The Bravest Thing

SUBJECT WARNING-UNALIVING YOURSELF


Having been born prisoners of our parents war, an all too familiar tragedy we face in our communities is ongoing and constant suicides. Whisper and Jemima both share some of their personal experiences of having been to the darkest of places, the place where you want to cease to exist. We talk about some of the struggles loved ones face, how we can be more helpful to each other, and hope. Hope can keep you alive. Hope for brighter days ahead. 

“The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.” – Juliette Lewis

Transcript

Welcome everyone to Butterflies and bravery. Thank you for joining us today or tonight, whatever , it might be in your neck of the woods when you're listening to this. My name is whisper, your host and my beloved BFF Jemima. Your other host, yeah. Is here today. This is an episode. We don't have a guest today, but there's a few things  going on, in, in our personal ex cult member community that we are gonna chat about.

So

  I guess we should give a warning. On, we might bigger warming. Yeah. We might we might end up talking about suicide and some of that, because we've recently lost a couple fellow soldiers  to that. Yeah. More if that's something that you know is

it's not easy to discuss, then it's not easy to listen to. So yeah, come back and listen to this one.  you feel like it? , I was gonna tell you about this situation that I have at work to my mom. Yeah. Yeah.

 The people . Where this survivor is. , they are very well connected in the community, like personal friends with the mayor, personal friends, with the chief of police, but they themselves don't have any background in social work or anything like that. They were actually restauranters , and they opened a nonprofit to help employ employee, survivor and you give them an opportunity to work somewhere without having to do a background check, that kind of thing.

But the survivor's running into some conflict there because. There's things that are going on that  she feels pretty strongly about that. This is not right. And if we went by what I've been told, , it's definitely not right.  but it's kind of interesting because I'm in a position right now where we're trying to figure out best next steps.

And it's the first time I think I've been in a situation like this, where

it's this serious situation that I want to not bring any of my personal opinions into. but it's this balance, like this sort of this dance that I have to do, because one of the positions that I hold is, Survivor voice  right. And that our organization, like that's one of the things I'm supposed to do is be able to speak for survivors.

And yet, we also just can't run around, freaking out at every, story we hear too. It's just, it was so easy for me to put myself into that position of where  we need to talk to the other party sort of a thing. And it's a weird,

I guess, technically it's true. In most cases you wanna hear both sides to the story, but when a survivor comes up and says I'm being exploited, or I'm being attacked, I've been assaulted. Let me talk to the other person.  . I don't know exactly the best route to take, but the thing  that it's very clear.

And I've learned this just in the time that I've been working there now is there's no oversight whatsoever on any of these organizations. , someone can just go out and  start a nonprofit and say, we're gonna, we're gonna help these people. These , formerly trafficked, formerly abused, formerly, whatever it might be.

And there's no oversight. , if they were minors, , there'd be  all kinds of things involved with, the background checks and. , oversights and all that kind of stuff, but there's nothing in that for the trafficking world.

And it's scary and sad at the same time. I know the city that this organization, that the one that I work in is in the general area, there is like a human trafficking  task force. That's a coalition of different law enforcement and some victim advocates, things like that.

But

There's no laws in place, there's not really anything. Yeah. There just, there is. Yeah.  One of the things that's happening in this particular situation is that the organization that is employing this survivor is also  in her finances or in her  budget,  supposedly helping them budget or helping them, I don't know what whatever that is, but regardless, can you imagine if your employer was like, okay, now that I've paid you, let me see where you're spending your money. Let me help you budget your money.

Can you imagine , I was like, this isn't supposed to be happen, but it's really hard to advocate when you're up against. I would go to the police, but they're personal friends,  with the police chief.  I just really feel for the survivor in this situation because, how many times have we been there?

Sacrifices , to the politics of the day, you never got believed no matter what she said. Yeah. And then we tend to put ourselves in those situations accidentally. Yes.  because of our trauma.  yep. , . We don't see the exploitation. Yes. Until it's too late until  we're halfway through and we're like what the hell just happened?

Yeah.  It's the ugly side sometimes of what.  we have to work with or what we're dealing with.

But I'm definitely thinking of getting more involved with, any survivor networks in the area and that type of a thing, because ,  there feels like there should be something more that we can do. Cuz I don't think there's any survivors on this task force.

For example, I don't think there's any survivors and that's very problematic.  very problem. Yes. Very problematic. Very problematic. It's hard to see somebody else's side when you've never. Actually been on that side of the road. Yeah, exactly. You don't know what it looks like from over there, right? Exactly.

You imagine, but you don't know. Yeah. Just, like I would never come in into to anybody who's been, for example, trafficked on the street and been like, oh, let me tell you what to do, because that's not my personal experience. I can definitely tell you what it's like to be dealing with the trauma and the, after effects of being mistreated.

But I can't speak specifically and I never would.   We do need more of that. There's a few organizations and a few places that are, that were founded and led by ex survivors, but not in our area, not in our area. There's one in particular and I'm completely like my brain, like completely is failing me.

What the name of her nonprofit is, but  she went back to school. She got her master's  and she's been studying how closely related human trafficking is to cults. And I was like , , that's an interesting connection there.

I might like, I'd be quite interested to hear what she has to say about that because  we are on the cult side of exploitation. They call it human trafficking, but it's modern day slavery, modern day exploitation. And then she would be coming from the side of, the, being, sex trafficked or whatever.

Was her particular experience.  It'd be interesting to hear how she came to that and how she started going down that road. Because, I know that's something that we've only recently started talking more about how we as children born into these cults were trafficked.

Yes. Not what people might picture immediately of, little kids out on the while we were out on the street  , not prostitutes on the  corner of the sidewalk. But there's all the trunk and it was an environment. Yeah, exactly.

There's a whole other environment, which even that is only one tiny part of the sex trafficking.   That's I think what a lot of people think of oh, girls in cages, yeah. Okay, you're literally going to the worst place   there's a lot of other trafficking that happens.

It's not that severe well,  when you think of something that extreme, it's easy to disassociate with it. That's not what's happening here. I can look over there and be like, oh, the reason why I keep saying these different things I've been investigating is because I was working on some survivor stories to put together for our website.

 There was this one woman, she's a freaking incredible. She was actually trafficked familial trafficking is what they call it. And she said she was quite young when. Realized that it was very socially acceptable to talk about human trafficking, but it was very socially unacceptable to be a survivor of human trafficking.

And I was like that's the key sort of, that's the bottom line of what a lot of us, end up dealing with is oh my gosh, how horrible it's in that documentary, I'm gonna gasp and say that shouldn't ever happen. But when, we come face to face with somebody, from our life and oh, here's my story.

They're like, ah, I can't damn a deal.  gotta go.  Not to blame anyone.. It's a lot easier to digest things when it's somewhat. Disassociated , you don't know anyone personally, or, it's, it's not your neighbor trafficking, it's his kids, or, your, nephew

out on the streets or whatever it might be.  Yeah. So that's this theme of  theme of the month is bringing people,, to see the truth of what's going on. That is relatable. That is right in their backyard. That is right next door because that's a majority of the trafficking that happens. That's the majority of what's going on and the numbers that are everywhere.

Are only gonna be able to, come down once more people understand what they're looking for or what is the possibility? Unfortunately, sometimes that's what our story, that's where our stories are is to make people aware that this shit does happen. And, , first of all, believe survivors.

And second of all yeah, like the parts that we can play is by listening to survivors and then looking around in our own life of what are we doing? , what am I changing? What kind of difference am I making , whether it's in my own life or, the people that I hang out with all that personal responsibility.

Yeah, first

 right before We started recording. We were talking about overdosing, right? Accidental, overdosing. And that, that itself is a form of suicide because you're in so much pain that you're actually coming to the point where, you even if you don't have a previous plan. Yeah. You're still at that place where you don't care if you aren't gonna die or not just as long as you can get rid of the pain.

And that's, that is really, that's the step that's the closest you get to to actually take in your life. Is that place and accidental overdoses too, like me, for example, when I was sold Klonopin instead of Percocet and I took five of them, that was an accidental like, I had no idea that I was overdosing at all.

That's but , I was already in that place where I was having to take that much Percocet cassette. Yeah. I'd escalated so much that I needed 10 times the normal amount. Yeah,

  that was the point in my life where I didn't care too.  I almost broke. I couldn't take it. That's when I had my mental breakdown. Yeah. After that, it was all just escalating to that point.  I don't think you've ever like accidentally overdosed, have you? No.  the most I've done would be like, drinking myself to black out. Yeah. Kind of a thing. But that's what I was gonna say, drinking so much that you could have died, right?

Yes. And that is definitely when there's a place there that you don't care. Yeah.  It's all pain though. Whether it is that you no longer care because you don't value yourself there's so much going on. Or in my case, when I did come so close to, to  unliving myself, it was, I just couldn't see a way forward.

There was just no way forward. And I definitely was at the place where I was like, I am just like baggage, I'm extra weight in this world. And that's yes. That was really how I felt. Yeah. Cause you can't see anything else when you're there. No. Nothing  that was all day.

Every day. The only thing I could think about was how can I die? Yeah.

  I definitely forgotten. I think even until we started this podcast, when we interviewed Christina, I think I'd forgotten how often though that I was there. As a teenager, , obviously it got more serious  , once I was out here on my own and an adult with money that actually can make things happen.

But in the situation back when we were still when we were still stuck in the cult, I didn't have any ability to make it happen, but I would daydream. I would pick out. I would just sit and spend so much of my time, just picturing, whatever my, accident or this sickness or something to take me out.

I would think about that all the time.

 That's sad. I think that aside from the aside from a fucking ridiculous trauma that, we're all healing through and dealing with. And  I definitely think that

 This suicides are the biggest devastation that the cult has brought to us. And I'm sure there's some situations where the first generation.  Cuz just there are num yeah just by the, just numbers that you're gonna have a certain percentage of people regardless of their background that come to that point, unfortunately.

But it's nothing even remotely close to what's going on with the second generation. Yeah.

That's murder. I think it's murder. I feel like, yeah, we didn't all die by drinking the Kool-Aid but we are all still dying because we did drink the Kool-Aid. Yeah. It's just like, those extended effect pills . it's still, it's very slow  we gotta get it out. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it just, it devastates me every time and it happens all the time.

I can't believe it. And that our awareness of it really is within our circle, which is ridiculous. It's literally like every couple months. Yeah. And that's people that we personally know, or we grew up with. Yeah. It's that's not even counting, like how many thousands of children were born into, we don't have connection with all of those, it's not yeah.

So times that by whatever we personally know of and hear of  by whatever five, six times that.   And all the cults in the world that have killed people and are still killing people. Yeah.

Sad. I really think it's murder. , it is it's like what happened with Ricky? There's some people that take very hard and past, opinions about that. That murder is always wrong, but he's not really the one who did who murdered  was his mother.

Cause his mother is the one who pulled the knife. Yep. Long before Ricky ever did. Yeah. And that's the same story with the the ones that we've lost to suicide  even high speed car accidents or all of these dangerous things that people do for thrills, and then they end up dying from it in a way too, like that's suicide too. Cause you just don't care. You're in the fucking phase. Yeah. And, or,  you're chasing a high that you've grown  accustomed to, yeah. Or just trying to be happy. Yeah.

Sad. Sad. It must be sad.

It feels so unfair.

Yeah. , there's a whole fucking heck of a lot. About being a child of a cult that is pretty fucking unfair.

yeah.

What was that quote something about the unfortunate,

basically  the unluck of where you were born into the family that you were born into. It's not it's another big reason too. Why? It really like irks me when people wanna start talking about oh, just choose happy, just, just manifest your dreams and it, oh my God. Because could I like please manifest myself, unborn because that's the really, that's the place that it started.

 The butterfly effect, not a great movie, but do you remember where he just kept going back and back until finally he was, he tried to, to kill himself in the womb. That was the solution. I It wasn't a, it wasn't about abuse or anything like that. But that's how far back any of us have to go to, to see where some of this started.

Yeah. Whatever it is that, whatever it is that we're facing, yep. I've just been reading about that and the body keeps the score. Yes. So amazing. So like this doctor, took eight people with significant trauma that had given them PTSD. And they recreated the trauma that had happened to them.

They had like somebody reading it,  tell them their story or write down their story. And then somebody would it to them while they were in the brain scanner. And all the parts of the brain were activated that aren't supposed to be activated unless you're actually in the situation they were actually activated.

And then the speech shuts down all the controlling of your actions and body and your ability to think critically goes completely offline. And you actually feel the same emotions and the same, like it's like you were there when people say it's like, I was there. It's because it was in your brain.

Your brain doesn't know that you're not actually there. Your brain feels like I'm right there right now.  and that's what happens every time you get triggered.

So yeah. Scientific, poop people.  it's not just a get over it thing. No, you can reprogram your brain, but it takes years. And every trigger you have to reprogram yourself from every single trigger that you have. Yeah. Which depending on your trauma, there could be hundreds of thousands. In our case, there's almost nothing you can do.

That's not triggering.

Yeah. It's truthfully, that's a lot to overcome. Yeah. Lot, a lot to heal. A lot to heal through. Yeah. Oh, and dude,  I listened to the podcast,  the myth of normal with Dr. Gabor Mate and Dr. David Kessler.  Oh, I think that's who it was with. Dr. GA Mae  he's my favorite.

He said healing is available to everyone, right? Whenever you don't feel like healing is available to you, it's because your brain is back in the trauma. It's back in that spot where you were traumatized and triggered and it's back in that place. And in that place, you know that there's no escape because you're trapped and there's nothing you can do about it.

 As a child or whatever, but.  if you bring your brain to now,

Which is why a lot of times, the only way through

for me when I was back then was, I'll do it tomorrow. , yeah.  because it, it gives your, it gives cuz all it needs is just one little shift. Yeah. One little shift.  You're always one thought away from the solution.  I love that quote that says, you never, I never.

Blame your soul for doing what it needs do to survive. And I think,

I think that's the biggest reminder to anyone who gets into that place is just something is gonna shift. Yeah. Yes. It's not take, it's not taking away anything about where you are. Where the person is right now. It's not minimizing that at all. Because sometimes that's the worst thing to, oh, it's not really that bad.

Oh, it's not none of that. That's fucking bullshit. Shut up. It's

what can you do to hold on just for a little longer until something shifts. That's why a lot of us

It, it was our kids that kept us holding on, yes. As ironic as it was, as it is the fact that we were not allowed to choose to have children or not, in some ways that rule for some of the damage that it did to our lives. It also is the only reason some of us are alive. Yes. A hundred percent agree with that statement.

Yeah. It's true for me. And I think it's true for a lot of us. I would've been so lost without my child.  I don't even think I would've cared. Like I don't think I would've car cared if I lived or died. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead. I'm quite sure. Actually I'd be dead, cuz I'm sure that I would've just gone off the deep end cause I didn't really care about myself at all.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm no a hundred percent. Me too. I would not. I have.  there's no doubt.  about the fact that I would not be here. I know that I would not be here. Yeah. And sometimes a solution doesn't have to be something, it can look like anything. Let's just put it that way. It doesn't have to look a certain way.

Cuz  when the full weight of what had really been done to us and what had really happened was starting to fall on me. This was years ago, back in New York and I was done. I was done then and this, my kids were little, it's a longer involved story, but I got upset.

I got angry. Like not upset, like upset, but like angry, pissed off my ex for. Not, not doing, not doing something that I really needed in a moment to stay alive  but for whatever reason, instead of going okay fuck it. Like, why does it matter? Which is probably, would've been my reaction 98% of the time.

But in that moment it was I got so pissed off. I was like, fine, I'm gonna steal your money and I'm gonna go and do, and learn to drive and boom, that shifted again. So it doesn't necessarily always have to look like something super positive, even it's just to keep you around, to keep you holding on until things come back around again and  starts looking better.

Yes.

Don't make a permanent choice for a temporary feeling. Yeah, no, I like that quote, but

it's not so temporary for a lot of us  , and it never even felt temporary either. Yeah. Like it I was like, okay, I can't, that was that whole feeling. I cannot deal with this other day. I cannot, spend my entire night sobbing and, watching my kids not have food or what, whatever the pain is that, you're going through the time.

And it's, so that's part of the problem is that it does sound nice to say don't make a permanent decision on a temporary, emotion, but.  it does not feel temporary when you're the, okay. I got a better one. Don't make a permanent decision for temporary situation. Cuz your situation's gonna change tomorrow.

Five seconds later, your situation's different cuz now you're in the future.  yeah, that makes more sense, right? Yeah.

To me it does. Yeah. I felt the same way about the emotion part I'm like, but how temporary is 20 years of feeling that way.  never not become temporary 30 years. 40 years. 50 years.  yeah. And then a lot of times I know I felt this way a lot and I've heard people express this of

 that, that fear of things, getting worse again. Because, especially once you've gotten older, past a certain, amount of years, there's certain patterns there's cycles that you start to see no matter how healthy or unhealthy your brain may be. There's patterns, there's cycles. And that was another thing that was so difficult is like being in those horrible, dark places, even if I could picture, okay, maybe tomorrow, this is gonna get better.

Maybe something's coming up. Maybe this is gonna change. I was also terrified of coming back there again, because I believe that no matter what I was gonna come back there because of how like my brain was, and that's another thing sometimes I think where people have felt that disbelief of but they were getting better, but they were doing better.

That, that fear of having to face that darkness again  is just as devastating as being in it. Yeah. At least it was for at least it was for me, yeah. And I know I'm sure it's a, it's a branch of the fight or flight response, but just always waiting for that shoe to drop that other shoe to drop, yep. And sometimes that was just so much more hopeless than even the really dark place you were in is having to come back to it because yeah, of course we're like fucking warriors. Look at what, what we've been through fuck we put up with shit. So it, Sometimes it's not even in that moment in that, that very dark moment.

It's the idea of having to come back to it again, over and over. And

that's a sword dangling over your head on a thread, feels like that though. Doesn't it? What,

what can be done, the one documentary that, I was involved in that was their big thing that was actually supposed to be the premise of the whole documentary is we keep dying. What can we done about it? And I.

at the end of the documentary we were talking about, I think, putting some to type of support system in place. But that hasn't material materialized. I don't know if it will or how it could,

but how do we watch out for each other,   I, I don't know what the answer is.  there's a few of us on social media that, have been quite upfront About the struggles that they've seen. I'm somebody that I don't get on social media almost at all. You wouldn't know that I'm struggling, even a person let alone on, on social media, but there are some some who do, talk about their struggle and talk about things that they're going from social media.

So when they come online and say, guys, I don't think I can do this anymore. Yeah. 95% of us are jumping up going, like somebody called them. Somebody called them, make sure that they're answering the phone. Like we, we have that reaction. But that's only because the few and far between who are very open and upfront or just vocal about.

The struggles that they're facing.

 Check on the quiet ones, check on the strong ones, check on the ones that are quiet because whatever's not coming out of their mouth is going on in their head. Yeah. I really think that cause a lot of people don't ever tell anybody what they're doing, what they're thinking.

Just all of a sudden they're gone. Yeah. Like we were just at the movies yesterday. What the hell? It's not usually okay everybody tomorrow at 4:00 PM, I'm gonna do this. Yeah, for sure. Well, Because a lot of people don't want to because then everybody's oh, you're just trying to get attention.

You didn't kill yourself last time. You said that it's like, what did you want them to kill themselves? . Yeah. That's the worst thing you can do is think that people are just trying to get attention. It's the same mentality of  people like, oh, they're just making up the abuse. And if they are trying to get attention, they probably fucking need it.

If you're going to that length. Yes. You need it from somebody. You need something from somebody that you're not getting. There's some connection that you desperately need that you're not making

   did you ever call the suicide hotline?  oh yeah.  oh yeah. I was parked in Tacoma out front of the fucking summer. One of those technical colleges. Yeah. Just I'm fucking gonna kill myself right now.  I was like, okay, fine. I'll call the hotline.  yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. So I've called the hotline a few times too, but it was enough to shift whatever was going on in my head.

In that moment. It definitely was. Yes, but it was also very fucking depressing to talk. Cuz whoever was on the other line, other end would always be like, I'm sorry, what happened to you?  I can't tell you how many, because they're not, they're not a therapist at the other end, right?

They're an empathetic and sympathetic voice, but they're just your average, Good Samaritan, but they so many times they would be like, I'm surprised that you haven't killed somebody by now. I'm surprised that you aren't in jail. I'm surprised. I'm surprised that you aren't a fucking drug addict, then I'm like  and I'm like, okay thank you that really doesn't help.

At all. It actually is just more depressing because like I'm calling the suicide hot one and they're like, dude, fuck.

That's what, when they're like, excuse me, what you grew up in a what? What happened? Oh my God. Yeah. but it's the same, it's the same situation. When so many of us, try to go for, for. For therapy or, to see a doctor or whatever it's

you get that same reaction a lot of times it's just people it's. So over the head of a lot of mental health workers or mental health and departments, and that's that's a huge factor as well. Yeah. Yes it is. Indeed., I used to daydream about if I had.  If money was not an option was not an obstacle of funding a hotline for those of us ex cult kids that have been through like some of the most traumatic stuff. Not just on the other end, isn't gonna be like, what the fuck?

Call my dog. They'll just be like, dude, I get it. Yeah. There exactly. Yeah. I can relate. That's a lot more comforting. Yeah. Yeah. A lot. A lot more. Otherwise it just feels like cult porn. That's what I call it. Cult porn, where everybody's just like, Ooh, tell me your story.   yeah. Now cults are becoming.  It's, they're much more talked about these days than they were even five years ago, but definitely more than even 10 years ago. So there's futuristically. Yeah. There's a lot of hope I think, for what the mental health  what the mental health world is gonna look like for people that have been through those experiences because it is true.

Like I was telling you earlier about the the trafficked survivor, who was,  looking into like how similar cults are to, to trafficking. There's a lot about that. Just that coercive thinking that, we were talking about in our class like that  there's this

 There's a certain type of injury that comes from that. That is really different  from another kind of trauma, because it's,

it's a strangulation of your personhood when that happens. When you are

forced coerced, pushed into a place of doing things that, are not your nature or even worse or not even human nature. That's a very deep type. Wound. That's not the same as,  living through a shooting or, being in a war zone or something like that.

I'm not absolutely fucking not comparing. This is not to say one is words or better. just, It's just different   sometimes what comes on top of that is is that hopelessness, it doubles down on that a little bit because you've been living at least for some period of time

with that devastation of losing , who you are losing touch with your free will

and it's not something that happened to you.  It's deeper than that. It's

I think that might be one of the reasons why we do see more

of the struggle to, to stick around from, from us who had to face that

and for us being born in the cult, you can't find who we were. Because we never were  right. There was no, before there wasn't a  before, but you don't also just fall into knowing who you are, once. The restrictions or the coercion is no longer there.

You don't just it's not like falling out of the bed. Oh, I guess it's time to wake up. That's just not how it works. It's like a long, long grown up process of learning who you are. And even what that looks like what does that look like? It's at least for me, in these last couple years it's been such, such a big deal of realizing that I have ADHD, because I never even knew that because of the way that my life was mandated up until just recently. So I'm like way over the age that anybody should supposed to be realizing that kind of stuff about themselves.

And it's sometimes I feel like stupid, like a, fucking child. When I'll talk to somebody about it and be like, oh my God I saw this, I saw this talk or I saw this video, or I read this thing about do you remember, I was telling you the other day somebody I was reading about again, and they were talking about patterns and it was like don't schedule yourself like, okay.

At, eight o'clock I'm gonna do the dishes. And then at nine o'clock I'm gonna clean my room, but like actually make it a pattern. Like first I gathered a silverware, then I stack the cups. Then I like basically taking away your a decision making process, which is what tends to Stu

That was a bit of a tangent, but. It's weird to me that I'm like, wow, that's amazing. That's a, that, that's an amazing insight. I'm like heading towards 50 and  that's an insight I'm realizing that right there is just part of the, the after effect of being born into being born as a prisoner of war.

And

I think sometimes that can also be discouraging. And what looks hopeless too, is

I'm grateful like that. I spent a lot of time talking about it and looking at it to, but for a long time, I believed I was too broken to heal. So did I. Yep. Actually I did until just the other day, when I heard that podcast, when Dr. Kubo was like, healing is available to everyone, I was like, hold the phone.

wait, what? . And then when he said that it seemed so logical oh my God, of course that's what it is. Yeah. , it's really hard to have a response to things when you don't believe that there's a solution.

And I maybe had, I known 25 years ago that I was gonna have to be dealing with learning how to work from home on my own and figure out how to deal with ADHD. I don't, I, I might have been pretty discouraged back then too. And I sometimes, so sometimes that's it's like it's. It's okay. Yes. I know.

I know that there is a direction I can go, but fuck, that's exhausting. And I'm too tired to do that. We were fucking exhausted when we were 14 years old. Yeah. We have been exhausted since, the team was tacked onto the end of our age. yep. Soldiers for Jesus. Yeah.  here in God's army. You're his elite troops.  

When I think about what can I do for, what can we do for each other? What can I do for, , my fellow,  my fellow prisoners award. ,  there's so much that you're up against, you're not just up against the trauma. You're not just up against, living your life under coercion and, being stripped of your, personhood, you're not just dealing with the exhaustion of I don't wanna go anywhere.

Like I don't want to get healed. I just want to like, enjoy my life to the point until I wear out, and it's stacked on top of stack and I'm not trying to say this to make it sound hopeless. Just that I'm just saying I understand  we talk about it.

We talk about why it's everybody dying  or what can we do about everybody dying? And it's hard to find something right away that can be done. There's definitely not anything simple that can be done that's for sure. No, I think the only simple thing that we can do is check on each other yeah.

 And be better at, or be more okay. With being honest. Yes. To people, it's okay to not be okay as, the popular saying goes, but also it's like, If someone's having problems or being problematic, say in our community online most of us just distance ourselves. We just, okay, just you sort that out instead of dude this is, whatever you might be, tell someone the truth, yeah. Don't just unfriend them  right.

Be like, no, okay, something's going on? What is it? Or this is whatever you're doing is making me uncomfortable. And a lot of us uncomfortable and we wanna know what's going on. Like those are conversations. We're so scared to have at least I sure I am so scared to have those conversations.

For sure. It's hard. It's hard, but those can be as helpful as checking on each other as well. . Yes. I agree if somebody's having a lot of really destructive behavior. Yeah. Don't just not do anything about it. Be like, dude, what's up, you're drinking like a whole bottle of vodka every night. Okay. We need to  figure out why

Yeah. Not just be like, Ew. You're an alcoholic Buckeye  yeah. So I guess that's the point of talking about  the things that we are up against that might be a little bit different or a little bit more compacted , that's the other reason why sometimes talking about the specific challenges we are up against is to understand that on a certain level, we are the only ones who can save.

We're the only ones who can save ourselves. But also we are a lot of times the only ones who can save each other too. We are not an island, no one is an island and yes, you can't expect someone to come to your rescue and be your white Knight in shining armor. But you also can play that role, don't expect it, but you can play that role for somebody else if they need it.

And obviously we all need it pretty badly. Yes. Yeah. Some people just need somebody to talk to. Yeah. Or, yeah of course, a lot of times too. There's just, there's. You can do everything. You can do everything. Talk, talk to them open you like yeah. Do everything that should be done. And the outcome is gonna be the same because that's, that was just a decision that, that, that person made.

So as painful as that is that's part of,

yeah that's part of the choice. I know this is a while back. People don't say it anymore, thankfully, that whole saying of that suicide is selfish is that, that always bothered me because I granted, if someone takes themself out of the equation, it's gonna hurt people that are left behind.

. If it's someone that I love someone that I'm close to.  It's gonna devastate me. But at the same time, like I would never be the person that says stay around for me. Please live in your pain, please live in this world. That makes no sense for you because I need you here because I want you here.

 I did that,

but what about me?   And it's super normal reaction, super fucking normal reaction. I just mean that sometimes there isn't anything that you can do it and it's not but what about the people you're leaving behind? Sometimes, that's not gonna make a difference or that's not gonna matter.

at that point anymore. It's not that they don't love you. It's not like that. They care it's right. Like I said, in their mind, the reasons to leave, outweigh the reasons to stay for whatever reason. Yeah.

Sad makes me sad. 

 I think the most hopeful thing I have to say is I'm still here.

and I, And I figure if, if I'm still around there's there's hope, there's hope. For better days, yes. I, I almost lost one of my kids to this. I did lose my God kid to this, to suicide. And

there were many, it wasn't just days and it wasn't just months. There were a couple years there that I didn't think I was gonna come out of it. I wasn't gonna come out of the complete shit show  war zone. That was my life place. But I'm so glad I did. I, so I'm so glad that I stuck around. Yes. Because where I am today, doing the things that I'm doing today, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have imagined myself, so right. I would say I'm pretty hopeful.  I love, hope story.  I always wanted to do things that I'm doing today.

Like this podcast and working with nonprofits, I just never thought it was possible for me. I thought, I'm too broken. There's just, I'm too fucked up. Everybody says I'm fucked up. So I guess I'm fucked up.

The psychiatrists tell you're fucked up then. Shit. What help do you have? That's the way I felt. Yeah. If they tell me I'm supposed to be drooling in a corner because of all my trauma, then you know, it makes you feel like, oh, okay, I guess that's probably what should be happening.

that's how I, a lot of times, somehow I pull through and yes, I believe that if we're here, there's hope. There's hope.  I never thought that I would own a house or huge  any of the things that yeah. That's happening in my life right now. I dreamed about them, but I just didn't think it was possible.

. And yet here I am  yeah. , even just not just what I'm doing and who I am, but even my surroundings, I live five minutes from the beach in a two bedroom, two bath paying less than most people in the area are paying for one bedroom and I couldn't have pictured that happening.

I couldn't have ever pictured that. I would ever be that lucky to come across something like that.   That is for sure. The hopefulness and yeah. To, to tack on to that. Yes, we did spend quite a bit of time talking about the things that we're up against, but when we are all still here in spite of the things that we're up against,  it's just that much more amazing

it's that many more pats you can put, you can put on your back because Even if, just, to prove them wrong is a good enough reason sometimes to stick around. So that's true too. That was another thing that motivated me all the time. Every time I was at that.

Okay. Fuck it. Point I'm ready to die. I was like, but.  then they're gonna win. Ooh, no, I don't like that.  yeah. I never wanted them to win. I that's been seriously something that's really kept me around. Yeah. Because I felt like my demons were winning if I did that. And I just don't wanna do that.

Yeah, absolutely. . I did want two lots of times, but there's more  but wait, there's more  yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it takes a long time. It took both of us almost 20 years. Didn't it? After we left the cult to get our shit together and start actually building a life instead of just scraping at survival.

 Yes. It was about 20 years. Wasn't it? Yeah. For me that was a 20 year hike. Yeah. All uphill . Yeah. For me it was  I thought things were gonna go one way for a little while there, yeah. When I was, going down my business career right place, back when I was running the, my half marathon, I'm not that's that place.

And that's where I crash from. But yeah, that's, it was a lot of scraping and scrapping to, to get where we are today. That's for sure. Yes. I was just thinking about it today. This is phase three. Oh, yes. Phase one called okay. Phase two, trying to learn how to escape the cult phase three, building Jemima.

fantastic. Yeah. This is phase three. I feel like this is phase three. I feel like all that, now is the time where I yeah. Work on myself and make my life better. Yeah. And try to help other people make their lives better too. For sure.

Ooh. I know something hopeful.

I posted on Facebook today? Actually just a little bit before we started this, so I had a memory come up on Facebook, September 6th, 2012. We're selling a super bowl game ball with autographs when the 49ers trying to pay rent. Anybody interested?

and that motivated me to think about all the things that I've gone through since that time, because that was around the time when I was very suicidal when I was ready to just any day was yeah. That the last day. Yeah. And that was around. That was around when my shit was going on too.

Yes. So I, yeah. So these last 10 years for you and I have been huge. Yeah. Huge. So yeah, I quit a very heavy opiate addiction. I quit drinking. After 13 years of alcohol addiction, I got addicted to UN quit meth. In that 10 years, I quit smoking. After 18 years, I've been cigarette free for four years.

I was in people magazine and a people magazine, investigates documentary, and quite a few other newspaper magazine articles. We bought a house. Mm-hmm ,, I've held a steady job for over eight years after being fired.  five times in a row.  I remember that  whisper had the idea to start a podcast and we did, and it's been going strong for a year and a half.

And that's what you're listening to  and I've made leaps and bounds in my recovery, especially since starting the podcast. Yeah. I feel like the podcast has been a very healing journey for both of us. Like we've said many times we're healing in public, so you could heal in private. Yeah, absolutely. So there is hope.

Yes. We're both here to tell you  there is hope the sun will shine again. There may still be clouds in the sky.

but it's not always gonna be as dark as it is today. Yes.

Where there's life there's hope. As long as we're still breathing  there's still hope. Yes.

Yeah, it's funny for everything that we went through in every fucking Ohr that we ever wrote. We actually . Aren't very good at Naval gazing. No, because we made all that shit up. I made every fucking word of every fucking Ohr up because if you wrote anything real, you were gonna get isolated.

And punished and having to do toilets and digging outside from 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM, which when you're in fucking Thailand and it's 120, like that's a death sentence.  yes. That's why we didn't. Yeah, we didn't, we don't know who we are. We couldn't really figure it out. Yeah. Because we're just associated all the way back here who our, our real us was locked in a cage in the way very back of our hearts and minds and souls.

Yeah. To just survive. And now we're chill. Still trying to figure it out.  that's part of the fun though, right?  yes.  I hope it's not too heavy for people. It might be for some people, it'll be one of those things that.

you'll be like, I'll listen to that when I'm ready.  Yes. Yeah. And that's okay. Absolutely. That's fine. Sometimes you're not prepared. Your soul is not ready to go somewhere and you just have to wait until it is. And when it is, you're like, okay, let's go. Don't push yourself too hard.

We all push ourselves too hard. Sometimes we just need to be like, okay, let's just slow down here a little bit. .. Day.

 Remember, remember that every butterfly was once a caterpillar  that's right. 📍