We're All Insane - Complex PTSD From My Abusive Childhood

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

#podcast #mentalhealth #ptsd #childhood Growing up in a dysfunctional family, Kristin was surrounded by chaos, fear, and instability. The wounds of childhood abuse ran deep, leaving invisible scars that shaped her life in ways she never understood. Through her teenage years, she struggled in silence—undiagnosed depression and anxiety weighing her down, making everyday life feel like an uphill battle. This is a story about Complex PTSD and the road to healing. Links: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=What+My+Bones+Know+by+Stephanie+Foo&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748 If you have a unique story you'd like to share on the podcast, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ZiHgdoK4PLRAddiB9 or send an email to [e-mail] Business Inquiries please contact: [e-mail] Topics: PTSD, Abusive Childhood, Mental Health, Therapy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me DeVora. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. Hi, I'm Kristen and I have complex PTSD. I guess. Just technically, the diagnosis is PTSD because complex PTSD is actually not a diagnosis you can get in America. Okay. So one of the main differences is PTSD you think of as like a singular traumatic event. And so usually you think like veterans or like EMS, you see something terrible, a car accident, whatever, and that's how you get it.

And it's like there was a life before. and then now you had this thing happen and life is completely different. For complex PTSD, it is multiple traumatic events. Usually it starts in childhood, not always. But it becomes this like hugely layered thing where triggers are everywhere. It's not just like bangs from fireworks or whatever. It's like social interactions. It changes literally everything about how you view the world.

I mean, PTSD does that too, but it's just different when it's so multifaceted. Right. So the reason that it's not a diagnosis in America, technically, is that essentially the book that we use in order to get diagnoses of anything, whether it's autism or schizophrenia, bipolar, whatever, that's through the DSM. C-PTSD is not included on that list. It is in the UK on the ICD-11, which is their master book of everything you can get. So it is a thing. It's just taking time to get over here. But you can see a little bit about complex PTSD online.

But I find that it's not super well-known or super relevant. And ironically enough, the way that I sort of came about my own diagnosis was actually right when I moved into my house. In September of last year, I had so much painting to do. And so I just put on podcasts and all kinds of things. And I heard something from Stephanie Fu, who is an author. She wrote What I Know in My Bones, which is her healing story of complex PTSD. And I sat there and I listened to this thing and I go, oh, that's weird. Oh.

Oh. That kind of sounds like me. So I sat on that for a while. I thought it was super weird. I was like, strange. Maybe that kind of hits. It wasn't until probably a year, I guess. When was that?

A couple months later, I ended up, one of my great aunts had gotten sick. And she had a recurring of breast cancer, and it actually, she ended up passing this time as a result of it. And so basically in the usual depression and stuff we were close after she passed, I got hideously symptomatic for the first time in my life at like 30. Well, I guess technically not the first time. It's just the first time that I became aware. Right.

So a couple months after that, I decided I should probably get into therapy. I seem pretty depressed. It's messing up my work. I'm having a hard time focusing and all this stuff. So I should probably talk to somebody. But prior to this, you weren't diagnosed with anything? Nope. I was just highly masking and going through my day-to-day life, which masking for those who don't know is, it is a term used with a lot of things. You can have it with ADHD, with autism, with all kinds of diseases. And it's basically just my brain and body overcompensates, often pushes itself past what is a good, healthy limit for me to blend in to do the normal things. But yeah, so mass. Asking, like I was saying, is just really overcompensating in order to just blend in and fit in and do the normal things.

Because the more awareness that I've gotten with my own diagnosis is I was like, I have insane amounts of chronic fatigue. I realized, like, I always knew I was like a tired person. I could drink, you know, 10 gallons of coffee, energy drinks, minimal effect, take asleep right after having any of but it is way harder to get through a day when you were that tired and you have to be turned on and social with people and present at work and pay attention and all of these things. And so it's been really interesting to be like, oh, I didn't realize I was doing like all this extra work for 30 years of my life. So I guess for me, where it all started is in childhood.

Looking back on my life, I always had trouble sleeping. And I mean, this is like kindergarten first grade. I'm taking an hour or more to fall asleep. I'm having nightmares exclusively. I just don't really dream unless it's terrible. My parents have a crappy relationship. They ended up getting divorced a couple years later, but what had preceded it was My dad is quick to anger.

I think my mom's background was a lot of depression. And so it was an unhappy household. There was a lot of fighting. My mom had affairs. I had a bunch of brothers, three older brothers. And one of them I've recently come to realize was absolutely an abusive sibling. So it was, there was always something going to. on whether my parents were fighting.

My mom was bringing boyfriends around the house, though I didn't realize it at the time. And so as a kid, you don't actually get this understanding of what's going on in your life or how things are. You just see things and you go, well, that doesn't make sense. That does not make sense. I do have a quick question for you. Yeah. Were the nightmares specific to anything or were they just like multiple different types of nightmares

kind of random? No, it was actually always abandonment nightmares. So like getting left behind by my family or friends, always abandonment, which probably is about the fact that my mom was always having an affair and one foot out the door, though my family life was not particularly stable either, because again, my parents are at odds. I don't really know why, but you feel it. And there's like the anger and the resentment that builds up. And like my siblings aren't safe. because, you know, I've got this older brother who's super antagonistic. He's eight years older than me. So one of his frequent responsibilities was after school, take care of the kids, just watch him for a couple hours until we get home an hour or two, whatever it was.

But those were like the moments he would take his time to just antagonize us. like he was beating up on my, so I'll give him names. The oldest one, the antagonizer is we'll call him Patrick. The next one can be Michael and then my next brother is Thomas in that order. And so Patrick would just like terrorize all of us. We would always beat up on Michael. And there's a four-year age gap between them. So if he's like 12, then he's hitting an eight-year-old, which is like,

Even at that age, you should know better. Doing things like he used to, he had him terrified that there would be sharks that came out of the shower, just psychological stuff for me. He would after school frequently go mess with the oven and pretend he was going to go, you know, toss me in there and cook me alive. So that was super cool in exactly zero ways. And it was just always stuff like that. He was just super, super angry. Were your parents aware? No. Okay. No. Because one of the things about dysfunctional households is people don't talk. No one talks. And also it's like you've got so much going on that you kind of feel like a burden so you don't want to talk about it. And then also the other thing is is that sibling dynamics like that are so quick to be swept under the rug. It is something I've talked a little bit about with my family now.

But even still it's like, oh, well, you know, your parents were this and your parents were that and he was a kid and it was a hard time. And I'm like, okay, well, there was an eight year age gap. And so when I'm six being tormented like that, what you're, you know. Right. Like where do you draw the line? Like at what point was he supposed to know better? Like at what point is responsibility and some sort of cognitive ability going to come into play because, well, be real, you know, one of the things that people always, you know, dismiss in any sort of abusive

dynamic is like, oh, well, it's different with family, it's different with partners, it's whatever, I'm like, cool, so why aren't they doing that at work? Why aren't they doing that at school? Is it because they're aware that that's not acceptable behavior? Right. So that was our home life. A couple years down the line, our parents finally divorce. My mom was, she had essentially run off with my stepdad. That was a whole mess. I have a half brother as well out of their marriage, but he was born out of wedlock because my mom was still technically married to my dad when he was born because we were slow on the divorce paperwork. But we did a ton, a ton of moving around. I went to two different elementary schools, two different middle schools, one high school,

which, you know, it was just more of the changing and the instability, because every couple years, you know, something else is different. So I have the stepdad and he's fine, I guess. He's kind of an idiot. We're in with my stepdad a couple years later. They're like married, you know, I have a half-brother. They've made a... stupid business decisions. My mom and my stepdad met at work. They worked together. They decided to go off and do their own small business, but in the same field and then use the same clients, which then becomes a whole thing of like you're stealing our clients. So then my parents get into legal trouble. So we move out of state. So now I was born in Maryland and had been living in

Maryland my whole life. So at that point, with all this stuff, we just bail, we go to Pennsylvania for a little bit and probably six months into being in Pennsylvania, I'm like 11 at this point, we live in this crappy old house that is just so unbelievably cold. It's like a farm, it's in the middle of nowhere. where it's all radiator heat, just dingy, old, apparently it was some big old stone house that got divided into duplexes, so there's kind of like the side where the kids are on and the adult side is on that side. And essentially, my parents are pretty uninvolved. They're doing whatever they do, and us kids are kind of just on our own, which is super inappropriate for kids that age. because at this point I'm 10 or 11.

Yeah, I'm 11 at this point. So I'm in middle school now. And I end up being my youngest brother, Matthew, his caretaker, for the most part, I feel like he's probably about a year, year and a half old at this point. But when I'm not at school, it's changing diapers, hanging out with him, making sure that he's good. I mean, outside of feeding, really. I've got it all covered, which again, not an appropriate job for an 11-year-old. And so...

Kind of makes you grow up quick. Yeah. Looking back, I really don't think I had much of a childhood because it was... I was constantly thrown into this world of adult problems, but also it not being acceptable to talk about things. Which I think stems from more than just like the... dysfunction of my own family. It's a like a larger generational thing. So I think a lot of what builds into my complex PTSD is actually like the generational trauma roots of it all. So both of my parents had dysfunctional families in their own right. So on my mom's side of the family,

her father, my grandpa, he was an alcoholic. And he disappeared during her teen years and stuff. So from my understanding, he was never really in my life. They divorced many, he and my grandmother divorced long before I was born. But from my understanding, he was in World War II, was apparently a scout, saw some things that were probably equivalent to like stumbling on Auschwitz and other equivalent kinds of camps and really not fun things to look at. that go figure, you come back from the war, you're shell-shocked, as they call it then, or PTSD,

as you call it now. And you come home, you become an alcoholic, and then you're just unavailable for your wife, for your kids, you start going on benders, you disappear for a week or two at a time. I mean, your parents are super important and foundational, and, um, He was just out and gone. And so my mom grew up in this dysfunctional environment, and it's no surprise that my grandmother was, you know, sort of okay with it because, one, that's just what you did. You just stayed married back in the day. And two, she came from her own dysfunction.

So her mother, my great-grandmother, her husband, I never met him. I did know my granny Eva very well. She's very sweet. She, of course, had an alcoholic husband as well because that's what you do. And he was a womanizer. So he had mistresses galore. But again, dysfunctional households, unavailable parents, people with depression, people with emotional issues. And, you know, that was not the time that you dealt with any of that.

You just drank and get on with your life and deal with it. So as for my dad's side of the family, again, more alcoholism, more volatility. The difference with my dad's side of the family is that they essentially come from a zoo. My dad is one of seven. His dad is one of eight. There are so many kids. It's a zoo. And you don't have time or energy for anybody when you've got that many people.

Like my dad's siblings, seven children were born in 10 years. Wow. And my grandfather was enlisted in the Air Force. And so he was going off on deployment. He went to Korea for the Korean. in war. So he's gone. It is seven children just to my grandmother alone to deal with. It's like, who's there to be present? Who's there to emotionally regulate? It's sure as shit isn't mom. And it's not going to be the kids because they don't have those tools and the toolkits. And there's

so many of them that you just essentially get left on your own. And I think that that just became sort of the normal and the culture for my parents and, you know, the extended family as a whole is that it just kind of is what it is and kids do what they do. And it's as long as they're not, you know, getting under trouble. No one really cares. No one looks and no one thinks twice. So, you know, being in this house where I'm essentially taking care of my baby brother all the time, it's like, whatever. I mean, it's fine. You don't really need parents around. Nobody, nobody ever had that anyways. So the next big thing that ends up happening in my life that was, you know, a big change was my oldest brother Patrick had enlisted in the military. And so we were going to

go see him graduate and, you know, as he got on with his life and, you know, did this whole thing. So we go hop in the minivan because when you're a giant family, you have a minivan and you caravan everywhere because plane tickets are far too expensive and you're always staying at your grandmothers or your aunts or your uncles. That's we hop in the minivan and we go to see this graduation. Unfortunately, on that trip, we were hit with a bias on my truck. My mother ended up passing away as a result of her injuries and I ended up breaking both of my legs. Wow. Yeah. Jeez. Yeah. And that was on the way there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So if you're in the greater deep, You know 81 is a really shitty road with all the truckers. It was like four in the morning

because, you know, you want to have less traffic so you leave in the middle of the night. And all of you guys were in the minivan? Okay. Yeah. So for me, it's my stepdad is driving. My mom is in the passenger seat. My little brother Matthews 18 months at this point in time. And I'm 11 next to him in the middle bench seat and then in the back seat is my brother Michael and my brother Thomas. And we have one of my brother Patrick's friends and his girlfriend in a car behind us following because he was also going to come just being a friend. And so essentially what ended up happening is we're driving down the road. The truck driver, I guess, is falling asleep.

My stepdad is not super aware and tired and probably sleepy too. So we got hit on the front end of the car. The impact was the sliding door on my side and where my mom was sitting. So my mom was essentially crushed but died a couple hours later from it. So like broken jaw, broken ribs. And I happened to be like laying in the seat with my legs out towards the door. And so somehow they got broken. I just ended up waking up to the door of the car being gone and the roof of the car being gone,

just being like the hell. I was super confused. You can sleep because, you know, one minute you're driving and the next, you're looking at the stars and like cars passing by on the highway. It just felt surreal like just like a movie or whatever. Right. So, yeah, that was like the, you know, first like big T trauma because, you know, your parents not really paying attention to you. while it's super unhealthy and really damaging for kids that's the kind of stuff that flies under the radar nobody looks at it and also it's harder to pinpoint things you're not receiving and so

obviously depression happens after that it's very hard to um see a parent uh pass in front of you essentially so yeah the uh my mom's death is like the first big tea trauma that we get And so we, as I said, my parents were divorced. My dad is in a new relationship with my stepmom. And so we moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia. And so I'm at middle school number two at 11 years old with two broken legs. And I do not know how information passes through schools and children. Because before I even arrived, it's the middle of the year.

It was December when the accident happened. And so it's January. It's the second semester I start in. And they all know that there's a kid with two broken legs and dead parents coming to school. I have no idea who tells children these things. I'm like, no, I live with my dad. My mom's dead. But I live with my dad.

Did your stepdad stay in your life at all? He tried a little bit when I got older. It was awkward. Um, because the older I got, the more aware I got of my memories. Okay. Um, so one of the big things that I, uh, you know, have experienced with like my memories and everything is I have a lot of fragmented memories. So it's not full memories.

I don't really remember a lot of my childhood. I will remember snippets. Um, so like, with my mom and Adam, I didn't realize they were having an affair. I actually, I guess she was particularly. good at hiding that one because I don't remember him being what I remember is an affair with another neighbor I remember going over to that neighbor's house and them being weird and chummy and I remember a neighbor that same neighbor that she was weird and chummy with coming to our house in the morning when we were getting ready for school. Hey, I'm Jeremy Schwartz from American Criminal.

On this season, robbery gone wrong or cold-blooded murder. Either way, Boston will never be the same. Listen to American Criminal the murder of Carol Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts, or to get early at free access, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at Americancriminal.com. My dad loved super early in the morning, so he was always long gone by the time we were rolling around and doing anything. Anyways, so this neighbor comes over to our house. My mom had already started the shower because she's getting ready for her day and work and all of that jazz. And then the two adults go disappear in the shower. Then the back. bathroom together, which, you know, as a kid, I'm probably like five. I'm like kindergarten first grade,

maybe. And I see that and I look at it and I'm like, that's weird. That's super weird. I don't know. It's not my place to be asking what adults are doing because again, secret keeping is like a big thing in these dysfunctional families because you don't want to talk about the fact that mom and dad fight. you don't want to talk about the fact that, you know, these things happen. And also when there's like yelling and things like that, kids often blame themselves. So you don't really want to talk about the fact that you're a bad child. And oh, mommy yells because of me or daddy yells because of me. And if I just did my schoolwork more, whatever, whatever that thing is. So you don't really talk. And so I had seen, and I knew that my mom had had affairs. It wasn't until much later in life.

my oldest brother, Patrick, was in town and was like, well, you do know about a mom and our stepdad, right? And I was like, what do you mean? So he laid it out that they were an affair. And then at that point in time, I was like, oh, see, now that all clicks because, again, I have never slept particularly well. I would always take an hour or more to fall asleep at night. So I remember being in high school, I'm probably about 16 at the time, and just laying in bed one night. Because, you know, when you don't sleep, you ruminate. And so I usually think about all kinds of things that what you need to do tomorrow, what you could have done better. Why did you say that dumb thing? And then that's when random memories also sometimes pop in.

And so I'm like thinking back and I'm like, why was that neighbor in the bathroom with mom? that's really questionable. But this time I'm 16, I understand a little bit more about relationships and what cheating is and all of that kind of stuff. And my mom has been dead for five years at this point. It's not like I'm going to go to my dad and be like, hey, dad, was my mom cheating on you? Like, was that a thing? So that was a super weird question that began. I just never was going to ask.

And so that was my, you know, hey, by the way, mom and stepdad. dad made some shitty decisions. And I was like, oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense that that lines up with what I know and what I saw and experienced. And so he had written a couple of letters or like tried to reach out or whatever. And around 18 or whatever. And I was just weird because I was trying to process it. And it was like, I could always tell that, you know, he meant to love us as kids and things like that and I did like him. But then I was like, ooh, that's, that was not cool. I don't know how I feel about this. This is super awkward. I don't know if I want this guy in my life. I don't know what to think about this whole thing just because it was a whole ton. And it's, so I sat on it

for a while and after I don't know how much time it passed. I did end up writing him back being like, oh, hey, sorry, I was awkward for a while. I've been kind of figuring things out. Like, I know about you and my mom. I don't blame you because my mom was just as equally a participant in this, because again, my mom was also married and should have known better. It seems, I know that my stepdad had a first marriage before. I'm not sure if he started the relationship with my mom. while he was also married or after his marriage had ended. Not sure on that, because I just don't know his life like that. But I was like, yeah, so I mean, like, it's kind of awkward.

And I don't exclusively blame you because obviously you both were adults for that. But yeah, that's just kind of what I've been working through. And then the older I got, the less I have respected and liked him. I think that he is now my opinion of him is not particularly intelligent. And I don't like how he treats my little brother. He's not being a good father to him. He's manipulative with like, do this or I'm not going to help you with college because he's 10 years younger than me. So he's 21 now.

So, you know, my poor little 21 year old brother right now, actually we were just talking the other day. He lives in Georgia. is that's where they moved after our mom died as they moved down to Georgia. So the hurricane that just came through dumped a tree on his house. He has cracked cinder block and a new skylight that he did not ask for in his bedroom. And so he's dealing with insurance and all of these things. He tried to stay at his dad's house for a little while. And just the week of Thanksgiving, he got the boot to get the hell out of his house

because apparently Cooper was walking all over him. So he's super manipulative. He doesn't like my little brother's fiance who's absolutely wonderful for him and super sweet and responsible and just a good kid. They're both really good kids. So I just don't like what he's doing there and behaving. And I'm like, okay. But, you know, he's got he's got his own things and is now on marriage number four. So he's working through some things too, obviously. So my brother had filled me in on the affairs and everything. And, and like some family history. So, you know, things started making more sense to me about like, oh, okay, so I'm not totally crazy. And I did see some stuff that was super questionable and things are weird. So I'm starting to gain this like awareness aspect of like the dysfunction. Because again, growing up in it, this is normal. So it's really hard to sort out what's normal behavior and what isn't when your normal is jacked up. Right.

You get really just a jacked up sense of how things are supposed to be. Boundaries aren't really a thing. So my dad's house is much more authoritarian. My mom was so hands off. We could just do whatever and just be wherever and never really had to report to anything, which for a minute was, you know, you know, fun and freeing after living with my dad and mom when they were married just because we were more restricted. And so when you're 11, it's great to actually just be able to go out

and play with your friends and do whatever you want and not really have to be responsible or have any roles. Yeah, it's great. Just go play, do whatever you want. Don't do homework. It's cool. So then, you know, my dad's house is this much more restrictive. You know, you're getting in trouble when you're not doing school work, everything has to be planned out. And so I start getting into these unrealistic expectations with the family dynamic is there was like a lot of like guilt and shame for not acting your age or being adult enough. So as a young person, your brain isn't developed. You need to be able to like in my household in particular. If you wanted to ride anywhere, you essentially needed to plan that out two weeks in advance.

And when was the last time a 14-year-old was like, yeah, so in two weeks can I go to the mall with Stacy? Like, it's just not the way that works. That's not how brains work at that age. And it's developmentally inappropriate to be expecting that kind of behavior because that's front brain stuff, which doesn't develop until your mid-20s. And so essentially, I can never hang out because I can't have sleep. unless my parents know your parents, which my parents never really met anybody. And I can't get rides or do anything anywhere because my parents are always unwilling, because it wasn't planned, quote unquote, and adults need to be this. Again, I'm 14, so that's like,

there's this weird juxtaposition of be an adult, but then if you make a mistake or do something wrong, then you're being a child and you're being punished for it. And so it's like, you're juggling these two realities of like what you should be and how you should be doing things which aren't appropriate for your age or your responsibility levels or anything like that. So it's like this really conflicting spot, which again, that's another trauma source for kids is because, so now you start sitting there and you're like, you have to manage the world differently. And so a lot of what I ended up doing in my own house was having to manage the emotions of my parents. Because it's like, again, my family is super dysregulated. There's zero awareness. My dad is quick to anger. And so

dumb shit just makes them yell. Put up a dish wrong in the cabinet. What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you fucking stupid? And so, like, you're hearing messaging like that. You're being told you're not acting your age, you're being told you need to do this, you need to be that, you need to do this. And so there's like all of this guilt and shame about what you are or are not doing. So at that point in time, it, my brain trying to reason through this whole situation is like, cool, get really good at reading a room and manage everybody else's emotions. Because if you can see explosions before they're going to happen, you can stop them. So I can diffuse situations. I can fly under the radar and do all of these things. I remember at these ages, I would watch my brothers do things and make mistakes or try and

like sneak out or, you know, do things and get caught and get in trouble. And so I'd like take that note and then I'd learn how to do it better. So that way I was flying a lot more under the radar. Like, um... Well, also it's like it you're constantly in this fight or flight. Yeah. Because you're like constantly walking on eggshells and trying not to stir the pot per se, like make someone angry or cause any issues, which really shouldn't have been an issue. Like you said, it was over dumb things.

But to have our bodies and our minds constantly live in a state of stress is so unhealthy. Yeah. And so at that point, it's like 18 years of it. Yeah. You know, well, I guess I'm flopping all over the timeline. So I'm like high school age. But one of the things that I did end up figuring out was that, of course, we were supposed to be independent and responsible. I'm doing my own laundry in high school along with my older brothers.

And of course, you have to do chores because you have to be a participating member of the household, which is fine. I respect that. That's a decent thing. As a kid, you should not be a little slob around the house. I hated doing dishes. So I decided, I like cooking better and inserted myself into the cooking schedule so that way I no longer had to do dishes and that was a little bit better for me. So I ended up essentially buying my own freedom and got my parents schedule a lot more because they would actually, my, my dad and stepmom would leave for like a week at a time when we were in high school to go visit her parents. So she's from the greater Chicago area, which is something I came to find out in therapy.

Leaving 14, 15, 16-year-olds at home alone is actually often illegal. There's like three days max in a lot of states and counties, and the rules are different depending on where you are. But leaving your children unattended without adults is totally not a thing. So that's like massively red flagged child neglect, leaving children unattended. And now I was self-sufficient. My school was down the road. I could walk 10 minutes to get to my school.

So it's not like I needed anybody. I knew how to cook. If there was food in the house, we were fine and all of that stuff. I could walk to a grocery store in 20 minutes. Like it wasn't like I was super cut off, but it was also there were no adults checking in at that point in time. So my brother Thomas is a year and a half. older than me. So again, if I'm 14 and unattended, he's 15 and a half. And then Michael is maybe in the house. He left at some point. So yeah, it's just teenagers at home alone for a week

without mom and dad. And I mean, they're calling, checking in, seeing if, you know, things were fine or whatever. But yeah, no, it was pretty much just on my own. But the, again, the perk of being the cook was, I was like, oh, okay, okay. So you're going on a trip. Okay, okay. When are you guys getting back? Oh, in the afternoon. What time?

Do you want me to like have dinner on the table? You know, when you get back? So now my parents are giving me their entire itinerary. So I'm like, all right, Thursday, 6 o'clock, my parents are going to be back. The house needs to be cleaned. I can have my friends over. I can do this, that, and the other. And my parents will be none the wiser because I know the house needs to be cleaned up

and dinner ready and hot by 630 on the table because, like, be out of baggage claim and back at the house because the airport's around the corner. And so unlike my brothers, my parents trusted me a little bit more because I was quote unquote responsible and just abusing the system in that fashion. But so there's, you know, all of this neglect and nobody, well, my friends knew that I was home alone for like a week at a time that none of my teachers or anybody else did because again, that would be a red flag. But for teenagers, oh, you're the cool house because you've got no parents. And also it's the one time a year I can get out and be social because, you know, I lived in a suburb,

but most of my friends were across town that walking was not a good idea because it was like across the highway and there was no walking path and it's not super safe. And so and my parents were all super fiercely overprotective. Like if I left the house, they needed to know what I was doing, who I was going with. And there was always weirdness around that. So that was like another place in my life that I started having to lie. Yeah. Would be like, oh, we're going to go over to so-and-so's house.

They're going to be, you know, six of us. And if I was, you know, listing off friends' names, they'd be like, oh, okay, what are you doing? Who are you going with? They'd be like, oh, a girl, a girl, a girl, and her boyfriend. And they'd be like, boy's name. So you just start leaving off the guy names because there's always, well, are you dating? I'm like, nope, still dating my best friend. they've been together a year. So no, he's just there is there plus one. It's you don't need to keep being weird. So now I'm starting to feel like I also have to keep secrets in order to have a little bit of a life. I have to misrepresent where I am or what I'm doing because I want to like connect with peers because that interaction is actually super important developmentally for kids to have that interaction. But I'm not usually getting it because I'm stuck at my house.

Again, I'm super depressed. I don't realize it. It got a little bit better after like some therapy and my mom's death and everything. But one of the things that, you know, I now come to realize is with PTSD is that depression and anxiety have been a big thing in my life for a very long time. And I was definitely struggling with that in school for the entirety of school and life. And so usually I'm stuck at home. I can't usually hang out with friends and things. I'm often not doing homework because I don't like it. And also because, quite frankly, I'm distractible.

I have a hard time focusing, which I don't realize at the time. But that's a lot of the driving force behind it is it's just that it's just not good for me. It doesn't suit me. I don't like it. And I'm tired all the time. and I don't want to do stuff, you know, more of that chronic fatigue. And so I was a bad student, so I'd get in trouble and I'd be grounded. And so then I'm basically what feels like under house arrest.

You can't socialize. You can't do anything. My moments of freedom are the once a year my parents were out neglecting us. And so it's just like, again, messed up dynamic. So, you know, when you come in this life and your family's neglecting you, you're naturally going to choose really crappy friends and partners. Because again, why wouldn't you? Yeah, that's what you know.

My dad ignores me. Why wouldn't you? And then so, you know, I all throughout this time for most of my life, finding friendships has been a challenge because I find that I'm really particular on authenticity, but also I'm way harder to relate to. And I think I'm probably less present in relationships. because I have trust issues, because nobody was ever stable or present in my life, so I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And so I'm probably a little bit of a cold shoulder to a lot of people and have inadvertently kept people away trying to keep myself safe over the years. But so the friends that I did make, I had two different groups of friends just drop me overnight in school, which is totally just like heartbreaking when you, year in middle school and high school. And so I'm like constantly choosing these unavailable people who aren't really giving me the time a day. But that's fine because, um, essentially what my brain is trying to figure out through PTSD and trauma brain is like, okay. So you didn't get it

right with your family and whatever. And that's cool. So you can pick this on available person. And if you can just be good enough, then they'll like you. And you'll be good enough. And finally you'll have that worth that you haven't had anywhere else in your life because that's the only way that you can get worth is through people pleasing through perfectionism through being quote unquote enough which ends up being the driving force for a lot of my life it's um you know why i ended up caring about like trying to get promotions and things and jobs i didn't like or always trying to find new skills and work and try and grow. And it wasn't, none of this ever had anything to do with me, I'm realizing, and was never even about what I wanted. It was just this constant, like,

internal push factor through my masking of perfectionism and do it to be enough. And so, you know, just bad relationships. Um, mostly dating unavailable at one point I did. And, up in an abusive relationship because again that's the kind of household I'm in so why wouldn't you and that one you know was fun it said I say as sarcastically as possible because he was a malignant narcissist so that is like everybody says narcissist these days but like I guarantee if like you could diagnose this guy unfortunately most narcissists don't care to get diagnosed. But I get in. I actually, the way that we started our relationship as I had been engaged previously. And we had broken up. It was after five years together. I was 18 when I started

dating my fiance. And so we'd spent a bunch of time together. And I felt like I had grown in that time. And then we were just no longer aligning. So we went our separate ways. But I was super heartbroken. And again, I think it was, he was emotionally unavailable. And I thought that I would be able to get things better and to fix the situation, which, of course, didn't happen. And then so now I'm out of this relationship. I've spent five years. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? Why am I not good enough?

So in-walks this narcissist. Chris is his name. and I'm fine actually, you know, we'll go first and last. Chris Spencer is his name, and I'll put him on blast because, quite frankly, he had no issues putting my reputation and misrepresenting me as a person and everything like that through the entirety of our relationship. But so he comes in hot, comes in love bombing, which, again, is super intense, but it is a person who comes running in and they spend so much time and energy on you, right? So it's waking up to text,

going to bed to text, all this attention, you know, picking you up for dates, doing nice little things. At one point, it was my birthday. He dropped off flowers at my work. It was super cute. It was so sweet. And I'm like, oh my gosh, finally a guy that sees my worth, right? And so I'm like, This is what I have been wanting. And so during that time when we first started, David, I had moved out of my apartment with my ex-fiance and I was back with my parents for a little bit because, well, the area is stupid expensive and I wasn't making a ton of money at the time. They just come in so hot into relationships and they let you talk. That's like the only time you'll be talking in the relationship that you don't realize at the time. learn everything about you, everything that makes you you, everything that makes you vulnerable

because they make you think that you're safe to talk and to be you and to be expressive, which is everything I'd ever wanted to do anyways, just being taken advantage of. And so he probably waited a month to start saying, I love you, and then was like, oh, you're just having such a hard time with your family. You should just move in with me. And so I'm like, you know what, you're right. This is so dysfunctional. I should just move in with you.

And then that's where everything goes downhill. Because now we're cohabitating, and that's when the isolation and things like that start. And isolation is not a new game for me, right? Because my parents were the same way. So this guy, we get into the relationship. I start trying to see my friends like I've always done. At the time, Pokemon Go was super huge. I had scheduled in advance.

I was going to go meet up with my guy friend, and we were going to go play Pokemon Go. Day before he's, you know, upset and just it's really hard for him because he was cheated on before. And so he's uncomfortable. And so you start making these concessions in your relationship where you're like, oh, well, I don't want you to be upset. So this time, I'll just, I'll cancel on this one, you know,

just so you can feel more comfortable because being a nice person or a sensitive person, or, you know, anything like that, you want to be accommodating. And so it starts out with small things like that. And then slowly but surely, it's like you stop seeing your friends. You don't really have family anymore that you're hanging out with. Though the not hanging out with family was actually largely my choice because I was gaining more awareness on the levels of dysfunction and stuff. And had taken a step back myself just because I needed to kind of figure out. Set boundaries.

Yeah, what was good for me. But yeah, so now I'm in this relationship and everything is like super isolated and I guess I'm okay with that because I've always kind of been alone anyways and been alone or so. You know, I just sort of deal with that. But it's it's sad how much you will let happen or justify. when you think that you're supposed to like try really hard in relationships. So I think part of it was my need to be worth it. I think we tend to hold on to the positives. So if somebody shows us a good side of them,

especially for, you know, a decent amount of time and then it's taken away from us suddenly, we're going to fight to try to get that version of them that we've built up in our heads. back. Yeah. And so that's a lot of what that abusive relationship dynamics are is that it's this hot and cold thing and you'll get rewarded some days and some days you won't and actually speaking more to your point. It's basically an addiction and there are plenty of studies that show intermittent reward systems are far more effective than no reward systems. Or like, actual like guaranteed reward system. So like gambling. The almost win, the almost also hits your brain in that same sort of way that you get a hit of like dopamine and you're like, ah, so close.

I can do it. I just got to go again. And so it's hard to break that cycle. When is enough? Yeah. And your brain is rewarding you for the almost moments and making you say like, yeah, you should keep going because you were so close. And if you just do it better, then you can be better. And so it's just, it's ridiculous how, how blurred lines and everything gets, because I'm isolated. What I don't realize is that every time that I choose to stay home because I'm, I'm so burnt from like his reactions and things. Like there is just constant fighting, which is normal, because that's what my mom and dad did. And then again, my mom is, you know, cheating on my dad, but they're staying.

And so, like, being in an unhappy relationship and just, quote, unquote, sticking it out and making it work, that's what I think I'm supposed to be doing. And so, like, constantly I'm in trouble over everything. Like, the fear of, like, losing him, because, again, it's this addiction, essentially, to this relationship, because they make you feel so worthless. And like, you know, you totally can't do better. And I've got a baseline of PTSD that says, see, you're not really worth it.

And you should be trying harder. So it meshed perfectly in the wrong ways. You know, I'm being reinforced with like abandonment. So we would have fights about dumb stuff. Like on my weekends, we had different works. So he'd be working weekends and I wouldn't. He'd ask me before he'd leave for work. You know, he'd say goodbye or whatever.

How do you have any plans today? No, no plans. And then if somebody texted and was like, hey, you want to grab lunch? And I made plans day of. I could get in trouble for that. So like, and I wouldn't know until I got home. So I guess he would come home because he worked in property management.

So he often, we lived in the property. that he worked at because rent is cheaper, which is nice. So he'd come home for lunch and I guess was expecting to see me and then decided that that was a moment that he could be just a royal asshole. He wouldn't text like, oh, hey, where are you? Hey, what's up? Because maybe I was out running groceries. You don't, who knows, whatever. Um, so I'd come home and, you know, I'd, I would always make a point to beat him home because I had learned that he would get annoyed if I was out too long. So I was always home just before he got home and it'd be terrible. Like the door would open.

I realize now that I pay attention to doors and things a lot more and like footsteps and things like that because how he was opening the door or how he was walking in. Like all of that stuff you can hear how angry someone is by how they're walking, which is weird trauma brain stuff that only people with trauma issues get. And so, like, he'd open the door and I'd go, hey, honey. And it would be, hi. I'm like, oh, shit. Like, just walks in the door. You say hello and you know the whole night a shot. You'll get yelled at for hours.

Like, I would lock myself in the bathroom when we'd have these bad fights just to try and get away because he would yell at me for like three hours. It would keep me up at night. I mean, you know, eventually after a couple of hours of yelling, he'd usually just disappear. Leave for a day three, no call, no tax, no, I'm going to be over it, so-and-so's just no fucks given. And then, of course, in these moments, what I'm not realizing is he's probably cheating. He's definitely out drinking and partying with people. He's having a great life because he's just like not having to be responsible.

He's also running over to his friends' houses and telling them how terrible Kristen is. And it's just, and she's so difficult and so hard that I went to lunch and didn't tell him. And so I didn't like being yelled at for three hours for going to lunch. And you said you didn't have plans. And I was like, well, when we were talking, I didn't have plans. And it changed. And I didn't realize I have to talk to you anytime I want to leave. So, you know, there's, it's just so much bad behavior that is completely acceptable and it's insane.

And the saddest thing was is it took me forever to get out of this relationship. I think it took like two years. I tried leaving like two or three times because, again, abuse of relationships. It's funny. You always end up on these on and off again relationships. and why none of the abuser's friends can like catch that pattern that like you can't make a relationship work you say all of your partners suck none of your exes want to talk to you and in my case I essentially sort of just like disappeared I ended up and it's it's always the

dumbest stuff that that makes you break up as a couple so the big cat that had me walk away was not the abuse. It was not the fact that, you know, he'd come home after being, you know, drinking and cheating or whatever after he'd had a fight and he'd been gone for three days and would, um, one of his things that was super anxiety inducing for me was, uh, he'd come home at like two or three in the morning and then he would stand in our bedroom in the pitch black and he was hoping that I would wake up and I learned that I needed to start pretending to be asleep because what it was is he would come home pissed off, he would stand in the room hoping I was going to wake up so he could yell at me. And so we would get into another fight and he'd yell at me for another two or three hours.

And so it's this tactic of sleep deprivation because when you're sleep deprived, then you're not going to function, right? Because you're just so delirious. And so it's like, you know, he does all this kind of stuff. That sleep deprivation, no, that's fine. I'll work through that. We can work through that. you know, coming to realize that the relationship did have rape. So another thing that, like, I think people should understand with consent is that if you're

saying yes to your partner because you're afraid of what's going to happen if you say no, i.e. in my case being yelled at for two or three hours or being accused of, I don't love you, you don't love me if you don't put out, that's not. consent, that's rape. So I mean, that's what that relationship was like as well, is just doing anything to make sure that he didn't get upset. And again, rape is not enough to make you leave an abusive relationship, you know, being yelled at for three hours, getting kicked out of your own home is not enough. It was a mutual friend who I was on the falling out with, I think, We're no longer friends. I think she may have been bipolar. Not sure, but that was talking with

her husband a little bit who had that opinion. And I was like, yeah, I could see it. It would track. She had a wedding. She was being a real bridezola. And we, I ended up quitting the wedding. And she was a real bitch about it. I was like, hey, I'm so sorry. You know, I just feel like you're not communicating with me because we had had a big blow up over the fact that I was wearing some sparkly shoes under a floor length gown. So I was going to ruin the entire wedding with that. And her, I, you know, posted my photo with my sparkly shoes that I had gotten approved by her previously. And the dress in the bridesmaids group chat got completely roasted by these other bridesmaids who were like, I just think it's obvious to not wear sparkles or droolns.

draw attention as a bridesmaid? And I was like, oh, okay, you all are really shitty. My work is shitty. I'm in this abusive relationship. I'm chronically stressed. And I was like, hey, girl, you know, I feel like the communication isn't really hitting. And, you know, it's just not really working. I've got a lot going on. I want to pull out of being a bridesmaid. I'd love to be there for you on your day. It's just, it's not it for me. She got so mad over me doing that. despite letting her friends treat me like shit and also treating me like shit. Because again, pick shitty friends when you have trauma. And so she ended up blowing up on Chris for, I don't know what.

She was just having a full on meltdown. And so we both are on the outs with her. She was always a hot and cold friend. And apparently, like, these phases were just what she would do with everyone. And Chris was, like, trying to become friends. with her again. And I thought it was super fucked up because she had apologized to him, but she never apologized to me.

Right. And I was like, you should be advocating for me to be apologized to. And so he wouldn't advocate for me. And he decided that he wanted this friendship with this girl who had just been obviously a bitch to me. I think around that time as well, I had something said, look at his Facebook messages, and I saw some girls that he had been talking to that were, you know, just friends or whatever, and I saw the way that he was letting them talk about me,

and it was absolutely just throwing me under the fucking bus and backing up to make sure that I was like thoroughly trampled over. And my partner's just like letting this shit happen. And I was like, he just doesn't even give a fuck. And so that's what it was, is he wanted to be friends with a bitch. And I was like, that's it. I'm done. If you choose her, I'm out. And so that was, that's what made me leave was that he chose a crappy friend.

And how old were you when you got out of this relationship? 26 or 27. Okay. It's just ridiculous. And, you know, this dysfunctional stuff. is just what you do. I mean, now, I'm 31. I just actually got married in October 13th, so it's a little over a little over a month now.

Thank you. And it's so weird because I got out of that abusive relationship and then I ended up on this deep dive of like healthier dynamics. And since then I've been massively like working on my own mental health and things like that. But I ended up like realizing that was an abusive relationship, which was wild because when you're in it, you don't even see it. And then having to learn new patterns in my own dating. It's really funny. I tell my husband all the time, I'm like, you know, honey, I almost didn't date you because you were too boring.

He was super sweet. We met at work. We actually met during COVID. We both ended up schlepping boxes at an Amazon warehouse because we both lost our jobs. They had been doing admin work, office management trade shows and disappeared. He was a motorcycle instructor. They weren't doing that anymore. So for schlepping boxes, that's where we meet.

But he was so nice to me. He was texting me all the time. We had common interest. We would go out for food. He was super sweet. He always was trying to spend time with me and do things like that. But there was no chaos to it. He wasn't unavailable.

He wasn't playing hot and cold. And so my brain is sitting here and just like, why would you do this? This is so boring. And I was like, just give the boring guy a shot because that's what I've been reading is that you should pick the opposite of what you think is right to give it a try. And so three and a half years later, we got married. And so he's a keeper. But I'll tell you, I spent a lot. of time waiting for the other shoe to drop in that relationship because he was so, so sweet.

And I would tell him that. I was like, yeah, honey, I'm just waiting for you to, like, figure out that I'm too fucked up or that this is too much work and that you don't really like me and that you're just going to bail because that's just what always happens. And then what age did you start getting into therapy? I have done therapy a couple times. I had therapy after losing my mom. a little bit. And then the next time that I actually like was with a therapist, was actually

at 30. It was after my Aunt Kathy passed last year, last November, because mostly it was just money stuff, being young and poor and not having good insurance and things like that. But yeah, after my Aunt Kathy's death in November last year, I just felt super. super, super derailed. I was having a really hard time at work. I couldn't focus. I couldn't keep up. And I was also having like flashbacks, like emotional ones where I was just like, I'd be crying at my desk because I was just like in that moment of, you know, like her last day and stuff like that. And it was really, really hard. I wasn't sleeping and all this stuff. And I was like, okay, I need to like talk to somebody. And it actually took me a couple of months to bring up the fact

that I thought that maybe I had C.P.T.S.D. Okay. That's what I was going to ask you. So you kind of discover that on your own from hearing or watching that video. And then you brought that up to the therapist. I did. And I was super anxious about it because, one, I'm used to people, like, not really listening to me. Did they diagnose you with just PTSD at all?

Yeah. Okay. Just PTSD because I brought up with my therapist that I think it's complex PTSD. And she was like, PTSD because we don't have C PTSD here. And I was like, fair. So I don't know if she actually believes in like there's a difference or anything depending on, you know, whoever you're talking to, they will or will not recognize it. Like the VA Veterans Affairs, I think they do recognize complex PTSD as being a thing and being

different. But it just depends on who you're speaking to. Okay. routed up and we, you know, ran a test. And she was like, all right, well, I gave her, you know, my summary here of my life and crappy childhood. And then when we got to the part where my mom died and I, you know, saw that happen, she was like, let's stop here. Let me give you this test. And of course, I blew it off the charts. And then how have you worked through that? Has it just been more therapy and just working on yourself or did you start?

medication? So I am on antidepressants now, which is helpful because it's the fatigue. I can wake up less like death, which I didn't realize was an option. I've never been a morning person. I just thought that was me. Like my poor husband when we were dating. He likes, he's such a morning person. It's terrible. Anyways, he was like, we need to be up and out of the house at like five. We're going to hit the road, a couple hour drive. And so it's like five. 5 a.m. He's excited. He looks at me and he's morning, honey, and I'm, ugh, morning. She disappears into a bathroom for 30 minutes because I'm like, just don't talk to me, don't even look at me. So I realize now that I don't have to wake up in so much of an I hate you,

don't look at me. Why are you breathing state anymore? Yeah. I also have been learning feelings. So one of the things that I learned with trauma, therapy, and things, is that when you have like fragmented memories, you often disassociate. So I can remember experiences, but my feelings are somewhere else. Like the feelings are stored in this bucket and the memory is over here. And they're not always connected. And so I've been having to actually connect the two of them. And I find that I will go through day-to-day life and not be aware of my feelings.

Like I won't be aware of when I'm anxious. So I've started having to actually be present in my own body and live my life. Because I am being told essentially to stop scanning for danger all the time and like stop being hyper, hyper aware. It's like rewiring your whole brain. It is. And that's not a quick and easy thing to do. No. No.

On average, I think because I was looking at up, it was like. like takes like three to five years for people to make like really good progress on you know like their PTSD symptoms and everything and so I mean year one now I have to feel my feelings as terribly inconvenient I don't recommend yeah noticing a lot more about myself and actually in noticing more about myself I've been remembering more and actually having like feelings around it and being able to process. Right. It's like putting yourself kind of back in that time and allowing yourself to work through it. Yeah. So like my oldest brother, Patrick, I don't really know what I want to do with that relationship or if I want to have a relationship there because

I've always been super family focused and wanting that connection. He's got three kids. They're super cute. But being in the military, he was always away. And now he's about 40 and I'm, in my early 30s. And I'm like, you know, we've never once talked about the fact that that was like straight up abuse. And I just had my wedding, which was super awkward because I've kind of started opening cancer firms on my life and dropping bombs by dealing with my trauma and setting boundaries in my, you know, family and things like that and talking about things. So very uncomfortably, he was trying to choose my wedding and rehearsal before my wedding to have like deep emotional conversations and like roomfuls of people which is hideously inappropriate timing. And you know I always tell people

in general like on the show and in life, you know, people and relationships go through waves. Yeah. You know, and maybe he's just not in a place yet where he's put in the work for himself, where he's capable of a healthy relationship with you. And that's not to say that down. the road, you guys couldn't talk and form that. But unfortunately, just because we are working on ourselves and we're getting to a good place, and we're kind of working through our past trauma and experience, that doesn't mean that anyone else is on that same page. And unfortunately, piggybacking off of that, I think a lot of times it makes it that much more difficult to even maintain any sort of relationship with those people because you just aren't in the same place,

emotionally, emotionally at all. So it makes it nearly impossible. Yeah. And again, with having to live in my body now and feel my feelings, I came to realize that I was trying really, really hard to, like, project this family image and to like have this family and do all of these things. When my body is over here anxious and uncomfortable and unhappy when he's around, Because my brain is like, hey, remember that guy?

Yeah, that one was like the one trying to kill you and tormenting you. That's not a good thing over there. That's not good. And there's been no apology or no even acknowledgement of that as being a real thing. And so my brain is like, problem, problem. That's a bad thing. If you go over there, bad things happen. Don't like, don't do that.

That's a can of worms. Right. So. And I think, too, if you're working through that on your own, it's probably not the healthiest thing to be around that person often when they haven't done that work themselves. Luckily, completely different time zone other side of the country. So we don't have a ton of interaction. So that's been a good thing. But it's like it sucks though. It does suck. And even with, you know, my own family, there's a lot of excuses for a lot of the behavior. You know, my brother gets a

past because he had a hard childhood, which I don't think that should be the case. When I talk now about, you know, appropriate boundaries or things that have happened in the past, being able to, and it is a hard skill, granted, being able to listen to someone when they say, hey, I know you didn't mean to, but you hurt my feelings. If you can't sit there with that person and go, oh my gosh, I didn't know. How can I not do that again? And instead you sit there and you go, well, I didn't mean to. You have to take responsibility. Yeah, you're invalidating and you're not a safe space. And the whole basis for like my particular journey, you know, with complex PTSD is that most everything is an unsafe space for me. And so I need to be able to find those. And it really seems like my family of origin is not really that space for me. And. Awareness and ownership are some of the hardest skills you can have. And I say that, you know, being full aware that I'm only just now, you know, getting aware of my own self.

So my journey now has been trauma therapy, just actually trying to connect feelings back to things that have happened and like realize the impact that that has had on my life so I can get out of those negative patterns. Right. And also learning myself because I'm 31 and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. And I just am kind of like getting through the day. I'm like, what do I even want to do for work long term? What actually makes me happy? Like I know that, you know, I'll want to start a family soon and everything just because I'm getting older. but outside of that, what actually brings me joy and what are the things that I find value in

and that are meaningful for me? Because, you know, the image of success, wealth, things like that, that's not what's authentically important to me, and that's not what's going to make me feel fulfilled long term. And I don't want to keep living somebody else's life or what other people think is important or what other people think I should or shouldn't be doing. There's no time frame on anything. I think that we're meant to think that there's a time frame on things. But you're just now, like you said, you're a year in on your personal healing journey. So it makes sense that now you're at this point where you're kind of unraveling and trying to figure out like what makes me happy.

You know, and that's starting for you now. And for some people it might not, they might never, you know, think those ways or they might find it earlier or a little bit later. Everybody's on such a different path and such a different time frame. And I think that the best thing is that you have started this healing journey for yourself. And, you know, something that, I would say something that kind of is unfortunate about it. Like I was saying before is that just because we are on this healing journey, we can't control. role the journey that everybody else is on. But the only thing that we can do is take as much time as we can to truly focus on ourselves and learn ourselves and kind of learn to break the cycles that

have been, you know, taught to you and implemented to you because one day when you do start a family, you're not going to continue that cycle. Like you are the end of that. Hopefully so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that is ultimately the hope. Unfortunately, there will probably still be a couple more generations of depression and anxiety. One of the things is, if you, like, ever look into epigenetics, I'm a huge nerd. I like reading things. And if you read what my bones know, she actually goes more into these studies and things, what my bones know by Stephanie Fu.

She goes more into, like, the epigenetics and whoever the researchers' names are. But you can expose mice to, like, sense in that particular study, they exposed. them to a cherry blossom scent and would give them a shock. So anytime they smell that smell, they think a bad thing is going to happen. So when those mice breed, they have babies, their babies smell cherry blossom and stay away from, they stay as far away from that as possible because they have anxiety issues with it. They don't know why, but it's passed into their DNA. So I know that my kids are going to have more issues with depression and things and go figure my grandfather had PTSD and my mom was probably depressed and that all rolled down to me and it's going to keep on

for a couple of generations but you know emotional regulation will help and you also are you're going to have different tools yeah to help not only yourself but your children one day yeah that weren't there for you yeah so we're going to have a lot more managing the tools are the biggest thing because we live in a society in an environment where depression and anxiety is so common and you know, I think it comes down to management and communication and openness. And, you know, a comment that you made about even just when it came to basically diagnosing yourself with the complex PTSD, that's the beauty of communication and openness is being able to hear people's real, raw stories and connect to it and know that you aren't alone. because I think that, you know, therapy is amazing.

I love therapy. I think everybody should be in therapy. Yes. But sometimes hearing something directly from somebody else and being like, that is spot on how I feel. Yes. And what's going through my mind, it can just make you feel so heard and like, wow, I'm not the only one that has felt that way or that is struggling with this.

Definitely. Yeah. I mean, that's essentially why I did, decided to reach out to you. As I was at work, just listening to the podcast. And I was like, you know what? I feel like in everything that I do in my life to kind of get more information, I mean, there's like Reddit hubs for everything. So Reddit is nice to get a community.

But if you like Google Complex PTSD, it really doesn't have a lot of information behind it. It's, I mean, PTSD as a whole, I think only got officially listed in like, its title and everything in the 80s. So as a whole, all of this is pretty new. Well, like you said too, I think when people think of PTSD, they do think of war veterans and things like that. They're not really thinking of, and maybe some people do, but I know that there's a good amount of people that probably don't really have the knowledge

that, oh, it could just be, you know, a normal person that had childhood trauma that could have this form of PTSD that affects them daily. Or even, you know, an abusive relationship. Yeah. If you have a partner threatening to kill themselves all the time, that can be super traumatizing to you. And all of these things, like unless, and no one's perfect, it is very hard to constantly because, you know, part of life is constantly evolving and growing and working on ourselves,

but it's hard to do that all the time. So everything that we go through, it sticks with us. And like you said, it carries over into the next thing that we do. And it's a reflection of kind of, you know, how we treat people in our lives and the people around us and going into another relationship, the fears and the worries and the doubts that we're going to have because of what we experience because that's what we know. And that's kind of what was ingrained in us for months or years or however long we were in it. Yeah. So. Yeah. It's a lot.

Yeah. That was about it. No, well, you did it. You did it amazing. And, you know, like I said, I think it's incredible that you heard a story that you felt connected to. And then you kind of followed that path. And you're like, all right, I'm going to be the next story that somebody looks it up. And they're like, oh, I sound like I could relate to that.

And, you know, I say it all the time. But that is the reason why I have created this platform because I want people to be able to look something up and click it and feel like I can relate to that. And I tell people all the time, you know, somebody doesn't have to experience your same. exact, you know, life to relate to you and to have similar feelings and to understand how you feel. And, you know, while we do have all of these different terms and diagnosis for things, I think at the same time, at the end of the day, people just want to be heard and understood and feel like they aren't alone in this life because it can be very challenging and difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes and get through things. So I think that the beauty of this show is just having

people come on and just share their story very authentically and be able to discuss what they've been through and show like, look, I'm just a normal person and this is how I feel. And, you know, if you could help even just one or a few people not feel so alone, then you did something amazing. Yeah. And you did. Yeah. So thank you so much for choosing this platform. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Of course. Of course, you did amazing. Was there anything else you wanted to include? or you think you got it all? No, I think that's all of it. Perfect. Well, you did great. So thank you.