Latest / Shared Light / Ep. 6- Leaving the Hurt, Learning the Light: Dustie’s Journey Pt. 2
Transcript
- JR And Dustie Rodriguez: Afternoon all. Welcome back to another episode of Shared Light with Dustie and JR. I am obviously JR. And I'm Dustie. ⁓ So just to kind of recap covering Dustie's story, part one of it. talking through living in California. At point you got moved to Utah with your family. Circumstances happen there. You get shipped to Northern California, getting some trouble there. Go back to Utah, living with your sister. ⁓ Ultimately meet your first love. He turns out to be a jerk, some of those things that ⁓ unfortunately men sometimes do. ⁓ You end up deciding to leave there to come up to Idaho to be with your mom and your family. ⁓ he comes, you guys have a falling out one last time. You're getting to a where you ⁓ are starting to get self-confidence and ⁓ some wants and some Yeah. I'm leaning more into, I just want to be with my family. I want to, you know, work and have my own place and, you know, start being an adult. so what does that look like? That looks like I started working for the city. I was a code enforcement officer and I loved my job. Like I was really into economic development. ⁓ you know, some travel was involved and that was fun. I loved my boss. ⁓ I left my coworkers, it provided me well financially, I got my own place. And yeah, I mean, was doing fairly well. ⁓ I wasn't- How long would you say that that went on? years probably. Where you're just kind of in your lane doing what you need to do. just doing me. ⁓ You know, hanging out with my family. Had a couple friends, you know, that I would hang out with or whatever but I remember, you know, like dating but not relationships. Like I would just, it was, for fun. ⁓ Nothing nothing... ⁓ As I had gotten out of that relationship and I was not focused on that at all. And... Because your mindset at this point is I'm not ever going let anybody do that to you again. Like I'm... That's... It was a lesson for me. At this point I can look at it as a lesson in what I don't want. And then I ended up meeting my ex-husband. And I honestly could not tell you how we met. I want to say it was through friends, but I don't even know, to be honest. I can't remember. ⁓ And... You know, he was great at first, even I think the first year we were together. It wasn't until we got engaged, I think, that it started going south. But, you know, he was fun, he was outgoing, he owned a bunch of companies and he was always traveling and he had a big family and a big group of friends. in a culture that I was new to me I had never experienced. So yeah, it was good for a while and then we got engaged and really when it started to go. South and he started. the same as my first relationship. The manipulation, the controlling, the physical, the... You know, I feel like he started to really isolate me from my family. I mean, we still saw my family, but he was always around. Like, I would never see my family without him around. It was almost like, and now I can look back and say, ⁓ yeah, of course, because he doesn't know what I'm going to say when he's not around or do or. ⁓ And so. Again. I remember just thinking. Here I am again, but now like we're engaged, we're planning a wedding and he had been. so great up until now. So it's very confusing in a way because it's like the same but different than my last relationship, And maybe, you know, I remember thinking maybe it's just stress or maybe it's just a phase that we're going through and you know, it'll go back to how it was. and so I, you know, I stayed, was like, no, well, I'll, we'll get through this. We'll make it work. You know, I didn't really have a doubt, I guess, that he loved me. like I did in my first relationship. there was just a, even though the same things were going on, it was completely different in that. There was as for as much. abuse there was twice as much love almost like over trying to overcompensate for the abuse you know so that was hard because it was it it messes with your mind and like it's not just a clear cut of like this is absolutely i need to leave or this is not what i want because it's like You do, but you want most of it, but you don't want that part of it either, you know. So anyway, it was very confusing, very. ⁓ It was just a point where again, I was back to, this what I want my life to be? You know, when I was contemplating it and... We got married in 2003, I believe it was. And I still remember feeling even hesitant on that day. ⁓ and I remember my dad right before he walked me down the aisle saying to me, like, You don't have to do this. the doesn't matter, the people don't matter. ⁓ You don't have do this. And now, like, I wish I wouldn't have, but I did at the time. Because it's a lot, like... It's your wedding. You're literally getting ready to walk down the aisle whether you want to or you don't. There's all these people, there's money involved, there's... And what if you're wrong? And what if I'm wrong? Because there's still that, well, I know and I feel that he loves me, but... I don't, I still have the feeling of I don't want to do this. So, anyway, we ended up getting married. ⁓ And then... And he was more physically abusive. Yeah. Than the previous. And his culture is pretty common. ⁓ You know, it's a normal thing to treat women that way, to treat your wives that way. ⁓ And so it was just like not a big deal. So that was the part in me where I was like, it's just, it's not going to go away is what you end up realizing. Like it's like when someone doesn't really know that they're doing wrong, they're not going to change it. So I had to, I was just kind of stuck at that point. We were married, but he also, his businesses really took off and he was gone 80 % of the time. So I had a lot of time by myself. and It really just sealed the deal for me when I found out about his infidelity. And so... It was an easy, I'm done for me. Even though we had just got married, I think it was like not even six months later. But you guys had been together for? We had been together. two and a half years, I think. so yeah, filed for divorce and. ⁓ He didn't fight me on it. So that was definitely my okay to move on for me in my head. Because it right away brought me back to again, this is, I'm not, we're not doing this again. Like, and I at that point, this was 2004, I was like, I'm not even dating, I'm done. I have zero interest. Like these people have come into my life and. just messed me up emotionally. And so. And I mean, I do want to touch on that just a little bit. ⁓ Like what kind of emotions does that bring in? Does it invite in? I think it invites in... the biggest one for me that it invited in was you'll never be enough no matter what you do no matter how hard you try no matter what they say no matter what they do it's not going to be enough and this is what you deserve because I had been shown in both relationships, they will say, they will do everything they can while being the opposite behind closed doors. And they will say anything to get you to believe that they are not this person or they're not doing these things. So, and I just wanted to touch on that for a little bit because Back then you were really good about just suppressing that. Yeah. I think I still am to a point. ⁓ It's not something that you want to think about all the time. It's not something that you, think especially for me, because I don't have that now and I haven't had that for 20 years. I don't want to bring it back. That's why I didn't even want to record this. podcasts like about my story because I don't I don't want to think about it. Which, and we'll continue on as your story here just a little bit and then towards the end of it we'll kind of circle back but it does lend to the story. of the dark for you today. Because that ability to just kind of push it out of your mind and push it down served you well for a really long time. Yeah. I mean, it sits there. You can put it away. You can put it on the shelf, as I like to call it. You put it on the shelf and it stays there. It stays there while you are still in the fight-or-flight mode and I have been for various reasons even throughout the last 20 years not because of you per se but because I'm just I have anxiety I have always I think had anxiety from the time of my abuse as a child ⁓ you know and that's not something that I wish to go into detail and talk about really, but I was sexually abused as a child, a young child. And I think that when that happens to you at a young age, you switch your brain switches, your nervous system switches. and just for clarity, none of the people that we have talked about were involved in that. No, no, no. ⁓ And I think it's so I think my system has been in that mode all my life. And so you can take those things. You can take those traumas. You can take those situations and you can put them on a shelf and you can push them away and move on for me anyway. My perspective, my experience. I've been able to do that to a point to a point. up until it's similar to addiction, right? ⁓ you can numb yourself for an extremely long time, once you're not numb, all of that floods, all of those emotions come flooding back. And so the not numb, I think in my situation is when, you know, because I've always had to I've always been an anxious person that way and I've always worried. I worry about everything. know, whether it be the kids, whether it be this, that, a person, a situation, ⁓ whatever. I'm always scanning for danger and I'm always scanning for, you know, my system is always looking for the next thing to drop. And so... I've always been in that mode, that fight or flight that, and so it's been suppressed. Everything that I've gone through has been suppressed. And I think once you, I've read now that I had started doing a lot of this work on anxiety and... ⁓ that it will eventually come out. It will come back and you will have to deal with it. And it usually does come back when your system is regulated and when you feel safe, when your system doesn't have to react to everything, when your system doesn't have to scan for the danger. ⁓ you you're safe, you're secure. Your body now thinks, okay, we still have all this stuff that we have put away that now that you're in this space, we can deal with it now. ⁓ And that's what happened with me, I believe. So, and then again, we'll come back to that. But I just wanted to touch on that a little bit, because I do think it's important to to just talk through at this point in your life, you're not in a dark place. You're in a very good place because you are shelving all this stuff. And you're full of light, full of family, focusing on you, doing what you need to do for you. Just got out of an abusive relationship. Yeah, but even that, I feel like. I mean, it wasn't the things that happened in that relationship were things that I had to shelf and that were part of my trauma. But I remember the end of it not being. upset not being you know like I remember being able to just go back to being happy and being with my family and right so you're surrounded by light yeah yeah And this is 2004? So from 2004 till ultimately we start talking in 2005. You are doing the daycare at that point? Yeah, I was helping out a friend. Me and a friend had gotten really close. We were always together hanging out. We had a lot of fun. ⁓ She had a daycare and I was living there with her and helping her out. I believe I was also working at the time. ⁓ I was just living like we were out all the time. Going out, hanging out, going to the club like. trying to live your best life. Yeah, we were just having fun. I was in, you know, a good place. And then August of 2005, you get a DM. On MySpace. On MySpace. Good old MySpace. And we start talking. And I do remember ⁓ from that period of time when we first started talking, you were in a really good space. Yeah. You had quit your job. were living on your retirement or something and helping out with the daycare. ⁓ I had cashed out my retirement, I believe at the city. Yeah. Because you were just kind of living and doing, trying to figure out what you wanted to do next. Yeah. So, ⁓ wish we can get into our story a little bit ⁓ later in another episode, but I do wanna kind of just go back to some of the points that we touched on. ⁓ through the entirety of your journey to. what is eventually turns into our journey. You had and did a really good job of... You had moments of sadness and moments of dark, you were very good about, like you said, shelving it. my life, yeah. My light. Right. So you shelved it, you embraced the good parts of your life, leaned into it. ⁓ So even though you had dark instances, it wasn't. despair and darkness kind of. No, I would say was majority light. You know, because I was able to shelf it and move on. And Your family's ⁓ They've been super supportive to me since the day we met. And that goes back into one of the aspects that I talk about with your light is that ability to just. See past all of the. the flaws and just you see the character of the person, which I feel like your dad, your mom are both that way. Your sister's that way. So definitely it's something that you guys all share. Yeah. You just. see the good. Which to your point, you said that your grandpa was that way. picked a stranger up on Thanksgiving and turned him to... He didn't know a stranger. Yeah, he loved everybody. But your mom's kind of that way. I mean, she's maybe not to that extreme, but she's very wanting to help out wherever she can, whenever she can. Yeah. Your sister again. for the longest time, felt you engaged in some of that. We've pulled a little bit away from some of that just over the past few years, but that I think has more to do with some of our own just. lessons that we've had to learn. But not just lessons, but I think for me it's been a lot of you know, I did start struggling with my darkness and you come to a point where you don't have that. I didn't have that to give anymore to other people ⁓ and other situations because I needed it for me. You know, it's kind of like I needed to choose myself over all of that for the first time. And it's that plan analogy, right? Like you can't... help anybody until you help yourself. Yeah. Yeah, and I really couldn't, you know, like I was barely doing it for you and the kids, you know? So. And that's hard because that's always who I've been. It's not something I want to do or wanted to do, but it's something I had to do. And I still have to because I'm not all the way through my darkness. Right, to your point, you were very hesitant about even sitting down to film this background. Yeah. Because it does stir up a bunch of things that you probably have not thought about, dealt with, worked through. Which we've talked through some of them, but not all of them, obviously. Yeah. You know, the abuse as a kid is a big one that I know that you don't ever talk about, which is totally understandable. But even a lot of the stories with the domestic abuse, I mean, a lot of that is... newer to the conversation for us. Because it's a perspective that I didn't realize until recently. Yeah. And it's through working through my anxiety and learning a lot just about myself ⁓ and doing a lot of my shadow work. ⁓ You know, I wouldn't have thought A lot of that would even come into play into my now. ⁓ I'm not ever one to be like, I'm Anxious or I'm an anxious person. have anxiety and and that's what rules me. You know what I mean? So I it's never I I don't have a victim mentality even now to this day like I don't Yes, it happened, but I have never lived in the shadow of that, you know, it does come into play I'm learning into How my darkness came about and why I started to struggle with a lot of the things that I struggle with and because... I didn't understand a lot of it when it started. I didn't understand a lot of the feelings or why I had stopped seeing my own light or, you know. and that I'm learning or I have learned that all of that from being a little child up until now, all of that has a role. So that was, you know. Yeah, I mean, think every instance and everything. whether we remember it, don't remember it, everything that happens in our life leaves an impact or imprint. Lends to the story of where you're going and where you end up. But it also ⁓ ⁓ imprint ⁓ like almost a scar ⁓ is always there. And sometimes you remember it and sometimes you don't. I mean, sometimes ⁓ wounds ⁓ heal all the way. ⁓ ⁓ which is what I wanted to kind of end this, you know, your, your story with is you started to touch on it a little bit. ⁓ I think it was in part one where you have bits and pieces of memories and thoughts. And, I do want to explain that to, you know, people listening why and what you have learned, which again, you talked a little bit about through the anxiety part of it, but let's really dive into that. So if people understand that. know, trauma for everybody manifests in a different way. Yeah, I think for me it manifested in. I mean, it just, I have a lot of time periods that it's just blocked from my memory. Like I don't remember a lot of my child. don't even, like I can say even now there's a lot of blocks of time that I don't even remember about our journey, our life. And when we had kids and- Cause you have snapshots. Yes. But the snapshots that you have. And this is what I really want to highlight is the snapshots that you have are. the snapshots of negative things that have happened. Situations that were highly stressful, highly impactful, highly worrisome. It's whatever might. system my anxiety is focused on because like I said it's always scanning for that danger it's always waiting for that next thing and those are the moments that are ingrained in me it's not you know, my, the good stuff, I remember some good things, but a lot of the good stuff just gets blocked because it's almost like memory. Like I only have enough storage for the things that my nervous system and my brain think it needs to hold on to and remember. And I think that's what the shift is because that's what it's scanning for. This particular memory is tied to this particular instance to this feeling or whatever. And it's scanning for a similar situation. Right. Yeah. And those are the things that. I remember. That's the majority of my memories. know, like when I look back on my life as a whole, it's snapshots and a lot of those snapshots are trauma. Unfortunately, you know, so that's why it's like, it was hard for me to want to record this because it's like, well, yeah, I can tell people my journey, but like a lot of my journey is not positive. Like, there is positive, you know, like my, my upbringing was great. My family is great. Like none of that is my trauma. My trauma is the things that. other people had control of. Which is, think, and that's how I want to tie it to your perspective versus my perspective, right? You have snapshots of all of these. I have a pretty good recollection of the things that I have done. And yes, there was some trauma and there were some things where a lot of it I see as choices I ultimately made for one reason or another. And I can identify a lot of that through my journey. But I see it as like this was a journey through dark for me. Where you have snapshots of dark, but for you it's a journey through light with just instances of... ⁓ of dark moments. And the ironic thing is that it's the dark moments that you remember the most. So, and I think that fundamentally, ⁓ the biggest difference ⁓ And I feel is what. brought us together is that you are. my polar opposite and I am your polar opposite, but in a way that they work well together. So kind of that yin and yang that you see ⁓ where you can look at a situation and you can. can extrapolate the good out of it. And I look at it, like I said, you know, in my story or one of the past episodes, like I see everything from a realist perspective of like, does this, is this really making sense? Is this something that, and a lot of times that may come off as negative, but I'm very much trying to stay grounded in, I don't want to be too optimistic about this. don't want to be too, not that I'm a pessimist by any means, cause I do. want and think that good things can't happen, but I try to stay grounded in reality. What is the reality of it? And I'm more of the, but what is the opportunity in it or what is the hope in it? What is the, you know, yeah. So it's an interesting dynamic. And I think that more than anything will help people understand. how your light differs from my light and how my darkness differs from your darkness. because for you it's very much. A lot of the dark that overtakes you now is a result of things outside of your control. Yes. And a lot of my dark is things that I had complete control over and decisions. Choices. Yeah. So, ⁓ and be it what it may be, you know, you can talk through upbringing, you can talk through socioeconomic. Issues you could talk through culture. You could talk through whatever you want to talk through at the end of day It's choices that I made that got me to the situations that I got into right? While there may be some credence to some of the the literature that says You know growing up in certain areas does push you to disadvantage be it what I may be I Know for an individual it's all about choice. Yeah Where are you? made pretty good choices, still ended up in unfortunate situations in a lot of cases. Yeah, because I am that person. that I was for you when we met, I still saw the good in those people that hurt me, you know? ⁓ And I always see that. I, it's just who I am. It's who, it's me. I always will see that in people. No matter how wrong they do me, you know? Which is sometimes to your detriment. Yeah, it is. And we've talked about that too. I do feel in some instances you probably had a more of a right to be a little bit more selfish about the situation, but chose not to be. But, you know, again, this was just a... We thought it was important that you guys understand ⁓ our thought process, our mentality, where we're from. You know, we had a very unique journey getting to each other. A very unexpected journey. very unexpected journey. And honestly, a very unexpected outcome even. ⁓ when you think about the grand scope and where we're headed in a few weeks, know, celebrating 20 years being married. Yeah. Like everything, it's very, it can be very cliche to say, but everything that has happened to me throughout my life and all of the experiences that I've lived through through my life have led me to this point today. Yeah. So it's. ⁓ good to understand when we're talking about seeing each other's light, what that means when we're talking about what kind of darkness we're currently dealing with or have dealt with through the week, what that means. And, you know, I feel like in the next couple of episodes, we'll get into our story together. you know, our journey through. 10 years of just us. And then ultimately, you know, the second half of that, yeah, the second half of that journey being with our babies. So ⁓ I do hope, you know, everybody got some insight and is able to, if nothing else, understand that everybody struggles with certain things in life and ⁓ Dustie is a perfect testament to really is about how you choose to perceive those things and how you choose to tackle those things head on or, ⁓ sometimes even suppress those things, but definitely is about, you your choice of perspective of the situation. So ⁓ with that, wish you guys the best and we'll see you on the next one.