[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, good morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you feeling about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a little nervous.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm kind of one of those people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little tough to talk about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm better at listening to everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: What song do you want to play when you walk into room?
[SPEAKER_00]: How was the tough one?
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really think about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came up with broken and beautiful, like Kelly Clarkson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carb.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it chips.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any kind of chips as long as it's cheese.
[SPEAKER_00]: So not to like your Doritos, cheese Doritos, cheesy tato chips.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, chips are it for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, cheese.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cheddar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know it's boring, but it's solid and condiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ranch, ranch dressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I can put that pretty much on anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so I know that you're anxious.
[SPEAKER_01]: So are you a condiment whore?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like my fridge is full condiments, absolutely full.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny because it seems normal to me, but then other people
[SPEAKER_00]: come over and they'll look at in my fridge and they'll be like, oh my god, you have nothing but comments in your fridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's pretty bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like a legit theory that I've come up with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it really rings true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so how did you find out that you were in an old child?
[SPEAKER_00]: So actually, so I am fifty two and I did not realize that that was even a thing until about three years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was going through some marriage counseling at the time Osmary had been married for two or five years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the marriage counselor that we had gone to talk to, she in one of the sessions, she kind of pulled us and did some separate sessions and then some combined sessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in one of my first individual sessions, she said, you, you're your co-dependent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, and no, I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm extremely independent.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I didn't know what it meant at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know, I had never heard the term.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then she explained it to me and you know, my understanding of it and how it related to me was that I tended to set myself aside for everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tended to put everybody's needs first.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't function well unless everybody else around me was being taken care of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when she explained it all to me and I said, yeah, that's me to a T.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she gave me a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually the P.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Melody book, The Facing Code Penency.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gave me that to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I couldn't stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was reading anything I could read on Code Penency.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to know more.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in one of those books, and I think it was one of the Melody Beaty books, I'm not sure if I'm saying her name, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But in one of her books, she talked about kind of the origins of adult children about colleagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was when I was like, oh, oh, this is what I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, this is exactly, and I started reading the traits.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every single one of them were just spot on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I started reading all about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just soaked it up as much as I could get.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was reading.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was doing online searches.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was finding books to read articles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything I could get my hands on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Prior to that had you ever been in therapy before?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I tried when I was in college, I did like a really short stint of some of doing some counseling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had some sexual abuse as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the time, I like when I was in college, I thought, and honestly, some of those days are kind of a little blurred for me to think back to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember thinking, I have some things I need to work out and I need to talk to somebody about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I did see a counselor for a very short period of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't click with the counselor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I quit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I know that when that happens, it's okay to find somebody new.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody that you do click with.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the time, I didn't realize that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just quit doing it and just continued living my life and continued doing things I shouldn't have been doing and living, you know, just living.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, that was my first encountering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then can't remember how long into my marriage, but we had tried some marriage counseling
[SPEAKER_00]: pretty early on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say probably within the first five years or so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why I've tended to block out some of that stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't remember all the details of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do remember talking a little bit with that counselor about some of the sexual abuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, she ended up quitting the practice or retiring or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I could have had success with that particular counselor, had she continued on.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when she retired and quit, I didn't follow up and find anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So until the marriage counseling three years ago, I hadn't talked to anybody else in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to just act where I want to go because I want to dive into just your marriage because I think it's like a story that a lot of people can relate to.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I guess let's just go back to your childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: So paint the picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually, it all kind of interrelated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So kind of a brief rundown of my childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my dad was my alcoholic.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was
[SPEAKER_00]: I never knew him not to have a bear in his hand, not to be drinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ran pretty hard with his brother who was my offender.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the one who sexually abused both my sister and I. And I don't know if I don't know if my dad ever knew what was going on in hindsight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm now that I'm older and working through some of these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm starting to kind of wonder if he didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I now looking back and see signs of where possibly he may have been a fent and a fender himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He may have prayed on children himself, but the older ones where my uncle prayed on kids my age.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was between five and ten when most of the abuse happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually went on to the surf time and prison for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was arrested later after I had left the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he'd go on to abuse several other kids and ended up prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: That my dad was extremely alcoholic.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was good dad to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I loved him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was good to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't have a good relationship with my sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say he had any relationship with my younger brother because he was so young when he passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had, he was a terrible husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely terrible husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ran around on my mom to use me all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: each basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now when I look back, I even saw it myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't question it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't question, but you know, I would walk into a room and he'd be sitting next to an older cousin that I had that they're sitting under a blanket and clearly there's something not right about this situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my mind, I just went on with things and didn't really question more than I should have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now looking back, I see the inappropriateness of it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a heavy drinker when I was twelve.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was killed in a hit and run accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ironically, by somebody who was drunk and high on drugs, the guy hit him left the scene, went around the corner to a pizza hut and called his wife to come get him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know all the details of how that happened, but they did end up picking him up and all of that, but my dad was killed instantly by the impact.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had an uncle with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: an older uncle who survived and was fine, but it was definitely a traumatic experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do you remember finding out?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, as a child, it was extremely anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I was one of those kids that I know you've talked about this too about being very anxious when my mom left.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she left as alone was going somewhere, I would cry and please don't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would get myself kind of spun out about
[SPEAKER_00]: what would I do if I lost my parents?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know why that was what I focused in on, but the night my dad died.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom came in to wake us up and all I remember was I just got up and I instantly went to her and started hugging on her and I knew something was wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I almost think that some of that, you know, leading up to those to that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think some of that anxiousness was almost, it almost prepared me for what was about to happen even though I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously,
[SPEAKER_00]: was going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she woke us up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't remember exactly what was said in all of that had communicated to us what had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next thing I remember was being in the car driving to my grandmother's house with my aunt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just sitting on, I think my mom's lab.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, no seat belts for any of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all just piled into the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm looking out the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just, I'm not crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just kind of like almost, I think stunned and just in shock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I remember getting to my grandmother's house and getting out of the car
[SPEAKER_00]: And up to that point, my aunts, my dad's brother, her, my dad's sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been very calm in all of it, getting us to my grandma's.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as she got out of the car and she saw my grandma, she just broke.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just remembered her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can clearly visualize that moment and remember that moment, Crystal Claire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she went up the sidewalk to my grandma and she's like, they killed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They killed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she just broke down into yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I just remembered her and my grandmother just wailing and crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was heartbreaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my dad was he was the youngest of his siblings and extremely spoiled everybody loved him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody, you know, just he was like the this gold and child to everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he was definitely all his siblings just always we're always there for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, even when he was kind of a jerk to deal with, they were still always there for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like said, everybody loved him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so that's how I found out was basically
[SPEAKER_00]: that stream of events.
[SPEAKER_01]: So did it feel like that was like a real, like, do you feel like things really shifted like after that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that like a big milestone?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would say absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later I found out that my mom was actually planning on leaving my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had been talking with a friend of hers who was going to help her get out of the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was a stand home mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, raising three kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't have in consort or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: I come from my dad was Hispanic and so that family dynamic was his family pretty much had thumbs on everything and kind of ran things in my grandma particular.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was the matriarch of everybody and so it was very difficult in my mom's thinking it was going to be very difficult to leave that situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she had found this friend that was going to help her and then my dad was killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the dynamics of their marriage was not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: She immediately, after he passed, I think kind of went into her own little trauma zone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she started dating right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started losing a bunch of weight.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started buying all sorts of nice clothes and jewelry and going out all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she ended up remarried within six months, about six months.
[SPEAKER_00]: And within a year,
[SPEAKER_00]: we were moving across country to Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went all at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the guy that she remarried or she married, he was from he was Canadian.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he had family in Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in an attempt to get us and my mom away from my dad's family and that dynamic, apparently their idea was to move across country to Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my sister who was sixteen at the time, yeah, sixteen at the time,
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't want to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was adamant.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was not leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tension was high between her and my mom at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember her saying, she's her standing on the porch of her boyfriend's house and tell my mom, fuck you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my mom said, OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we literally, my brother and I were in the backseat going down the highway, knowing that we left my sister behind in Texas, not knowing what was going to happen if we'd ever see her again.
[SPEAKER_00]: anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here we're headed across country to a whole new, whole new country.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, yeah, it was terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went up, we moved up there, moved to Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: We moved a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny, because I have a friend that's also ACA and not in our group or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we've kind of compared notes and it is it's so funny how that it that seems to be a common trait I think for ACAs to to have moved a lot and I want to say I counted in that short period of time we had moved twelve different times yeah it was crazy so we left our little place in outside of San Antonio where I grew up and then suddenly we were staying with an uncle and then we're living in another place and
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in college station and then we're moving someplace else into another house and even in in the same city or towns, we seemed to have jumped around in houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I suspect there was probably some financial issues that were causing some of that, but of course, I don't know all the details of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we moved quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't really have a chance to kind of settle in and make friends or long-term until I hit high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And but all that time, I would jump around and go to the next school and make friends and go to the next school and make friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I, even to the day, I don't have a lot of really, really close friends because I know it's hard for me to just let that happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the deal with your mom's second husband?
[SPEAKER_01]: Another alcoholic?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alcoholic drug user.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love my mom to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm extremely close to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she definitely was the type of person who kind of molded herself to be, to fit in with whoever she was with.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whatever they were doing, she tended to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that she really got into the drugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do know that he was heavy into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think also selling.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was some of that going on as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But definitely have a drinker.
[SPEAKER_00]: They both would drink quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: where she didn't drink quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't drink hardly at all when married to my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was a big change for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was one of those kind of people that I think offered her some protection.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was something she was looking for.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was looking to get away from my dad's family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this guy stepped up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was this rough, tough, biker guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was going to offer her the protection, move her out of the country, go somewhere where they couldn't find us, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was fine with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of stayed off his radar.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did, he was not good to my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: My younger brother had a really contentious relationship with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was not healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that did a lot of damage for my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, my sister, you know, she did end up following us up to Canada at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when she was, so I think it took like a year or so, she ended up following us up to Canada and then
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of we've all been fairly close as far as living in the same area as we've all been fairly close.
[SPEAKER_00]: So currently where I live, my mom is here, and then my sister and brother as well, but I rarely see them when I really talk to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom is talking to a regular basis, but I don't have much of a relationship with my brother or sister.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are they doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: They lead different lifestyles than I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of them didn't make it through high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might, my sister, not really sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there's a lot of a lot of pot that she smokes, but I suspect there's some other stuff beyond that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's got some other big issues that she does with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then my brother, he followed my dad's footsteps.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an alcoholic and he's just, he's very, he has a lot of just things going on in his own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't usually hear from him unless he's needing something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both my sister and brother, I might get like a birthday text or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's just not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my sister and I in particular have had a very, very rocky relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like night and day.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many years apart are you guys?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're three, three years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually we're each three years apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: So three years from my sister, three years from my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, she'll have periods of time where she'll just decide I've done something to a fender and then
[SPEAKER_00]: we don't talk for three years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've kind of decided through some of this work that I don't need to keep chasing those kind of relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're going to happen, they're going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as long as they're not in a healthy place, then it's not healthy for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can be in the same room with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't have any problems, you know, cocking and having conversation with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't seek out those relationships like I tried to before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It always used to hurt me that
[SPEAKER_00]: that I was like the black sheep to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they have this image of me as being somebody that thinks I'm better than them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the main difference is that they've chosen one route to take their life and I've chosen another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've chosen not to do the drugs and alcohol.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've chosen to go to school, I've chosen to get a profession, have a career.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've not made that, those same choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's all it was, was choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't judge them for the choices that they made.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just different from what I chose.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I felt a lot of judgment back from them, ironically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did your mom have a relationship with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: She does, yeah, she's kind of, she's kind of part of the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because she will, the relationship that she has with each of us is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she gets upset that we can't all be having
[SPEAKER_00]: family holidays together anymore and things like that, but yet she is she's part of the reason why we're all the way that we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she refuses to see that my brother has an alcohol problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's actually denied that to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, no, he's not drinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: A smell of alcohol is breath when I had a conversation with him the other day, but okay, you know, and then my sister, she just, my sister's got a lot of
[SPEAKER_00]: mental things going on, I think, with her and rather than my mom addressing some of those things with her, she just kind of plays into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that just perpetuates the problems in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as far as I'm concerned, you know, I think she's identified me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been the child that was there to
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to what was going on in her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: She still talks to me about things with her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was there through, you know, you're so married.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dad, same guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many more?
[SPEAKER_01]: What number are we?
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's actually, she would kill me if she knew I said this.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's actually on number four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was married very, very young before my dad and then my dad, sixteen years and then husband number three.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say maybe ten years or so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's been with this one almost thirty so it's been like twenty nine years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's been a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's been interesting to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another alcoholic.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom's childhood and story is probably a whole other episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's got her own background, her own trauma that she went through as a child and her own difficult relationship with her mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm surprised that she's even as good mom as what she is when she tells me something that's happened to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know that they talk about generational trauma and it is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a live and well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I not only have my own trauma from my own childhood, but I carry hers as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was actually when I started some of this work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was one of the things I really struggled with knowing that I was going to probably affect my own kids with some of the things that I experienced and that I carry with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you try not to.
[SPEAKER_00]: You really try to not let
[SPEAKER_00]: your own baggage and shit carry through to your kids, but it happens before you even realize, before you even realize you've affected them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's, that one's been a tough one for me to deal with.
[SPEAKER_01]: When was the first time that you told somebody that you were sexually abused?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always thought my mom knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always thought that she knew what was going on because when my uncle would be around,
[SPEAKER_00]: She would make us like at night we would have to walk ourselves in our room.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would stand outside of the bedroom door and she would wait for us to lock the door from the inside before she would walk away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always thought she knew that what he was doing and that was her way of trying to protect us when she when he was around.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was lots of different instances where I remember one night he showed up when my dad was at home and my mom had us, you know, we were sitting on a bed and she was
[SPEAKER_00]: house was dark and she was telling us to be quiet and we were trying to be quiet and I just remember crying and being upset because I could obviously tell something wasn't right going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always knew that my uncle wasn't safe and she knew he wasn't safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it actually wasn't until I was a senior in high school that it came out and I was as we were her and my sister and I were all kind of my sister's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually had my own apartment, my senior year of high school, I was living on my own by that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we were at my sister's house and I don't even know how the conversation started but it was very casually mentioned by me something about being abused by my uncle and she was like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then so she was completely shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: She acted like she knew nothing and I don't know to this day if she really did or not because she's kind of blocked a lot of things out herself and it was just it was very emotional
[SPEAKER_00]: conversation after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: My sister said, yes, it happened to me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not a lot of details given and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: A whole lot of tears.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a whole lot of tears.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that would be that was the first time that it ever came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, it's not something that I felt I needed to hide.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been very open about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've actually been able to have really good relationship with his daughters who I hadn't seen in, you know, since we had left Texas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've since been able to establish relationships with two of his three daughters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we see each other on as much as we can.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they live one lives in Texas, one lives in Utah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we try to see each other when we can.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't, they are not guilty of the sins of their father.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't judge them for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so you're like me and you love the emotionally unavailable alcoholics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like all my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have chose people to be with who I have to kind of force them along.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's almost like I have to convince people to be with me and it's
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, every single person I've been with in any kind of long-term relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: My first one, during my last couple years of high school and in a couple years in college, I lived with this one guy and very, very nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, I loved him to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had great relationship, got him along really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when he drank, he drank hard and it was a lot of fighting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, it was just very chaotic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And living in that, I didn't think a whole lot of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just seemed like that was just normal life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was a lot of that kind of stuff when I was growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to see it now as an adult, it really surprised me too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got to a point where, and that was when I was living in Clona in Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it got to a point where I just could do it anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just feeling the pull.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to make a decision at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was I going to
[SPEAKER_00]: Give up my US citizenship and remaining Canada, or was I going to move back to the US?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was legally, I had to make that decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was not one of those people that had the dual residency option or dual citizenship option.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to decide.
[SPEAKER_00]: And things were not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were not good in that relationship at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the drinking had just gone worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I made the decision to come home, come back to the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I left that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I very quickly got into a relationship with someone in here and at the time, you know, we were dating things were good.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was kind of a confirmed bachelor hadn't been married into his thirties and seemed happy living life that way and he had we had some mutual friends that
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the wives had convinced him that, you know, I was a good pick, you know, kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was young.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're both Catholic.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was important thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was like, you better snap this one up kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I was twenty four, twenty five and at the time, it's like, why are you dating somebody if you don't have the intent of moving that direction with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he did propose and I said, yes, and not that I didn't, you know, I loved him, but in
[SPEAKER_00]: Now looking back, that that wasn't the reason to get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had only been dating for six months when he proposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we hadn't even put the time in to really know if this was a good fit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I honestly don't think he was really ready to be getting married at that point, even though he was older.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's eight years difference between us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was substantial.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't regret that relationship at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have my beautiful kids because of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do not regret that at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was a drinker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I wouldn't have said alcoholic at the time, possibly, depending on how you would define an alcoholic, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was never abusive to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was never a bad drunk or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Drinking was just a big part of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at first, I drink too.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went, you know, his friends became my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did a lot with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I started realizing as I got older, this is getting really old.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to keep living this life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, his friends continued to want to do the drinking and every time we got together, it was, what do we drinking?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what it was all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then some of, yeah, it just, it got to be a little too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then we started, I would say probably about fifteen years in, we started to go our own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I started to drink less and less.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started to not go with him to the friends's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started to go to less of the functions and events.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was fine with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would do his thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would do mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at some point, we just kind of drifted apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, you know, my kids, I was very conscientious of, I didn't want to leave my kids when they were young and not know who was going to be around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was probably way over protective in that sense about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stayed in a situation that I wasn't happy at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at one point, in some of our final conversations, you know, we talked about the drinking and his health and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he flat out said to me, I'm not giving up my beer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to give that up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it was at that moment that I realized that this is not going to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've chose, again, somebody who
[SPEAKER_00]: put something else above our relationship, something else above being present in our marriage and wanting to make that effort and wanting to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just was kind of an eye open for me after that conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did do the marriage counseling for a few months and tried that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was tough that I remember the night that we
[SPEAKER_00]: went to the counselor and I had said the words, I want to divorce.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that drive home was very awkward.
[SPEAKER_00]: That drive home was very tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to me, so not so nice thing, some of it now looking back probably wasn't too far off.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that I was emotionally unavailable, that I would never be able to let somebody love me because I didn't know how to let people love me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And until I let people in,
[SPEAKER_00]: I was never going to have a good relationship with anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Said the person is not willing to give up this beer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't realize until after some of that that he was drinking a lot more often than I even knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a small business that he was operating some maintenance stuff for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't realize, I mean, I knew he had a fridge with beer and stuff, but they didn't really see was drinking pretty much every day two or three beers before he was even coming home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he would sometimes shrink at home too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I didn't even realize that that was happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we couldn't go anywhere without the cooler of beer coming along with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so looking back and you know, and I don't, like I said, he's, I don't like to say too much terrible about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not a terrible person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just the choice that he made that that was going to be more important in his life than our marriage was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was hard because when we first started going to that process of the divorce, he did everything that they say people will do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, you know, well, I'm going to try really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do all the things that you told me I wasn't doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to be a better husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by then it was like it just felt like it was just, it was, it didn't feel real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just felt like it was, you know, just words at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were because when things were final,
[SPEAKER_00]: He basically went right back to living the same situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's probably, I honestly, I probably think he drinks more now than he did even when we were married.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, twenty five years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what was that experience like of being tingle again?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: That has been, that's been tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my kids are all adults now.
[SPEAKER_00]: My youngest is twenty.
[SPEAKER_00]: three, twenty three, he just turned twenty three.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it, that was tough to even tell them that after that long that their dad and I were getting divorced, that was really hard on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that made for some really tough days, you know, in the relationships with my kids, my youngest when it completely radio silent on me for like two weeks, wouldn't even talk to me after I told them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was away at school at college.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wouldn't even talk to me for two weeks after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: My oldest,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole other story in itself, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually the son, the biological son of my sister's husband, and came to live with us when he was sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he comes from his own traumatic childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's a hundred percent in ACA kid himself, sexual abuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you name it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This kid's been through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was actually my solid one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the one that was very supportive, very to listen to everything and kind of understand at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: He changed afterwards, but at first he was really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter who lived in the house with us still, she was an adult, but she worked in stuff here in the community and was living at home, and that was really hard on her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she tried to be kind of neutral about it, but she was pulled directly into the middle of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think when it comes to dating and stepping back out into that field,
[SPEAKER_00]: It made it really hard probably on my daughter the most, which then affects all of my decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been three years since the divorce.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not jumped back into dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only been recently that I've considered jumping back into dating, but it's hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is really tough because do you do look for somebody who's ACA or in a program and understands kind of some of what we go through?
[SPEAKER_00]: or do you find somebody who's quote unquote a normie who hasn't experienced these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe doesn't understand some of the challenges that you're going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess there's pros and cons with both because if you go with somebody who understands what we go through, then do you continue to be in meshed in that for the rest of your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be working on my program.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be working on my recovery and get healthier
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't want it to consume my life and not to be the only thing that that me and a partner focus on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's that risk I think that you run into in that situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you go with somebody who doesn't, isn't a part of the program, it doesn't know what you're going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, then is there always that disconnect or they don't get it, you know, and they can't understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was the situation with my ex husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he didn't understand what I was going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And wanted to say that all of our problems were because of my problems, that all of our marriage issues were because of my damage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I could just fix me, and if I could just fix my damage, then everything would be great and perfect again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's that risk, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's fucked up though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, he's got his own issues, but he says he came from a perfect childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's childhood is perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nobody I know it comes from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's just, that's what I was going to say, too, is like, really is there ever such a thing as like, a normie, you know, there's not no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the thing is just like, for me, I can't just because of like the level of depth that I have about myself, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe somebody who's not like in ACA, but I can't, if somebody, because I've tried and when somebody just doesn't understand it at all, you know, or like can't like even questions like
[SPEAKER_01]: I went on a date like a couple weeks ago and the guy was just like, well, can't you just accept your parents for who they are?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just like things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I have to have somebody who at least like understands it or like even somebody I can't have somebody that doesn't comprehend like somebody who would be like, well, why can't you just have one drink?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: There has to be some sort of an understanding or that intimacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm never going to get to that level of intimacy, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's exactly it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if I had to choose, I absolutely would choose somebody who is familiar with our background.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a similar background as me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that for me, it's going to have to be somebody that can understand
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the way I am and accept me for the way that I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I am always working to improve myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always working to heal.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, I need people in my life who accept me for just the way I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not just that, not just except, but like, I want somebody who sees it as like a strength and an asset.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like I want somebody who really sees me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and ultimately that's what I think that's probably one of my biggest challenges in jumping back into dating is I for one, I'm afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm terrified of going to end up following the same pattern that I'm going to end up choosing somebody who has some sort of an addiction or somebody who can't be present in my life, somebody who I have to kind of pull along, you know, forced to be with me so to speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody that doesn't willingly choose me.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's what I'm afraid of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in all my life, that's I can't say that I've ever found the one and fallen in love with somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I have loved people and I've loved, I loved my husband, but can I honestly say I've ever found the one, I don't know that that even exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: So because that for me is so I've never found it, I don't know if it's out there to find.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it's terrifying to jump back in and not know if you're going to do make the same mistakes that you've made before and can I find somebody who, like you said, sees me, you know, somebody who is willing to make that choice and I'm that choice and be present to my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be messy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's all, I mean, that's part of the healing, like, too is like, yeah, you might find somebody that, but hopefully, it relies it sooner and it's all part of the process, unfortunately, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am seeing a counselor now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked to a counselor and she's kind of told me that same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And basically, now I said to her, why don't know if I'm ready to be dating?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I'm ready to jump back in yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she goes, well, let's look at this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, and she listed all these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, these are all the things that you've accomplished.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't look back on your marriage with resentment or hatred or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't affect you on a day-to-day basis anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't, I can't remember all the things that she listed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she had this whole list of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I read through it, I'm like, oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it made sense to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe where I think I'm not really ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I am ready because I've been working on this now for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I know you just dip a toe in and see how it goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you just went and just see how the water feels.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but everybody says how terrible the online dating is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have not done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've just I dread that whole scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I live in a small community so that the chance of finding somebody is really tough, you know, just organically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you had any conversations with your kids about the healing that you're doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mentioned my oldest.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually he's in AA currently and works a program and then I joined Alan on the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the year that I was starting how problems in my marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we've actually had a really, really year.
[SPEAKER_01]: You started having problems in your face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that's a good point that you say that the year that everything kind of came to a head of just teasing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was it was actually my first Alan on meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went home from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I can't remember the message that I heard there, but I was crying the whole way home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was that night I came home and I sat down in front of my husband and I said, things have got to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not working.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something's got to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this this things don't change.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Alan on was really integral for me and having that in common.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having that some sort of twelve step program in common was one of my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really helped us to kind of have a better relationship in that sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: We kind of can talk the same language.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my daughter is very close to my son's fiancee.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's also in the program.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so because of that, my daughter started going to meetings with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she actually became a lot closer to my oldest, which was kind of cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my daughter got to kind of dip her toe in the program without actually being in a program.
[SPEAKER_00]: She probably could absolutely use some some Allen on in her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because we're such a small community and small program, that makes it really awkward and tough to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having all of them in a program has been really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you say, am I able to have those conversations about my healing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're very open about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my youngest son, since the divorce, and after his two week of radio silence on me,
[SPEAKER_00]: He's come around quite a bit and he's actually one of my champions now too and he's very supportive on things and he's he's not in a program or anything like that and he lives away in another city but he hundred percent supports me and anything when I talk to him about the possibility of starting to date he was very you know mom you have to do what you have to do I'm going to support you it's your life you do what you you want to do kind of thing and that was really good to hear but yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as healing it and all of the work that I've been doing, my kids are very, very good about it and they're very good about listening to me about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, because I do tend to probably talk there off about it a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: What has been, what has it been being a part of the community and specifically the CSA group?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh, that's been so huge for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's funny because when you grow up,
[SPEAKER_00]: in this type of lifestyle, you just think it's normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't until it actually probably was a conversation I had with my business partner a few years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were kind of comparing some notes on things that I was telling her about some stuff that had happened to my childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was just shocked and just kind of appalled.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, her childhood was not perfect either by any means, but not near to the kind of things that I had experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was telling her about
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, hmm, I don't think this is normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't what everybody's childhood looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having the group where there's all these other people who have experienced similar backgrounds and similar experiences, it's been amazingly, it's been an amazing experience for me to have those people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the CSA group in particular,
[SPEAKER_00]: has been unbelievably helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a small, you know, the subgroups are great and it allows for kind of that smaller group of people to come together and share more intimately about specific things that have happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those people in that group have been, they've become my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I look forward to seeing them every Wednesday night and getting on those calls with them and checking in and seeing what's going on and, you know, telling them about how my week went and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not always about, you know, the details of whatever trauma we had in our childhood that led us to that group.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not always about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we've laughed a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cry a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have we talk about non CSA stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's just kind of a really good group of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also do the twelve step study on Sunday nights.
[SPEAKER_00]: And same, it's been
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a whole different, there's a couple of people that overlap, but it's been a whole different setting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I absolutely love those people there and working through those steps and half the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't even get through a page in a meeting, but the things that we work through and talk about and the healing that happens in that group, it's absolutely phenomenal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just phenomenal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love those people there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I can't speak highly enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't for the, about the first, well, the first year I was on,
[SPEAKER_00]: In your group.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was terrified to convince any of the meetings or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't I just kind of was that lurker in the background.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just kind of checking out the podcasts and all your episodes coming out listening to those and just following some of the chats and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then schedule wise I couldn't quite make the Thursdays and the Sunday meetings, but lately I've been getting into more of those and again, each of these groups.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of these individual meetings seem to have something to offer in their own unique way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you will absolutely find something in every one of those meetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's almost never a meeting I walk away from that I don't bring something out of it that helps me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's been fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been wonderful having you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three things they like about yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, three things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try to be very positive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of those glasses have full kind of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the chips are down, I feel like that's when I do my best work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I can kind of pull up and get work done, get things done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sense of humor, love to laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having people in my life that love to laugh with me, that's a huge bonus for me, love laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I've got people in my life that are important to me, I'm going to give them a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you're in my circle, if you're in my circle, you're in, and it's hard for me to let that go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless somebody does something to me to hurt me or to lose my trust in them, it's really hard for me to let go of people once they're in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I would say love hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, hope or dream for the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope or dream, I just want to live a life of peace, and I want to live an authentic life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just want to be authentically me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always felt like I had to be the certain person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to be, you know, the one that had all their shit together and put on the certain image of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to live that way anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to live authentic life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want somebody, I want to partner in my life who chooses me who chooses to have that with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say those are my two big ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I was thinking about when you're saying like, never really being in love and the one, it's like, well, you've never like lived as your true self, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Very true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're exactly right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've definitely not lived kind of personally answered.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a whole different person today than I was even three years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.