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Unbroken with Adriene Caldwell · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma divers podcast. My name is Gaming
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Speaker 1: Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
0:06
Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
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Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
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Speaker 1: and our sponsors. So five, four, three, two and one,
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Speaker 1: our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
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Speaker 1: have as my guest today. Adrian Caldwell. Adrian, welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me. It's privileged to
0:32
Speaker 2: be here.
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Speaker 1: So Adrian has done more than survived, she thrives. A
0:38
Speaker 1: former foster youth who beat the odds, Adrian is part
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Speaker 1: of the less than three percent who go on to
0:43
Speaker 1: attend college, despite statistics showing that twenty percent of the
0:47
Speaker 1: US prison populations once passed through the foster care system.
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Speaker 1: She does not sugarcoat life's harsh realities, but instead offer
0:55
Speaker 1: something far more powerful hope. Hope that trauma will end,
1:00
Speaker 1: hope that the future can be different, that life, even
1:02
Speaker 1: after the worst experiences, can prove. Her story is not
1:06
Speaker 1: an easy one, and it's best captured by her trigger
1:09
Speaker 1: warnings that accompany her book, which we'll get into. Adrian,
1:13
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. Before we going share with
1:16
Speaker 1: the listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
1:19
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but
1:24
Speaker 2: my family moved to Houston when I was nine months old,
1:27
Speaker 2: so I've been raised here. I have lived elsewhere. I
1:33
Speaker 2: lived for a couple of years in Seattle. I lived
1:35
Speaker 2: a year in Anchorage, Alaska. I also spent a year
1:39
Speaker 2: and a half in Germany. My junior year of high school,
1:43
Speaker 2: I won a congressional scholarship and it was a one
1:47
Speaker 2: year foreign exchange to Germany, and then I went back
1:51
Speaker 2: in college.
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Speaker 1: So very cool. So let's start out how did all
1:59
Speaker 1: this start?
2:01
Speaker 2: Well, it all goes back to family, as I think
2:05
Speaker 2: it's it's pretty typical for most people who've who've endured trauma.
2:10
Speaker 2: It's a fairly common answer. Family. My grandfather was schizophrenic.
2:16
Speaker 2: He was medically retired from the Navy. He moved the
2:21
Speaker 2: family to Houston from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and then promptly
2:26
Speaker 2: abandoned us. So that meant that my mother and her
2:33
Speaker 2: three siblings had to work and my grandmother took care
2:39
Speaker 2: of me. Now, my mother was also schizophrenic, and it
2:44
Speaker 2: was really coming out. She had me when I was
2:46
Speaker 2: nine or Yeah. She had me when she was nineteen,
2:51
Speaker 2: and that was a very typical age for things to
2:55
Speaker 2: start coming out. And I think what did it or
3:03
Speaker 2: triggered it may have been the fact that she was
3:05
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted by her father. So yeah, and my grandmother
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Speaker 2: was my guardian, my protector. She was my shield from
3:17
Speaker 2: my mother. My mother started doing just very bizarre things,
3:24
Speaker 2: and my grandmother protected me up until the age of seven.
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Speaker 2: That's when my grandmother passed away and I lost my guardian.
3:34
Speaker 2: So the things that happened from being with my mother,
3:41
Speaker 2: the beatings, the emotional trauma, yeah, it all came from that.
3:51
Speaker 2: It's family generational mental illness that, thank god, I don't
3:56
Speaker 2: have it. I have a daughter myself who's twenty, and
4:02
Speaker 2: I'm watching very carefully to make sure that she doesn't
4:07
Speaker 2: develop any symptoms of schizophrenia. I have a cousin who's
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Speaker 2: schizophrenic as well, So it's very, very prevalent in my family.
4:16
Speaker 2: So when my daughter told me she was struggling with
4:20
Speaker 2: anxiety and depression at the age of fourteen, I immediately
4:25
Speaker 2: took her to a psychiatrist just because mental illness. The
4:30
Speaker 2: reality is it's in our genes, so I take it
4:35
Speaker 2: very seriously. My depression and all of my life's traumas
4:43
Speaker 2: led to multiple suicide attempts, razors, pills, and even a gun.
4:50
Speaker 1: So you seem to have a lot of family history.
4:58
Speaker 1: How did you get that? A lot of people, especially
5:01
Speaker 1: people who've gone through the foster care system, it's kind
5:06
Speaker 1: of a crapshoot. Whether you know anything about your family,
5:09
Speaker 1: How did you get that information?
5:11
Speaker 2: It's a great question. So I didn't go into foster
5:14
Speaker 2: care until I was twelve years old. That was when
5:18
Speaker 2: I got the last beating from my mother. She beat
5:22
Speaker 2: me with a wooden dowel rod that thing in your
5:25
Speaker 2: closet that you hang your clothes on, so basically a
5:28
Speaker 2: baseball mat. And my family a military family, very isolated.
5:37
Speaker 2: They moved every three to four years, so they learned
5:39
Speaker 2: to depend on themselves only. But they did not really
5:45
Speaker 2: discuss that well. First, they don't believe in mental illness.
5:48
Speaker 2: The older people in my family don't think it exists,
5:53
Speaker 2: which to me is insane. But I actually sat down
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Speaker 2: with my uncle, he's the only remaining sibling alive, and
6:04
Speaker 2: I asked him to do an interview with me, which
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Speaker 2: was incredibly difficult for him because he purposefully does not
6:15
Speaker 2: discuss what happened in the family and what was going on.
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Speaker 2: And I actually have the transcript of that interview on
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Speaker 2: my website. And before that interview, pretty much the most
6:33
Speaker 2: I would hear from my uncle was if he ever
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Speaker 2: saw his father again, he was going to kill the
6:42
Speaker 2: f ucker.
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Speaker 1: So how did you quote unquote deal with How did
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Speaker 1: you manage as a young kid as when this was
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Speaker 1: going on?
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Speaker 2: So my life was very hectic. By the time I
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Speaker 2: graduated high school, I had gone to thirteen different schools.
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Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, yeah because of movies.
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Speaker 2: Yes, my mother could not live independently. She and we
7:17
Speaker 2: rotated between my two aunts and uncles. I have two
7:22
Speaker 2: sets of aunts and uncles, and they would take us
7:25
Speaker 2: in and then eventually every time my mother would beat me.
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Speaker 2: One time it was with the dog leash, my aunt
7:33
Speaker 2: Rose told my uncle John, who is my mother's brother,
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Speaker 2: and then he spoke with my mother and my mother
7:40
Speaker 2: didn't like having that interference go on, so she went
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Speaker 2: to Social Services and said, how do I get a
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Speaker 2: government apartment? And they said, well, you're living with family,
7:51
Speaker 2: you don't have as high a priority as somebody who's homeless.
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Speaker 2: So we actually lived in a homeless alter the summer
8:00
Speaker 2: after fourth grade. How did I deal with everything? School? Education?
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Speaker 1: It was my.
8:11
Speaker 2: Utopia I was. I did very, very well in school.
8:16
Speaker 2: I was always the teacher's pet. The librarians knew me
8:21
Speaker 2: because I'd come in one day, check in a book,
8:23
Speaker 2: and then return it the next day or two days
8:27
Speaker 2: at the latest. I read voraciously. It was my escape
8:34
Speaker 2: from my reality, from my mother, from everything. So yeah,
8:41
Speaker 2: school education.
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Speaker 1: So let's before we move on here. The book is
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Speaker 1: called Unbroken Life Outside the Lines soon to be published? Correct,
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, soon to be published?
9:00
Speaker 2: Yes, I am shooting for October seven. It may not happen, okay,
9:06
Speaker 2: but that's my goal October.
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Speaker 1: Seventh, okay, okay. So before we kind of dive into that,
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Speaker 1: how do things unfold for you? You go through high school?
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Speaker 1: What was happened in the foster care? When did that happen?
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Speaker 2: Okay? So in sixth grade I became best friends with
9:31
Speaker 2: the girl for the first time early in my life.
9:34
Speaker 2: I shared what was going on at home, and she
9:37
Speaker 2: told me to go to the school counselors that they'd
9:40
Speaker 2: be able to help. And my mother had found a
9:45
Speaker 2: man who is on death row in San Francisco for
9:50
Speaker 2: serial rape and murder of multiple women. And my mother
9:57
Speaker 2: wanted to move my self, my brother, and her to
10:01
Speaker 2: San Francisco. And this terrified me, my family to.
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Speaker 1: Be with this person. I'm sorry to be with this person.
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Speaker 2: That's correct.
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Speaker 1: Okay, you said she found someone. Are you saying she
10:13
Speaker 1: like hooked up with her?
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Speaker 2: She saw him on a TV program and I found
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Speaker 2: out later she started corresponding with him.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
10:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my so not Aunt Rose and Uncle John,
10:27
Speaker 2: my other on uncle that on my mother's sister actually
10:31
Speaker 2: came and took nude pictures of my mother so my
10:34
Speaker 2: mother could send them to this man. I felt so
10:39
Speaker 2: completely betrayed by that. So a social worker comes out,
10:46
Speaker 2: she doesn't check the case history. If she had checked
10:48
Speaker 2: the case history, she would have seen there's already one
10:52
Speaker 2: report of violence against me. It was in the first grade.
10:56
Speaker 2: So if the caseworker I had looked, she would have
10:58
Speaker 2: seen that there's recident here, there's history. But she didn't,
11:04
Speaker 2: and she talked it up to just a mother daughter dispute.
11:10
Speaker 2: I ended up getting beaten with the woodendower on severely beaten.
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Speaker 2: The abuse diagram the little mannequin or little person, if
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Speaker 2: you will. CPS filled out with all the bruises and
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Speaker 2: the marks that I had on me from that beating.
11:34
Speaker 2: I'm including my psychological evaluation and that diagram. Those diagrams
11:41
Speaker 2: in the back of my book. So she beats me
11:45
Speaker 2: to get me to go onto the Greyhound bus because
11:48
Speaker 2: the week before she took me down to Greyhound and
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Speaker 2: I refused because I knew, even though my family was distant,
11:55
Speaker 2: having them near was better than being in San Francisco
11:59
Speaker 2: and completely alone and isolated with my mother. And so
12:05
Speaker 2: she beat me. I got to San Francisco. The homeless
12:09
Speaker 2: shelter my mother had planned on us staying out was
12:12
Speaker 2: actually closed for renovations, and we were sleeping on the
12:18
Speaker 2: bus benches. And during that night I waited for my
12:22
Speaker 2: mother and brother to fall asleep, and I ran away.
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Speaker 2: I actually ran upstairs, used to pay phone. I called
12:30
Speaker 2: my best friend's dad and he said, get away from
12:34
Speaker 2: the bus station, so I left. I got into It
12:38
Speaker 2: was like three am. There was a man and I'm
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Speaker 2: running down the sidewalk twelve years old, and a man
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Speaker 2: pulls up and he says, you know, do you need help?
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Speaker 2: And I said, I need to get away from here.
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Speaker 2: So I get in the car with him and we
12:54
Speaker 2: go for a few stop lights and he puts his
12:57
Speaker 2: hand on my left eye. At the next stop light,
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Speaker 2: I get out. I just opened the door and get
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Speaker 2: out of the car and across the street as a
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Speaker 2: hotel and I go in and I call from the
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Speaker 2: payphone bank. I call my best friend's dad again, and
13:13
Speaker 2: he said, go hide in the bathroom. We have a
13:16
Speaker 2: family friend who's going to come and get you. And
13:22
Speaker 2: so for hours I waited. I closed the toilet, lit,
13:26
Speaker 2: I put my feet up, and every time the door opened,
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Speaker 2: I was terrified that it was my mother who after
13:34
Speaker 2: the beating. These are her words. This is what she
13:39
Speaker 2: said to me. If you get your brother taken away
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Speaker 2: from me, I will kill you. And I asked her,
13:46
Speaker 2: I said, would you really kill your own daughter? And
13:49
Speaker 2: her response was, well, if I bang your head over
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Speaker 2: and over into the concrete and you die, then it
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Speaker 2: wouldn't be my fault. So that's why I was so
14:02
Speaker 2: terrified and why I had to get away. I knew
14:05
Speaker 2: that it was not an idol threat. So my best
14:12
Speaker 2: friend's dad flew out to San Francisco and brought me
14:16
Speaker 2: back to Houston and the police the next morning at
14:19
Speaker 2: the bus station told my mother they couldn't sleep there.
14:22
Speaker 2: They realized she had nowhere to go and she had
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Speaker 2: a three year old little boy, my brother, with her,
14:28
Speaker 2: so they put they and they realized she was off.
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Speaker 2: They put him in CPS and within a week he
14:35
Speaker 2: was flown back to my best friend's family the Smiths.
14:39
Speaker 2: And the Smiths wanted to adopt my brother and me
14:43
Speaker 2: originally so and when the social worker who came to
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Speaker 2: the Smith's house to interview me to document what had happened,
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Speaker 2: when she told Gary Smith that he had to let
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Speaker 2: me go with her, he refused, like he became my
15:05
Speaker 2: advocate and champion and was She's not leaving this house.
15:09
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until he got on his phone with
15:12
Speaker 2: his lawyer. The lawyer said, you have to let her go.
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Speaker 2: You cannot keep her. So after a hole my shelter
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Speaker 2: and a foster family that the Smiths knew from their church,
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Speaker 2: we ended up with the Smiths. They kept my brother
15:31
Speaker 2: within nine months they got rid of me. I was
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Speaker 2: a very emotionally damaged thirteen year old girl with severe
15:39
Speaker 2: abandonment issues with you know already people can read my
15:45
Speaker 2: psychological evaluation. It's at the end of my book Dysthymia
15:50
Speaker 2: The Beginnings of Major depressive disorder OCD anxiety.
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Speaker 1: So just just in representing. So initially you and your
15:59
Speaker 1: brother were in the same foster with the foster family,
16:03
Speaker 1: and the nine months later they you left.
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Speaker 2: Well, we went from a foster family for a couple
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Speaker 2: months to the Smiths, my best friend's family, and they
16:14
Speaker 2: were supposed to adopt my brother and me. My mother
16:18
Speaker 2: relinquished her rights with the expectation that the Smiths would
16:22
Speaker 2: adopt us and would raise us, that they would that
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Speaker 2: they would give us a life that my mother just
16:29
Speaker 2: she just knew she couldn't give us. And they got
16:34
Speaker 2: rid of me. They sent me to Aunt Rose and
16:36
Speaker 2: Uncle John, and that didn't work out. So by the
16:39
Speaker 2: end of that year, I was put in therapeutic foster
16:44
Speaker 2: care and out of everything that's happened in my life,
16:49
Speaker 2: and you've got my trigger warning, this was by far
16:55
Speaker 2: the worst. The emotional abuse that I went through was
17:00
Speaker 2: nothing less than horrific. A couple examples, Uh, we we
17:07
Speaker 2: were dirty, we were not allowed on the furniture, we
17:11
Speaker 2: had to sit on the floor, We didn't eat with them,
17:15
Speaker 2: We we ate separately, and if they had steak and avocados,
17:21
Speaker 2: we had to to help her.
17:23
Speaker 1: Was this in a like a facility?
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Speaker 2: This was yes, and and the company she did not
17:33
Speaker 2: work for the state. She worked for a company mentor
17:37
Speaker 2: youth services, and it was quote unquote therapeutic foster care.
17:43
Speaker 2: And so to put it in perspective, I have never
17:49
Speaker 2: had a nightmare about my mother, not once. But I
17:54
Speaker 2: never give a name. Her name is the Bitch from
17:57
Speaker 2: Hell tp f H. That's that's our official name. That's
18:01
Speaker 2: what I call her in the book. I've had nightmares
18:05
Speaker 2: as recently as this past year, and I wake up
18:08
Speaker 2: crying because we had different silverware, different dishes. When I washed,
18:15
Speaker 2: we were used as slave labor. I painted the inside
18:19
Speaker 2: and outside of our house. I painted the fifteen foot
18:22
Speaker 2: tall part of her garage in the middle of the
18:25
Speaker 2: Houston summer.
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Speaker 1: How old were you? It was part of me for
18:28
Speaker 1: interrupting how old were you?
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Speaker 2: During this time I lived with her from thirteen fourteen,
18:37
Speaker 2: no thirteen to fifteen, almost sixteen. I was like a
18:41
Speaker 2: few weeks shy of sixteen, and she was horrific. And
18:49
Speaker 2: there was one shower in the house and the girls
18:55
Speaker 2: had the master room, which had a half bath, a toilet,
18:58
Speaker 2: and a sink, and then there there was one full
19:01
Speaker 2: bathroom in the house. So there were between four and
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Speaker 2: six foster girls at a time, and you had ten
19:10
Speaker 2: minutes to shower from the time the door closed to
19:13
Speaker 2: the time the door was to open, and the last
19:16
Speaker 2: foster girl who used the shower had to wash the
19:20
Speaker 2: tub with comet because we were dirty, and the foster
19:25
Speaker 2: family would not would not bathe after us until bleat
19:31
Speaker 2: was used to clean it.
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Speaker 1: Please please tell me this. These foster people have been arrested.
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Speaker 2: Not arrested. When I started going through my case files,
19:42
Speaker 2: I actually have my CPS case files, I reached out
19:47
Speaker 2: to every attorney, every person, and basically it was too late.
19:53
Speaker 2: There were no repercussions legal or my My only recourse
20:01
Speaker 2: is writing this book.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so obviously there's a lot to talk about here,
20:07
Speaker 1: but in with respect to time, let's talk about the book.
20:15
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how the book came up. Let's first
20:20
Speaker 1: of all, before you get into there, give us the context.
20:22
Speaker 1: Are you look like you're managing summer? In the bio
20:29
Speaker 1: it says you're thriving. Yes, Sam, you have a you
20:33
Speaker 1: have a relationship. Talk to us a little bit about
20:36
Speaker 1: where you are in the world now.
20:39
Speaker 2: I am actually living a life that if you had
20:42
Speaker 2: told the me at like ten years old that I
20:45
Speaker 2: would have this life, I would have said you were lying.
20:49
Speaker 2: I'm married to an incredible man. My daughter just turned
20:53
Speaker 2: twenty yesterday. I have a beautiful home, and my husband
21:03
Speaker 2: is the kindest man I have ever met. He's also normal.
21:07
Speaker 2: He's never had any traumas, so and I mean that literally,
21:13
Speaker 2: like he's like neurotypical, no traumas, and that to me
21:18
Speaker 2: is unfathomable. I'm like, what, But no. I will say
21:25
Speaker 2: that writing this book was hell because up until about
21:31
Speaker 2: four years ago when I started, and I started just
21:34
Speaker 2: by going through my CPS records and trying reaching out
21:39
Speaker 2: to lawyers, trying to get something done to punish the
21:43
Speaker 2: foster mother TBFH the bitch from Hell, or and just
21:48
Speaker 2: to make sure that she no longer had a license,
21:52
Speaker 2: that she wasn't doing this to other girls. And I
21:55
Speaker 2: found where I think she lived, and I even reached out.
21:58
Speaker 2: It was a different county, and so I reached out.
22:01
Speaker 2: I never heard back from them, but I wanted to
22:03
Speaker 2: make sure that she didn't move to a different county
22:07
Speaker 2: and get a license with a different institution to make
22:11
Speaker 2: sure that she was no longer abusing girls.
22:15
Speaker 1: And so let's talk about how did you decide to
22:19
Speaker 1: write the book? Why did you decide to write the book?
22:22
Speaker 2: When I did not get anywhere with the lawyers or
22:27
Speaker 2: filing the abuse reports with the state or any of that,
22:32
Speaker 2: that's when I stopped. I started writing. Now my whole
22:37
Speaker 2: life pretty much from sixteen eighteen on, I've heard people
22:42
Speaker 2: say you should write a book, and after every new
22:47
Speaker 2: experience or trauma, you should write a book. And it's
22:52
Speaker 2: something that I was not emotionally prepared to do for many,
22:59
Speaker 2: many years. Each trauma was put in a metaphorical box
23:03
Speaker 2: on a metaphorical shelf and the door was closed. And
23:06
Speaker 2: I just pushed all of that aside and down and
23:10
Speaker 2: repressed it. And writing this book it was like ripping
23:16
Speaker 2: the scabs off of wounds that never fully healed. And
23:21
Speaker 2: it was truly brutal.
23:26
Speaker 1: But so why did you do it? Why did you
23:29
Speaker 1: feel the need to do it?
23:32
Speaker 2: I will consider my book a success. If I change,
23:35
Speaker 2: and I mean profoundly, truly impact change one person's life
23:42
Speaker 2: for the better, I will consider it a success, a
23:46
Speaker 2: complete success if I can accomplish that.
23:52
Speaker 1: And what did you want? How did you want to
23:57
Speaker 1: do that? By sharing your story?
23:59
Speaker 2: I wanted them to see if she can go through
24:02
Speaker 2: that and come out the other side. I can go
24:05
Speaker 2: through what I'm going through, and there will be another side.
24:09
Speaker 2: And even though I share my stories, I have eleven
24:15
Speaker 2: trigger warnings traumas that I go through in the book.
24:20
Speaker 2: But it's very much a book about resilience and hope
24:26
Speaker 2: and coming out the other side. So I'm providing my
24:31
Speaker 2: story to try to offer hope and inspiration to people
24:37
Speaker 2: who are struggling.
24:45
Speaker 1: Where's your brother?
24:46
Speaker 2: My brother was adopted by that family, which was a
24:50
Speaker 2: wonderful thing. I hated the woman, my best friend's mom,
24:58
Speaker 2: but we are not in contact. What is cool though
25:04
Speaker 2: he's my brother is a professional photographer, and the jacket
25:09
Speaker 2: of my book, the image is actually from a photo
25:13
Speaker 2: that he took, and he gave me the right to
25:16
Speaker 2: a photograph collection of photographs he took when he was
25:23
Speaker 2: in Virginia in the winter, and it's just beautiful trees
25:28
Speaker 2: and like perfectly still lake reflecting images. He gave me
25:33
Speaker 2: the rights to about twelve images and so I've used
25:38
Speaker 2: those in fact the background for my logo. Those are
25:42
Speaker 2: trees that I adjusted the lighting on. So but no,
25:50
Speaker 2: I don't have contact with my brother, and that is
25:52
Speaker 2: his decision.
25:57
Speaker 1: I mean to say that the story and what happened
26:03
Speaker 1: to you is tragic or horrific, is I'm sure an understatement.
26:09
Speaker 1: I can't. Adrian, first of all, thank you so much
26:11
Speaker 1: for coming on here and sharing that. I mean, I
26:15
Speaker 1: can't imagine what it would be like to go through that.
26:19
Speaker 1: How the hell do you get through that? How do you?
26:25
Speaker 1: Did you have friends you talked to? Was there any
26:29
Speaker 1: I mean you talked about, you know, being able to compartmentalize, right,
26:35
Speaker 1: put each trauma in a box, and that's the way
26:38
Speaker 1: you were able to do with that. But did you
26:44
Speaker 1: did you dissociate? What did you? How do you do it? Well?
26:49
Speaker 2: I did a lot of things wrong. I self medicated, drugs, alcohol,
26:59
Speaker 2: multiple suicide attempts, the final one with a gun, and
27:05
Speaker 2: I did pull the trigger. What happened the safety had
27:11
Speaker 2: engaged by less than a millimeter. I didn't realize it,
27:15
Speaker 2: but the safety engaged, and when it didn't fire, I
27:19
Speaker 2: pulled the trigger a second time. So I pulled the
27:23
Speaker 2: trigger twice on the gun Wow and I went through.
27:30
Speaker 2: It wasn't until my daughter was born and I made
27:35
Speaker 2: the decision that I was going to give her the
27:37
Speaker 2: childhood that I didn't have because my childhood ended when
27:42
Speaker 2: my grandmother died when I was seven. And that's been
27:48
Speaker 2: my goal. My purpose has been to raise her and
27:55
Speaker 2: to give her the best childhood that I could.
27:57
Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 2: My husband, her father, passed away when she was ten
28:03
Speaker 2: years old. I was thirty five years old. This is
28:06
Speaker 2: not in the book, it'll be in book number two.
28:10
Speaker 2: But he passed away suddenly, so she didn't get the
28:14
Speaker 2: perfect childhood that I wanted. But I did remarry. She's
28:19
Speaker 2: in college right now. She's doing very well. We are blessed.
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Speaker 2: We are truly, truly blessed with the life that we
28:31
Speaker 2: have now and the family that I have remaining my
28:36
Speaker 2: aunt Rose. I say God didn't give me a mother
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Speaker 2: and a father, He gave me two mothers because my
28:45
Speaker 2: Aunt Rose filled that role. And I actually went and
28:52
Speaker 2: I found my mother after a decade of her being
28:55
Speaker 2: gone and no one knowing where she was. I went
28:59
Speaker 2: on the internet, went on White Pages, got her last
29:02
Speaker 2: known address called it was a homeless shelter. They wrote
29:06
Speaker 2: down my name and number in case she ever came back.
29:10
Speaker 2: A year later. A year later, they call me and say,
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Speaker 2: your mother is back. Yeah, and they got They got
29:20
Speaker 2: her set up with the government apartment, a social worker,
29:24
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist. And right before I started law school, I
29:29
Speaker 2: took a trip to El Paso. I'm in Houston. I
29:33
Speaker 2: drove to al Paso and I got to see my
29:36
Speaker 2: mother thriving and doing well. She had her pill dispenser
29:42
Speaker 2: on her dining room table, she had furniture, she was
29:47
Speaker 2: She didn't work, but she sat around watching Judge Judy,
29:53
Speaker 2: her court TV shows, smoking her Marlboro Reds, and she
29:59
Speaker 2: just she was happy. She was doing love.
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Speaker 1: So this was the person who, yes, how did you
30:08
Speaker 1: feel towards her?
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Speaker 2: Well? By that time, I had learned a couple of things. One,
30:16
Speaker 2: it wasn't her fault. She was sick. She was schizophrenic.
30:20
Speaker 2: She was mentally ill, and having my own mental illnesses.
30:25
Speaker 2: I understood what that could mean. So I realized that
30:32
Speaker 2: I also maybe I didn't realize this next thing until
30:35
Speaker 2: I became a parent, until I became a mother. But
30:39
Speaker 2: she did the hardest thing imaginable when she gave up
30:44
Speaker 2: my brother and me because as a mother myself, I
30:48
Speaker 2: would rather die than give my child to someone else
30:53
Speaker 2: to raise. And my mother made that sacrifice so that
30:59
Speaker 2: my brother and I I could have a better life.
31:02
Speaker 1: She had the wherewithal to do that. Yes, yeah, hold on,
31:06
Speaker 1: we skipped over something. You went to law school or
31:08
Speaker 1: you're in law school.
31:10
Speaker 2: I was accepted. Oh, I don't want to give it away.
31:16
Speaker 2: I don't want to answer that. Let's just leave that
31:19
Speaker 2: from the book.
31:21
Speaker 1: All right, all right, well, look, my God Adrian Jesus,
31:27
Speaker 1: we'll have to have you back talk about other stuff.
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Speaker 1: But how do people learn more about you? How do
31:33
Speaker 1: people learn about the book? And where to get the book?
31:36
Speaker 2: What's the best way from my website Unbroken Caldwell c
31:41
Speaker 2: al d Well dot com. Unbroken Caldwell sign up on
31:46
Speaker 2: the forum and you'll get my prologue in chapter one immediately,
31:51
Speaker 2: and the pre order links are at the bottom of
31:53
Speaker 2: that email. And if anyone would like to engage with me,
31:57
Speaker 2: I'm on Facebook, Insta and LinkedIn under Unbroken Caldwell.
32:03
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have each of those linked up here at
32:05
Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma their Business dot com.
32:08
Speaker 1: Even thank you my God, look at you. You're amazing
32:14
Speaker 1: and you're inspiring beyond all get out and Jesus, thank
32:19
Speaker 1: you for being here, sharing your stories.
32:21
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me. It's it's been
32:23
Speaker 2: a privilege to be here, so thank you.
32:26
Speaker 1: We'll be in touch. Take care,