Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Choosing Hope and Humor with Kristina Kuzmic

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

In this episode, Sharon has a conversation with Kristina Kuzmic, whose viral videos you’ve definitely seen in your Facebook feed or YouTube recommendations! Kristina gets candid about her childhood with Sharon, talking about the survivor’s guilt she felt as a teenager who immigrated to the US from war-torn Croatia in the 1990s. When Kristina was at her lowest–a broke, single mom to two young children–she began cooking dinners for friends and strangers, choosing to put her energy into the things she was good at instead of dwelling on the things she couldn’t do. These days, Kristina uses comedy to share the imperfectness of her life and her relatable videos have over a billion views. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my friends. Welcome. Always delighted to have you. Today, I am chatting with my friend Kristina Kuzmich. And I've had Kristina here before, and we discussed a fascinating story from the state of Hawaii. But today, I want to hear more about Kristina's story. She is an immigrant from Croatia. She has just had such a unique journey. She's an author. She has videos that have been viewed billions with a B, billions of times on Facebook. So let's dive in to my conversation with Christina Kuzmich. I'm Sharon McMahon. And welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Yay. Christina, thank you so much for coming back. I am so excited to chat with you today. I am so honored you'd have me back a second time. Oh, it's my pleasure.

I loved chatting with you before. If you have not listened to our episode about Hawaii, I had my friend Christina on and we were just talking about this story, but I realized you have such an amazing story that it is worthy of a whole episode just hearing from you. So I needed to have you back to talk about your own self. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. So if you're not familiar, Christina has racked up over a billion views on her viral videos on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account, you've seen her face. Is that weird for you? Is that weird to be like, everyone has seen me on the internet? You know what? The great thing is often I'm in my pajamas looking like a hot mess on the internet. So at least I don't have to worry about like, if I go in public,

do I have to dress up? No, people wouldn't recognize me if I was like in a gown, you know? That's right. That's right. You've set the bar where you can keep it. Always set the bar very low for yourself on the internet. None of those perfect pictures. And then you'll feel free to live your life. That's a good point. Excellent point. If you are always wearing Gucci, there's nowhere to go, but down. Yeah. are always wearing Gucci. Yes. There's nowhere to go, but down. Yeah. Start really low, really just your worst self post that, that people can be pleasantly surprised. I do that with my house too. I'll post like the sink full of dishes and the messiness. So if somebody comes over, they would almost be disappointed if it wasn't a mess. Like I'm doing them a favor by keeping it a mess. That's right. This is my community service. Yes. That's

right. You're welcome. I want to go back to young Christina. I referred, I referred to my childhood self sometimes as fifth grade Sharon, you know, like what was fifth grade Sharon doing? She was being annoyed by Jason and her class who got away with everything. And she got away with nothing. It's always Jason. Why is it always a Jason? At least from my generation, it was always a Jason always Jason's not as popular today, but it certainly was when I was growing up and it was always a Jason and the Jason was always, you know, like he was cute and popular and whatever. And the teacher let him get away with everything now. Yep. All right. So take us back to your childhood because you are an immigrant to

the United States. And I would love to hear more about what it was like growing up for you and what eventually led to you coming to the United States and what that was like for you. Sure. So I grew up in Croatia. That's where I was born and raised. And it was actually part of Yugoslavia at that time when I was born. And it was a communist country. And we did the whole standing in long lines in the morning to get bread. But all of that just felt normal because whatever you know as a kid is normal to you. And then when I was 12 years old, war started there. And that was the war that actually eventually led to Croatia being an independent country. But I just remember sitting one evening watching a new kids on the block video with my sister on TV. And it was like Croatia had like two stations at the time. And it was like one,

you know, half hour block in the evening where they would play music videos. So we never missed it. And while we're sitting there, all of a sudden we hear the loudest noise I've ever heard. I had no idea what it was. And then I hear my parents running down the stairs, carrying my little sister, get down on the ground, get down on the ground, get down on the ground. And we all ended up face down on the carpet in our living room. And my dad was like, okay, life's about to change. A war starting. There were rumors of that before, but I was too young to really get it. And so that completely sort of grew me up, I guess, a little bit where now I was suddenly worried about like which neighbor's basement we were going to run to because we didn't have a finished basement instead of what am I going to wear to school tomorrow? And then when I was 14,

my dad got a job in the US, just a temporary job. And as a professor and we moved, so my freshman year of high school, I moved to a completely different country. We had visited as kids before, but still completely different country, different culture, different language. I have survivor guilt because my friends are still dealing with the war. And my friends in America are like, Oh, should we go to the mall Friday? Or should we just sit around and watch a movie? So it was very confusing for a 14-year-old me. I should have been in a lot of therapy, Sharon, and I wasn't. I should have been in a ton of daily therapy. But that was pretty much my childhood. And then at 21, I became a citizen. We were here on a green card, and then we went through that whole process. And when the war ended, my family moved back. I happened to be headed to college. So I'm the only one here. You are. Yeah. My parents are back.

My younger sister actually ended up marrying an American, but he moved back to Croatia with her and they have five kids. So yeah. Okay. When you moved here at age 14, were you excited or did your parents drag you kicking and screaming? I feel I had mixed feelings as a lot of immigrants. You have this image of the U S as this place is magical and it will solve all my problems. I think a lot of immigrants can relate to that feeling. And so it was definitely like, Oh, we're going to get away from the war. And we're going to get away from all the struggles that come with living in a war-torn country. But then there's also that it's hard because it's completely unfamiliar. I did not fit in.

You know, in Croatia, we would wear the same outfit sometimes five days in a row. I showed up second day, same outfit in school. And I was bullied and made fun of. And I had an accent. I studied theater. So that's why I lost most of my accent. But I had a thick accent. And I couldn't relate to the jokes. I used the wrong words. And so it didn't end up being this magical place that solved all my problems. It just made me feel really insecure. It took me a

while to gain confidence. But then again, on the other hand, it's not like it was all disappointment. I mean, there's so many things about America that I couldn't even picture, you know, in Croatia. So there were a lot of great opportunities. The fact that I could get a job at 16, that wasn't an option there. And I could start making my own money, you know, and just the way the schools were set up and there was so much more creativity in the classes. There was just a lot of good stuff too. It just took me a while to appreciate it because I was just struggling with, oh my gosh, I don't fit in. And I have real survival guilt that I'm here. Yeah. I mean, that's a hot 14 is a, I don't know anybody who's like 14 was my best age. You know what I mean? It's a bad age to begin with for many people. Yeah. And then added all

of those things of like, I don't fit in. I don't speak English the way they speak English. Yeah. I would imagine you spoke some English, but it's, there's so, there's so many idioms and so many slang phrases that you wouldn't know until you're here. Yeah. Yeah. It was awkward. I was, that was the definition of Christina. Christina was awkward. How long did it take for you to feel like, okay, I'm starting to, I'm starting to fit in here. So I joined, I joined theater and it honestly saved me because I got to be weird there and weird was accepted in theater. And then as I did theater, I wanted roles that weren't just like the one we can give to the girl with a thick accent. So I

started working with tapes to lose my accent, you know, speech tapes, but just being on stage, I was very comfortable. I mean, I guess that's why I do videos. And I was very comfortable performing, entertaining, speaking publicly, even, even with the accent, I was comfortable on stage. And so I started to gain my confidence. And, um, I mean, by the time I was in college, I felt that I was going to stay in America forever. So I guess the change happened pretty fast. My whole family moved back and I still stayed even without that support.

So I would love to hear more about how you got started making videos on Facebook. Take us on that journey of how you went from teenage immigrants to everyone on Facebook literally has watched my videos. So it's, I'm going to try and give you the short version of the story because it's very long, but I end up married right out of college. I have two kids and I needed to leave eventually. And I left the marriage and I left after five years of marriage and I end up completely broke. I didn't even ask for child support. I just wanted to leave and have no drama. And I ended up sharing a small bedroom with my kids. I couldn't even afford a bed. I slept on the floor, had a roommate in the

other room and I had to go on food stamps. And I was worried I was going to get kicked out because my rent was late every day. And I mean, every month I just sunk into depression. I hated myself. I felt like I was worthless. I felt like my kids deserve better. And anyway, through all this, I end up deciding, is there one thing I'm still good at? Because I got to get out of this funk. Like I had suicidal thoughts. It was just really dark place. And the only way to get out of that funk, I thought, let's focus on something I actually

feel like I'm good at, even when I feel worthless. And the only thing I come up with is I can cook. So kind of impulsively started hosting these Wednesday night dinners. I'd go to the 99 cent store. I would buy cans of things. I knew how to spice it up. So I would just spend a few bucks and make these dinners, told my friends to invite anybody who needed a meal and basically cooking for strangers. I felt like saved my life because it made me feel like even when I feel like I have nothing, I have something to offer. And then eventually I meet my current husband, we get married and he's like, what do you want to do? You've been in survival mode. You haven't even focused on anything you're passionate about. What do you want to do? So I said, I'm going to make these

little cooking videos just for fun. And that leads to basically long story short, me getting discovered by Oprah, entering this competition she had for search for the next TV star and winning. And she gave me a season of a cooking show on her network, which was nuts. So I'm doing this show and Oprah, when I won the show, like grabbed me by the shoulders and I tried not to pee myself because Oprah's touching me. And she said, I love how authentic you are. I love that you show the real stuff.

You're not trying to be perfect. I love that. Keep that. Well, she goes off to film a movie and I'm stuck with TV producers who put me in a fancy, fancy kitchen and nice clothes and made me the perfect mom in the perfect kitchen. And I was like, excuse me, could we actually do an episode where my kid's throwing a tantrum while I'm trying to make dinner and the side dish burns and I'm still in my pajamas because that's what moms want to see. And they were like, no, no, no, we don't do that. It's got to be perfect. And that experience has actually led to this. I felt like such a fraud doing that show. And I kept thinking about Christina sleeping on the floor with two little kids in survival mode, turning on the TV and seeing this. And it just

would make her feel worse about her life. And I was like, no, I want to create things that will encourage that person who's sleeping on the floor right now, having dark thoughts, feeling like their kids deserve better. And so a few years after that whole Oprah experience, which by the way, it was not her fault at all. Eventually I just started posting these little videos, not thinking it would turn into a career or anything. I had this goal, and it's still the same goal years later. I want to be for others what I needed when I was at my lowest. And so whether it's a really silly video and it's just funny, I needed humor. Or whether it's something

where I really open up about the dark stuff just to help someone else feel less alone and give them hope. You found hope from taking action and that cooking the dinners from the ingredients from the 99 cent store helped give you hope. Even when you felt like you had none, I think that's such a, an important lesson that we can all take away that when you are at your lowest doing something, it doesn't have to mean I have a lot of money. It doesn't have to mean I have a great career. It doesn't have to mean you wait until you feel happy and you feel ready and you feel prepared and fulfilled that just doing what you can, where you are with the resources available to you makes a difference.

Because this is what we humans tend to do. When we're in a dark place, it's so natural for us. We're so talented at this. We will think of everything we're bad at. That is the natural place for our brain to go. And instead, if you decide to sort of shut that out and go, no, no, no, no, I'm going to focus on the list of things I can do right now, even though I know realistically that list is way shorter than all the things I can't do and don't have. I'm going to focus on that list and I'm going to do something with that. That was my turning point. It can literally change your life. That's so true that we, we tend to think that our contributions are too small to make a difference, but you don't know what the ripple effects of that small

contribution are going to be. Yeah. Perfect example is what you do to raise money for so many different people are struggling and people donate. I'm sure you've seen sometimes a dollar and they think, oh, what's my dollar going to do? But it all adds up. You don't know if the meal that you cook for somebody on a Wednesday night with your 99 cent ingredients, you don't know if that's going to be the gesture of kindness that says to somebody inside, maybe it is worth going on. You don't know if that's going to be the gesture of kindness that says to somebody inside, maybe it is worth going on. You don't know. And to presume that you do know that would be arrogance, right? Because you don't know the profound effects you could be having on somebody

else that is unspoken, unseen, and also what you're doing for yourself. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me?

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Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So you decide to start making some small videos on Facebook of just the videos you wish that somebody would have made for you. What was the turning point where you were like, people are actually watching these. So I made a video. It was a sarcastic video and it was called for reasons women should never breastfeed in public. So the whole point was making the arguments of how ridiculous it is to tell a woman she should not breastfeed in public. And it was very comedic and whatever. And so I post it. It doesn't get a ton of views. Nobody even knows who I am. And then suddenly I

wake up to just my phone blowing up. Ashton Kutcher shared my video and him and his wife had just had a baby. And so he was obviously passionate about this. And so that video, all of a sudden that was my first video that got a million views. I'm like a million. I mean, it was just, it felt so crazy. And then I did another video where I talked about how my job is not to be my kid's best friend. And if they don't like me a hundred percent of the time, that probably means I'm doing a good job because sometimes I'm going to have to say no to them. And all of a sudden people magazine is calling. And it was just these random videos were just hitting the right people and resonating. And

then eventually that led to, I'm on a national tour with my hope and humor show. And I got a book deal. The book is already out and now I'm working on a second book. So it just sort of very organically came to this thing that I wasn't expecting. But I love that too, because my goal was never, how many views am I going to get? And I feel like because that wasn't the goal, the purpose stayed the same. You know what I mean? And that's why the purpose is still the same. So in the introduction of my book, I actually write how for me going through life without humor is like eating soup with a fork. Like you're still going to get a little something, but you're going to miss out on so much goodness. So my grandmother, she's passed away now. And she was like, Christina,

you were 12 years old and you wrote the funniest song about war and people dying. And it was so dark. And I just think back and I go, even at 12 years old, going through something so scary for me using humor was like medicine. It was my therapy. It was, if I can find the funny, even in the tough stuff, it just felt like I could breathe for a second. I think people underestimate the importance of humor and the human experience when something is serious as war is, or when somebody is, you know, struggling with something heavy, we have a tendency to want to indicate how much we care by being completely serious all of the time. And I understand that natural inclination that you don't want to walk into somebody's, you know, who's lying on their death and be like, you look like crap.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's not the right answer. But yet I also think that we underestimate how healing well-placed humor can be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think about just physically what happens to us when we laugh. It's like our shoulders relax, our face relaxes.

It just takes away the stress and the heaviness for a few seconds. And we need that. We need to let ourselves laugh. I think sometimes people feel guilty for laughing when someone is going through something hard. We should be looking for joy at every corner. You know what I mean? As much as we can find. Yeah. Again, just like it's easier for us to focus on the list of things we. Yeah. Again, just like it's easier for us to focus on the list of things we don't have. Right. It's easier for us to focus on everything that is wrong in the world and that is dark. And it almost takes more effort for us as humans to look for the joy, to look for the good, to look for the funny. So make that effort and don't feel bad about making

it because you're bringing some light into your life. There's enough darkness in everybody's life. Everybody's got dark stuff. Like choose to invite some light in. That's so well said. Like we all have plenty of hard things that we can be serious about. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There's no shortage of that in our lives and in the world, but there is a shortage of levity and laughter and lightness and hope and joy. And all of those things are intertwined with each other. And those things help us like they ease the load of the heavy stuff that we're carrying. Right. And so even the last few years of my life had been hard for a different reason. one of my kids struggling. And through that, I had to learn to still have fun and have time with my friends. And I would feel so guilty. How am I enjoying myself when my child is suffering? And I had a really good friend of mine, Zach Anner, say to me,

and he said, Christina, if I knew that my mom, while I was struggling, just cut all joy, all fun, everything out of her life, I would have an extra reason now as an adult man to feel guilty. Like I caused my mom to not enjoy her life at all. So he was like, you're actually doing your child a favor by still continuing to find joy and spend time with friends and do things that you love. You're doing him a favor because he'll have one less thing to feel bad about later. And that was such a revelation for me. I was like, that's right. That's right. I can still live my life and care and be invested in my child and do everything I can to help. It's not an, or it's an, yes, yes. It's not,

I either care about you or I have fun. You can do both. I would love to hear more too about some of the struggles that you and your son have faced over the past couple of years. And I know that he has been very open about it. He's given you full permission to talk about it. So I'm grateful that he's willing to share because I feel like this is something that's going to be helpful for at least one person who's listening to this. At least one person is going to find something useful or find some hope. So can you share a little bit more about what your son has been suffering with and where you guys are? Sure. So the last few years, my followers who are used to me being always like happy and whatever, they sort of noticed a change in me. And I would kind of very vaguely mentioned like our family's going through something heavy,

but I always, I never post anything about my kids without their full permission. So just recently in the last six months, my son was like, I'm ready to talk about this. We actually filmed the video. It's on my YouTube and Facebook. It's called my son and I open up about his mental health struggles and addiction. And cause I wanted his voice. I didn't want to just talk for him. My son started feeling depressed around sixth grade and he was my first one. So I'm like, I didn't know he was depressed. I was just like, is this teenage hormones?

I'm seeing changes. I don't know, which I think a lot of parents struggle with, with their teens. And then eventually got to the point where I asked him just out of the blue. I didn't even have a real reason for asking because he never showed anything dramatic enough for me to ask this. But I said, have you ever thought about hurting yourself? And he said, yes. And I was like, oh, wow. That was not even the answer I was expecting. So he started going to therapy. Eventually we got him on some medication. He started seeing a psychiatrist, all that, but none of it was helping enough. He had so many suicidal thoughts. He starts seeing a psychiatrist, all that, but none of it was

helping enough. He had so many suicidal thoughts. He was struggling so bad. And eventually that led to himself medicating. And he started stealing and doing everything he could to just get drugs. He stole pills from family members, anything just to numb the amount of pain he was in. And the way he described it once to me that helped me understand it. He said, mom, if the only thing keeping you from killing yourself was being high, would you do drugs? And I answered him honestly. I said, absolutely. But I have to believe there's another way. So anyway, all of that led to me having to call the police eventually, him being put on a psychiatric hold, ending up in a psychiatric hospital for 10 days, and then a

six-week residential treatment program. It was just the last four years have been really heavy. And so now, actually just yesterday, I could cry, but we celebrated two years of sobriety for him. I'm seriously going to cry here. And he's doing so well. He's in a bunch of support groups that help. He has a great therapist. He's still on medication, but he is just so committed to being healthy. And he's only 18, you know, and so I'm so proud of him.

But it was really dark. And the reason I'm glad that he's talking about it now is I think parents need to hear from a kid's perspective. I think kids need to hear from a kid because they're tired of just hearing from adults and just to give people hope. Because if you have a kid who's struggling and they are screaming in your face and they are breaking every rule and they are stealing and they're getting in trouble at school. And they are, I mean, all of it. I just want to tell people there's hope. So what happened if you don't mind sharing when he confided in you that he was using drugs? Well, first of all, did he tell you, or did you find out? I found out. Yeah, I found out. He would have been too scared to tell me at the time. So I found out.

And again, he is my first child. And I'm not sure is this teenage partying, experimenting, he had a beer or is this something else? And what I realized is my kid was not going to parties. My kid was self-medicating alone in his room. And that is a huge sign parents need to watch out for. Not that I'm condoning partying, but if your child is literally not even wanting to hang out with friends, not wanting to do any of the things he, he didn't want to do the sports he liked, he didn't want to do the, he didn't want to do anything.

That is a clear sign of depression. So he would lock himself in his room or bathroom. Eventually we actually took the doors down and he would take a bunch of pills that he stole or bought at school that he didn't even know what was in them, or he would get high or he, you know, off of other things, or he would drink an entire bottle of wine all by himself. He would pour sugar in it just to help it go down quicker because it was easier for him to drink it if it was sweet. I mean, all of that. And every morning he would go

to school and I would search his room and I would find something and I would take it away knowing if I take this away, once he realizes it's going to be an explosion, he would come back from school. I would brace myself. I would try to make sure my younger kids weren't home because that's another thing that plays into this with family dynamics. You've got younger kids you've got to protect. And he would get in my face and it would get ugly and it would get awful. And I would call the therapist. All that stuff eventually led to me having to call the police on him. But it was just, it felt like nothing was helping. And that's the hardest thing. And also just having to deal with insurance companies and trying to get the right help. I mean, he's been through seven different psychiatrists and finding

the right psychiatrist who's not just going to throw a bunch of meds at your kid without even like really taking the time is also hard because sometimes kids are, I think, over-prescribed stuff. So anyway, it's very heavy and it's very messy. And I just feel for any family that's going through it. And by the way, I've never, like, I didn't have siblings who went through this. I never went through this. I don't have parents who are alcoholics or had serious mental health struggles. So this was all new to me. I went through my depression as a single mom, but that was more circumstantial and I never self medicated during that time. So I was like learning along with him and making a lot of mistakes. This is something that you don't realize until you become a parent that there is almost no pain, like watching your children hurt.

That that is incredibly painful as a parent to watch your child. I mean, it can be as simple as like, my friend told me I can't come over for the birthday party. Like that, like that, you don't know until you have kids, like how much that hurts you. That like that, you don't know until you have kids, like how much that hurts you. Like you just want to fix it and you want to call up that mean parent or the mean kid and be like, how dare you? Yeah. You know what I mean? You just want to fix it for them.

It's a tremendously painful to watch your children hurt. And it's also has to be incredibly scary. Yeah. And I, I mean, I remember so often feeling, and I know I've heard parents who have kids who, for example, have cancer or something say the same thing where I felt like, I wish I could take it. I wish I could just take it from him because I, you know, he was acting in a way where the, anybody from the outside would say that is a very bad kid. He's a spoiled brat. He wasn't raised well, or he just is rebelling against us. It's a bad kid. And we label these kids as bad instead of

seeing them as hurting, right? I knew he was hurting and I just wanted to take the pain away, which by the way, brings me to one of the most important things that I learned. And I wish I had learned it sooner is to pay attention when your kid's behavior requires a consequence and when it requires help, because so often our kids will start doing drugs. They'll start acting differently. They'll start rebelling. And we immediately go, well, these are all the punishment. I'm just going to give you a list of consequences. Great. But if we're not dealing with the root of the problem, that's just going to send your kid even more to now I hate myself even more and I'm more depressed. So he went to support groups and then we went as a family to support groups. And I remember a leader at a support group said to me,

so I heard you took his phone away as a punishment. And I said, listen, I know he's struggling, but there's still to be consequences. And she said, absolutely. There have to be consequences, but you just took away the one thing he has. If he is suicidal at 3 AM and he doesn't want to call his mom because he hates his mom right now because she takes his drugs away. He needs to be able to call it. And I would never thought of that. I thought I was being a good mom because he just lost his privilege. He can't have his phone. And then the counselor that was talking to me shared with me how many phone calls she's got. And my son had her cell phone number saved in his phone. How many phone calls she's got in the

middle of the night of kids who were like, I'm done. I'm done. I'm just letting you know, I'm going to take my life. And she was able to run over there. I mean, that like those little things that we think as parents, we're doing the right thing. Right. And we have the best of intentions and there's just so much to navigate and learn. And it's a lot. That's such a great point that there's a difference between behavior that requires a consequence and behavior that requires help. Yeah. That a consequence might be your kids are fighting over a toy and it dissolves into one kid hitting another kid.

Yeah. That that's different than what you're describing was happening with your son, where he, the problems had grown beyond his ability to manage them. Yeah. And so he, yeah, because he was so depressed, you know, I would say like, he just wouldn't get up for school or something. I'd say, okay, if you don't go to school, then, you know, you can't hang out with anybody. And, but he didn't care. He didn't care about any, I could have said every consequence in the world. He didn't care. He, he wanted to die at the time. He was so depressed.

And so unless we're really dealing with the root of the problem, and even dealing with the root of the problem is hard because again, he had a therapist, he had a psychiatrist, he had support groups and things still weren't working. And we still kept searching for more. And then as a parent realizing, oh my gosh, so much of this is out of my control. Like I can't fix it. I can do everything I can in my power. But then at some point I have to go,

he's going to have to want it. He's going to have to want to get healthy. And thankfully he got to that point, but yeah, it's, it's a lot. Was there a turning point for him that you can pinpoint where you're like, that is when the tide began to turn. That is when things started getting better. So there are two I can think of. One was the support groups really made the biggest difference. I think therapy is super important. We did family therapy also, and he did an individual. I think some people require medication. There's no shame in that. You wouldn't feel shame if you got medication for your thyroid issues or whatever. So don't feel shame if you need medication for mental health struggles. So he came back one night after a support group and had a long conversation with my husband, his stepdad, who has been incredible through this whole thing. And they

texted me. I was already asleep and I was worried something happened because I'm getting this late night text from my husband, come downstairs right now. I'm like, oh my gosh, my son's either arrested. He's dead. Like I'm thinking the worst. And I walked downstairs and my son literally just handed me everything. He just put his hands out and he had tears in his eyes and he said, I'm done. I'm done. And even then, I mean, he handed me pills. I didn't even know he had drugs. I didn't even know yet. And for him, he just said that he got to a point where he realized that this thing was keeping me alive, but it's, it's not even bringing me joy anymore. Like he's like,

I'm ruining every relationship I have with my friends, with my family. I can't live like this anymore. I'm going to give sobriety a try. That's how he put it. I'm just going to give it a try. And it was really hard. He wasn't excited the next day that he did it. It was really hard. So that was one thing, support groups. I'm a big fan. And even if you're not struggling with that, even if you're just maybe newly divorced or whatever, find a support group, Google one. If there's not one in your town, start one. We need other people in order to heal.

Healing does not happen in isolation. And then another turning point for him was, so he had been sober for over a year and was still so depressed and really struggling. And one night he broke down and he said, mom, I wish you didn't love me. And I was like, what? He said, I wish you didn't love me because if you didn't love me, I would just do it. But I don't want to do that to you. And it just, I mean, you can imagine as a mother hearing that from your child and we put him in a second

residential treatment program and it broke my heart to do this. And he didn't even want to go, but he was sort of more willing than the first time. And that was another turning point for me, just needed that extra attention and that extra all day therapy and all that stuff. And he came back from that. And it was during that ride when I drove, I had to drive eight hours North to drop him off there. And then when I drove him back home is when he said, I think I need to use this pain for a purpose. I think it's going to help me if I can share this. And then just sharing. And he started being asked to speak at treatment centers and he would share in his meetings. All of that stuff was so healing to him, which is why I always tell people, I know that you

might feel a lot of shame or guilt or embarrassment about stuff you've been through or stuff you feel or stuff that's going on in your head, but getting it out is so healing. It's so healing. Will there be people who will judge you? Absolutely. You can't pay attention to them. You don't pick up those suitcases. You focus on your goal, which is to just share your story, help someone else by helping yourself. Because guess what? There are people who are going to judge you if you don't share. Exactly. You can be the most perfect or the most broken, which there is no such thing as the most perfect. And people will judge you no matter what. Tell me about the process of putting together tours and a book and all of that kind of stuff. Was that happening in the midst of while your

son was going through this? Was that at a different time schedule? So it was all starting the, I got a book deal and the tour deal. And that was all like when things were bad, but they didn't get to the point where I was calling the police and he was hospitalized. And then all of a sudden things got real bad and I can't cancel the tour. And I mean, there was just so many conflicting emotions for me. I actually finished my book, the manuscript, and then turned it in. And it was probably a week later that I had to call the police and he was hospitalized. And I called my editor and I said, I need to change the last chapter and I hope it's not too late. And the last chapter was supposed to be super light and fun. And I just felt like, can I write this in a vague way? Because I know I'm not the only one going through this. And so I never mentioned what was happening with my son. The last chapter of my book starts off

with, I broke down in public and I basically cried in a packed restaurant into a spinach dip because sometimes parenting can break us. And I just added these little things. And it was so fascinating later when the book came out, I had people go, hey, I have no idea what the last chapter refers to, but I'm actually going through something with my daughter. She was just hospitalized for depression, anxiety. And some things you wrote in there really helped me feel less alone. So it's like people that were going through it could recognize without me saying what

it was because they could read the pain I was in. But yeah, it was really hard to, you know, go on this fun tour where I'm supposed to make people laugh. And at the same time, in a way it was healing because it was like, I can't control so much of what's happening. And even when he was in residential, I can't go visit him. I can't, you know, so I might as well do something to at least help other parents feel less alone who are going through it. And you can do that without even sharing the details. So it was frustrating and therapeutic at the same time. And tell everybody the name of your book so that they can go buy it.

Sure. It's called hold on, but don't hold still, which when I was sleeping on that floor years ago, became my mantra was like, hold on, meaning hold on to life, hold on to the people around you, hold on to hope, but don't hold still. Don't be passive. You got to do what you can with what you have and keep moving forward. I love that. And so you have actually been on tour recently, right? This is your second tour. Yeah. So it's basically the same show, but we had to cancel a bunch of cities during COVID. So now I was back in the fall and then I'm going back again, February through April. And I'm think I'm actually going to bring my kids to, they're all going to take turns going to certain cities. So that'll be really fun. What do you love about being with

live audience? I mean, I, I love there's just, you know, you know, cause you post stuff and you get comments and you, you, it's a different kind of interaction with that than like seeing these faces and feeling like we're all just one community. I never feel like, Oh, I'm someone on stage and there's an audience. I always feel like we're just in this together. But my favorite are the meet and greets after the show, because everybody has a story. Everybody has a story. And, you know, I don't do my meet and greets where it's like, take a picture of Christina and leave. I really try to talk to everybody. And it's just, it's inspiring and heartbreaking and heart filling how everybody's got their stuff and everybody's just trying to

do the best they can. So to me, I always leave like, just my heart is so full and it inspires me to want to keep creating content that will help people because everybody's got, there's even that perfect person you keep comparing yourself to. They got the stuffiest of stuff. Okay. You just don't know about it. They probably have the most stuff. Oh yeah. Because they're tap dancing the fastest to try to cover it up. Yep. Their stuff is the stuffiest I'm telling you right now. That's right. Yeah. They have the closets that when you open them, the secret closet, like the Monica on friends, secret closet. Yes. You know what I'm talking about? Where everyone thinks she's a control freak, neat freak, the entire

show. And then it comes out that she has a closet that will fall on you when you open the door. Yes. It is so amazingly freeing to just talk about your flaws and talk about the imperfection. It is so freeing because you never have to worry about what will people think. You never have to worry about pretending. It's kind of like if we're not living authentically, we know that there's this little secret nobody knows and you can just never be happy. That's a heavy load to carry. In fact, I don't think I'd have the success I have if I was perfect on social media. The reason people were drawn to me is because I was like, hey, let's talk about how I was on food stamps and made a bunch of mistakes parenting. Right. Well, that's part of the beauty of social media. Of course, social media has, has many flaws, but that's one of the beauties is that you're attracting people to you, uh, for whom your message resonates for people that want to be in your community.

And you are repelling the wrong people away from you where people are like food stamps. That's stupid. I don't want to hear about that. Um, you know what I mean? Like those people can leave. Yeah. And so that is one of the, I think one of the beauties of social media is that you are continually refining who needs to hear this and you have to worry about the people who don't need to hear it. Yeah. They were never going to be your friend anyway. Yeah. Yeah. And when you do post, whatever you feel is authentic to you, just literally do not worry about the negativity and the judgment. And because like we said earlier, you can post the most perfect thing or the most flawed thing and you will get judgment no matter what. Oh, I just, I literally think in my head, no, thank you. As if somebody is handing me their

suitcase of all their pain they've been through with that negative comment. And I just say to myself, no, thank you. I'm not going to be your bellhop. That's not my suitcase to carry. I'm not picking it up. And then just let it go. I love that. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. I reject your request to become entangled in an emotional dispute. Exactly. I have actual things to do. Right. I know. This is always the saddest thing to me. These people who just spew negativity and judge. I'm like, my gosh, you could have spent that time playing with your kids. You could have spent that time pursuing a hobby. You could have spent that time in a bubble bath, but you chose to spend that time trashing

somebody. That's how you're choosing to spend your life. Right. Makes me want to hug you. That's sad. Yes. Yes. Nobody arrives to age 103 and is like, you know what I wish I would have done is send more nasty DMs.

Yes. I wish that I would have told more people they were ugly. I wish I'd been that example more often for my kids. I'm just being a horrible human being. Yes. Yes. I'm glad that when I die and my kids get access to my Instagram, they will read through all of my mean DMs and they'll see what kind of person

they should look up to. Yes. I feel that. Well, Christina, this has just been, I've taken so much away from chatting with you today. If you could give, you know, like one little piece of advice or one little thing for somebody to hold onto as we wrap this up? Can you think of something you'd like to share? I mean, this is going to sound really simple, but I think it's one of the hardest things for us humans to do. Just be so kind to yourself. I mean, it makes me emotional to say it because life is so hard and there's so much we can't control, but you can control how you treat yourself. Thank you. This was absolutely delightful.

As always, thank you for spending this time with me. And I really think people are going to have so many takeaways from this conversation. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you.

And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind blown moment with you

next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.