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Grit and Vigor with Shelly Grimm · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS Podcast. My name is gymickperson.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Super excited to have as my
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Speaker 1: guest today. Shelley Grim Shelley Welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for having me guy.
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Speaker 1: Shelley is a financial consultant, author and founder of the
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Speaker 1: Perpetual Caregiver, empowering families facing chronic illness. A Ladypreneur recognized
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Speaker 1: by the Worldwide Women's Association with twenty seven years of
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Speaker 1: financial expertise, she helps ensure dignity and peace of mind
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Speaker 1: through unique tools like the Family Love Letter. Shelley's journey
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Speaker 1: began as a lifelong caregiver for her mother, the first
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Speaker 1: woman diagnosed with Crone's disease in the US in nineteen
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Speaker 1: fifty six. This path included legal emancipation of thirteen and
1:00
Speaker 1: a harrowing turning point at seventeen, when a hit was
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Speaker 1: put out on her life, forcing her to flee Maarillo
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Speaker 1: and resolved to help others prepare for life's uninvited challenges. Wow, Shelly,
1:16
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, but we'll get to that before
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Speaker 1: we do share with our listeners where you're from originally
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Speaker 1: and where you are currently.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'm both from where I am originally and where
1:26
Speaker 3: I sit. So Amarillo, Texas is where I was born
1:30
Speaker 3: and where I was raised, and where I departed from
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Speaker 3: hastily and where I returned back in September of twenty
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Speaker 3: twenty one to help care for my significant other's parents
1:45
Speaker 3: who are now in their late stages of life. And
1:49
Speaker 3: we're experiencing some illnesses at the time and just that
1:53
Speaker 3: season of life. So we're back here in our hometown.
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Speaker 1: So how does all this start for you?
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Speaker 3: Well, it starts where my mother was the first documented
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Speaker 3: female to be known with Crone's what is now known
2:11
Speaker 3: as Crohne's disease. At the time, it was known as
2:15
Speaker 3: iliidis or terminal iliidis. There's a part of your small
2:20
Speaker 3: intestine known as the terminal ilium, and it was damaged
2:26
Speaker 3: or what we now know is obstructed, And she was
2:29
Speaker 3: on her way back from her senior field trip from
2:33
Speaker 3: San Antonio in nineteen fifty six and was having some
2:37
Speaker 3: stomach issues, and they thought that she was having, you know,
2:40
Speaker 3: just typical female issues, and took her to the hospital
2:43
Speaker 3: and it turned out that her stomach was obstructed, and
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Speaker 3: they removed that part of her intestine and then immediately
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Speaker 3: sent her to Temple, Texas, which was Scott and White
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Speaker 3: at the time Baylor University, and then diagnosed her with what,
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Speaker 3: as I said, now is known as Crohn's disease, but
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Speaker 3: at the time was known as terminal iliitis.
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Speaker 2: And she was eighteen.
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Speaker 3: I wasn't born until nineteen sixty four, so my story
3:12
Speaker 3: really doesn't start for another fourteen years after she had
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Speaker 3: been diagnosed. She didn't even have any medicine to take
3:22
Speaker 3: for it until pregnazone was the first thing that they
3:26
Speaker 3: came along with. And so that is why my caregiving
3:31
Speaker 3: story starts at around five years old. And it's not
3:34
Speaker 3: really so much that I cared for her, it's just
3:36
Speaker 3: that generally five year olds don't go around carry them.
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Speaker 2: For their selves.
3:40
Speaker 3: They generally are pretty needy individuals. At least the five
3:44
Speaker 3: year olds that I had were pretty needy individuals. They
3:47
Speaker 3: didn't really like doing much for themselves. They were pretty
3:49
Speaker 3: snotty nosed and required a lot of care. I am
3:56
Speaker 3: sure that I required more than the average bear, but
4:00
Speaker 3: it was just myself.
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Speaker 2: And my mother. My parents divorced when I was three, and.
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Speaker 3: So the first thing that I remember about my mother
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Speaker 3: being ill, quite frankly, I assumed that I knew that
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Speaker 3: she wasn't well, but it didn't make much of an
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Speaker 3: impact on me until I was five or thereabouts, late five's,
4:24
Speaker 3: early sixes, and my encounter with her being brought down
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Speaker 3: to me in the lobby of our local hospital here
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Speaker 3: and her to tell me that she didn't think she
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Speaker 3: was coming home, and that I would either be living
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Speaker 3: with my grandmother or my father. She didn't know which one,
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Speaker 3: but that she knew i'd be okay.
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Speaker 1: And and you were how old five?
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Speaker 2: Five?
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Speaker 3: You know, some accounts, I don't know exactly what months,
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Speaker 3: So some accounts, you know, my sister thinks I might
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Speaker 3: have been six, you know, I don't, you know, it's I.
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Speaker 2: Was somewhere in there, so you know, five or six.
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Speaker 3: But my mother did make it, and she did come home.
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Speaker 3: And the dilemma, the reason that it was so i'll
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Speaker 3: call it traumatic, is that the dilemma was my dad
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Speaker 3: had custody of his son from his first marriage, who
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Speaker 3: was nine years my senior, and my mother, my grandmother,
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Speaker 3: had was taking care of my sister, who was eight
5:33
Speaker 3: years my senior, and they were both pretty much a handful.
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Speaker 3: So the reason that my mother was not dead set
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Speaker 3: on where I would go or what I would be,
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Speaker 3: where I would be located if something happened to her
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Speaker 3: and was just trying to reassure me that I would
5:55
Speaker 3: be okay, and that she was the one telling me
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Speaker 3: you buy is because those were my circumstance, and she
6:01
Speaker 3: really didn't know where I was going to go. And
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Speaker 3: I think back and certainly while I was writing my book.
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Speaker 2: Is that her desire.
6:11
Speaker 3: And perhaps a lot of what I grew to know
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Speaker 3: as her codependency on me, was that she really didn't
6:19
Speaker 3: have an adequate plan of what would happen to me.
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Speaker 3: So I think a lot of her will to live
6:28
Speaker 3: centered a lot around what would happen to me, uh,
6:31
Speaker 3: if something happened to her. So that was how my
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Speaker 3: story began, and it morphed into being a lifelong caregiver.
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Speaker 3: No lack of people needing care, they've certainly fallen into
6:46
Speaker 3: my lap.
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Speaker 1: And when you say lifelong caregiver. What does that mean
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Speaker 1: specifically continuous?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, of course my mother continued to need care.
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Speaker 2: She continued to be.
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Speaker 3: Within my purview, i'll call it, until she passed away
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Speaker 3: in two thousand and one, and I was forced, for
7:16
Speaker 3: lack of a better word, or made the decision, the
7:18
Speaker 3: tough decision to put her in a nursing home.
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Speaker 2: When she was fifty eight.
7:23
Speaker 3: Years old. She broke her hip. She actually broke it
7:25
Speaker 3: in the hospital on one of her long bouts in
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Speaker 3: the hospital, and I was not able to continue to
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Speaker 3: have her in my home any longer and have her
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Speaker 3: cared for there.
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Speaker 2: And then I was.
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Speaker 3: Blessed with a son who is neurodivergent, and they didn't
7:48
Speaker 3: really have that diagnosis in nineteen eighty eight. He was
7:51
Speaker 3: diagnosed at four with his first diagnosis. And so Ben
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Speaker 3: has a defective gene. So do I have of the
8:00
Speaker 3: THHFR gene. I have two strands that are or defective.
8:06
Speaker 2: He has one.
8:08
Speaker 3: We don't absorb a me know acids appropriately. So it's
8:11
Speaker 3: in the rare disease area. But it has been known
8:17
Speaker 3: to have.
8:18
Speaker 2: Some of the.
8:19
Speaker 3: Research that's being done now on autism spectrum and that
8:23
Speaker 3: type of thing.
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Speaker 2: So he.
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Speaker 3: Has some of those aspergery type traits and was diagnosed
8:30
Speaker 3: with some of those things at four. And so I
8:32
Speaker 3: had I was kind of the Sandwich generation before that actually.
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Speaker 2: Was a thing.
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Speaker 3: I had my mother who was really quite young for
8:39
Speaker 3: having been so ill, and then had my son who
8:42
Speaker 3: I was also caring for, and I was a single parent.
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Speaker 2: And I also had my younger.
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Speaker 3: Child who was two years younger, but he had none
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Speaker 3: of those things. So I had a quite quite average
8:53
Speaker 3: child that I had to make sure he didn't kind
8:56
Speaker 3: of really fall into the trap of being you know,
8:59
Speaker 3: caps into the world of I get nothing and like it,
9:02
Speaker 3: and so we made sure he had He's living in
9:06
Speaker 3: Nashviield's got two kids, and you know, has a relatively
9:08
Speaker 3: normal life other than being divorced already. But you know,
9:13
Speaker 3: he's he's chugging along. But that's kind of, you know,
9:17
Speaker 3: how I've become a lifelong caregiver. And unfortunately it just
9:23
Speaker 3: you know, kind of shaped how my life attracted that
9:27
Speaker 3: type of role. I guess I've landed in financial services
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Speaker 3: and ended up, you know, finding a lot of people
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Speaker 3: who needed my unique abilities to help straighten things out
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Speaker 3: and and help them master complex systems and and legal uh,
9:45
Speaker 3: you know, legal complex many legal legal matters to help
9:50
Speaker 3: them with trusts and successions and that type of thing.
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Speaker 3: So it's it's it's served me very well, and it
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Speaker 3: served many of my clients very well that I've I've
9:59
Speaker 3: known how to do a lot of the things that
10:01
Speaker 3: I've done because of that.
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Speaker 1: So on your website, uh, in the description of your book,
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Speaker 1: because some asss just need wiping, lessons on holding it
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Speaker 1: all together as my mother's lifelong caregiver. As part of
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Speaker 1: the description the website says what no one tells you
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Speaker 1: about growing up as your parents caregiver, the unspoken trauma
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Speaker 1: of children who become their parents caregiver, and how to
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Speaker 1: stop it from happening again. When when as you're growing up,
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Speaker 1: as you're going through this experience, how are you managing?
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Speaker 1: What are you doing too? What is you what does
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Speaker 1: your day to day life look like?
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, you've you if you manage it well.
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Speaker 2: And that's all the trick, right.
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Speaker 3: If a child or if a young person is managing
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Speaker 3: it well, they're very agile.
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Speaker 2: They generally are very adaptable.
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Speaker 1: Multitasking Huh, multitasking.
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Speaker 3: Multitasking I I've always I've always compared it to something
11:34
Speaker 3: I read many years ago and in a in a
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Speaker 3: book where John Bradshaw was comparing it to Trauma kid
11:45
Speaker 3: is walking down the street of a busy, busy you
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Speaker 3: know street, downtown Houston, and you're walking alongside a friend
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Speaker 3: who's not a trauma kid, a big, huge, tall building,
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Speaker 3: and all the sudden, a big bag of trash falls
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Speaker 3: off at the top of the building and lands right
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Speaker 3: in front of you, and a trauma kid just walks
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Speaker 3: around and just walk around and just keep going.
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Speaker 2: But the other friends stops, looks around. Where did that
12:14
Speaker 2: come from? Where is another one gonna fall? What's gonna happen?
12:17
Speaker 2: Is it gonna?
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Speaker 3: I mean, what's gonna it's certainly there's another one coming.
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Speaker 3: And if it is, is it gonna hurt? And stop
12:22
Speaker 3: and let's make sure the traffic gets stopped. Trauma Kid's
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Speaker 3: two blocks down, Man, another bag's coming.
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Speaker 2: It's coming. We got to get out of the way.
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Speaker 3: We're not worried about the people behind us, because you
12:33
Speaker 3: know what we're telling them all along way, keep coming, keep
12:35
Speaker 3: going because you know what, another bag's coming. It's off, Like.
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Speaker 1: Scott, just just a normal day it's just.
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Speaker 2: Another day in paradise.
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Speaker 3: So you learn that moving to just keep on moving,
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Speaker 3: keep on trucking, keep the cycle going. You know, just
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Speaker 3: movement is the name of the game. Sitting still is
13:01
Speaker 3: probably going to.
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Speaker 2: Get you nowhere.
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Speaker 3: That you know, if you might can sit there for
13:08
Speaker 3: a minute long enough to observe, to make sure that
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Speaker 3: you know who's on first, who's on what's on second,
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Speaker 3: and who's nothing, But you're not really going to stay
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Speaker 3: there long enough other than to observe, because.
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Speaker 2: Movement is happening. It's happening, and.
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Speaker 3: It's that's the day to day life.
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Speaker 2: It's just it's it really just is.
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Speaker 3: And you know, I think there's you know, I think
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Speaker 3: that the thing with kids, when you're a caregiver that
13:37
Speaker 3: early in life. The sooner you figure that out, the
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Speaker 3: better off you are. The damage comes when you don't.
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Speaker 3: And that's where I think you end up with the
13:51
Speaker 3: most damage long term, because you freeze. You know, it's
13:58
Speaker 3: it's where you get you know, you could there's a million,
14:03
Speaker 3: you know, ways to to you know, analyze that, but
14:06
Speaker 3: you know you have even just in who moved my cheese?
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Speaker 3: You know, sniff and scurry and you know, I mean,
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Speaker 3: which which which one do you become? Well, you know,
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Speaker 3: the best one is going to be the one that
14:17
Speaker 3: kind of says, well, let me kind of stick my
14:18
Speaker 3: head out here, you know, and see what I've got
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Speaker 3: going on, and then then go, okay, I can make
14:23
Speaker 3: a run for it now and get going. And that
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Speaker 3: that's really what I had to become very early, with
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Speaker 3: very little direction, which is how I ended up legally emancipated,
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Speaker 3: which is how I ended up having, you know, a
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Speaker 3: policeman come and warn me and say, hey, listen, there's
14:39
Speaker 3: been some really bad people that have been hanging out
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Speaker 3: at your house and they know you're not living here
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Speaker 3: by yourself, and they think you're really going to rat
14:47
Speaker 3: them out, and I know you don't know, you don't
14:49
Speaker 3: even know who they are. So you got to go
14:53
Speaker 3: and you know, got me out of town. So, you know,
14:56
Speaker 3: the ways that that I was really looked out for
15:00
Speaker 3: or didn't materialize as badly as they sounded. They really
15:06
Speaker 3: had more had more logistics to them than the wow
15:17
Speaker 3: factor when you actually break them down, because the legal
15:21
Speaker 3: emancipation for me was more that my father needed me
15:24
Speaker 3: to take more control over being able to sign the
15:27
Speaker 3: paperwork at school because he was not available all the
15:32
Speaker 3: times that paperwork needed to be signed at school, and
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Speaker 3: he trusted me enough to be able to sign it myself.
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Speaker 3: He knew I wasn't going to go off and do
15:41
Speaker 3: crazy things. And I didn't go off and do crazy
15:43
Speaker 3: things until somebody told me that I wasn't going to
15:45
Speaker 3: graduate on time. And then I went, h give me
15:48
Speaker 3: the paperwork. I'm signing myself out and checking.
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Speaker 2: Myself in college, thank you very little.
15:52
Speaker 3: So I wasn't reckless.
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Speaker 2: It was just.
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Speaker 3: A tool in the toolbox. That's all it was used for.
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Speaker 2: Or it wasn't used for.
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Speaker 3: You know, Hey, I'm mad and I'm going to divorce everybody,
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Speaker 3: and I'm going to stop my foot and y'all can
16:06
Speaker 3: just go pounce in.
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Speaker 1: So are you at thirteen you become legally emancipated? I mean,
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Speaker 1: are you having You're going to school? Yep, and then
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Speaker 1: you're coming home and just taking care of your mom?
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Speaker 3: Well, I would usually, you know, I would usually I
16:29
Speaker 3: don't know how to it would it varied. I mean,
16:33
Speaker 3: it kind of depended on what she was like at
16:35
Speaker 3: that time, because sometimes she was really really six and
16:39
Speaker 3: sometimes she was working, and.
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Speaker 1: So continue you're talking about Well.
16:46
Speaker 3: You were asking me if you know if I would
16:49
Speaker 3: come home and just take care of her, and I
16:52
Speaker 3: say it depended.
16:53
Speaker 2: I didn't. The ways that I would take care of.
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Speaker 3: Her were if she were really, really sick, I would
17:04
Speaker 3: go to the grocery store, I'd do the laundry, I'd
17:06
Speaker 3: clean the house.
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Speaker 2: I you know, those were the things that I would
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Speaker 2: do if she was.
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Speaker 3: Working, and i'd be working too, I mean, we'd just
17:15
Speaker 3: be pooling money to make sure that all the bills
17:18
Speaker 3: got paid if she was you know, there's a one
17:25
Speaker 3: portion of the book where I talk about she ended
17:28
Speaker 3: up in the pavilion. She ended up in the Middle hospital,
17:32
Speaker 3: and that was due to the steroid psychosis. You know,
17:34
Speaker 3: they loved steroids until they found out you could give
17:37
Speaker 3: them too much and then they weren't so good. But
17:39
Speaker 3: in order for her to not not to end up
17:45
Speaker 3: completely obstructed, she was on about sixty five milligrams off
17:48
Speaker 3: and on for about six years. So she did end
17:51
Speaker 3: up having a complete steroids psychosis, a complete break. And
17:55
Speaker 3: when she came out, you know, she had a complete
17:58
Speaker 3: break from reality.
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Speaker 2: So she was a new person. Well we weren't new people,
18:03
Speaker 2: you know, we.
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Speaker 3: Remember the same Tina that went inside the pavilion and
18:07
Speaker 3: she came out and she was a whole new mother.
18:10
Speaker 3: And I'm saying, no, you're the same mother that went inside,
18:15
Speaker 3: and I'm the same daughter, and you're not coming out
18:17
Speaker 3: here and now suddenly telling me I have an eleven
18:19
Speaker 3: o'clock for curfew when I've.
18:20
Speaker 2: Had no curfew and I've had no you know, I mean,
18:23
Speaker 2: you literally have.
18:26
Speaker 3: Done nothing as far as being apparent to me up
18:30
Speaker 3: till now.
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Speaker 1: So I was.
18:32
Speaker 2: I moved out.
18:32
Speaker 3: Within six months and was living in my own apartment
18:35
Speaker 3: in fifteen years and eight months.
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Speaker 2: My dad approved it. I was getting the child's support check,
18:40
Speaker 2: he was paying the rent. I was going to high school.
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Speaker 3: You know, I mean, you know, it was a crazy
18:46
Speaker 3: existence for somebody my age. But in my dad's opinion,
18:51
Speaker 3: it was better than the alternative, which was, you know,
18:54
Speaker 3: my mother was in his opinion, was you know, not
18:57
Speaker 3: trying to raise me as much as she was, just
18:59
Speaker 3: trying to make her say I feel better about trying
19:01
Speaker 3: to raise me as opposed to it.
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Speaker 2: And you know how I was going to turn out.
19:06
Speaker 3: He felt like that if she was really worried about that,
19:08
Speaker 3: she'd done something sooner.
19:10
Speaker 1: So it was just.
19:15
Speaker 2: It was me raising myself.
19:19
Speaker 3: You know, it was really just me trying to make
19:22
Speaker 3: sure that every single day I ended up. I was
19:26
Speaker 3: really lucky that my dad had provided a house for
19:29
Speaker 3: us to live in when they divorced, because I can
19:32
Speaker 3: tell you that I don't know that I would have
19:34
Speaker 3: not been homeless at some point as a kid.
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Speaker 1: Where is your dad during this time?
19:41
Speaker 3: Emotionally unavailable and living in a very wealthy part of town,
19:45
Speaker 3: not a couple of blocks from where I live now
19:46
Speaker 3: in town.
19:50
Speaker 1: Shelly? How I mean my part of my I think
19:58
Speaker 1: what I want to ask you is how the hell
20:00
Speaker 1: do you get through this? But I guess I answered,
20:05
Speaker 1: I answered myself when I say, you just do But that, uh,
20:11
Speaker 1: where's your childhood?
20:13
Speaker 2: Didn't have one?
20:15
Speaker 1: And what is that? How? What does that do to you?
20:19
Speaker 3: Well, you know, at the time, I didn't really I
20:25
Speaker 3: didn't really understand that I was supposed to have one.
20:31
Speaker 3: As I got older, I realized I didn't have one,
20:43
Speaker 3: and I made Dad. I'm sure my kids did. That
20:48
Speaker 3: was that was the first layer of you know, hey,
20:54
Speaker 3: especially with my son having some deficiencies, I made sure
21:00
Speaker 3: those were addressed. I didn't put my head in the
21:03
Speaker 3: closet and say you're not dyslexic. You don't have you know,
21:08
Speaker 3: you know with most kids who have some sort of
21:11
Speaker 3: spectrum disorder, they're behind development.
21:15
Speaker 2: Well I knew something was wrong with Ben because he
21:17
Speaker 2: was way ahead of development.
21:19
Speaker 3: He rolled over on day four, he walked he you know,
21:22
Speaker 3: at five weeks and five months.
21:25
Speaker 2: In three weeks, he sat up by himself. At three months.
21:27
Speaker 3: I mean he was eleven pounds one ounce when I
21:30
Speaker 3: got him home from the hospital.
21:31
Speaker 2: It is huge.
21:35
Speaker 3: So we had our eyeball on him from the beginning
21:39
Speaker 3: because he was just lightning speed to get ahead.
21:42
Speaker 2: Of everybody else.
21:43
Speaker 3: I'm like, something's not right, you know. And then when
21:46
Speaker 3: I had the second when I was like, something's definitely
21:48
Speaker 3: not right. Either one of them's way fine or one
21:50
Speaker 3: of them's wed, but there's.
21:53
Speaker 2: Something definitely wrong.
21:55
Speaker 1: But with.
22:00
Speaker 3: My having had to be self sufficient so young, I
22:07
Speaker 3: wanted to make sure that they didn't that they at
22:09
Speaker 3: least had appropriate, you.
22:13
Speaker 2: Know, growth models.
22:17
Speaker 3: Now I'm not gonna say I probably didn't make a
22:19
Speaker 3: lot of mistakes there too, but I had.
22:21
Speaker 2: I was in therapy the whole time.
22:22
Speaker 3: I mean I literally I saw somebody the entire time
22:25
Speaker 3: It was kind of like me saying, Okaya, is that enough?
22:27
Speaker 2: Or is that too much?
22:28
Speaker 3: Is that enough? That too much?
22:29
Speaker 1: Is that enough?
22:29
Speaker 2: Is that too much? I knew my mom sucked as
22:34
Speaker 2: a single parent.
22:34
Speaker 3: She was a great woman, she was she was terribly talented,
22:37
Speaker 3: she was an amazing person, but she sucked as a mother.
22:42
Speaker 3: And I had a horrible father, a you know, a
22:46
Speaker 3: brilliant mind, great businessman, but sucked as a dad. So
22:50
Speaker 3: I didn't want to suck, and that was the only
22:53
Speaker 3: way I knew how to do it.
22:55
Speaker 2: Get a lot of opinions.
22:57
Speaker 1: So at what point do you create or found the
23:02
Speaker 1: perpetual caregiver? And what is it?
23:05
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's just been kind of this work
23:08
Speaker 3: in progress. I think I just finally put a name
23:10
Speaker 3: to it. The whole time that I was in financial services,
23:16
Speaker 3: and even started when I was in the legal field,
23:18
Speaker 3: because I did that. I worked in law firms prior
23:21
Speaker 3: to that for about fifteen years, but that was always
23:23
Speaker 3: sort of what I did. I always was, you know,
23:26
Speaker 3: putting together files. I was always putting together pieces of paper.
23:31
Speaker 2: People would bring me in you know, the tiniest.
23:35
Speaker 3: Of you know, oh look what I've found in the safe,
23:38
Speaker 3: The other day, Look what I've got that one.
23:41
Speaker 2: Piece of paper you told me to be on the
23:42
Speaker 2: lookout for.
23:43
Speaker 3: I was like, oh yeah, it's just always seems like
23:46
Speaker 3: it'd been that way, and so it started becoming such
23:52
Speaker 3: a part of my practice. I mean, for ever, it
23:56
Speaker 3: seems like we've been on the hunt for something, you know,
23:59
Speaker 3: and so I've spent you know, whether it was that
24:04
Speaker 3: I was an advisor, or I was as a regional
24:08
Speaker 3: vice president, or I was an executive vice president, or
24:11
Speaker 3: I was a division vice president. No matter what I was,
24:14
Speaker 3: I was constantly telling people, get your people organized. All
24:18
Speaker 3: of them have a financial junk drawer and they need
24:21
Speaker 3: to dump it out and start going through it and
24:23
Speaker 3: putting it in some sort of organizational fashion because somebody
24:26
Speaker 3: sometime is going to need it and they're not going
24:29
Speaker 3: to be able to find whatever it is. I don't
24:32
Speaker 3: care what it is. It could be the key to
24:35
Speaker 3: their post office box. It could be the key to
24:37
Speaker 3: their safety deposit box. It could be their d D
24:39
Speaker 3: two fourteen. It could be there. You know, they said
24:42
Speaker 3: their will was somewhere, but you know what it's not.
24:46
Speaker 3: It could be you know, their cat's veterinarian and their
24:51
Speaker 3: cat is the most important thing to them. And guess what,
24:53
Speaker 3: they have a stroke, the cat goes down, and they
24:55
Speaker 3: really want you to take the cat to the veterinarian
24:57
Speaker 3: and them not to the hospital.
24:58
Speaker 2: I mean, it's crazy stuff like that habits.
25:00
Speaker 3: So you just you might not think that that's important,
25:05
Speaker 3: but you don't. You're not the one that gets to
25:07
Speaker 3: make that decision when it's not your information, it's somebody else's.
25:12
Speaker 3: So when I started working in this kind of capacity
25:19
Speaker 3: and I started running across all these tools, I started
25:23
Speaker 3: making it more of the important piece that I placed,
25:28
Speaker 3: as I'll call it, the primary factor for my advisors
25:36
Speaker 3: was if you want to really help people, help them
25:40
Speaker 3: get organized, the rest of it will take care of itself.
25:45
Speaker 3: Because if you can help them get the most important pieces,
25:49
Speaker 3: they'll remember you for getting them organized. They're going to
25:53
Speaker 3: have their money at the bank, they're going to have
25:56
Speaker 3: their insurance with State Farm, they're going to have it
25:58
Speaker 3: with All State, they're going to have with Progressive, they're
26:01
Speaker 3: going to have they're have it everywhere. The person who
26:04
Speaker 3: got him organized is the one they're going to tell
26:06
Speaker 3: their family to call when.
26:07
Speaker 2: Something happens to them.
26:11
Speaker 1: What point did you says yourself. I got to write
26:15
Speaker 1: this book.
26:16
Speaker 3: Oh, I had been writing it for a little over
26:21
Speaker 3: twenty years. The part that made me finally step back
26:25
Speaker 3: was my brother passed away very unexpectedly in July of
26:32
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two.
26:33
Speaker 2: And wasn't ill.
26:38
Speaker 3: I had gone out of town and my significant other
26:43
Speaker 3: had been very heat had a bad cold, so he
26:45
Speaker 3: hadn't called him to see where he was at or anything,
26:48
Speaker 3: so nobody had checked on him, and so we didn't
26:51
Speaker 3: find him for what we feel like was probably ten days.
26:55
Speaker 3: And it really he took the wind out of my sales,
27:04
Speaker 3: and I felt like I needed at that point to
27:08
Speaker 3: really stop and document the profound impact that my.
27:13
Speaker 2: Childhood and the way my.
27:18
Speaker 3: Childhood upbringing had impacted my life, because I really didn't
27:23
Speaker 3: ever get to know my brother that well until I
27:25
Speaker 3: moved back here as an adult, because he was brought
27:28
Speaker 3: up under, you know, with my dad, and we never
27:31
Speaker 3: lived in the same household, so you know, it was
27:35
Speaker 3: we had just really started to kindle a relationship, a
27:38
Speaker 3: real one as adults, and as I said, I lived
27:41
Speaker 3: here about eight months when he passed, and so I
27:44
Speaker 3: just said, I'm going to check this, you know, I'm
27:46
Speaker 3: going to go ahead and hang up the corporate high
27:48
Speaker 3: heels and do this, and it just kind of went.
27:52
Speaker 2: Ahead and put.
27:53
Speaker 3: I always tell people, I feel like the Blues Brothers
27:55
Speaker 3: are going to come up behind me when I say this.
27:56
Speaker 3: But then I felt like I was on a mission
27:58
Speaker 3: from God after that, you know, whereas I have to
28:00
Speaker 3: go ahead and finish this mission of the perpetual caregiver.
28:03
Speaker 3: And you know, him and my dad both were always like,
28:06
Speaker 3: it's just so calm when you you know, when you're
28:08
Speaker 3: here doing things, you know, everything just gets taken care of.
28:12
Speaker 3: You know, all this stuff gets you know done, so
28:18
Speaker 3: you know, it's I'm just kind of trying to take
28:23
Speaker 3: all the things that probably were not really in order.
28:28
Speaker 3: You know, probably was out of order if you want
28:30
Speaker 3: to look at it that way. You know, it's not
28:32
Speaker 3: really in order for a kid to do all the
28:34
Speaker 3: things I was doing. But if I can take some
28:36
Speaker 3: of those things and make other people's lives easier, you know,
28:40
Speaker 3: maybe I can I can use some of that for
28:42
Speaker 3: the good.
28:44
Speaker 1: You said you wanted to kind of talk about the
28:48
Speaker 1: profound impact your childhood had on you. How would you
28:55
Speaker 1: articulate that.
28:59
Speaker 4: Well, you get to make a choice on that I think.
29:12
Speaker 2: It's not always.
29:17
Speaker 3: Not always depends on kind of what's going on around you, right,
29:24
Speaker 3: But I think really that becomes a choice for people.
29:28
Speaker 3: They get to to say whether they're going to take
29:31
Speaker 3: take what things have happened to them and make them good,
29:34
Speaker 3: or take what things have happened to them and make
29:36
Speaker 3: them you know, bitter.
29:40
Speaker 2: And I've chosen the former.
29:44
Speaker 1: You're chosen the former. Yeah, and get specific about that
29:50
Speaker 1: if you will.
29:55
Speaker 3: I think I was probably blessed with some gifts that
30:09
Speaker 3: I need to be thankful for. The multitasking, the ability
30:15
Speaker 3: to rise above, the resilience. There's always kind of a
30:23
Speaker 3: running joke that I probably popped out of the womb
30:25
Speaker 3: and said, excuse me, doctor, this is where we cut.
30:28
Speaker 2: That's right here in the ubilical court, right, you know,
30:31
Speaker 2: I was.
30:32
Speaker 3: I was directing traffic before traffic could really be directed.
30:38
Speaker 2: Those you know, some.
30:42
Speaker 3: Of those are learned, but a lot of those are
30:45
Speaker 3: just they're just there. And so we've got some of
30:53
Speaker 3: that that you know you have. And then in my book,
30:57
Speaker 3: I talk a lot about how you.
30:59
Speaker 2: Know like it.
31:00
Speaker 3: Eight years five years old, my mother was like, Okay,
31:02
Speaker 3: well you know, let's go be in beauty pageants. It's
31:04
Speaker 3: not because she wanted me to be some kind of
31:06
Speaker 3: beauty queen. That wasn't her deal. She wanted me to
31:08
Speaker 3: have confidence, to be able to go command a stage,
31:11
Speaker 3: and that she made sure I could do that.
31:14
Speaker 2: And it was not.
31:15
Speaker 3: Again, it was not because she wanted me to be
31:17
Speaker 3: some kind of beauty queen. It was because she wanted
31:21
Speaker 3: me to command a stake.
31:23
Speaker 2: She knew that was important. She was not necessarily a feminist.
31:28
Speaker 3: She was more she was like you know, she was
31:31
Speaker 3: she was like, man, why did why did she have
31:33
Speaker 3: to go burn the bris?
31:34
Speaker 2: I didn't want us to do that.
31:36
Speaker 3: What I wanted us to do was be able to
31:37
Speaker 3: have the right to work, not have to work. That
31:42
Speaker 3: was stupid.
31:43
Speaker 2: Now we did, we did.
31:45
Speaker 3: Now we have to you know. Now it's the two
31:47
Speaker 3: incomes are required for us to have the standard of
31:50
Speaker 3: living that we want. That we said we wanted. We
31:52
Speaker 3: just wanted the option, you know. So that's kind of
31:55
Speaker 3: how my mother was.
32:00
Speaker 2: She.
32:01
Speaker 3: You know, when I was eight, she got me this
32:02
Speaker 3: kit doctor Maxwell Mault's kit on confidence building kit, you know,
32:07
Speaker 3: and that was my Christmas present when.
32:08
Speaker 2: I was eight, and I was like, what the is this?
32:11
Speaker 3: Man, I'm supposed to have a dollar or something underneath here,
32:13
Speaker 3: you know, but it wasn't a doll.
32:14
Speaker 2: It was this.
32:14
Speaker 3: So I had to sit there and tell myself how
32:16
Speaker 3: wonderful I was, and that stupid little kid when people
32:19
Speaker 3: now you got three year old saying I is wonderful,
32:21
Speaker 3: I is great, I is well, I had to do
32:24
Speaker 3: that crap.
32:24
Speaker 2: When I was eight.
32:25
Speaker 3: People thought I was weird because people didn't do that
32:27
Speaker 3: back in nineteen seventy four or whatever it was. And
32:31
Speaker 3: then you know, her reading for me when I was
32:34
Speaker 3: twelve was I'm okay, you're okay in games people play okay.
32:38
Speaker 2: Well, who's reading that crap at twelve? Well I was
32:41
Speaker 2: because she knew I.
32:42
Speaker 3: Was surrounded by a bunch of freaking narcissists. And she said,
32:45
Speaker 3: I got accept I gotta get this girl prepared because
32:48
Speaker 3: she's gonna have to spot a game from a mile away.
32:50
Speaker 2: And I can.
32:51
Speaker 3: But if she hadn't prepared me for some of that,
32:58
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have been able to to have navigated my
33:01
Speaker 3: childhood effectively. I would have been sitting over in the
33:06
Speaker 3: corner with my thumb in my mouth rocking because I did.
33:10
Speaker 3: I had some horrible people around me. That were just
33:14
Speaker 3: would have done anything to have torn me down. And
33:18
Speaker 3: tough people, tough, tough people family, So you just kind
33:24
Speaker 3: of have to, you know, you kind of have to
33:27
Speaker 3: take it for what it is and look at it
33:30
Speaker 3: and you know, be able to move on and.
33:35
Speaker 2: Otherwise. I mean, I've had.
33:37
Speaker 3: Very very good mental health professionals say, I don't know
33:40
Speaker 3: how you're not just either dead.
33:44
Speaker 2: Lying in the streets somewhere as a meth head or.
33:47
Speaker 3: A prostitute, but you're alive and kicking, and you've accomplished
33:50
Speaker 3: some great things and that is just strictly grace God,
33:56
Speaker 3: having all the right tools in the toolbox and a
33:58
Speaker 3: lot of tenacity.
34:00
Speaker 1: Was there a point in your life where you longed
34:06
Speaker 1: for a quote unquote normal childhood. Was there a point
34:09
Speaker 1: in your life where you were pissed off? Yeah?
34:14
Speaker 3: I mean I think I think I could say off
34:16
Speaker 3: and on, you know, off and on. I'm like, man,
34:19
Speaker 3: they'd been nice, you know, But I mean I can't
34:22
Speaker 3: stay there. I can't turn back the hands of time.
34:26
Speaker 2: I can't.
34:28
Speaker 3: There's no no point in remaining in that head space.
34:32
Speaker 2: I've just got to I mean, really and truly, it's.
34:39
Speaker 3: I think that's really why people are amazed that I don't.
34:46
Speaker 1: Aren't.
34:46
Speaker 3: I'm not in those positions dead math had prostitute.
34:51
Speaker 2: I keep telling them, the meth head and the prostitute.
34:53
Speaker 3: Look, I could probably still swing one of those the body.
34:57
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure that's going to happen, but Math had.
35:00
Speaker 3: There's still time.
35:01
Speaker 2: Just give me a break.
35:02
Speaker 3: It still has.
35:03
Speaker 1: Shelley. As we kind of wind down here, what did
35:05
Speaker 1: you want to say in the book?
35:08
Speaker 3: Well, Who's I wanted to say in the book is
35:13
Speaker 3: sometimes you've got to break down and look around you,
35:20
Speaker 3: and even if you really, really really don't want to,
35:25
Speaker 3: you're going to have to go ahead and wipe somebody's ass.
35:28
Speaker 3: All right, no choice, just do it. There are people
35:37
Speaker 3: who are not capable, don't have the capacity I wish
35:42
Speaker 3: they did. You can sit there and say all you
35:44
Speaker 3: want to, you've got to, you have to, you've got to,
35:49
Speaker 3: you've got to, you going to, you've got to. You got
35:51
Speaker 3: to look at their capacity. If their capacity is not there,
35:57
Speaker 3: just wipe it. Okay, That's kind of where I am
36:01
Speaker 3: in that awes an area.
36:03
Speaker 2: Some people's capacity is just not there.
36:05
Speaker 3: And if you've got the capacity to help them, lead them,
36:12
Speaker 3: show them, get them there, direct them great, make that
36:18
Speaker 3: happen if you can do what you can when you can,
36:26
Speaker 3: But you don't have to get sucked into the whole thing,
36:31
Speaker 3: just you know. And more is on the way.
36:34
Speaker 2: I've got another.
36:35
Speaker 3: Book come in, I've got a caregiving assessment that's getting trademarked.
36:39
Speaker 3: I've got the first retreat is on May first. There's
36:42
Speaker 3: more to come for this because there's resources that need
36:46
Speaker 3: to be out there for the caregivers. But that's what
36:49
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get out there is that caregiving is
36:53
Speaker 3: not a solo sport and there needs to be more
36:58
Speaker 3: help out there.
36:59
Speaker 2: And there is help out there no matter what your
37:02
Speaker 2: age is.
37:03
Speaker 3: We've just got you've got to look around and to
37:08
Speaker 3: get some help, and the people that need to help
37:10
Speaker 3: you need to look around to give you some awesome all.
37:16
Speaker 1: Right, how do people learn more about you and the book?
37:18
Speaker 1: What's the best way, Shelley?
37:20
Speaker 3: The best place is my website www.
37:24
Speaker 2: Dot the Perpetualcaregiver dot com.
37:27
Speaker 1: Okay, and we'll have all that linked up here at
37:31
Speaker 1: the showness page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com.
37:38
Speaker 1: And we'll also have the book linked up there as well.
37:44
Speaker 1: Shelley damn, damn, you're amazing.
37:50
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, I've enjoyed the podcast.
37:53
Speaker 1: I appreciate you being here. We'll be in touch.
37:55
Speaker 2: Take care, take care, thank you so much.
37:56
Speaker 3: All Right, weekend, They get at the composity
38:04
Speaker 2: To return