, My
mom lost so much, We lost so much. There was
so much pain. What did I do wrong? And I
think that it just compounded over and over and over again.
And I remember my mom finally coming forward about that
book that she found in the trunk of her car.
(18:37):
And I don't know if you remember what I'm talking about.
It was like an illustrated book of angels and stuff
like that, and there was a handwritten note on the
front page from my grandma and it was never given
to us, I guess until after she passed. Nobody ever
(18:57):
came to claim it. Nobody ever said, oh, well I
did that, No, but nothing ever happened about it. And
it just was like, don't worry about Brett. I've got him,
I'm here, I'm taking care of him. You never have
to worry about him again, or something similar to that.
I'm paraphrasing. I haven't read it in like fifteen years.
(19:19):
But it's weird. It's weird looking back at that entire
situation and looking at everything that I did, everything that
I felt, and even like the recent stuff that I've
dealt with, and kind of looked back at all of
this stuff and tried to grasp it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, just kind of kind of a full circle moment
for you, Bud.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, And it's hard. It's really hard not to see
it as a mirror. It's really hard not to see well,
oh well, she struggled so hard because she didn't have
anybody around her to help. Yeah, And it's it's weird
because she asked me that the other day. She's like,
do you blame me for your suicidal ideation? Do you
(20:04):
blame me for everything that happened with Brettonham? Like, no,
I don't. For the first five years of that problem,
I don't blame you in the slightest After I was
twelve thirteen years old and still feeling those feelings, Yeah,
I needed help and nobody was there the help. I
couldn't get the words out right. And it's it's scary.
(20:30):
It's scary because I'm so scared of my kids kind
of struggling in the same exact way.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, you can. You can take your your feelings and
experiences and that use that as a math good or
bad to guide you in either direction. You know, with
your kids specifically because of how you felt. You know,
you and her both need time to digest and grieve,
(21:02):
but at the same time, keeping in mind that there's
three others also grieving.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, you know, And and it's weird to kind of
figure out that line. Do you treat them as equals
to you? Because I think that's honestly, the answer, well, at.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
What level though, because they only have a certain amount
of understanding, you know, do you have to let them
know the realities of it, But you also have to
make sure that they know that none of this is
their fault or anything that they've done, you know what
I mean. Like, if that's something that you remember specifically
as being a pinpoint, that's definitely something that you want
(21:43):
to make sure that you pass on or move forward
with knowing or knowing that you're addressing in each one
of your children.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, And that grief, that that that that depression that
hit all of us so hard and heavily. It was weird.
The fact that it affected Bella, my youngest sister, so
deeply and heavily after about five six years after she
was born. It's almost like she's got survivor's guilt.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
After she does. She deals with death very very deeply.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And very very oddly. Like and I'm not saying that
in a negative light. It's just I've never seen somebody
who was born after somebody and like I mourn their
death like it happened yesterday and I was there, Like,
how can you never meet somebody but yet mourn somebody
so heavily.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, they were also patterns, you know, from the beginning
of her life, there were patterns things that your mother
did every year for her own process that she needed
to go through. And Bella witnessed those things and she
felt and saw how deeply your mother was grieving, you know.
(23:00):
And so those patterns they make habits, you know. And
I think that she's learned. And I also think, you know,
she's your sister. Bella is very she's very unique, and
she's got a very special spirit, and I believe that
it runs deep, specifically in this area for her.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, And I think that kind of goes to the
point where I'm fourteen at this time, and you finally
come home and this was like the first time that
you were home in a good while. I think you
(23:44):
were even talking about moving home at this point, or
might have already started moving home at this point. And
my attempt habits. And I looked at Katie on her
birthday and I said, I'm sorry, I love you, and
I walked away and I attempted suicide. And it's weird.
(24:06):
It's weird finally looking at all of this and being
so genuinely honest with myself that it's still hard to
look at. I made a podcast on that same exact
day four years ago, and I wanted to be able
to work past all of this. I wanted to be
(24:27):
able to let all of it go because I didn't
want to sit here behind a tattoo that I ended
up getting with you, or all of these feelings of
like not being enough for anybody. It's so hard, that
survivor's guilt, like looking back at it as an adult
(24:48):
and being like, I understand what the fuck I was
feeling and why I was feeling it, but I needed
not to feel it.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah. Yeah, from my point of view, I rejected feeling
it and ran away. I went to Utah, you know,
I left, and I left your mom alone to deal
with it. It's a lot of guilt, that's the guilt
that I hold. Yeah, but it Yeah, Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's hard. Like I remember every single section of that day,
every single part, and it's so hard not to just
rotate over it with all of the shit that's gone on.
It's like I my mom told me recently, she's like
Grandma and Grandpa told me that you were going to
(25:42):
be resilient, that you were going to be okay, don't
make the same mistake I did and just let them squander.
Don't let them struggle with this silently. I let you
struggle with it silently. And I never knew that anything
was wrong. So even if this is the only thing
that anybody grasps from this episode, is even if you're
(26:04):
as close as me and my mom were, and me
and my mom were very, very, very fucking close at
that point, Me and kJ were very fucking close at
that point, nobody knew I attempted. Not a single person
did for three years, not a single person.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We knew you were quiet, we knew you were withdrawn,
we knew that you were dealing with something. I knew
that you were dealing with something. We but I don't
think that she had anywhere withal at that point To
even think anybody own grief unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Even at that point. And that's, you know, ten years later,
twelve years.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Later, Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's hard, and and that part is is I think
the bigger thing that I think both of us want
for everybody is holding onto a grief, holding onto such
an impactful day in your life, that's negative unless you
turn that positive, Unless you try and make something out
of it to be okay, that that gloom will be
(27:09):
over you and it will destroy everything that you're trying
to change.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
It can definitely take you down. And when they were
talking about quicksand when I was a kid, that was
the big thing that we needed to be aware of
was quicksand it was going to worry us later in life. Well,
the quicksand in my life has been grief and it
will take you down. It will take you down. Yeah,
(27:39):
I spent year. I'm not trying to keep myself above
that Quicksand.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So my mom gave me some of the biggest credit
the other day. And we've gone through hell in the past,
you know, ten years. Yeah, my mom looked at me
and said, I know that even in all of this hell,
you will make sure your girlfriend is okay, you will
make sure your family's okay, and you will leave all
(28:05):
of this out.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Of this.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Because I couldn't last time. And honestly, regardless of everything
that's gone on, those words mean so much good. They
are so so fucking impactful because it's like she actually
(28:31):
realizes the things that cause that pain. I guess she
realizes that I could see what's what happened and how
to change it.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, Yeah, that's something that you you definitely have done,
I believe is seen a lot of the things that
have gone right in your life and you've chosen to
follow those paths. But you've also seen a lot of
the things that have gone wrong, and you've chosen to
correct for your own family, and that just needs to
(29:03):
move forward with with this and the grief you know
that they may or may not be feeling. Most likely
they are whether they know it or not.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So the big part of this ends up in both
of us getting a tattoo. And I came to you
with this tattoo idea. I was like, I want Tommy
Pickles wearing a Yankees hat and you know, just something
that symbolizes him and kind of lighthearted. And our upstairs
(29:40):
neighbor was like, hey, I do tattoos. What's your idea.
This dude couldn't draw for shit. And the fact that
none of us, none of us and all of us
are artists in our own different way, whether it's me
with words and visual art, photography or whatever, or none
(30:01):
of us went over this with a fine tooth comb
and was like, this is wrong. Blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I got it because because you that's what you wanted.
You know, it was what you wanted. So that's what
we got.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And I thought it would heal I thought it would
heal me. And now that's why I did it. It
was like, I want something to just get the feelings
out and feel them, but I also want to be
able to.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Let it go. Okay, that's the part that the tattoo
is not going to do for you. You know you
can now tattoos are therapeutic in a lot of ways.
You know, I have my share of them as.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, but have sleeves on both arms.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Now that the tattoos can't do the rest of the
work for you, and that's the letting go part. That's
my problem.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
And I think that I think both of us dealt
with the same exact problem. In that is, it wasn't
the fact that we knew how to let go and
we just couldn't. Was the fact that neither one of
us were shown. Neither one of us knew.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
No, because I don't well, I mean I never I
mean I watched my mom lose her dad. At that point,
I had lot had I had watched that. But it
was also something that I had compartmentalized and dealt with
(31:29):
in the way of doing something else over here to
keep my mind off it. So I think that she
my mom, particularly my mom, we didn't talk about it
a lot, mostly because I didn't want to talk about it.
(31:51):
I wish I had talked about it more with her,
but no, I don't you be your mother. We didn't
get those lessons from our parents. You know, you got
it by watching that was your game.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
That's the only way that I was able to learn
those things was there. And this is where it gets hard.
And it's hard not to critique and look at the
things without my bias, and it's hard to look at
these things and not be like, well I needed help
after one of those things. You would need help, let
(32:30):
alone both and not being able to grasp those things,
not being able to understand that, you know, somebody's gone,
two people are gone. There's a huge impact on life
here What exactly that means? And why doesn't it affect
me long term? And why can it be okay? I
(32:53):
wasn't shown how to be okay. I learned how to
be okay at twenty seven years old. The fact that
that's but thirteen years after something that's crazy. It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah, Now that's what happens. That's the cycle of people people,
especially with grief. That's one thing that people don't take
classes on. You know, I took when I was in college.
I did take a death, dying in Bereavement class and
it was very, very very interesting. But that's in general
one thing that people don't talk about. So that's what
(33:30):
I'm talking about is the taboo, the taboo. Taking away
the taboo will help these conversations to happen. But death
has been very very taboo for a very long time,
so nobody talked about it.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Well even even psychology behind it, and everybody will be
like herd or you're not you're not a doctor, don't
speak click one. No. I helped my mom with every
single one of her psychology courses. I was there through
all of them, and I dealt with a lot of
mental illness my entire life. So if somebody's going to
tell you mental illness without a doctorate, I'm a pretty
(34:03):
okay place to listen. It is. It's hard to grasp
all of this without looking at the mental illness that
not only did it cause, but it was caused by
and that's the hard part is like the physical disease
my grandma dealt with, the physical disease Brett dealt with,
(34:24):
caused my mom's manic depressive to come out. That manic
depressive sent her on a spiral to numerous different places
that I'm sure neither one of us will ever understand.
And it caused me to become suicidal and have suicidal
ideation and caused me to be so fucking depressive for
(34:47):
so many years. What would you in that time? What
would you need to hear to handle it better? Looking
back at it now.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I can't even I can't even think about a one
thing that I would need to hear to have handled
that situation better. I think that people opening up and
(35:33):
talking about a situation helps communication to flow, so people
can get through things better. And if you don't talk
about something, it's not going to happen. I could have,
for myself just been more solid. If I could have
(35:58):
been more solid for my and not been searching, then
I could have been solid for other people that I loved,
including you and your mother. But I was all around
and up in the air in my own self, so
(36:20):
there was no solidifying anything to be solid for anybody
at that point in my life.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
And I think that that's my point, is like I
may have been four at the time, but like the
shit that you put out into the world, which is
why I think everything's kind of okay now. The shit
that you put out into the world, even in the
darkest days, you're still trying to bring light. Is that
(36:50):
your job. It's not just destroy everything because I'm in
a shitty mood today. It's not destroy everything or tear
everything down because I'm depressed. It's not throw everything away
because you know what, I can't do this. You've got
to have some level of accountability to not only the
people around you, but yourself. You got to have a
(37:14):
day worth living. So even if you cannot make sure
that you are okay today, if there's people around you
or something that can help you feel okay, whether that's
bettering your house, bettering your life, bettering somebody around you,
which is why I think, this is why this is
my choice to kind of heal. My girlfriend's first words
(37:37):
this week was, when are you recordings? That way, I
know that you're taken care of. She just wanted to
make sure that I had time to record and stream
and do everything that I need to do to feel okay,
because she knows that if I'm okay, everybody else in
this house will get a fucking late. Every single person
(37:58):
in this house will make sure that they are okay.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
And uh, I'm glad that she knows that about you,
and I'm glad that you'll like that.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And I think all of us saw that on Friday.
I think every single one of us saw that on Friday.
My little baby Ava. I love that girl the fucking
death Great is one of the one of the brightest
and lightest people I've ever seen in my life. Her
(38:30):
first thought was not Oh, We're all going to be sad.
It was everybody's gonna laugh at me because I'm a
smart ass, and I'm gonna laugh around and joke around
with everybody in this room, regardless of whose attention.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Bella is just like that too.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
She's so amazing and just tries to bring everybody up. Yeah,
but I hope, I hope for everybody, regardless of if
you believe in what I'm saying or not, be the light,
whether it's for yourself, your family, your significant other, your kids,
(39:09):
Because the only person that can pull you out of
a depression or grief or being able to be okay
is you.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, And we intend to help lay out some tools
in order to do that, because that's a big statement
to say without having tools to go along with it, and.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's very it's very easy to be able to grasp
onto that and be like, that's impossible, right, I don't
have somebody who's my floor.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
It's huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
If you don't have somebody who's your floor and will
help you even in the hardest days, then you don't
have the right people around you. And that is one
of the hardest things I ever had to grasp. If
everybody leaves you when you can't hold yourself, but they're
there when you can, nobody's there, not a single person is.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
That's what boils down to, is you know you have
your family, but at the end of the day, it's
it's you and you have to be able to stand
down your own two in order to make anything okay.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
That's what boils down to. The exact answer of that
is the lonely road. The lonely road is being able
to be the calm in the storm when every single
day isn't fucking okay, even when there's chaos and everything else,
and you're predicting every single fucking thing that's about to
happen in front of you. You know everything that's about
(40:43):
to happen, and you fight through it. It's knowing that
even if there's one street light on in the road,
you know you're gonna fucking light it, and whoever needs
to follow you's going to come behind you, and at
some point you won't be alone, because now every single
(41:08):
one of you are not alone. Regardless of if this
helps one or helps hundreds of thousands, I don't care.
I'd rather cut myself and make myself bleed so way
every single person is okay, then every single one of
you bleed because I didn't.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'd like to take all the pain that I've experienced
and how I've dug myself out of those holes to
even help one person. That'll make it worth it for me.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
So, guys, I don't know what daisies are going up
where if kJ had any more stories and notes that
she wanted to touch on, But I hope that it helps.
I hope getting out there helps kJ, helps me, helps
any of you. Knowing that it's hard, there is no guidebook,
(42:04):
but we're going to show you how to light the
telephone pole, and we're going to keep going. We'll see
you next time.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Mm hmmm hm
Welcome to the first episode of The Lonely Road. We're
here on your journey to heal and become a better human.
Many of you may know me for my job or
my other podcast, Roman Talk Shit or MTS. This is
a very different show. We're going to go into a
deep dive of grief and mental health. Whether it's stats
or stories, We're going to explore it all in depth.
After dealing with the trauma I'm currently dealing with, I
looked at my girlfriend and I said, I want to
(00:22):
find a way to help people and kind of be
able to do something that will impact the world. And
everything else. I've already gotten email saying hey, you helped
me with this so much. I wanted to kind of
leave more of an impact with all the stuff that
I'm currently dealing with. So on top of that, half
of the money that this podcast makes ever will be
going into charity, whether that's a charity redo, or we
(00:44):
sit there and give money to a charity or a
family that we know needs help in one of these situations.
And as always, this is brought to you by g
Fuel use card arms. You have to check out for
twenty percent off everything that is on the website. Okay, Jay,
why don't you, Why don't you tell us a little
bit about yourself and.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That I am kJ and I don't. I haven't done
any podcasts or anything. This is my first and it's
actually very nervous for me. I've just done political stuff
on TikTok i Facebook like the rest of the world does.
(01:24):
But for the most part, just the short form TikTok's
is what I've been as far as this, this grief
podcast is concerned. This is this is some pretty heavy
stuff and it hits me to the core. I am
someone who feels absolutely everything and grief.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think the cool part of it for both of us, honestly,
is like if you tell a story or I tell
a story, we can essentially verify the things that have
happened almost all of it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, for sure, because we are She is.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
My godmother, She's been there for every day that I've
been alive since day one, whether we were thousands of
miles apart or you know, not talking at the time.
We are more connected than a lot of people would
genuinely understand. So I think that that adds a hell
of a lot of validity to it. Is we're actually
able to kind of verify what's gone on.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's going to be a good component of
it all as well, since we both you've been dealing
with grief since you were a very very young and
I have been dealing with it since I can remember
as well, and it just never never, ever, never ever
clicked with me. A lot of the things we'll be
(02:41):
touching on and talking about, so this is all very
new to me and I will pick up very quickly.
But that being said, let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, it's just getting comfortable, and I think this, I
think this first topic definitely is kind of near and
dear to both of our hearts, and I kind of
changed both of us more than I think anybody genuinely
would realize, even with us being like the secondary people
that are affected in that situation. It caused my suicidal
ideation for you know, twenty six years. I was just
(03:16):
talking about this on my show Real Men Talk Shit,
and I was like, you know, it's really hard to
kind of just grasp and look at suicidal ideation as
something that's not just the big boogeyman that you know,
you put suicide in any conversation. It's scary okay, well, yeah, yeah,
it's scary, but I handled this section of my life
(03:38):
and the stories that have come from it. I got
offered a TED talk because of this stuff. I got
offered to be able to do a lot of very
interesting things and kind of sharing my story, and I
didn't end up doing them. But it's scary. It diagnosed
me with suicidal ideation at twenty seven, and it started
at the age of four, and that is the story
of my brother's passing when I was a child, and
(04:00):
kind of everything that kind of surrounds that. I have
a whole bunch of stats and everything else, and it's
kind of interesting, but it's sad and depressing because you know,
even as a kid in that situation, it's hard to grasp.
But the interesting part to me, so I looked up
these as I drop whatever I was fidgeting with, I
(04:22):
looked up some stats and obviously I just recently dealt
with the passing of a pregnancy as well after twenty weeks,
and as of twenty twenty one, the statistics of an
occurrence of a death within pregnancy after twenty weeks is
one in one hundred, and that kind of blew my
mind even at twenty twenty one, we're still losing one
out of every hundred pregnancies after twenty weeks, so that's crazy.
(04:48):
My mom's pregnancy ended at twenty six weeks, so this
is even more solidified than that. And it was a
pregnancy with twins my sister who's still here, so positive there,
but as a whole sucks. And the other crazy stats
that I saw is six point four percent of children
(05:09):
nine to ten deal with suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts,
and in children with ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder, which
is a major part of ADHD kids, that number triples
to almost twenty percent of kids dealing with suicidal ideation.
So after looking at that, I don't think that this
(05:30):
was as crazy or as impactful as it seems like
it would have been, because I think anybody in this
situation with two drastic people, my brother being you know,
this light almost towards our family being something new is
going to happen passing away, and then my grandma, who
(05:50):
was essentially my mom for the first three years of
my life, passing as well. Twenty percent, that's all one
in five likelihood to be suicidal at that point, and
you know, I wrote it as the title of my
ted talk when I was writing the paperwork was you know,
life rolls on with or without you. My check is
(06:11):
rolling out the window and kJ as you know, I
wanted to roll out of the window of a four
story building, and I don't think that that would have
been a very positive outlook. So when you look at
this situation, obviously you were my mom's best friend at
the time and you're really really close. How did this
all look from the other side of it? Because I
(06:33):
can only, like my four year old mind can only
grasp so much at that time.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I know where my resentment lies and where I struggle
and where I struggle to see things. But where did
you see problems in this?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean, I was very young and it was not
my first dealing with death, but it was a very
very close dealing. Your mother and I have been very
close for a long time, and there's more than her
(07:13):
being my best friend to this day. That's a component
that she was my first girlfriend, and that puts a
completely another layer onto it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
For me, everything kind of shaded and uncomfortable. I'm sure
it was.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It wasn't really as uncomfortable. I mean, I had gotten
over the uncomfort factor much earlier, and we had chosen
to move on as friends, and we both made that
conscious decision to do so, so it was not as
much of an uncomfortable factor. But it was definitely at
(07:56):
a time where I still had feelings for a person
who was going through the things that I wanted to
go through with her with someone else. So there was
a component of that, but it was a very small
component of that, but another layer nonetheless. But I just remember,
my memories are very sporadic when I deal with anything
(08:20):
in life. Really, I don't have a vivid, vivid memory.
I remember how things made me feel, how people make
me feel. Other than that, I have very scattered, very
scattered memories. A lot of people have these picturesque memories.
I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
But what I do remember by memory with that is
insane and nobody else has it. Because I have something
called a nidetic memory, where it's you know, the autism brain.
I know everything that happened. I can explain this entire situation.
That's why I figured it was easier to start off
with you of trying to feel out what the hell
actually happened in what was going on because I could
(08:58):
well tell so much.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean I was you're Fa, your
your stepdad, you know, we'll call it. He was in
there and then he got told to leave and he
just came out and got me and we both went
into the hallway right basically on the other side of
(09:22):
the door of the operating room. And all I can
remember is just sitting there and him pacing back and
forth and back and forth. And then that was for
a while, and then I just remember being in a
room with your mom, Fa, the baby, and a nurse
and they were passing the baby around to be held,
(09:46):
and I'm I had I had a lot of feelings
about that portion of it. I was asked to take pictures.
That was very hard for me, but it is the
least I could do for my best friend who's laying
there and having this have happened to her. And she
(10:08):
asked me to cut a lock of his hair, and
to this day I still shake when I talk about it.
I did, and I felt like I got too close
to his scalp with the scissors because his hair.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Was you know, it's not a lot, there's not very much.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And to this day that I still I still get
that feeling.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, it's hard to grasp. Yeah, Like I don't want
to fully go into the story, but I had to
deal with something very similar literally a month ago now,
and those pictures traumatize the fuck out of me, us
losing that pregnancy and us trying to deal with all that,
and like, can you take pictures to make sure she's okay?
And I'm like, yes, I will, but like, al like hurts,
(10:56):
Like I didn't let me say this. I didn't even
know that any of that that you just said happened.
That that's never been told to me ever, So like
it's hard. It's really hard because you're grasping at something
that just was there and you are so close to
it being in your hands that it's kind of taken
(11:17):
from you.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, yep, yeah, And it was. It was very very
surreal at the time. It was very surreal. Now it's
very surreal. Yeah, but it was as far as the
act or the day was concerned, it was. It was.
It was horrible, and there's there'll be a cloud over
(11:40):
it over that particular day. Now as far as the
day moving forward, I I have been able to make
a clean, a clean break if you will from that
day continuing on every year. That's not something that a
(12:04):
lot of people have or can do, but I I
chose to do that because of your sister. I didn't
want that to be a.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I think that cloud, that cloud that a lot of
people will hold on to and like make it a
big deal and make it something that's like tangible almost.
I think that's part of what caused my suicidal ideation,
like as it moved forward and stuff like that, like
when I look at this situation and and everything else,
(12:37):
and I really kind of don't want to go out
of order, but it'll it's going to be jagged. Boys.
I'm sorry, I really am, but it's my mind's all
over the place. Like it's hard, it's hard to hear. Well,
I wonder what they would do when you're the kid
that's unequal to the kid that passed. It's hard to
wonder where those kind of feelings and emotions are. Like
(13:00):
they don't say those same things about you because you're there,
So then you feel disconnected because they're trying to feel
about something else that's not there, and it's really kind
of hard to grasp. Yeah, So after my grandma died,
my mom spiraled drastically and it caused a massive depression,
(13:25):
and we ended up losing everything. We lost the apartment
we were in, We ended up having to move and
everything else. We were dealing with Kadi's cerebral palsy and
everything else. And I remember learning that, you know, some
people are just different, Zach, some kids are just different.
And having to learn sign language and having to know
(13:46):
all this stuff. And it's weird because Grandma's passing at
that age affected me more at that point in time,
probably because I was so close to her, You were
very close, and it was it was hard to grasp,
really hard to grasp. I remember starting to have night
(14:07):
terrors and feeling like I was going to lose everything.
And it's it's crazy to look back on because those nightmares,
I still can tell you it's the same exact thing
that happened. I can still tell you all of it. Yeah,
it's weird. It's weird the things that stick out, And
it's weird the things that affect you later on that
(14:29):
didn't affect you when they happened.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's true. It's very very sure this subject. It's particularly
hard to talk about grief, and I think that that's
a lot of the reason why there's not grief podcasts.
There's not a lot on the internet about grief. There's
(14:53):
not a lot of people talking about it because it's
so taboo. But I think it's really important. I think
it's important to have to have the conversations and to
have the experiences that we can share, because.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Part is people actually feeling like whatever they're feeling is okay.
Like you could be angry it happened, you can be
sad it happened. You could be depressed, you could be
you could be happy in some circumstances, and all of
those different circumstances can make you look absolutely fucking insane,
all of them.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah. Yeah, And then then there's the guilt that comes
with it, you know, whether it's survivor's guilt or whether
it's a different kind of guilt, or the way that
you had a relationship with that person or didn't have
a relationship with that person, or you know, whatever comes
definitely comes with the territory in a lot of a
lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, that that survivor's guilt is something that I've always
dealt with, and I think that that's what it developed
into for me. I don't remember when it started. I
think it was when we moved into the apartment after
that house that the one on you know what, you
know what, right, I'm talking about the apartment complex where
(16:09):
there was always a shelf in the living room with
all of his things on it, and my mom always
kind of like applauded it, like it was this big
thing that had to be there. Nobody could touch it,
nobody could question anything about it. It just had to
be to me that grief, that that holding on to
that thing and creating it to be such an unquestionable
(16:33):
thing caused a lot of those feelings of not being
able to move past because it's always right there in
your face.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Did you ever care about it?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I have sense like now that I'm an adult and
like everything that we just dealt with and stuff like that,
I made the same choice. I have stuff for my
son in my office. My girlfriend has a necklace on
with his ashes in it. We've made to a point
where it is important. But at the same time, if
you have a question, ask like I've like I've seen
(17:08):
the negative things of like, Okay, if you make it's
a way, there's no questions. If you make it away
everything's unavailable to be talked about. It's impossible not to
cause pain. Regardless of if that's a little baby or
a ten year old or a thirteen year old, all
of them are going to kind of deal with it
differently and feel it differently. And it's it's rough.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Sure, it's interesting that you felt like you couldn't talk
about it or couldn't ask about it at that time.
You know, if you were inquisitive about it and you
wanted to know, you know, you you were a quiet
guy after that, you know, you weren't you, But I was.
(17:51):
I'm curious, you know, curious as to why you didn't
or why you thought that you couldn't.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I remember then and then I was kind of I
think because of Grandma and Grandpa going to church and
everything else. And I remember wondering if God was punishing
me where or like there was something I did wrong,
because I lost so much of my family within seconds,
(18:17):
within seconds of my life. I lost so much, My
mom lost so much, We lost so much. There was
so much pain. What did I do wrong? And I
think that it just compounded over and over and over again.
And I remember my mom finally coming forward about that
book that she found in the trunk of her car.
(18:37):
And I don't know if you remember what I'm talking about.
It was like an illustrated book of angels and stuff
like that, and there was a handwritten note on the
front page from my grandma and it was never given
to us, I guess until after she passed. Nobody ever
(18:57):
came to claim it. Nobody ever said, oh, well I
did that, No, but nothing ever happened about it. And
it just was like, don't worry about Brett. I've got him,
I'm here, I'm taking care of him. You never have
to worry about him again, or something similar to that.
I'm paraphrasing. I haven't read it in like fifteen years.
(19:19):
But it's weird. It's weird looking back at that entire
situation and looking at everything that I did, everything that
I felt, and even like the recent stuff that I've
dealt with, and kind of looked back at all of
this stuff and tried to grasp it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, just kind of kind of a full circle moment
for you, Bud.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, And it's hard. It's really hard not to see
it as a mirror. It's really hard not to see well,
oh well, she struggled so hard because she didn't have
anybody around her to help. Yeah, And it's it's weird
because she asked me that the other day. She's like,
do you blame me for your suicidal ideation? Do you
(20:04):
blame me for everything that happened with Brettonham? Like, no,
I don't. For the first five years of that problem,
I don't blame you in the slightest After I was
twelve thirteen years old and still feeling those feelings, Yeah,
I needed help and nobody was there the help. I
couldn't get the words out right. And it's it's scary.
(20:30):
It's scary because I'm so scared of my kids kind
of struggling in the same exact way.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, you can. You can take your your feelings and
experiences and that use that as a math good or
bad to guide you in either direction. You know, with
your kids specifically because of how you felt. You know,
you and her both need time to digest and grieve,
(21:02):
but at the same time, keeping in mind that there's
three others also grieving.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, you know, And and it's weird to kind of
figure out that line. Do you treat them as equals
to you? Because I think that's honestly, the answer, well, at.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
What level though, because they only have a certain amount
of understanding, you know, do you have to let them
know the realities of it, But you also have to
make sure that they know that none of this is
their fault or anything that they've done, you know what
I mean. Like, if that's something that you remember specifically
as being a pinpoint, that's definitely something that you want
(21:43):
to make sure that you pass on or move forward
with knowing or knowing that you're addressing in each one
of your children.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, And that grief, that that that that depression that
hit all of us so hard and heavily. It was weird.
The fact that it affected Bella, my youngest sister, so
deeply and heavily after about five six years after she
was born. It's almost like she's got survivor's guilt.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
After she does. She deals with death very very deeply.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And very very oddly. Like and I'm not saying that
in a negative light. It's just I've never seen somebody
who was born after somebody and like I mourn their
death like it happened yesterday and I was there, Like,
how can you never meet somebody but yet mourn somebody
so heavily.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, they were also patterns, you know, from the beginning
of her life, there were patterns things that your mother
did every year for her own process that she needed
to go through. And Bella witnessed those things and she
felt and saw how deeply your mother was grieving, you know.
(23:00):
And so those patterns they make habits, you know. And
I think that she's learned. And I also think, you know,
she's your sister. Bella is very she's very unique, and
she's got a very special spirit, and I believe that
it runs deep, specifically in this area for her.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, And I think that kind of goes to the
point where I'm fourteen at this time, and you finally
come home and this was like the first time that
you were home in a good while. I think you
(23:44):
were even talking about moving home at this point, or
might have already started moving home at this point. And
my attempt habits. And I looked at Katie on her
birthday and I said, I'm sorry, I love you, and
I walked away and I attempted suicide. And it's weird.
(24:06):
It's weird finally looking at all of this and being
so genuinely honest with myself that it's still hard to
look at. I made a podcast on that same exact
day four years ago, and I wanted to be able
to work past all of this. I wanted to be
(24:27):
able to let all of it go because I didn't
want to sit here behind a tattoo that I ended
up getting with you, or all of these feelings of
like not being enough for anybody. It's so hard, that
survivor's guilt, like looking back at it as an adult
(24:48):
and being like, I understand what the fuck I was
feeling and why I was feeling it, but I needed
not to feel it.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah. Yeah, from my point of view, I rejected feeling
it and ran away. I went to Utah, you know,
I left, and I left your mom alone to deal
with it. It's a lot of guilt, that's the guilt
that I hold. Yeah, but it Yeah, Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's hard. Like I remember every single section of that day,
every single part, and it's so hard not to just
rotate over it with all of the shit that's gone on.
It's like I my mom told me recently, she's like
Grandma and Grandpa told me that you were going to
(25:42):
be resilient, that you were going to be okay, don't
make the same mistake I did and just let them squander.
Don't let them struggle with this silently. I let you
struggle with it silently. And I never knew that anything
was wrong. So even if this is the only thing
that anybody grasps from this episode, is even if you're
(26:04):
as close as me and my mom were, and me
and my mom were very, very, very fucking close at
that point, Me and kJ were very fucking close at
that point, nobody knew I attempted. Not a single person
did for three years, not a single person.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We knew you were quiet, we knew you were withdrawn,
we knew that you were dealing with something. I knew
that you were dealing with something. We but I don't
think that she had anywhere withal at that point To
even think anybody own grief unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Even at that point. And that's, you know, ten years later,
twelve years.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Later, Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's hard, and and that part is is I think
the bigger thing that I think both of us want
for everybody is holding onto a grief, holding onto such
an impactful day in your life, that's negative unless you
turn that positive, Unless you try and make something out
of it to be okay, that that gloom will be
(27:09):
over you and it will destroy everything that you're trying
to change.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
It can definitely take you down. And when they were
talking about quicksand when I was a kid, that was
the big thing that we needed to be aware of
was quicksand it was going to worry us later in life. Well,
the quicksand in my life has been grief and it
will take you down. It will take you down. Yeah,
(27:39):
I spent year. I'm not trying to keep myself above
that Quicksand.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So my mom gave me some of the biggest credit
the other day. And we've gone through hell in the past,
you know, ten years. Yeah, my mom looked at me
and said, I know that even in all of this hell,
you will make sure your girlfriend is okay, you will
make sure your family's okay, and you will leave all
(28:05):
of this out.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Of this.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Because I couldn't last time. And honestly, regardless of everything
that's gone on, those words mean so much good. They
are so so fucking impactful because it's like she actually
(28:31):
realizes the things that cause that pain. I guess she
realizes that I could see what's what happened and how
to change it.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, Yeah, that's something that you you definitely have done,
I believe is seen a lot of the things that
have gone right in your life and you've chosen to
follow those paths. But you've also seen a lot of
the things that have gone wrong, and you've chosen to
correct for your own family, and that just needs to
(29:03):
move forward with with this and the grief you know
that they may or may not be feeling. Most likely
they are whether they know it or not.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So the big part of this ends up in both
of us getting a tattoo. And I came to you
with this tattoo idea. I was like, I want Tommy
Pickles wearing a Yankees hat and you know, just something
that symbolizes him and kind of lighthearted. And our upstairs
(29:40):
neighbor was like, hey, I do tattoos. What's your idea.
This dude couldn't draw for shit. And the fact that
none of us, none of us and all of us
are artists in our own different way, whether it's me
with words and visual art, photography or whatever, or none
(30:01):
of us went over this with a fine tooth comb
and was like, this is wrong. Blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I got it because because you that's what you wanted.
You know, it was what you wanted. So that's what
we got.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And I thought it would heal I thought it would
heal me. And now that's why I did it. It
was like, I want something to just get the feelings
out and feel them, but I also want to be
able to.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Let it go. Okay, that's the part that the tattoo
is not going to do for you. You know you
can now tattoos are therapeutic in a lot of ways.
You know, I have my share of them as.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, but have sleeves on both arms.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Now that the tattoos can't do the rest of the
work for you, and that's the letting go part. That's
my problem.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
And I think that I think both of us dealt
with the same exact problem. In that is, it wasn't
the fact that we knew how to let go and
we just couldn't. Was the fact that neither one of
us were shown. Neither one of us knew.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
No, because I don't well, I mean I never I
mean I watched my mom lose her dad. At that point,
I had lot had I had watched that. But it
was also something that I had compartmentalized and dealt with
(31:29):
in the way of doing something else over here to
keep my mind off it. So I think that she
my mom, particularly my mom, we didn't talk about it
a lot, mostly because I didn't want to talk about it.
(31:51):
I wish I had talked about it more with her,
but no, I don't you be your mother. We didn't
get those lessons from our parents. You know, you got
it by watching that was your game.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
That's the only way that I was able to learn
those things was there. And this is where it gets hard.
And it's hard not to critique and look at the
things without my bias, and it's hard to look at
these things and not be like, well I needed help
after one of those things. You would need help, let
(32:30):
alone both and not being able to grasp those things,
not being able to understand that, you know, somebody's gone,
two people are gone. There's a huge impact on life
here What exactly that means? And why doesn't it affect
me long term? And why can it be okay? I
(32:53):
wasn't shown how to be okay. I learned how to
be okay at twenty seven years old. The fact that
that's but thirteen years after something that's crazy. It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah, Now that's what happens. That's the cycle of people people,
especially with grief. That's one thing that people don't take
classes on. You know, I took when I was in college.
I did take a death, dying in Bereavement class and
it was very, very very interesting. But that's in general
one thing that people don't talk about. So that's what
(33:30):
I'm talking about is the taboo, the taboo. Taking away
the taboo will help these conversations to happen. But death
has been very very taboo for a very long time,
so nobody talked about it.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Well even even psychology behind it, and everybody will be
like herd or you're not you're not a doctor, don't
speak click one. No. I helped my mom with every
single one of her psychology courses. I was there through
all of them, and I dealt with a lot of
mental illness my entire life. So if somebody's going to
tell you mental illness without a doctorate, I'm a pretty
(34:03):
okay place to listen. It is. It's hard to grasp
all of this without looking at the mental illness that
not only did it cause, but it was caused by
and that's the hard part is like the physical disease
my grandma dealt with, the physical disease Brett dealt with,
(34:24):
caused my mom's manic depressive to come out. That manic
depressive sent her on a spiral to numerous different places
that I'm sure neither one of us will ever understand.
And it caused me to become suicidal and have suicidal
ideation and caused me to be so fucking depressive for
(34:47):
so many years. What would you in that time? What
would you need to hear to handle it better? Looking
back at it now.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I can't even I can't even think about a one
thing that I would need to hear to have handled
that situation better. I think that people opening up and
(35:33):
talking about a situation helps communication to flow, so people
can get through things better. And if you don't talk
about something, it's not going to happen. I could have,
for myself just been more solid. If I could have
(35:58):
been more solid for my and not been searching, then
I could have been solid for other people that I loved,
including you and your mother. But I was all around
and up in the air in my own self, so
(36:20):
there was no solidifying anything to be solid for anybody
at that point in my life.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
And I think that that's my point, is like I
may have been four at the time, but like the
shit that you put out into the world, which is
why I think everything's kind of okay now. The shit
that you put out into the world, even in the
darkest days, you're still trying to bring light. Is that
(36:50):
your job. It's not just destroy everything because I'm in
a shitty mood today. It's not destroy everything or tear
everything down because I'm depressed. It's not throw everything away
because you know what, I can't do this. You've got
to have some level of accountability to not only the
people around you, but yourself. You got to have a
(37:14):
day worth living. So even if you cannot make sure
that you are okay today, if there's people around you
or something that can help you feel okay, whether that's
bettering your house, bettering your life, bettering somebody around you,
which is why I think, this is why this is
my choice to kind of heal. My girlfriend's first words
(37:37):
this week was, when are you recordings? That way, I
know that you're taken care of. She just wanted to
make sure that I had time to record and stream
and do everything that I need to do to feel okay,
because she knows that if I'm okay, everybody else in
this house will get a fucking late. Every single person
(37:58):
in this house will make sure that they are okay.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
And uh, I'm glad that she knows that about you,
and I'm glad that you'll like that.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
And I think all of us saw that on Friday.
I think every single one of us saw that on Friday.
My little baby Ava. I love that girl the fucking
death Great is one of the one of the brightest
and lightest people I've ever seen in my life. Her
(38:30):
first thought was not Oh, We're all going to be sad.
It was everybody's gonna laugh at me because I'm a
smart ass, and I'm gonna laugh around and joke around
with everybody in this room, regardless of whose attention.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Bella is just like that too.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
She's so amazing and just tries to bring everybody up. Yeah,
but I hope, I hope for everybody, regardless of if
you believe in what I'm saying or not, be the light,
whether it's for yourself, your family, your significant other, your kids,
(39:09):
Because the only person that can pull you out of
a depression or grief or being able to be okay
is you.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, And we intend to help lay out some tools
in order to do that, because that's a big statement
to say without having tools to go along with it, and.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's very it's very easy to be able to grasp
onto that and be like, that's impossible, right, I don't
have somebody who's my floor.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
It's huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
If you don't have somebody who's your floor and will
help you even in the hardest days, then you don't
have the right people around you. And that is one
of the hardest things I ever had to grasp. If
everybody leaves you when you can't hold yourself, but they're
there when you can, nobody's there, not a single person is.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
That's what boils down to, is you know you have
your family, but at the end of the day, it's
it's you and you have to be able to stand
down your own two in order to make anything okay.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
That's what boils down to. The exact answer of that
is the lonely road. The lonely road is being able
to be the calm in the storm when every single
day isn't fucking okay, even when there's chaos and everything else,
and you're predicting every single fucking thing that's about to
happen in front of you. You know everything that's about
(40:43):
to happen, and you fight through it. It's knowing that
even if there's one street light on in the road,
you know you're gonna fucking light it, and whoever needs
to follow you's going to come behind you, and at
some point you won't be alone, because now every single
(41:08):
one of you are not alone. Regardless of if this
helps one or helps hundreds of thousands, I don't care.
I'd rather cut myself and make myself bleed so way
every single person is okay, then every single one of
you bleed because I didn't.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'd like to take all the pain that I've experienced
and how I've dug myself out of those holes to
even help one person. That'll make it worth it for me.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
So, guys, I don't know what daisies are going up
where if kJ had any more stories and notes that
she wanted to touch on, But I hope that it helps.
I hope getting out there helps kJ, helps me, helps
any of you. Knowing that it's hard, there is no guidebook,
(42:04):
but we're going to show you how to light the
telephone pole, and we're going to keep going. We'll see
you next time.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Mm hmmm hm
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