Chutes and Ladders, Cult Version

We had the privilege of being guests on another podcast, Critical and Thinking with Ty Barnett and Ian Harris. Join us as we chat more in depth about some of the topics covered, and a few other tangents. 

Butterflies and Bravery wishes you all a happy Thanksgiving week. This time of year can be difficult for many of us, so we hope you find a way to enjoy your time and create traditions that are meaningful to you and your loved ones. Whether it's your birth family or chosen family, we wish you all peace and joy.

Transcript

  📍 Hello. Hello. . After technical difficulties have now been solved, we shall just repeat everything that we said except for it in a funnier way. No.

So I wrote a haiku I wanted to read to you It is not life that changes or becomes better. It is you, my dear. 

Yeah. Haiku's have always been something for me that I've of been like, okay, but where's the rest of the sentence?

There's something in my brain that's there's more, don't more, there's supposed to be more words. . . All right. . I that, yeah. My, ADHD brain is like it's no, what? That's not enough.

 did I tell you about that post that I saw on Twitter this doctor ADHD guy , was making a post about  always feeling like you're failing. Did I tell you about that?

  When I read it, I was just like, oh, damn, that's, yeah, that's extremely hell accurate. And then all these people underneath it were like, Hey, other people feel like this. It's not just, yeah, fuck. It's not just me . So that was nice too, but it that always  boggles my mind to be honest with you, because , most people  in my mind have it much more together than me.

Like way much more together. But then, I'll read something like that. Or I'll he hear something someone will say and I'm like, oh, you're struggling that bad.

I guess my thing is just I don't know how, I don't know necessarily how to fake it. , , but you do. You just don't know it.

maybe.

   So welcome everyone to butterflies and bravery.  We actually had a really very cool day today. . We were guests on another podcast. We were interviewed as guests.

Critical and thinking. Yeah. With Ty Barnett and Ian Harris.  They're great. They're really great. And  I really like the direction that they take their podcast, like that whole  critical thinking piece is just, we were talking about so missing . Lisa  had interviewed with them a few months ago, right? Yeah. I'm assuming that during their interview,  something came up and she's like, well, let's get everybody on here.

And so yeah, we all came in four, four of us guests. And then both of them, yes, it was Lisa Kendall, the founder of Counter Cult Coalition that I work with, and then Grace Bolling who also works with the Counter Cult Coalition, and then Whisper, of course, representing I five, freedom Network,  and butterflies and bravery and butterflies and Brave.

Jemima representing herself. No

representing lots of things.  So the direction of the interview was around critical thinking and both Ty and Ian definitely had some questions that were interesting because  a lot of, their questions  would've been better directed  to a first generation. Yes. To an fga.

Because like  when Ty asked what's the hook? ? And I'm like we. We were born into it. That's the hook.  I know that of course we answered to the best of our ability and it is in a lot of ways secondhand information, but it's also observed information.

We sat, there  it was like a theater run in front of us the whole entire time.  There were very few, probably even days , but at least there was never a week that went by where I wasn't like what are you, why? What is a reasoning behind that ? Like the kind of things that they would just come up with and no explanation.

Like I was saying, it's just the do it cuz Daddy said so, and.

about trying to break down your critical thinking. Oh yeah. Like that. That's literally I'm not gonna give you any leeway to think whatsoever. You're just gonna do it cuz I said so and we watched that,  we watched our parents' generation walk into that  wall.

But for us it was just a way of life,  I think , by the time we got around talking a little bit more and as they were asking about okay, how'd you get out? Cuz that's probably in a lot of ways the bigger feet than, someone who joined and then left. It's really the bigger feat cuz , we're out there on our own your choice is homelessness or . Yeah. Not only that, but  challenging someone's belief system is one of the most difficult and painful things. I was watching Adam ruins everything today, and he was actually talking about that. He was saying that when you challenge someone's beliefs, not even their mind, but their subconscious mind is already  going to not want to listen to you because you're basically challenging the whole structure that your mind has built.

And he said it's incredibly painful , to realize that it's wrong and that what you've believed and what you've done or what you've been taught to do more like in our situ. Is wrong. And I thought that was really interesting because I was like, dude, that is straight up the truth. Like it is one of the hardest things to do to change everything around you.

. And , that's  can be why so many people choose to stay in the situation that they're in, even though they know it's not the most healthy situation. I've been talking to someone with listening service that has that exact issue. She's in a situation that she knows is unhealthy. But doesn't feel like she has a choice of anywhere else to go because her whole mind is like, this is home, this is love, this is the way it is.

And I'm like, girl, you need to change a situation . But that takes. Not only immense courage, but immense effort as well.  Cause you're betting all in against yourself, basically. When you're gonna set out from something as entrenched as  being born into a cult and you set out to change that.

Yeah. You're talking about uprooting everything.  And just going into something that you have no clue about. It's like, are you gonna,  jump off of this cliff and trust that there's water there? You haven't seen it  like that.

That is a lot of the feeling  it was when it was like, okay,   we gotta get out of here. But then, okay, now what? Like how do we, and we talked about it before though, of course, that I think different areas, at least in, The Children of God, the different areas of the,   world  you are in is gonna have different levels.

If you're trying to leave the cult in England, there might be more options available to you. Then there were for, you know, us in Thailand,   that's not to say that, somebody should have done something differently than what they did. .

There were definitely some situations that we were in where it was just, you had no choice. You were gonna either,  turn right or left. It wasn't like, oh, what are the different pathways I can take? , we didn't even get into the interview today , that we didn't have money.

 That we were not allowed to touch money. No.  You don't really have time in that short amount of time with that  amount of people and setting to even cover, I don't think in any universe one hour would be enough to even cover our lives unless it was somebody's speed rating 

like really fast. No. Yeah. . I was gonna say about the.  Changing your life thing. It's not just leaving the castle and going on a mission. It's like leaving the castle and getting in the doctor who phone booth and ending up in an entirely different universe. I think that's a good,  analogy about the way it was for us, because it wasn't just changing from this house to that house or changing from this church to that church, or even changing from this marriage to that marriage  it was all of those things and it was like stepping into an entirely different world, like going into Narnia.

. It's like, whoa, what the fuck is this? And where am I and what's going on over here? And who are these people?  And in a lot of ways because of the way that we were indoctrinated  if you step outside of these parameters of our. Blessed  elite life of being the chosen ones. If you step out of that, God's gonna punish you.

So

Just by deciding, taking the first steps , to get out of there, to escape, you are also having to face up to your belief system right then and there. It's not okay, these guys are not exactly Christian I'm having this problem, that problem. It's not at all like that.

It's like, okay,  do I believe that what they've been telling me is true? Or not? Cuz it it's not just oh, I don't like how I'm being treated, or I don't like the situation that I'm in. It's not just that  it's all the things. But when I do think about.

you know, the question that was asked in the interview today , why don't you leave? Which everybody asks , that's the question too, domestic abuses to human trafficking, to cult  cult babies. But I think

 not having money, I mean, that, that's a, that's like a really substantial thing and it's not  like you can, go open a lemonade stand, on the corner of romcom, hang

that piece at lemonade stand

Help this pour along

That's basically how I raised money to go to Russia. And it wasn't that bad, but if you were going to another country and you were gonna stay inside the cult, you would get the support of the commun of the home.  When we decided to split and we told them that we were, we are going to the mission field they were like, okay,  every Friday or every Saturday or whatever you can go out and do, your begging and you get to keep the proceeds of that.

That home that we were in, they were really big on the buckets.  at the stop lights. , canning. Yeah, canning. So isn't that what they called it? They should have called it bucketing.

yeah. So like we get one day of the week that's like, okay, you,  can have the money. With me it was 50 50. Oh, you get 50% of everything you raise and you give us 50% of everything you raise minus expenses. Of course

But yeah, it took me  a long time to raise enough to go to Russia.

Are there other  extremist cults? We know over that we've talked to that have that control over the finances, the way that the children of God did. Because most people that we've been able to talk to or have heard from, or even  in our experience of walking this earth, most of the cult members ex members or born ins have been in the western world.

And that was their experience. Like you were saying earlier today  we have that unique experience, first of all of being raised overseas. Yeah. Traveling around from country to country crossing borders, legally, illegally, . . I haven't heard of any other cult that we've interviewed or that we've talked to where they were like, yeah, we had to turn in every single penny that we made.

We are not allowed to hold any money whatsoever. Yeah, no. Cause all of those ones are dead. , they all drank the Kool-Aid and died. . Yeah. That was probably it.  , if we circle back around to the ugly shit the other thing that I hadn't thought of for quite some time. Is that, do you remember we had to turn in our passports? Yeah, for sure.

 Now that I live out  in the real world, I understand so much more now,  how significant that is.  Confiscating your id, your  passport. So when you talk about money and you talk about  your passport being gone cuz we, we were overseas, right?

 Your choice gets chopped down to  you can go homeless and it was scary, at least for me. I don't know if you saw this, but. It wasn't that unusual to see foreigners, to see white people begging on the streets of Thailand because that they would come, they would get there, the backpackers, and then, they'd come on practically nothing thinking that, like they can work their way through something.

There's gonna be hostiles, whatever  and then something goes sideways one way or another and they're out of money. And they have nothing. They have no way to get home or go anywhere. And they will sit there begging on the street next to, all this, all the other beggars and all the other trash and that whole side of things.

That was scary and ugly. And I just, that was one of my big things was , that's my choice. Like sitting on the sidewalk of, Bangkok trying to get enough bot for food and then home.

Because, yeah, I don't even know if, cause we were, we are minors, so I'm, at least for a while, I don't even know what that would entail if we could walk into the embassy and say, Hey, don't have my passport. Because most of us weren't  born in the United States. So it's not like they could be like, okay, let me look up your birth certificate or let me look up your social security number.

There wouldn't be one. So yeah, I mean that that's pretty far up there when you talk about that type of control and coercion is that they would hold our passports.

You're right now, I'm like, the fuck, I would not give that to anybody. I don't care who you are.  I hadn't thought about it for quite a while until just, the last couple days I was going , oh my God.  they took our passports and even if you went out and you took your passport with you the leader that was with you on the team would hold it.

 You would never have a hold of that.

Speaking of passports,  I'm going down a side road. Have I ever showed you those tattoos that people have where they're  the passport stamps, it's  a collage of passport stamp. From different countries? I don't think so. Yeah. So,  I love that idea  as a tattoo, and  I'm a traveler.

just by nature. I'm never gonna be not a traveler. So that's always appealed to me. But it came back to   when I was writing that chapter for my book, because I'd always wonder what happened to our passports. Because, the proof that I lived in 14 countries, , where did all those stamps go?

And I forgot that when we left Malaysia, cuz we were blacklisted , , my mom put all of our passports in the bathtub and pour bleach on them and let them sit overnight. Obviously now with technology, that wouldn't have wrecked them. But in those days sure, sure did. And so they were just  no pictures, no stamps, no nothing.

And that gave them the excuse to go get new passports that wouldn't have  the blacklisted stamp in them. . But yeah wow,  there's certain things  for sure about my past that or,  backstory that I would've really liked to have been able to keep and connect with.

And certainly my old passports would've been really high up there,  on, yeah, for sure. Because then  for example, if I took my passport and got a tattoo based on the countries I've been in,  you would be putting the authentic date  and country stamp on your tattoo.

It would be pretty cool, I think. That was a divergent trail because did you know that  my step father taught the military there in Thailand for years and years?  When we got blacklisted in Malaysia the leadership  they wanted us to come to Thailand and everybody in Thailand would take their visa trips right down to Malaysia.

They would give you six months, right? You could get three months , and then a three month extension, something like that. So yeah,  people were there for years on a quote unquote tourist visa. Yep. And just by going back and forth to the border, twice a year.

But we never did from the moment that we stepped into the country  because of that situation in Malaysia, we wouldn't have been able to cross that border.  So as soon as we got to Thailand, they hooked my stepfather up with a teaching job for the military, which  if you remember  very few people did that, it was  definitely  a big honor.

Yeah. It like meant your, like whatever. And so yeah, he really thought he was  fucking something because he had that, we never had to leave the country. We were there  the entire time straight for, the 12 years. 

So essentially he had a working visa, I guess really was what it was.   And Thailand's so awesome. They're like, oh, you have eight children and a wife. Sure. We'll give them all visas too. . That's crazy. , that sucks for you. Cause those Visa trips were  the best I know. Fucking times with the visa trips because you got to eat out and you got to have exposure.

You got to ride a train.  One time we rented bicycles and rode down the beach.  You got to do  activities cuz you were there. You had to be there. It was a week trip. It was, a day and a half down, a day and a half back. And then you  waited for like two days and then you got your visa.

So you had two days of waiting where you couldn't really do anything and you weren't allowed to preach the gospel there. So we would go and fucking lay on the beach and take trips and go sneak in through sweet hotels and snag a towel and go lay by their pool. I had such, like we all did, we had such bad FOMO

Oh, I bet. Because I don't blame you. Those were some really, some of my happiest times in time. Right, Because you're  stepping outside of was not entire here of the, concentration camp situation that we are in. Yeah. Is it bad to use that word? I don't know.  The thing  that always was  super weird to me though was  when children were born in the country, they wouldn't go and get them passports or legal papers or anything so that they could be a citizen of the country,  , I was, I think I was 14.

 14 Living in , one of the homes, one of the communes. And

one of the single moms had to go take her visa trip and she had a baby. And they're like, no, you can't take the baby. So she left her baby with me, 14 years old, left her  three month old baby with me and went across, you went on a pizza trip for a week.

Now, I'm not saying she did it willingly, she was very upset,  but the leadership were like, we're not gonna pay for that beach. So no. He he's in there,, he's a citizen of this country. He's gonna stay. And this kid this poor little fucking baby had colic for one thing.

He had colic and he had only been nurse, he'd only been breastfed. And they're like well, bye here, whisper. Here's the baby. Good luck. Up until that point, until they literally handed him to, Like, all he'd done is his mom's, nerve scene. Oh, that was an awful week. That was, it was

, I can't even tell you how many times that week that I just broke down in tears. , they kept trying   all these different things, trying to get him to eat and he wouldn't take the bottle for anything. Finally,

 We talked about it and somebody was like, let's try, coconut water for him. Cause  the baby coconuts, they have all those nutrients. It's actually pretty, substantial electrolytes and all that kind of stuff  and that he started taking, but it had been three days, three days before that kid ate. And he would just cry and cry cuz colic, right? The only thing that got him to stop crying was I'd lay him down in one of those Raton chairs  spun and just  swung him back and forth as fast and as hard as I could.

It's the only time he didn't cry, and that's when I would start crying

But yeah,  it's crazy.   Thinking about something like that now,  as a mother,  imagine just  leaving your three month old baby , you don't know what's gonna happen. And especially because she knew that , he had colic.

 It was a very difficult situation. And they're like, no, you can't take him. What if she got denied at the border? Then what? You know what I mean? But yeah.  It's just another one of those things that we didn't really question because that was , our way of life. There wasn't any other way that we knew. Yeah, exactly. No critical thinking. No critical thinking. Yes. I had zero, zero row, and I actually remember when I was, I think I was 15.

15 or 16, was at the school, the training center in Thailand. I remember I think it was when Mary was in isolation for her doubts cause she was having doubts. Remember that? And they isolated her quite a while. Yes. Yeah. And I remember thinking to myself probably just shouldn't think because if you think you're gonna have doubts and if you have doubts, you're gonna get isolated and in trouble.

maybe just try to stop thinking .   I actually remember going through that thought process in my head of okay, we need to not think because if we do we're gonna get hurt

  I remember . We would fight to get a chance to be on the bottom bunk,  in our sleeping situations, because we could put all this stuff at the top of the bunk, and I would just feel it with  drawings and quotes and , all this kind of stuff so , when I was trying to sleep, I could sit there and just read it.

It was the only thing that could keep my mind quiet. . But yeah.  They were very happy when we were in that state. Yeah. And anybody that did think, or tried to make others think was  instantly removed.  From the situation,  the only people who were, I wouldn't say allowed to leave, but the people who were encouraged to leave and aided on their mission in leaving.

Were the ones who were vocal . About their doubts  and would not submit, and would not comply and would not conform.  They would automatically try first to silence you and to change you. Yeah. But if that didn't work, it was, you're out, you and your parents y'all are out,  they just kicked people out.

Kids, young kids. Yeah. They sent Joe out  he was somewhere between 15 and 16. But yeah, Just   took him to his home country, which is in Europe.

He didn't speak a word of the language. Didn't speak a word of any of the languages. 15 year old kid just dropped him there and then left him.

  It's really funny cuz when you think about it nowadays my healthy critical thinking skills say if something is correct, if something is right, then it can withstand shit.  You can come against me  with whatever  argument that you have.

You're not gonna convince me that I should spank my kids, I can watch any. I can watch Dr. Majors, I could read books, I could do anything like that. You're not gonna convince me to  smack my kids. , because that's my belief and that's what I believe is right. But they were just so terrified of the littlest thing, getting in.

So when that whole thing happened with Joe, when he started having those normal teenage thoughts , do you remember, they separated him and sent him to that other house to wait while they arranged his dad to come pick him up to drop 'em off. So they wouldn't even let us like that was it.

Like he was, he no longer exist.

So, Yeah, I mean, how terrifying that would be for any kid, take any 15, 16, 17 year old that you know of and say, okay, , you're gonna be cut off from everybody. You're gonna be cut off from your friends, your family, your parents, like everything. You have to either know that there's something on the other side of that, or you have to be ready to  pay that price.

A friend of mine that was born in the children of God,   her and her brother left when she was like 17 and he was 15. And they were homeless on the streets in England for quite, quite a while. Whatever their previous situation was it was worth it, to them.

Unfortunately that was the only choice that they had.  It's sad. So  but not everybody can make that choice

like that. That's not necessarily an option that everybody had even.



 What else of stood out to you from the interview today?

Uh, The whole like,

I don't understand how you can hurt a child thing. . I think that's a very common . Feeling 

I think we talked about it last week , with the whole, you don't get it because you're not them. And thank goodness you don't, because if you did get it, you would be one of them. Yeah. So you, we don't understand. Yay. But yeah, I think that's a big thing.

What, , what really is the answer? , it's a slow boiling, first of all. Usually you're not instantly dropped in the hot water. You just slowly get accustomed to it till you realize that you're burnt. And then also the whole, but we did it in love . Therefore, it was not wrong.

I noticed somebody commented on the comments like, oh yeah, NAMBLA has the same thing.  We're just talking about that . like these people have found a way somehow to justify in their minds that it's okay because we're doing it to show these little boys that we love them.

Yeah. And then you take those two elements. Plop on top of it.  The pressure to conform    as humans, like one of our deepest needs is connectivity.  We need to feel connected, we need to feel   like we belong, we want belonging. And hand in hand  there's that validation too.  Validation is actually a really powerful way to show someone that you care for them, that you love them, that you respect them because you're seeing them, you're acknowledging them, you're saying, yes, this is you.

I see you. And so, that was the carrot that they stuck in front of.  Our parents' generation  and. How contradictory the whole situation always was because, you know, so you wanna be a leader,  one of the basic beliefs, right? That was  one of the first publications you had to read.

 Supposedly their basic belief system was , you shouldn't want to be a leader, right? You should not wanna be in charge. You just wanna only God works through me, type of a thing. But yet, leadership was used as a reward system, right? If you were doing good, if you were  compliant, obedient, and then you would go up the ranks and the second you did something wrong, straight back down, you get demoted.

 That  just never held any type of water because, What they practiced was  a demotion, promotion, reward system. Real life Chutes and Ladders, , real life Chutes and Ladders that's exactly what it was though. It really was like, if you just happened to land on this one spot, that's the wrong number.

Cause you never fucking knew what you, what gonna do that was wrong. You were like, okay. I didn't know that was wrong. Once in a while, I knew , but most of the time I did not know. There were times that I remember blatantly choosing to disobey and now I'm fucking proud of myself for that show, . And then of course I was like, why did I do that?

What the hell was I thinking? But now I'm like, that is so awesome. You actually sit up for yourself. Yay. Yeah.  It took a lot, it took a lot under those circumstances, . And it's funny that you don't even realize that. I didn't realize then that, that was some kind of little bit of strength of me coming out.

 Trying to  challenge the system or rebel. . Specifically told don't do something and then doing it . Yeah. Like me taking home that cassette tape,  that was an absolute act of revolution. , it was like a rebellion. When you're so trapped, when you're so confined in those ways.

 Sometimes it is the littlest things, the little daisy growing up through the crack and the cement type of a thing. Like sometimes that's what you had. Hold onto that. Was it

 , real life shoots and ladders. Fuck . That was our whole fucking life, dude. It was a game of sheets and ladders. It really was. And it was. And it's actually a really good metaphor because

place time and whatever might have been going on in that home, that commune that you were in. So completely a roll of the dice, , how many spaces you were allowed to move forward and move back. Like you have no control over it. And you might land on this, this little tiny ladder that gets you up right to the second row,  there was just like never any rhyme or reason to it.

Yeah. Sure wasn't. That's a difficult way to grow up, never knowing what the standards are.

It's,

it's the most unsettling

way of being raised for a kid. Yeah. And I didn't even realize it until recently, but every time I get a new job on my first day, I always ask, what are the big nos? What do you get fired for? What do I not supposed to do? What are the big no-nos? And people always like, oh, I don't know.

And I'm like, dude, come on. Gimme something . You gotta tell me what they are, man. I gotta know. I don't wanna fucking do something and get in trouble and get yelled at here. And that was that insecurity coming through of not ever having, this is what it is, and this is what's gonna happen if you do this.

No, yeah. It was just, quit doing that whack, why? What did I do? Doesn't matter what you did to sit up and quit doing it. Yeah. That's actually a very interesting conversation that we haven't, we we've talked around it a couple of different times, but it's a very interesting conversation of what it's been like for those of us that left, that escaped and going to work.

In a world that we didn't know, and we were just talking about it earlier today,  after the interview your only value was, what you could produce. And so yeah, it ended up creating this

   A false worth work ethic because it's not like I'm doing this because I , have integrity for myself and, it can feel like that certainly. And you can channel it towards that. . But you also can't deny that there's this underlying side of I have to prove myself to be allowed to be here.

 Work ethic is always like a huge thing. Every single one of us. Oh my God we never imagined, you could work that hard or that well, or that good. But then, yeah, at the same time, we also spent every single day in a, regular, secular job with translating ourselves,  trying to struggle through, the triggers or the fears, anxieties, like you were saying.

 What's the big no-nos?  Most people wouldn't think that's hanging over their head, or even if it is, most people have sort of a more blase attitude towards it, but okay, I got fired. That shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have done whatever. Moving along to the next step in my life, I'm gonna go at it.

And not that it's easy, it's terrible to have to find a new job but for us that that would be devastating, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was, it got fired like seven times.

Oh gosh. Yeah.   It's a big discussion because there's also some of us second generation who stayed in the cult for much longer than the rest of us, and.

Ended up profiting off of that, because they stayed through all the way until oh, , we can hold our own money. And they were getting training that, that landed them the second they finally did walk out the door. It landed them immediately into this extremely, beneficial, privileged position.

, the whole work thing. Really interesting question.   one of our former guests I saw, posted for her today. She was just like, I have all this experience with childcare. How do I put that on a resume? Like, how do you put what you did onto a resume?

Because you know that we're chameleons.  we can make anything happen out of nothing. And how do you translate that into. A resume that is believable and that other people understand.

The first time I went to go write a resume I was just like, what in the actual  did you ever write? Didn't you ever have to write a resume? Yeah. Actually, ironically, one of my first jobs when I left was working for an employment listing service, and that's one of the things I did. It's help other people write their resumes.

Oh, very cool. Even though I had never written one or had no clue what it was, , I quickly educated myself and I helped other people do it, and I impressed everybody. Yeah.  and I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I can write a hell of a resume today now. Yes, same. I've been helping the kids with theirs.

Oh, nice. Very cool. But  that's a huge thing.  that's your first sort of  mountain  that you gotta get over. I didn't even know there was such a thing as resumes. . 

 If we're this good, would just what we've learned are self-taught really.

 What the hell would we be like if we actually had education? Yeah. We're not gonna go to school because then we would be way too daunting for anybody else to and we and we wouldn't wanna do that to the world, we gotta give other people a chance. So Yeah.

We don't want anyone else to feel like it's for society, it's really a what do you call it? It's a altruistic Yes. Altruistic reasoning. Absolutely. Nothing's about it. No,

  My youngest sister  she's very smart, very similar type of analytical,  thinker like me.  I recognize a lot of our similarities, the way that we think.

 And because she was the youngest and because, , they finally got out of the cult. They both poured all their money and attention.   She went to the best school,  she was in a fraternity. , she was able to intern  during the summer for a senator in DC and yeah and she's running around  baking shit ton of money, 

and it's really hard for me not to look at her and be like,

that could have been me. It's really hard.

 Who knows? Who knows who we would've been , when I first got out, I was thinking that I would want to be a lawyer because I do like debating. And on the other hand is one of my favorite phrases.

 I just wanted to be a singer and an actress. I know

You never know. It's never too late. Technically I am an actress cause we're podcasting  This  , it can count in Jemima Land. If it wants to count, it can count. You're in the entertainment industry, let's put it like that. Yes. I'm in the entertainment industry. Yeah. All right. We say goodnight. You are tired.

 I told you what my therapist brought up about, that health scare that I had  we talked about it for quite some time and she texted me afterwards. She was like, you know what just came to my mind is sleep devision that.

Yeah. Because it's been  three or four months now that I've had this insane insomnia, two, three nights a week staying up straight through,  regularly staying up 48, 72 hours straight and yeah. So when she said that, I was like, oh my Lord. So as much as I hate it and as much as it's torture to be in bed to try and go to sleep and your head won't, your mind won't turn off.

It's torture. I would not do, like I'd get up and go do something. Then that's, that was what I was dealing with. But now , I'm thinking I need to power through this a little bit and get Yeah get my rhythms back in a better place. That's what I do. I wake up a lot of times after.

Maybe four hours, and my mind will not, it won't stop. And up and down four or five times. Now I'm thirsty. Now I have to pee. I have to poop. Now I need my inhaler, this and that. My mind just will not turn off. But I don't know, I just have this you're not allowed to get up,

I just tell myself, you are not allowed to do anything for this amount of time except for being in that bed. Yeah. And then of course , it's getting shorter as I get older, but

 it's hard sometimes. It's really fun and hard.  I used to actually listen to Sleep talk downs, like a meditative sleep talk down. And that really helped. And I stopped listening to them. So that's, I brought that back. So yes. That's great. That's very helpful. Little bit closer to the road to recovery, but  when she said that about the sleep, I was like, fuck, it all makes sense now.

Cause  I knew it wasn't anxiety, but no. Was it like, I wouldn't go so far as to say was it a stroke? Cause mini stroke. Yeah, A mini stroke. I think it probably was. But I think that the sleep triggered my Yes. Triggered by.

Triggered by, yes. Yeah. Cause I mean they did three different tests on my heart. They're like, your heart's a thousand percent great. Your cholesterol's great. You're like, everything was great. Yeah, it was definitely, triggered by something outside of, my, my regular,

Day to day. So what I've done is I've compromised with myself and I allow myself to read. It's the only thing I'll allow myself to do, but read in my bed. Read. If I can't sleep, I read until my eyelids start Toro, and then I'll turn off my light. And then if I lay down and I still can't read, I'll get back.

I'm turn my light back on and keep reading some more. Yeah. Eventually I get tired enough where I fall asleep, but then if I wake up in the middle of the night, same thing. I'm only allowed to read. I'm not allowed to get out of my bed after reading my bed. It's silly little rules like I'm a child or something, but it's the only way I can regulate myself.

 , I hate regulation, but ats the time. If I'm unregulated, I just, things are going wrong. Yeah. Now my brain just cannot fucking function. Yeah. It just goes on like I'm on sleep mode or something and I can't do fucking anything. , it's on strike. Yeah. Seriously though, my brain was like, Nope, not doing it.

And I'm just like, anyhow, let's do this and let's do that. Nope. Nothing fucking works. Yeah. But yeah, I think we just have to learn to work with our bodies instead of against them. Cause we were basically raised to work against our body  against our minds. And now we're like, let's work together, body and mind

And like no, no.  To be fair though, like that's what I thought I was doing. My body will not sleep. My eyes will not close my mind. So I'm gonna work with , with what I'm being given right now,  I thought that I was responding to my body,  I'm sure it's a combination of different things that was causing me insomnia, but yeah, it's not a wrong response.

It's just a different response.  a little bit more healthy draw another card. . Try that one. What does it say? Draw four. Okay. Draw four more. Reverse. Okay. Let's reverse. Yeah.

Oh my Lord. Ah, I'm. That was so funny when he was like, yeah, if you asked me if I masturbate, I'm just gonna be like, yeah, I masturbate.

Wait, what just happened? What?

Okay.

 when you said he was on last Comic Standing, I was like, yes. I fucking watched the episode that he was on. I fucking watched that. I wonder. Yeah, I really like him so familiar to me. He was younger and clean shaven, but still quite a bit different actually. Yeah, I was looking up some of the, just like Googling Gooing him, but I remember watching,  and I remember rooting for him. He was . One of the people I rooted for. , it's great to see that he's out and about and doing his thing still. Yeah. Good. Doing what he loves. Yeah. I think anything that makes people think is a good thing. Yes. Challenge your perceptions. Challenge your perceptions.

Always challenge your perceptions. Yes. Challenge everything. I tell all the kids,  question , everything. And if someone says, don't question me, question them even more.

I told you that , the first job that I got, my old boss he used to call me cute. Q . Cause he's like, I never met anybody that asks as many questions as you ask . Cause we're just  trying to not get in trouble over here. So many, yeah. So many questions. And at one point he was like, listen, whisper.

10 questions. That's it. When you hit 10 questions in a workday, you're done.  You cannot ask anymore questions. That's fucking funny. . That's funny. You're like, but sir. Yeah. He'd be like, that's 11. No, just one more please. But yeah, he used, he called me Q. That was really funny. That's cute. All right, love.

Wrap it up. Yes. And a pretty little tobo, and tell everyone to have a happy Thanksgiving. Yes. And we will have a happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time  whether it's your children, family, or biological family, whatever you're doing this coming week, just know that you're gonna get. Everything's gonna be okay.

Even if you're by yourself, , you're by yourself. Sometimes that's the best choice. Yes. When everything else around you is toxic It's a really important thing though because there's this pull to create traditions because we didn't have any.

So Thanksgiving is an easy time to lock onto it. But then we also have the opposite situation where most of us have a pretty toxic family environment, , one way or another it's toxic . And that can be really difficult and really triggering. I told my kids , when we were first living by ourselves, I was like, we're gonna make our own traditions. And you can. So make your own traditions, don't feel obligated because your health, your sanity, , your safety matters more than anything. For sure. Keep an eye on your pressure valve, let out some not steam.  You can feel. It's about to be too much, and you're about to get to that point where you're like, one more hay gets on this stack and the whole cart's gonna fucking break All right. Stay brave

Remember that every butterfly was once a ketchup pillow.  📍