Latest / Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast / Reclaiming Life After Childhood Abduction | Tim Smith’s Story

Transcript

Reclaiming Life After Childhood Abduction | Tim Smith’s Story · Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast, where we share stories of resilience, recovery, and hope.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Join us as we sit down with survivors, authors, and leading experts to discuss their experiences and insights, exploring the path towards healing and the power of the human spirit.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's your host, Dr.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mark McNear.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, my name is Joe Schweigart, and today I'm your host of the Trauma Mixed Recovery Podcast.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to introduce Tim Smith, author of the book Fault Lines Still Standing.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tim's book details a story of pain, trauma, and resilience.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, I'm excited to talk to you today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Joe.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I am uh very excited to be here and uh doing well today and uh looking forward to sharing my story with you and your listeners.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had a chance to read the book.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was an amazing story.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've like I said, just your resilience through some tumultuous times.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, before we could go into that, um, could you share a little bit with us about yourself and what led you to writing the book?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it does sound uh a little cliche, right?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: But like the timing had to be right.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um I knew for you know maybe 15, 20 years that the story was in me.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: I knew I wanted to tell the story.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I like to sort of say like all the spokes on the will have to kind of line up.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh that was the case here, right?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: The universe just kind of lined up everything for me.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I went through um some therapy and I had come to some realizations and some truths about myself and just sort of my past and sort of not running from it, and all of those things sort of collided into this perfect storm of being able to write the book.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: If your book is centered around the significant event early on in your life, you know, the kidnapping of you by your mother.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's get right into it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Could could you talk about this experience and just share with us what this was like for you, the environment surrounding that event?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's get right into that if you if you if you will.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so for the longest time for me, that event was just a fact, just something that happened to my life, I or happened in my life.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I didn't really attach any, you know, emotion to it or any memory to it, because I think it was just like so traumatic that like my mind just sort of shut off that event, you know, and any sort of feeling or any connection to it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was my husband, you know, a few years ago, like I was maybe sort of recounting the story to her or talking to him about it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I said, Oh yeah, my mom, you know, took me, you know, against my will and kept me hidden from my dad.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he said, so she kidnapped you.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it never occurred to me that she kidnapped me.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if that makes sense, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: But it just never occurred to me that that was what had happened, right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so her and my dad had um, they got married uh probably shortly right after I was born.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he was in and out of jail with his own um alcohol addictions and marijuana convictions.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And this is, you know, the early 70s, and uh the time period does not excuse it, it just you know, just sort of setting the scene there for you.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he was in jail for a little while and he'd gotten out and they had kind of lived back together for a little while.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: And at some point during that, uh my mother was, I think, working in a bar and um she'd met who was going to be my stepdad.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'd met him a couple of times as a kid and didn't really, you know, I was a child, you know, it wasn't he was nice enough, but he wasn't my dad, right?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so um my dad was home from from work or maybe from jail or wherever he was, you know.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm being honest, some of the memories are a little fragmented from that area, you know.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I do remember she, you know, she woke me up and uh she was going to take me to school.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I don't remember her ever doing that.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so she told me to kiss him goodbye, and I did.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I still remember to this day like how he smelled.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: He smelled um stale, like still sweat and still beer and probably cigarettes too, right?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I kind of kissed him goodbye and we're we're walking along the street, you know, and she says, Um, what if we don't go to school today?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: How would that be?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: And like that was never her, that was just never who she was, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you know, as a child, I'm like, yeah, let's not go to school.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds great.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then I saw uh my stepdad's car parked in the corner of this gas station.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and all of a sudden, like my heart just dropped in my stomach, you know.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: As uh as a little boy, I was I knew something was not right.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was immediately fearful.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and she kind of grabbed me by the arm and you know, really put like her little suitcase and put me in the back of his uh uh 74 Gold Nova, you know, it was jacked up in the back, had the big engine blower on the front, just really white trash, okay, just you know, just really being honest.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um, she put me in the back of the car and they took off.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I sort of I have no real memories for several years from that point.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember being in the backseat, sort of balled up and you know, squalling and crying and wouldn't be back with my dad or whatever it was, you know.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember my stepdad saying that um uh she needed to get me quiet or they put me out on the side of the road and leave me.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I kind of remember that.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just very and then from there, I just a lot of it just goes dark.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's just it just goes dark.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting what you note there, just you know, some some of the numbing before you wrote the story in response to, I mean, the significant, the significance of this event.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then even in the moment what you described, where you know, your memory is patchy in many ways, but certain things in in a way stand out where the smells, like you say, but then even in the midst of that, a lot it sounds like a lot of that was just like not really to to not really remember that, even though in many ways I'm sure it has come up later in life, even just uh, you know, unconsciously that way.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd had um a really wonderful therapist I was in for several years and sort of started to see it for something, you know, just sort of unrelated, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then like maybe second or third session, he was like, tell me about your childhood.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And um, that's an immediate, you know, block, defense, shields up, you know what I mean?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, childhood was fine.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Childhood was fine.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And like he kind of cracks open, you know, and then I somewhere or another we got on the kidnapping event, and like all of a sudden it was very real for me.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was all of the memory, all of the feeling, all the emotion, all of the pain, all the anguish was suddenly glaring in my mind.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was something that I just maybe had buried for you know 45 years, and all of a sudden it was there.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so some of it can still be very fresh and almost sort of um freezing, you know, sort of debilitating.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it was honestly not.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thankful that a lot of it I don't remember.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was just like my mind trying to protect me from just severe trauma and really not something that was probably safe for me to remember that a child would be able to process, you know, and a lot of that um I just couldn't process.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: I just did not know how to process, didn't have the skills to process, certainly didn't have the parents to help me process it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it was just uh probably one of the worst times of my life and definitely set the groundwork for um every event, everything from that point on, how I view people, how I trust people, how I view relationships, how I view safety, all of that um impacted me from that day.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I sort of didn't realize it until I kind of cracked it open.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, well, it that actually kind of makes sense.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you touched a little bit upon it, even just in the in the circumstances when you were you were driven away with your mom and your stepdad there, where some of the even just how they spoke to you.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: We keep in line here.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the book, you really detail it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, multiple, I mean years, years of just a lot of that kind of interaction, either the lack of communication or just or just um downright, just um just towards you, contempt towards you in in so many ways.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, what was that like?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those, those as things kind of in a way settled um in in the midst of the circumstance.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I didn't speak to them for a year.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I just went fully silent.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm sure I probably spoke to like children in school and maybe teachers and stuff like that, but I I would think that I maybe would capture myself a little bit.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I didn't speak to them at all.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um the silent treatment was the only weapon I had, you know.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and nobody was listening to the silent treatment, you know.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um nobody, nobody cared.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I remember like my mother would like force me and my stepfather to like, you know, I'd have to ride with him to the store or whatever, you know, she'd some attempt to make us get along or bond.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I would just stare off the window, you know what I mean, just completely just disassociate from him and the whole thing and just stare off the window.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I have memories of just uh, you know, when you're little everything sort of going fast by the window and it's just a blur, you know.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: I just sort of have this blur of silence and him sitting over there like a giant speechless ape, you know, um, unable to even grunt out uh consolation or hello.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he had been shot in the head um while robbing a liquor store um before he met my mother.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so the bullet impacted the speech center um of his brain.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so you could still feel like the uh like the lump in his head where the bullet went in.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so it affected his speech center, and so his language was broken, and then he supplemented the word, the cluster GD for every word that he couldn't remember.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it would be like hello, GD, telephone, GD, book, hell, and so I had to sort of learn his communication pattern, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: And sort of that was the only way I could speak to him because he wasn't capable of forming speech, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh they my mother put me in therapy in uh in like the elementary school there.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if it was like I don't know why she did it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if she was like sort of forced to do it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was a state obligation or if she maybe realized I was, you know, having some issues.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I was in therapy with this, you know, I think horrible elementary school guidance counselor, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, you could tell like the room is just kind of like an afterthought for that kind of thing, you know.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I would go in there and like I um like clearly am not trusting adults, right?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And there's really no safe place for me, and I'm not opening up to people because that's been shut down for me, you know.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would just tell her what she wanted to hear, you know.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it really did.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that I was sort of consciously doing that because it was just it was just a game to me, you know.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh there was one day we had like some kind of uh it's like a box of dolls and toys and like a little dollhouse.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh I love playing my cousin's dolls.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I'm I'm an effeminate little boy, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Of course I want to play dolls.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was playing with the dolls.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I remember there was like one black doll.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I picked it up, you know, I said I wanted uh him to be included with the family, you know, nobody should be left out, which is basically little me saying, dudes, I'm being left out.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Help me out here, you know.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and she was sort of dismissive about it and said that she wasn't going to see me anymore because um I was only telling her what I wanted to hear and I didn't know how to tell her the truth, um, which like broke my heart as like a little boy.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: I remember like getting the big weld up tears, you know what I mean?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, but I don't know.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I'm little, yeah, like I you know, and so I sort of didn't see her anymore.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um if I'm honest, like I don't have I don't have a lot of memories of like high school and of uh elementary school, and um I have no memories of Thanksgiving or Christmas morning or going trick-or-treating, you know what I mean?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like none of those normal childhood things.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying that they didn't happen.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't remember them, you know.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and my mother in the beginning was so obsessed with her new husband, like a like a deranged handmaid, like a trailer park handmaiden.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so she placated to him and she worshipped him, you know, and did all these things for him.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: And um, she never got me up for school.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: She never made me breakfast for school.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I remember like I went to the nurse's office, you know, one morning.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, you know, I've got a tummy ache, you know.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh I went back, you know, I don't know, six, seven, eight times in a row, you know, and um finally she said, Did you have breakfast this morning?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I said, no.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so they sent me over to get some cheese toast in the cafeteria after everything had gone on.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And um, she said, Did you have breakfast any morning that you've been in here to see me?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: I said, No, ma'am.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And um, she kind of, I remember, I didn't understand it, but I remember she got this look on her face of sort of one relief, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like she had diagnosed it, you know.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then two, it was almost like, yeah, and it was almost like a revulsion, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are you not feeding this little boy?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so I got on the free lunch program and the free breakfast program.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, I never had to worry about food again.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that was like, in my mind, it was like one little safety checkoff, you know.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, you know, I think when you're a little boy, you just need three things like food, shelter, and toys, you know?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, okay, one out of three, I've got food, you know?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I've got so um, yeah, that's kind of uh that's how it was in the beginning.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, lonely.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what the I I I took from your story, just you know, even just the the times where you're just it seems like just a yearning for connection, you know, even if it's a neighbor next door, if it's like even just playing with with dolls, like having something, some kind of to even just play that out.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and um with that, the yearning for your dad, you know, you you described that in in the book Times that you would see him, and and even like the contrast of those times with how the interactions were with your mom.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was uh pretty fascinating into into how you were feeling as as a little boy.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I love my dad, even though I was a little boy.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I loved him, and I think part of it might have been it's like him and I, I think our for the most part, our personality is more aligned.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: We we tend to look alike, you know.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: I have picked up some of my mother's, you know, traits that I'm not always thrilled with having, but you know, I've learned how to make those things serve me in a better way, right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think all little boys love their dads, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like you just love your dad, you want to be with your dad.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then like she took me from him, you know, and so my little boy mine blamed her, you know, rightfully so.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, for me, he was kind of like the hero for me as a little boy, right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like I wanted to be back with him, I felt safe with him, I felt um nurtured with him.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we did things together, you know, we we played together, you know, he was almost like another uh, he was like a grown boy.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in some ways, throughout his whole life, he remained a man-child.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he just uh wasn't quite able to mature and take on responsibilities of of fatherhood and of manhood.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um it doesn't make him a bad person, it just makes him who he was and doing the best he could with the tools that he had, right?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, I loved him so much as a little boy.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just craved to be with him, you know.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then the few times that I would see him, he, you know, he would drink too much or he'd lay out all night with somebody in the, you know, in the panhandle, and you know, he loved his panhandle princesses, right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so um that hurt as a little boy because um in my mind I was like, we only have two or three days together once every couple of months when she lets me see you, you know.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how could you betray me like that?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: How could you how could you leave me?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: I long to be with you and you don't long to be with me.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the little boy that um idolizes his father, you know, you uh you make excuses for that and you look over that and you um, you know, you try to forgive because you um love is an active word, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like it always requires um meeting the person where they are.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: It always requires forgiving their insecurities, their indiscretions, their inability to hold up to your standards, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh I think as a little boy, I tried to do that, try to look over that behavior, try to forgive that behavior.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then as I got older, you know, I saw him less and less, and it just sort of I gave up.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just gave up.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I gave up loving him, I gave up hoping for him to come and save me because he wasn't able to save himself, so he certainly wasn't able to save me, you know.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: He just wasn't just wasn't able to.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it uh it broke my heart and it hurt me and it's sort of a pain that I still carry around today.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some of those things never leave.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, my mother was also very good at um brainwashing and manipulating, right?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like she'd say things, well, if you were a good boy, he'd pay his child support so you could see him, you know, or she would say, you know what I mean?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: She would say stuff like that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um there was one time where he did not pay his child support.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was around nine.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he had not paid his child support in about maybe a year or so.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so she absolutely would not let me see him.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Full stop, wouldn't even let me visit him.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or my grandmother, you know, his his mother.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and do you know like what that's like for like a child to not see their parent for a year?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm in that home.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh I can't describe it necessarily.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's almost like you get used to it.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, when you have a splinter in your finger and it's more of, you know, it's kind of tender and you can't get it out and it's still there and it just sort of never goes away.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's sort of what it's like.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's sort of what it's like, you know.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so um I remember he had finally made arrangements to make child support.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if he was drinking or on drugs or just incapable of supporting himself.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he's doing it for spite.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I remember I finally got to see him.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was probably, you know, at the height of a nine or ten.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um he brought in like a paper fletch bag full of fives.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I opened the bag, you know, so excited, you know, I saw the money there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was like, oh, can I have one?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and um, you know, I like I yanked out the five dollar bill.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then like I saw him give the money to my mother, and I just stopped cold.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I remember I, you know, when you go cold on something, you know, and I just felt all the body like I get chills saying about it now.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like I felt all the heat from my body go and I I felt dirty, you know.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, is that what this is about?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Have I been bought?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is it money?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I just felt I don't think I described it, I felt dirty.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: I just felt dirty.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: I felt um like something being used.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it felt uh unclean to me.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I I didn't have the vocabulary or the emotional you know depth to sort of maybe put it into words, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I just remember feeling uh unclean and dirty at that transaction.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: It felt um, I don't know, yeah, like a little boy being used.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh little boy shouldn't feel that way.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is your father, uh this is your mother.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It in in your book, uh, you know, talking about the experiences you shared with mom, what that was like just on a day-to-day basis.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So then you get a glimpse of that with dad, even if it is for a couple days.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I can just imagine the the ambivalence, the uncertainty, just the confusion where you do get that time with with your dad.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and and yes, even just with some of those the difficulties of of of uh interactions with him, but just uh the the dichotomy there, and even just what you describe with um your grandmother in it during those times as well, and just how to the like you say, to make that tri transactional when it's just I'm just hearing from your story, just a boy who just wants someone to just say, I love you, I have you, I care for you, I want to be with you.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was so heavy.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was so desperate for that, Joe.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and was for years.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um maybe in some ways today I am, you know.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I certainly still myself against that feeling, you know, these days, um, against uh allowing myself to be in a position where I can be in that position again.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was just uh it was so it was hard, you know.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I did, you know, I just thank you your point, like I did just want to be loved and cared for, um, which I think is normal and natural for a child, right?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the times where I got to see uh my dad, you know, we would stay um in his mother's house, my grandma, because usually he either, you know, he didn't have a place to live or he was living with her, just incapable of supporting himself due to his addictions.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so um every Real core memory of like love or genuine concern or any like genuine happy childhood memories center around her.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like my memories with her are very clear, very, very concise.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remember, like, you know, um uh she had like a fold-out bed, me and dad slept on, you know.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I'd be on that bed and she'd come through in the morning and she'd be making us bake it for breakfast, smoking her cigarette, you know, um, and the gas heater going in the kitchen, you know, and she'd come through and like my toes would be sticking out under the blanket.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: She'd come do like the little tin little piggy show, this little piggy went to market thing.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I would just squill and laugh, you know, and um I'd watch Saturday morning cartoons there um for just hours and hours and hours.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: And like those are the only, you know, five or six times in childhood that I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I remember having an adult make my breakfast, an adult care for me, you know.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'd come over there for the weekends and she'd always make whatever I wanted to eat, you know.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, nobody did that for me.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody uh asked what I wanted, nobody cared what I wanted.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and she did.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, from her, from those brief interactions through, you know, even my teenage years, like I sort of learned morals and goodness and you know, how to love.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was like a teaspoon of love and an ocean of uh despair and loneliness, right?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just sucked it up, you know what I mean?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just took all that I could get from her, you know, um, and then just longed to be back with her again, you know, and just longed to um be with him and be with my cousin.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was just kind of fun up there, you know.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: But um, he was a man child and looking back like grandma was paying for the food, she was paying for the stuff, she was cooking, like, you know, and uh, you know, so she was the only sort of mother figure, you know, I ever had.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I could you could see how then, like you say, even just a teaspoon could stand out just because it's just the longing and the craving of that.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a little bit of like, well, somebody can do that.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't you?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it just sort of it's still, you know, listen, I'm 53, and it still sort of can sting a little bit, right?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: When I sort of think about like, you know, my mother and our relationship and and how it was, or sort of how my dad was just sort of, you know, he he wanted to, you know, he just couldn't, you know, and it was hard for me to understand like why he wasn't fighting for me, why he didn't uh try to see me more, try to, you know, deal with her more.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I just um I couldn't understand why nobody wanted me as a little boy, you know.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just didn't um I just understand that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just didn't understand that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh tried to overcompensate as you know, uh I think a lot of trauma survivors do in adulthood, right?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like we overcompensate like we're um the fastest, the best, the smartest, the you know, the most accomplished, whatever, because we're either running from something or we're trying to bury something, or we're trying to prove, you know, our worth and our merit to parents and to people that frankly never gave a single bleep about us, you know.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's a hard reckoning to know that um those people aren't coming to save you, those people don't love you and don't nurture you the way you way you needed to be, and it hurts, you know, it still hurts.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: We internalize that as kids, we say, well, all this is going on, and it's like, well, it must be me.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, or you or to try to even just make sense of that, the confusion with that, and often it does go internal.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how did you cope?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: How did you cope during this time?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's you mentioned a little bit today, but you know, some some things you know in your book.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: What what what did that look like for you?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was just alone and just entertained myself.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I wasn't I have a lot of friends, you know.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: There are sort of um photos of of birthday parties, and it's basically just like me in a Dukes of a hazard poster.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, there are three or four birthday photos, and it was me cutting a cake or whatever, and it's just me.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and uh I I don't know if I couldn't make friends.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I was just so weird and awkward, and I think that was part of it, right?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Just completely, you know, slightly feral and unsocialized.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and like anytime like I would try to make friends or have friends over it, my mom would get um she got jealous, you know, she would uh and I don't know why.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was part of her uh part of her narcissism, part of her jealousy, part of her why does why does he have friends with a child and I never did, right?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so like she would come out as she would make scene, she would start screaming, uh, she would run the other kids off, you know.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And no kids want to hang around a kid that's got that going on, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: So um so I remember like, yeah, like nobody, nobody wants to do that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I remember like we had um, I had like a little half bathroom in my bedroom, and I played like science experiment in there and just you know, mix up a bunch of chemicals and just playing around, right?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Or like I remember um I had like a baseball and a and a bat, and I would just throw the ball and hit the bat in my front yard.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: There was no one to, you know what I mean?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like there was no one to do that.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I would um I would draw a lot, I would create a lot, um, I would make, you know, little forts.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: I started to create um little worlds and little places for me to go.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I started making superheroes and spaceships, and I love Star Trek, and so I would lose myself in um science fiction in those places and in the worlds that I was drawing, and you know, I love my Legos and all that stuff.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so anything that I could create and create a safer place for me to be in and be outside of um the turmoil, turmoil and the trauma and sort of the the hate I felt as a little boy.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's that's a lot of what I did, you know, a lot of disassociating, a lot of um trying to prove, you know, I'm the best in school, I'm the fastest runner, I'm the best this.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um it all sort of fell on deaf ears.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like nobody, nobody cared.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody cared.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was a that was a huge thing that stood out in reading your book, where initially with a lot of the, I mean, all you went through, and then to to now move new school, struggling in school, which which let's be real, it makes sense.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, hey, let's go sit down and learn some math and reading when it's like, I like where's my dad?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that like you think about how um as a kid, how just difficult that would be.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I I the something that's really stood out just uh across the board with your story, but specifically even with the schools, the resilience factor where it's like, you know, certain people come into your life, you get the right supports, the nurse uh gets you meals.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh, look, start seeing some positives where it's like, I I can learn, I can do this.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I thought that was just amazing with the with the resilience that you showed, the learning that came up, and then you still saw that some of the reactions to that was not like, you know, the building up, the congratulations, the we're so proud of you.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I just in the midst of all, even in the good moments of of look, look what I'm doing as you move as you leave the home, there there was that response again.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no one cared about anything I did.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even in like um high school, I had gotten like the last two years or last year and a half.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was in dual enrollment, so I had college credit and high school credit at the same time.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not bad for a boy that was dyslex is dyslexic.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I just figured out he was dyslexic seven years ago.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I had trouble just learning and doing the things, and now I'm getting college credit while I'm in high school and no no roadmap, no role model role models, no one to be like, good job, Tim, or this is your path, you know.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like I just knew, and I don't know how I knew, um, but I just knew that like there was more than the squalor of trailer parts and cigarette smokes and waffle houses.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew there was more.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what it was, I didn't know how to get there, you know.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew there had to be better.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: There just had to be better.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I probably thought that even as a child, you know, even if it was unconscious, you know, there there has to be better.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's gotta be, this can't be it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this can't be it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I remember thinking that like education was one of the ways that like let's get out of here.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's how we get out of here, that's how we make money, that's how we, you know, that's that's our freedom.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, my stepdad was working sheetrock.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: My mom was a waitress in the Waffle House, and um I worked with her at the Waffle House at the same time during all of this.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I was very proud of myself for doing that, you know.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so I come home, it's like after school, I'm going to college, you know?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they were like, okay.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there wasn't even, I don't even know if there was like an okay, and it was almost like a uh not a contempt or a jealousy, but almost a just like we hate you for doing better than us, we hate you for being smarter than us, we hate you because like you I don't say better than them because that's not it, but because you want better than us, because you see outside of this trailer park and you see outside of the squalor and the fear that we all live in, right?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like you see outside of it.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think there was just a resentment, you know, towards me.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then as I grew older and sort of when you start to hit puberty, like I become a very effeminate little boy, you know.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: I you can't control that, you know, as like an adult, you know, I know I just sort of keep those tendencies, you know, a little more in check, right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: But as a little boy, where um our bodies betray us before we know what we are, right?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so they saw that.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so they would um have my stepdad would call me queer.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my mother would call me faggot.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, I was chubbing up there, you know, around the sixth grade, as all kids do before you get that big growth spur, you know what I mean?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so like they would call me like um fat boy, and then I'd hear them whisper queer on the end of it, um, fat faggot.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she'd always want to know what I was eating, um, how much I'd eaten that day, you know, and then uh I was so ashamed of my food and how much I ate that I, you know, would not eat.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then even to this day, like I'm very, especially in public places, people are watching me eat or watching how much food I put on my plate, like I'm very much like one little seed, one crumb of bread because you know.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um the body remembers, absolutely.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: The body keeps the score.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: You you mentioned um your sexual identity at this time, and you know, some of some of the some of the things they that were said to you.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um what was that like as you got older going into you know your adolescence, into high school?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: How did you manage all that?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know that I did.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know that I did.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know that anybody can uh manage it, you know.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um my mother would have friends that would uh her best friend told her, you know, um, that boy is gay, your son is gay.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, that was not something, and you know, it depends on where you are now, even today, it's not something, you know, parents are thrilled to hear the news, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe something that like, you know, you try to maybe look the other way, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: But when you've got people or you've got your friends telling you, you know, your son's gay.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think she was she was embarrassed.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she was ashamed, she didn't know how to deal with it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, being being a fag and being queer was something to be ashamed of.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh it didn't fit into our, and I put this in quote, religious profile, you know, um it just was not a good scene with them.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and of course, kids in school would, you know, pick up on that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that you can you could smell the fear on me, right?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could smell the fear and the insecurity on me.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like I um I was afraid of everything, I was afraid of myself, I was afraid of my parents, I was afraid of showing who I was, um, I was afraid of being who I was, and people pick up on that weakness and predators attack that weakness.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that happened, you know, throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, and still while having to deal with you know my parents at home doing that as well, calling me, you know, those names and talking about my body and shaming me.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no place for me to go, you know what I mean?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's no one for me to talk to.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: My dad was absent.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so you just internalize it and you hear that vulgarity, and it becomes ingrained in you, and you think that you are that, you know, you think that you are that worthless fag, that worthless queer sign.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: You think you're that fat boy that they don't want.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so that becomes a part of who you are.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: That becomes your insecurity, that becomes your burden, uh, that becomes the thing that you carry on your shoulders through through life.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, kids shouldn't be forced to do that, you know.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was an abysmal experience for sure.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there were some bright spots here and there.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's always, uh, you kind of mentioned before, and as in the book, like there's always um sometimes a helper would show up, right?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so you'd have helpers, you'd have a helper here and there that would kind of, you know, get you through things.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so thankful for those um little safe ports, you know, that I uh that I had that I was able to sort of enjoy in those, those, those little moments of safety.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um those are very special to me.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: I still remember every one of those moments.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: I remember every one of those people, um, and people that sort of helped me when I had no way to help them back whatsoever, you know.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um grateful for those experiences and for those people.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned uh in the book, just even just places to stay, relationships, you know, um have someone to just to to do life with in the midst of all the chaos and the and the craziness that naturally comes with growing up, but with your circumstance as well.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you could just see how just people who then who would show up for you want to pour into you and give to you but would stand out.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, like sometimes I would try to talk to my dad when I would see him, and I'd be like, you know, dad, the other kids are calling me fag.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at fag in the dictionary and it says, you know, it's an English cigarette.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: Why are they calling me an English cigarette?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Never occurred, you know what I mean?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Never I didn't even know sexuality.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like I didn't even I didn't even know, you know what I mean?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: And already these labels and things were sort of being applied to me at home and at school and in life, and uh I I didn't know any better, right?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you just sort of accept that.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um you accept, you know, maybe those unfortunate truths that other people have put on you, right?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like their um, their misgivings, their labels, you sort of take those on and you become those things, right?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I went through a period of um of uh of shame and of feeling dirty and less than and not as good as people, and honestly, probably just got out of that one like maybe 10 years ago, you know, like where I've like as good as everybody else, you know.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and there's still, you know, kind of those residual struggles as a child that still um followed me as an adult, you know.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: I I can recognize them better, you know, and sometimes I'm like, oh, that's why you're doing that, you know.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um applying the logic doesn't always help with the emotion, but sometimes it does, and it sort of can give me a uh a point to sort of uh latch on to and build on um you're not that thing that they said you were.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're not you're not shameful, you are just as good as everybody.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you you have as much to offer as and if everyone else does too.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: So um sometimes putting a little bit of uh uh some of my training I have with my therapy, you know, sort of putting that uh as a roadblock to sort of that steamroller of past trauma, you know, definitely helps.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, sometimes in my mind, I I will literally be like, you know, when the voices kind of get going, you know, I'm like that's not that that's not you anymore.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's those voices are not for you anymore.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting into you know the idea of your just um healing in in some ways, just the recovery of the trauma from your past.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you talk about the therapy.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: What what else what else has that been like for you in in terms of your just recovering from these these experiences from growing up?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I when I saw your question and it was like, you know, how does it feel to be, you know, I'm paraphrasing right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, how does it feel to be healed or recovered or whatever?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know that I am healed.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know that I am recovered, right?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think it's almost like um being an alcoholic.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: You're always gonna be an alcoholic.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you have tools in place now, you can manage it.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I know I'm not the victim anymore, and I'm not gonna be the victim anymore, right?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then know that those past circumstances are just things that happened to me, but they're not me.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then know that the person that I am today is not that little boy.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm not afraid anymore.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: I stand up for myself, I speak up, I uh I'm aware of who I am.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: I took courage to write the story about what happened.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I to tell the truth about it, unvarnished and raw, and some parts are ugly and some parts are funny, you know.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but like I think trying to not be afraid of that past anymore and have it not roll over me and to be able to see myself um, regardless of my circumstances, my past, that I um I'm as I'm as clean as anyone else's, I'm as good as anybody else's, I'm as deserving as anybody else's.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I just won't allow that past.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: I won't allow my mother's voice and my father's inability to be a father to um hold their grasp on me anymore.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just not going to do it.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and some days it's harder and some days it's easier.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, therapy helped.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um meditating every day helps.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's a that's a good place in my mind.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: I like to go to.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's dude, it's super quiet in the meditation space.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so that's sort of like that anchor of stillness kind of helps put that mouth storm of of trauma and the past, it sort of, you know, puts it away somewhere for me, you know.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so so those are some of the things that have helped.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, writing helped, and you know, having the therapist definitely helped.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um even like doing podcasts like this, like I would have never five years ago, I would have never told any I'm too ashamed of being a you know white trash trailer park boy growing up next to the Monsanto factory and the international paper factory, and you know, my dad having a cougar up on blocks in front of the trailer park, like would have never told anybody that right.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then now I'm like, yes, yes.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and part of the healing and part of the getting over it is facing it and speaking truth to it and um taking back the power, you know, that I didn't have as a child, I didn't have as a little boy, you know.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm a big believer in your power and finding your power, and sometimes, you know, sometimes it takes us decades, you know, to do it.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but um I hope that one lesson that maybe people take away from the book is um is hope and believing in yourself, even when things are just like I didn't even know as a little boy or even as adolescents, even early adulthood, I don't know why I was as resilient as I was.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why I hoped when every circumstance, everything in my face told me there was no hope, there's no reason for you to think there's better than this.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I did because I wanted to.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I don't know if that was a conscious decision or not.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: I really I don't know.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: What would you want people to take away from your book as far as even just in the midst of your story and where you are today?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: What what would you want people to take away from that?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: To not let your past be your present.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: To not let your past be the definer of who you are.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: That you can we can make choices to be who we want to be.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: We can't make choices to forget that past and break those shackles.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: And making that choice is not easy.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's not easy.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot of hard work.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of the dark nights of the soul.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of crying and despair and loneliness and grief.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that if I can do it, anybody can do it, you know?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think the thing I want people to take away from the book is hope in themselves and in our collectiveness as people, and that you're not the victim under circumstances.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: You're not you're not the past.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um you are not those things.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: You actually have the choice to be who you want to be.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: So who do you want to be?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love uh you know, you as a kid being, you know, the powerlessness in many ways as a kid, but for you today to be like, no, I'm sharing the story.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am I am I am going there.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and with that to express it comes power in a sense of here's my story, here's who I am.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of that, like the life that you live and and now have.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what do what do you what do you do now?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just if you could just share with uh with our uh listeners.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so life is super good for me, dudes.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna lie, like um it's kind of ridiculous.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's something that like I literally, and one of the things that I do daily and sort of have for years is like you know, gratitude in the morning, like every morning.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it could be something so super duper ridiculous, right?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: Where I'm like, thank you for the dogs waking up to me this morning, or I'm like, thank you for this beautiful morning, or like even like mundane things, right?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: Where I'm like, thank you for the motor skills to be able to shave my face and brush my teeth, right?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like those are important things that like we sort of maybe take for granted.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, that is a miracle that my nervous system and everything in my body lets me hold the razor and shape my, you know what I mean?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: So um uh having just like a space of gratitude and thankfulness.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: And um, there's a great line from uh the song Hallelujah by Richard Cohen.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it says, Um, even though it all went wrong, I stood before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, and so I just try to be, you know, thankful and just try to be grateful um of all the things.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I'm an executive assistant now.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: I support uh the global CFO of a private equity firm um in Beverly Hills and the Golden Triangle.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um like I grew up in the Panhandle, Florida, in between two factories in a trailer park.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like the greatest thing that could have ever happened for me that I would have either been slinging sheetrock in construction or been a short order to cook at the Waffle House for the rest of my life.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and now look, you know, like I I live in LA, I've got a great job.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm a photographer as well.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've been um uh I've sold to private collectors, I've been in galleries in LA, I've done exhibitions around the world.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've written a book, you know, I've contributed to art and literature, and um I've saved rescued dogs and I've built a life with my husband that I never imagined I would have had.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: I never thought I would have had the uh bravery to fall in love and be in love.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I never thought I would have been comfortable in a relationship with someone.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: I never even thought um that little queer boy that was so scared when he was 15, um, never imagined the life, never imagined the life.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I hope that maybe that's another point in the book that people can take, right?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I know it's bad now, I know it looks bad now, but you don't know what's going to happen.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know how good it can be.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um I think it's gonna get better.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're still gonna do better.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just think I think we've got other places to climb on the way up to greatness.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I and I don't mean it sound like very, you know, uh kumbayar like it was easy because it wasn't, the path was not straight.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm so content now.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um I long for nothing because I have everything I ever wanted to be loved.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: I want somebody to love.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: I got it.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, uh, it was an honor speaking to you today.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, your book was incredible.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, just again, your story from where you where you were, what you experienced as a kid in in in throughout your life to where you are now.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I loved your book uh and grateful for that, grateful for our time today.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for our viewers, for our listeners, if they want to get that book or even just more information about you, what's the best place to uh to reach you?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Joe, thank you very much for your time today.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for letting me share my story.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you all are doing an act of service for so many of us, and so I'm so thankful for that.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um you can uh reach the you can uh find my book at faultlinememoir.com, or you can also find me on Instagram at tim.smith.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh everyone go check out Tim's book.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, thank you again.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, this is this has been great.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jeff.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: If today's conversation spoke to you, we would love for you to like, subscribe, or share the episode with someone to learn more or connect with us.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at trauma meets recovery.com.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, be gentle and kind to yourself.