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Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Attention Seeking vs. Connection Part 2
Ever wondered why some behaviors are mistaken for attention-seeking when they're really cries for connection? Join us on a heartfelt exploration of the thin line between these two often-confused concepts. Real Talk with Tina and Ann uncovers the hidden motivations behind seemingly disruptive actions, emphasizing the importance of understanding and fulfilling the innate human need for connection. By sharing intimate stories and professional insights, we shed light on how past traumas can manifest in harmful ways and offer practical strategies to foster healthier relationships with those seeking genuine emotional bonds.
Throughout this episode, we dive deep into the challenges and joys of parenting, particularly when raising children with unique needs. We highlight the crucial role of making children feel valued and understood. Listen in as we explore tailored learning approaches and the significance of nurturing environments, sharing how these elements contribute to children's thriving and secure attachments.
As we journey through the complex terrain of childhood trauma and loss, we share a poignant personal story of grappling with grief and maintaining normalcy amidst chaos. This narrative reminds us of the importance of recognizing the hidden struggles children may face and the necessity of adult attentiveness to these silent cries for help. Finally, we explore the courage it takes to seek assistance on the healing journey, reinforced by inspiring quotes from figures like Mariska Hargitay, Robert Kiyosaki and Barack Obama. Together, we reassure you that there is no set timeline for healing and that seeking help is a powerful step towards personal growth and resilience.
This is Real Talk with Tina and Anne. This is part two of attention seeking versus connection seeking. As we said in part one and you'll hear in part two, connection is a basic need and you should not feel guilty for not having that fulfilled. It is not your fault. It is not shameful for you to have needs that were not fulfilled, but how we go about getting those needs fulfilled is important. I remember holding hands with women who murdered and had friends who were prostitutes, having worked in the jail, and I can tell you that selling yourself to those pains and hurts and reliving the pain over and over again is not the way. Seeking connections in ways that are harmful will never fulfill those basic needs. They will only take you on the road of shame and self-harm. Reliving trauma is a sign that your basic needs were not met and the only way you know how to get that love is in the wrong way and you deserve better. You know how to get that love is in the wrong way and you deserve better. You deserve to be loved. Some people act out in different ways or stay away from commitment or allow hurts to define who they are. The pains of the past are not who you are. Remember that Definitions of others are not who you are, and you were made for better. You deserve better. God loves you too. And if you are someone who doesn't believe in God, I'm were made for better. You deserve better. God loves you too. And if you are someone who doesn't believe in God, I'm not here to preach, but when I wrote my book the Sinful Woman, it was about a woman who had laid before Christ at his feet and he saw her heart, while those who were church leaders saw only her actions. I know what that is like. I know what it is like for people to judge me because of my actions, because of actions that I took when I was in pain and hurting, when I was at a time in my life that I acted out and was seeking connections in all the wrong ways, when I was numbing and when I did everything not to feel because my inner child that had gone through so much was not healed. Seek help, knowing that there is nothing wrong with who you are. Right now in your life, it is time to rid of the shame and enter into healthy relationships and know that you, too, deserve love, and you just need to learn how to receive positive, true, loving love. Thank you so much for listening to part two of attention seeking versus connection seeking. Here is part two. Good job, thank you. It is critical. Yeah, attachment is formed as a child and I do know people that continually seek and seek and you know, for that connection I really feel for anybody who has never had those.
Speaker 1:When I worked in the group home for abused kids, I had one. I had one of them when he aged out. He aged out. What are you going to do? You got nowhere to go. You literally have your stuff on the front porch and it's bye. Yeah, there was nobody on the other side to pick him up.
Speaker 1:He ended up on my door because I had had him and a couple of the other kids that were in the shelter at my house for Christmas before, and it was, you know, approved and everything. We were allowed to do that, in fact, other staff. We took some of the kids home because they had nowhere to go, and so he knew where I lived. Apparently. He remembered and I opened the door and there he was. So he's 18. He has nowhere else to live and he's sleeping on my couch, you know, for a couple months, and so we helped figure it out for him. But you know, I mean, it's just so critical. What do you do with these kids that are like this, that become adults, and it doesn't end just because you turn 18.
Speaker 2:Right, right.
Speaker 1:We have to understand the motivation behind behaviors, and there's a website, safes. Safes blogs states that connection-seeking behaviors are all about a genuine need for emotional closeness and meaningful interaction. These behaviors require parents' precise attention and conversations about feelings. Validating their emotions, setting aside quality time and teaching problem-solving skills are just a few of the strategies that can strengthen the parent-child bond while promoting healthy development.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they also say. Children with attention-seeking behaviors may act out, seek constant praise or approval, or engage in disruptive behavior to draw attention to themselves, Unlike connection-seeking, which focuses on building meaningful relationships. Unlike connection seeking, which focuses on building meaningful relationships, attention seeking behavior is often driven by a need for immediate gratification or validation from others. While attention seeking behavior may temporarily fulfill the child's desire for attention, it may not address the underlying emotional needs to contribute to the development of secure attachment with parents.
Speaker 1:Based on an article by Wendy and I think it might be Wisner what to Know About Attention Seeking Behavior. Children's attention seeking behaviors are usually normal and not necessarily bad. Young children especially try to figure out what's appropriate and what's not by testing boundaries. We all know that one oh yeah.
Speaker 1:When kids misbehave, it can be a sign of their need for help. To recognize attention-seeking behavior in your children, you need to be attentive to certain signs and patterns, and it says that here are some common indicators. And it says that here are some common indicators Constant interruptions. Children seeking attention may interrupt conversations or activities frequently and I know some kids that do this.
Speaker 2:This way they intend to divert attention to themselves. Exaggerated behaviors they may exaggerate or engage in exaggerated or dramatic behaviors to capture attention, such as loud outbursts or over-the-top gestures or making a scene in public. I think a lot of kids do that too. I do.
Speaker 1:I think so. Yeah, you know, some of this stuff is somewhat normal, just normal for being a kid Demanding behavior, attention-seeking children often show demanding behavior, insisting on immediate responses to their needs or desires. I mean, I know some adults that still do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, seeking approval that's another thing, too, that adults can seek. They may constantly look for praise or validation for even minor accomplishments.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think that that is that little little kid that just never got fulfilled inside them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, look at this mommy, look at this mommy, you know, and it just was never fulfilled. So it continues as they get older, Competing for attention. They may compete with siblings or peers for attention, feeling threatened by others receiving more focus.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I can, I can. There was in high school a coach one of my coaches which I'm friends with now, and there was a competition between another. We all wanted her attention, but there was another girl who who? We had an unhealthy competition for attention from our coach.
Speaker 2:It was like we were seeking this, you know, and any like it was a back and forth you know, so yeah, I can say, I can say for sure that, competing for that attention to an attention seeking language, they may use phrases like look at me or watch this to draw attention to their actions or achievements and again, like that, sometimes it's normal Kids will do that, but not always.
Speaker 1:This website says that if we ignore a child's attention-seeking behavior, it can develop unhealthy actions and feelings impacting their relationships in the future. Initially, the child might intensify their attention-seeking attempts in response to being ignored, so there's a high risk of harming themselves, causing irreversible damage. Moreover, emotionally unavailable parents can provoke feelings of frustration and resentment, causing the child to interpret the lack of responsiveness as rejection.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, that's you know, and I'll be vulnerable here. I have a lot of that where you're seeking somebody to. You know I have what is it called I'm constantly afraid of when you have the attachment so you're feeling like you're going to be abandoned, right? So I definitely have. I struggle with abandonment issues from, say, friends, or I have this cousin who I'd gotten close with I haven't talked to in quite some bit, and I have to talk about that in therapy because you automatically assume that you're being abandoned.
Speaker 1:Because it was unfulfilled. Correct, because you would not have that if it was.
Speaker 1:I know for sure, because it really does lead to children feeling unworthy and turning into attention-seeking behavior yeah, behavior. Furthermore, the article says consistent disregard for a child's attempts at connection may interrupt their learning process or effective communication skills and emotional regulation Check, check, check, check, check, check. Every single one of those. Yeah, I that you know? Effective communication skills? Not at all. Emotional regulation Never, and my learning process was like out the door. I mean it. Just, it was horrible. I mean all of those horrible.
Speaker 2:I mean, all of those Did you feel like? So I felt like as I grew and I didn't have, you know, all that, you almost put this guard up. You know we always talk about putting up the wall and protecting yourself. It's almost like as an adult, like I felt like I was in this cocoon. So it wasn't. You know, I wasn't able to communicate these things. I didn't have that regulation of the emotions and the things, so I tried to keep myself barricaded where I didn't let people in.
Speaker 2:And when you don't do that, you don't have that healthy relationship and healthy understanding of what a relationship especially in the connections of what we'll go parent, because I have to speak on that. My personal thing is, you know, you've kept people at a distance because you didn't know, like I didn't know how to act. I was so used to acting in that defensiveness. One of the fears was like I don't know how to be. I don't know how to make a connection like this. I'm afraid this type of when you grow up without it, you now become afraid of the connection.
Speaker 1:As an autistic individual, I think that we naturally do that. I think neurotypical people do it too. But I go into a room and I'm watching everybody, their house and I watched how they did something, or they all sat around the table and this is what they did, and then they got up and they all put the dishes and then they swept the the floor after and they all you know and I would like take all this in- yeah and I'd be like, okay, this is what we do you know yeah so I mean it's, it's really good, in a way, that we were able to take those scenarios in our lives, or the people that made differences in our lives, and be able to channel the things that they taught us in order for us to be better parents that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's my whole entire book, and what I speak about is that these things that you would naturally get at home, that you would form, these understandings that you would get from a parent, from a mom, I wasn't getting that and, you know, ended up getting these things from these teachers up, things you kind of watch. You watch as like, oh, should I be this way, should I act this way?
Speaker 1:I didn't know how to cook, I had never cooked a meal, oh yeah, I had never done laundry, I had never done any of those things, the normal everyday things for me, and I wasn't allowed, I had no depth perception, wasn't a lot. I had no depth perception. And even if I was in the kitchen and I poured something at that time of my life because I really hadn't learned where things really were in a glass or something now I do know, yeah, but back then I still don't have the depth perception but back then, you know, I just would pour and go all over the place or whatever, and she would just say you know, get out of here, you're making a mess. And I was never. Just come on, I'm gonna do it with you, let's yeah together.
Speaker 2:So did you have um with those things? This is curiosity. Um, I felt that I learned um when you were observing other people and you were watching how they did it. I always say I was watching from the outside of the window, looking in, and always to be the person on the inside. So I felt like, as I watched the outside, I had to do those things and I felt in my mind it was around me. I told myself, if I just do what they're doing and that's so, we'll call it normal or that's what you're supposed to do, then I'm going to have somebody's going to want to have that connection with me. Do you know what I mean? Well, you know.
Speaker 1:In that sense, I like have this visual of. There was a family that I felt really connected to, and I was older at the time and I remember them getting a family portrait and I was so jealous that they could not be in it. Now did I know I wasn't a part of their family? Yes, yeah, but on the inside I was living this thing with. You know that they fulfilled a lot for me yeah and I don't know.
Speaker 1:I guess I wanted them to recognize me but as that, but not I. I think it's kind of weird to say that I wanted them to recognize me as a family member because I wasn't.
Speaker 2:But there's part of you that wanted that right, that little kid in me yes that little kid in me wanted that.
Speaker 1:But again, I grew out of that. I'm so thankful. I'm just not that person. You know, I adopted all five of my kids and they have all handled their adoptions differently and I was adopted. So you know, I adopted all five of my kids and they have all handled their adoptions differently and I was adopted. So you know my experience too. So I kind of have six well, seven really, including my sister, but my youngest oldest, if that's how I can say it, child Out of five.
Speaker 1:She would be my second, okay, and she's 29 now, but she was an amazing kid, you know, an amazing child, and she always wanted connection with me. I mean she would lay her head on me. I mean she still does when we're together and just sends me texts that she loves me. But and she has my handwriting tattooed right here on her and I have hers tattooed right here. It's in her handwriting. And she drew a sun and a moon and I think I told you maybe about this in another episode, but it was, um, you know, it's the sun and the moon. You are my sunshine and I love you to the moon and back.
Speaker 1:And she drew this little thing and it just says Morse. I love you, morse, because we have this thing about most and more. I love you more and most. And we just would still to this day. Whenever we talk to each other, we say Morse.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's a really cool thing, but she I mean she went through a lot and that's who she is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We always had a really deep connection. Now my oldest out of the littles he is 11, and he has a lot of disabilities, so I think that that might have something to do with it, but he just loves everybody and he wants attention all the time. I mean all the time. So it gets a lot and it is hard when he acts out and I'm constantly, even as his mom, reminding myself he just needs me to listen, he just needs me to be there for him, to sing to him, because he loves that. You know you are my sunshine at night and he smiles over the smallest interactions and all he wants is love and connection and to feel important. And that's so important that our kids feel important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so interesting because you had said that you, you know you're in a different place. I thought I was for a long time too, and again I'll share like cause. I believe in mental health. I believe that it's okay to ask for help and to go for help, and I did. I started therapy because I wanted to understand the I guess what in essence? Needing to heal the inner child, that child that needs the connection.
Speaker 2:But understanding now, as an adult, how to channel that in your connection with your children, because I have a great relationship with my kids. I have a son who has autism and you know there's that boundary that they like you know and I'm sure that you have. Where you know, there's certain things where this is the connection is here. There's still the connection, but it's not like with my daughter, who's constantly like over top of me and wants to hear that I love you and wants to hear all that, because that's the connection that she needs, that's the connection that she wants, and I want to do better. I do that, you know I'm there for her, but I know that I could be better, as long as you know if you're healing those parts of you that you know that you were seeking.
Speaker 1:You know, I have two more, my two littles, yeah, and one is nine and one is eight, and they are as different as different can be.
Speaker 2:I met them. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my daughter, who is in the middle. I guess she has the middle syndrome, I'm not sure, but she went through so much as a baby that she genuinely needs a lot of love. She is the one that in the room, no matter what will be the loudest, will get the most attention, will make sure that she gets the most attention, will make sure that she gets the most attention. So, yes, she is an attention seeker if we go by the definitions that we just read earlier and the examples. But honestly, she is that because she didn't get what she needed as a child.
Speaker 1:I can tell you she is the one that if I lay with her, I tell you she is the one that if I lay with her, she will just lay all over me. She doesn't want me to leave, she wants to be with me. She really wants the connection and she wants it from me. Yeah, will she seek other what you know in other areas? Yes, but she really does want it for me and if I say let's go do this or spend time with me, I mean she's on it like that. She won't even hesitate. She wants her mom.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean that really makes me feel good, but it also makes me feel bad, because I wasn't there for her the first 18 months and there was so much damage already done by the time I got her and so we're constantly trying to fill those holes that just I have it full and it's gone. I have it full and it's gone, you know. So it's that constant, but she knows that I really love her, genuinely love her, and there's a lot of people in her circle her teachers, her horse therapist, her you know all the people that activities that we do outside of school. They really genuinely love her and so I think that she's constantly getting filled. So I hope that that helps her later. And my eight-year-old he is actually being homeschooled now Because he just even though I got him when he was two months, he had already gone through so much and he's also very autistic. Out of my three autistic kids he actually is the higher functioning. One has the most needs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he wants mom and he just needs one-on-one. He can't handle a lot. It's attachment Partly, partly, but it really now that I've been doing this with him. He genuinely cannot handle a lot of noise and a lot of whatever's going on in the classroom yeah, and so it turns into fight or flight, like really fast, yeah, and so you can't learn like that.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So he is a genius. Yeah, he reads it, he knows it. He's doing math right now, way beyond the other two, and that could have been part of it. Yeah, you know, he's in second grade. Maybe he was bored, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he, he, he loves his mom. I am everything.
Speaker 2:I know, I see, I see that.
Speaker 1:You know, I fulfilled it through my kids, what I did with my parents and I had yeah, I did with them.
Speaker 2:I have to, but I think, as a there's there's still something missing, but it's something. That's why I go to therapy, so that I can I don't want to say accept it, but understand where I am today and maybe more appreciate the connections that I have with certain people and and the connections that I have. Like I said, I have all these wonderful people in my life and I am very appreciative of them, and I think that's where it's like I have to understand that a lot of people don't get that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I needed two things to happen. I needed one to have the kids that I have, including, I'm going to say, both of my older kids yeah because I genuinely love both of them. Um, but you know I needed that, yeah, also needed for my mom to pass away my adopted mom to pass away and I know that that sounds horrible, but I wasn't able to really become fully who I am until that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know, it allowed me to live and I was no longer that person looking for attention seeking behavior. Yeah, and there was absolutely 100% reasons why I was that person. Yeah, I lived in fear and I would say that was the my biggest. That was who I was, was fear. I was looking everywhere. I was looking everywhere to feel safe. I was looking for a person to be safe and the second I'm not kidding you, the second that she was gone and that fear was gone, I was okay.
Speaker 2:Isn't that crazy? That's so crazy. But I can understand that when I started speaking is when I started to realize that fear is starting to go away, because I can use my voice now and I'm not afraid to use my voice. I think that something that also helps me is that I've gotten so much feedback from the schools, from the teachers, about how much they need to hear from someone who has a lived experience, and that fulfills me. That really gives me that you start like you. You said you start to live and I'm starting. I'm starting. So I'm not, I mean, I'm starting on my journey now, so I'm a little bit delayed, but it's okay because, um, yeah, you, you start to.
Speaker 2:Um, I see that I'm fulfilling these gaps in different areas by different things, and I think that that's the most interesting thing too. So, yeah, I think I'm getting it in the different areas, and I love this area. I love being able to talk, I love being able to share my story. It releases that weight that you live with right, that weight of fear. It releases it and allows you to become who you've always been. You've just been like hidden and trapped inside.
Speaker 1:Very true, you know, when you're a child and you don't feel safe or feel that it is okay or that it might not ever be okay, I mean, what a horrible feeling yeah, that it might feel like it might not ever be okay. It's a scary place to live.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To feel like you can't even go to sleep because you are afraid. When I had my sister still living with us that she was going to die because she was being abused next door to me in the bedroom, and I was scared too for my own safety. But also I had these dreams of my deceased dad in my window every night, after he died for well, I know it was at least a year died for well, I know it was at least a year. But the same exact dream and after I fell asleep and the same thoughts. Before I would fall asleep, I believed with all of my heart that he was still alive under the ground and he was trying, he was coming back and he was going to kill me. Oh, gosh was trying, he was coming back and he was going to kill me. Oh gosh, and nobody. I couldn't tell anybody, I didn't have anybody to talk to about this. Yeah, and nobody really seemed to care. I don't know, but I'm not sure. But if a child acts like they are okay, yeah, after a lot of trauma or loss, that does not mean that they are. They are just putting on a mask. Alert, alert, you know, come on red flags.
Speaker 1:I just want to say that at my dad's funeral I stared at his chest. Well, actually the calling hours, or viewing however you want to say it. I sat there in this one chair and actually I mean, here was the room. And then right outside of the room there was a set of chairs and I sat right where I could see him. Nobody was sitting with me, I was by myself and I just kept staring at him, watching his chest go up and down.
Speaker 1:I was certain that it was and I went around. I went to my mom and I'm like can't you see that he's breathing? It was like, oh no, he's not Dismissed me, I believe. I went to one or two other people. Everybody dismissed me and kind of laughed it, laughed it off, you know, like, yeah, right, no, he's not. But I believed that we buried him alive and it was all my fault, and he found himself out of the grave. He figured out how to get out of the grave and he really was coming to get me because I let him die, yeah, under that ground. So I was petrified after that.
Speaker 2:That would scare me. That would scare me. That's a big trauma to go through.
Speaker 1:It is that whole time. And then imagine trying to go to school right after that or while that's happening. All this stuff is going on in my world and I'm trying to maintain this sense of normalcy. Nothing was normal and I was trying to be the normal in the room. I mean now my, you know, the day of Thanksgiving. The day of Thanksgiving because he died November 25th, two days before Thanksgiving. It day of Thanksgiving because he died November 25th, two days before Thanksgiving. It was a Tuesday, and I'll never forget it. And then here we are on a Thanksgiving, and while they're making Thanksgiving dinner and I'm downstairs watching the parade, I could hear them planning the funeral. Nobody's talking to me again. Come on, let's have dinner. Come on, let's do this. We just had a normal Thanksgiving. It was so strange. I remember he died on a Tuesday. We had one more day of school before Thanksgiving. It would have been a Wednesday.
Speaker 1:I got up on my own, I got dressed as if I was going to school. I go down, there's my mom and my aunts are standing there and they said to me, kind of in a laughing way what are you doing? And I said I'm going to school. And they just all looked at me and said your dad just died. No, you're not right. I mean no. It just doesn't even make sense to me how this was handled yeah, that you were talking about, um, having the mask on.
Speaker 2:When you go through trauma you wear. It's something that one of the things that I really try to when I'm speaking at schools. I share my story and you've read the book, you know my story and one of the things like I do try to help teachers understand is that a lot of times, kids who are going through trauma sometimes will portray that they have this wonderful thing at home. They're not they. They're wearing this pretend, we'll say a pretend um persona.
Speaker 2:It's like you know I I go into the thing where, um, when kids are counting down the days, most kids are counting down the days till they have vacation. Well, the kid who's counting down the days most kids are counting down the days till they have vacation. Well, the kid who's counting down the days who has vacation, that's going through trauma, lying to you. They're counting down because they're about to go through something themselves. You know traumas of not, you know, and it's something to recognize, I mean, if you have any, you know hints of somebody going through something, um, you know, kind of recognize that and maybe ask those questions like how are you?
Speaker 1:that simple question you yeah, I would, I, yeah, I would count the days until, um, it was time to go back to school during a break yeah, so that's the same thing.
Speaker 2:that's the same thing because they're for for me. There's the connections. Those connections were only there and maybe, you know, with the attention seeking I don't you know, it's kind of funny because when you think about it it's like, do you need the attention to get the connection? Like I need your attention, first come get me and then, once I'm with you, now let's have the connection.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. Well, I mean, there were people that I kept trying to have connection with and I can remember talking about the funeral. Again I looked up to this cousin of mine and I really liked her, and again it was that same feeling that I had with that teacher, where I'm trying to say I like you, yeah, it, it I didn't do that, but I was just really. I said to her will you, um, stay at the funeral? She, she showed up. Yeah, she is not quite 20 years older than me, but you know Close enough, yeah, and here I was 11, and I really looked up to her and I said will you stay? And she said oh, I have to go to so-and-so and go do this and that, and I'm just like yeah, and that like, and I'm just like yeah. So you know those things.
Speaker 1:I tried, I did you, or that can you stay. You know those were my ways of saying. Can I connect with you?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Because I couldn't figure out how to put it in paragraphs.
Speaker 2:I, you know it's funny, I had um, and this is just comes to my mind. So, uh, obviously I don't have communication with my family, Um, but when I did, I had um, an aunt who's no longer married to an uncle of mine. Um, but I had the same thing you were. I was looking so hard for that connection from her that, like I remember vividly um sitting on a couch and just trying to snuggle up to her, just because I felt like that, would you know, you were just looking for that kind of a connection. Like I didn't think that that was right or wrong, I didn't know how to, like you said, you don't know how to say it, you don't know how, any other way. So you do things thinking that that's the way you gain that connection, things thinking that that's the way you gain that connection.
Speaker 1:Right, great, yeah, I did that too. You know, I had a math teacher in ninth grade. This was not really small. She came to my house and she ate with us and she just cared, and she made it a point to let me know that she cared. You know what's really weird? This is really weird. You want to talk about weird Me? Me, I was trying to connect with her. Yeah, I'm fucking embarrassed.
Speaker 1:What I did was I came dressed as her I did. I was wearing the same hair, because I have eyes that don't converge, and so the eye doctor had said that I could try eyeglasses. So here I was trying eyeglasses, so I got the same kind that she had. And here was mini her, yeah, sitting in her classroom. I'm not kidding you, and it was just because she liked me. Yeah, and I thought, okay, I'll be like her. Yeah, no, because we're trying to figure out who we are, and I didn't have all these people at home that I could figure out and I didn't want to be like any of them. Right, I was, and that's part of it too. You're trying to connect because we're trying to grow, we're trying to find our identities. Yes, so you know we're in, and so I just thought oh OK, I'll be like her no-transcript exactly.
Speaker 1:And so um.
Speaker 2:I borrowed her, like I think I borrowed her jacket, her soccer jacket, I don't know what it was, but I, it was my point to do that and it was like you know, yeah, you're kind of like hey, I just yeah, so I understand. I mean it was only Halloween, but the mind I understand child.
Speaker 1:So there is that. Yeah, I mean we're. Facebook friends and she listens to my the podcast sometimes. And I did reach out to the teacher who I ran away to her house before and you know, it might not have been anything, but if for any reason that there is a kid, if for any reason that there is a kid, because she, let me say this, I did message the teacher who I ran away to her house.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And she said ignored it.
Speaker 2:I have somebody like that too.
Speaker 1:She will not. I'm still that needy kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In seventh grade that ran away to her house.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's how she sees me.
Speaker 2:I think I have somebody just like that and it doesn't. It kills you because you're like no, see me now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the point that I think that I would reach out to her maybe makes it seem like I might still be that person, right, but the point of it was because, well, I mean, I am Facebook friends with some of my teachers, but it's just, I'm so proud of who I am today, yeah, and I'm so proud of my kids and where we are and I bought my own house and all these things.
Speaker 1:I'm just, you know, and I don't know, there was a teacher in my past who knew I was drinking and she did nothing. She just kind of still every day, would sit with me in high school and not do very anything about it. Really, she knew I was drinking and she wasn't really helping me and, um, I think, I don't know, should she have done something? Probably maybe she thought that she was doing something by allowing me to continue those behaviors but still remain friendly with me. Yeah, I don't know, maybe, um, that was what she was doing. But I just want to address that. If there is somebody from your past and you are a teacher, an educator, an adult, in any form of relationship that you had with somebody, and they're trying to reach out to you, it might just be a friend request. Give them a chance.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, because they might just be that different person and maybe they want to tell you how special you were to them and what a difference you made in their life, and that's all that they want to do.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what I've set out to do and that was my point too is to, like you, I want to share my successes, like, hey, I just want you to know those little things I got from you. I'm here now. I'm not. I've written a different story for my life. I, you know. Like you said, I quite often, and I see the area I was in, I know that there are different routes. I could have gone down, but I didn't. And you do you want to say, like, I just want you to know that, hey, I've got a family, I'm doing this.
Speaker 2:I, you know exactly like you just want them to see your accomplishments and I have to be honest, I I'm pretty fortunate. Um, there are, like I have, all these women in the book um to I have not been able to find, to connect with, to be able to say, hey, um, you know, thank you for those little moments that you didn't you had, but influenced me in so many ways.
Speaker 2:Um one that, just like you, it's, it's, it's no response back, like nothing. And I know she got the book because she responded. I got the book but I've never. I don't know how she took it and I think I'm the same way as where. You know. I might've pressed it so much that it looks like I'm that needy kid again. But for all the other women it was really nice to be able to say that the connections I made with them that they didn't know I made, but those connections helped me to become the person that I am today, that successful person, the person who you know has has. I was not supposed to be any of the things that I was supposed that I am today. I was labeled when I was a kid. That's what they labeled me trash. I'm not trash. I just want you to know that right, right, you know two things.
Speaker 1:First of all, right after my dad died, there was a teacher named Mr Belcher he's no longer alive A giant of a man and everybody used to say that he would paddle everybody and there were holes in the paddle, and you know, to make sure it went faster. And you know, he was the biggest, scariest man, yeah, he, right after Thanksgiving break, first day back, he had been my fifth grade teacher. Now I'm in sixth grade. He went from the fifth grade hallway all the way to the sixth grade hallway, asked for me to come out of the classroom, got down on my level from like six eight down to me and was looking me eye to eye from on his knee and said I am so sorry that that happened and if there's anything that you need, I am here. And do you know, I never took him up on it because I was just quiet. If he would have kept coming to me and making sure that we had, but he left it in my court to come to him, right, and you know, that's another thing is as beautiful of a soul as he was. It would have been awesome if he would have tried to continue that with me. Yeah, tried to continue that with me. Yeah, because I wasn't that kid that was going to go to them and know the words and know how to ask and say what I needed and wanted to talk. So it just never happened.
Speaker 1:But I ran into him several times as an adult and he always asked me how I was, how my mom was. And you know, it was really. He was just a really great man and I'll never forget him because of that. But the other side of it is I used to feel guilty for being that kid Guilty and I was ashamed of who I was. But now that I've got degrees and all of this stuff and I've worked in battered women's shelters and women and with women who have been raped and with abused kids and shelters and worked in the jail, you know a lot about being on. That other side has taught me how people like that like me, tick, who have been denied their basic need of being loved, you know needed and made to feel important and a part of and part of a family, you know that sense of belonging is what we just are looking for. It's a sense of belonging.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:It's just so important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, belonging is such a perfect thing. Yeah, absolutely, because you don't know where you fall when you're. You know in the you know life of trauma.
Speaker 1:How in the world could we have gone through what we did as a kid and then come out of it at the same time that I know me and you probably did too felt guilty for having those needs? Oh, guilty for it yeah, absolutely I still.
Speaker 2:I still struggle with that too, like I still struggle with that. I don't know right. You are so much more ahead of me than where I am, but I'm getting older. Yeah, I know, but am, but I'm getting there. Yeah, I know, but I'm still. I'm getting there, I'm going to get there. Since our friendship, I could say that I've grown so much more too. By being able to see you, know, listening to you and seeing where you were and seeing how these different things have changed, you helped open my mind to a lot of different things where I I'm like God, I really, you know, have come this all this way. But, yeah, that belonging, I think sometimes that's gosh. That really is one of those things that I remember going through school trying to figure out where I belonged and the guilt of it's almost a shameful thing. I don't even know if I would call it guilty, but I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I had these needs. There was embarrassment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think for me that was probably the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:I think I can look back even now, parents who you know, I didn't see the dysfunction in their families, which I'm sure that maybe they did. But back then it was different. People really didn't come out with their dysfunction like they do now. Yeah, and everybody has dysfunction, but back then everybody was made to feel like they had the perfect family.
Speaker 2:And that's where our guard goes up. Right that mask.
Speaker 1:Sure, and you genuinely were made to feel as if there was something wrong with you because you had these basic needs.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But you know, I don't feel ashamed like I used to. No, I don't feel ashamed like I used to. You know the first 30 years of horrible decision making because I eventually I figured it out and I understand that those who are in those same situations. I look and I understand them. I really do, I get it. I look at two of my youngers and especially look at their acting out behaviors and I know that all they need is some extra love 24 hours a day. They just need some extra love right now because they just do. They just need it, and that's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1:That is how we're wired. Like I said at the very beginning, that that's how God made us and I really believe that that's. You know, that's just who we are and what we need. I don't feel ashamed anymore because there is no one who would have been healthier. I mean, if you look at everything I went through, what you went through, and me also as an autistic individual who lacked communication skills, and then you add the layer of adoption, you add the layer of trauma, you add the layer of my sister, of my mom, of the whatever. I mean there was so much more that I haven't even mentioned, but layers and layers and layers and the lying and the deceit and you know, honestly, all it shows is how strong I really was. We are strong and we're not weak to need connection with people outside of our immediate family if all we're doing is just trying to seek a basic need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what? I constantly remind myself that it wasn't my fault that I needed those things. You know, I tell myself constantly's it's not your fault just because you needed those. Because, you know, in high school I put up this thing where and I remember high school, I'll say high school, I mean cause people understood a little bit more. But I used to, you know, nobody knew about my whole life because I was embarrassed about it.
Speaker 2:Nobody knew this, this need for the connection, um, but yeah, when you go into the, you feel guilty about it, that you had it. It's not my fault and I do. I have to tell myself sometimes, because that helps relieve that embarrassment and shame that I've lived with for so long, and to tell yourself, like you know, it's not your fault and look at, yeah, look where we've come. I mean to think about all those missed opportunities or missed connections that now, today, we can say you know where we're at now. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I listen, I'm still going to constantly work on myself.
Speaker 2:I do believe that, I think you know it's a learning and growth thing. I mean, I listen, I'm still going to constantly work on myself. I do believe that I think you know it's a learning and growth thing. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm definitely not where I used to be. And and it does, it goes, like you know, I I can't be embarrassed because of the connections that I wanted or that I needed, I think, cause, like you said, that I wanted or that I needed, I think, because, like you said, it's basic. It's a basic thing that we need as just human beings, right? So, yeah, I definitely feel myself saying, you know, reminding myself that it's not your fault the things that happened to you.
Speaker 1:It's not your fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You give yourself yourself, you know, you give yourself permission to understand that we gave ourselves permission, but I think if we know somebody who needs to hear it, yeah it's not your fault, and it takes me always back to that scene in Good Will Hunting.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, yes, and Robin Williams is just. You know, it's not your fault. Right, it's not your fault. It's not your fault, you know, because he finally broke. Yeah, he realized that it wasn't his fault and we really do own so much of what happens to us as kids yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's like I said. For me it's been the you know. You do you feel like embarrassed that you had those needs, but it wasn't your fault that you had them yeah, well, I want to thank you, denise, for being why.
Speaker 1:You know, sit down with them and maybe you are having your heartstrings tugged and if you are there, there might be a reason that you're in front of them and maybe you just might be that person. So I'll tell you, it doesn't take a lot. It might seem like a child is a lot, but it doesn't take a lot to fulfill what they need. I mean, yes, it does, but not not it, but in the moment, just be in the moment. Be in the moment, and it's not. Some might need more and more and more, but that might mean that there is just a lot of hurt. And once that stability is there, and once they feel loved and important, some of those behaviors might subside. And you know, I have heard a word keep coming up with me and that was the word important. And I think it's because recently my son said to me he's doing something with drums and he's amazing at drums and he's not. He struggles with everything in life. And he said it makes me feel important.
Speaker 2:Isn't that awesome. That is awesome Because we want to feel important. We want to do it. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:I mean, he has everything against him, but drums make him feel important. So, no matter what, we figure out how to get to drums, because I want him, I want him to pursue that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you, denise, for being on, and I want to thank everybody out there for listening, because these topics are real and they're hard, and that's what we do at Real Talk is we get raw, and I really appreciate each and every one of you for listening and I hope that you can take it with you and you can share it with somebody else. So thank you for listening and we will see you next time. I'm going to add this little bit of information at the end. Here's a quote by Mariska Hargitay, which is one of my very favorite people in the whole universe because of what she does with SVU to help people who have been victims or survivors of crime, and she says healing takes time and asking for help is a courageous step. Let's say that one more time Healing takes time. So I want to tell you right now don't be down on yourself, don't compare yourself, don't try to be like somebody else when it comes to healing, and there is no wrong amount of time that it takes you, and asking for help is a courageous step. It takes courage to talk to people, to go on that journey of becoming a better person, to be a better you, to reveal what has happened to you, to be honest to yourself in what has happened to you and to seek the help that you need, to find the right person that you need. And if it isn't the right person, there's nothing wrong with realizing that and moving on.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest defects in life is the inability to ask for help, and that's by Robert Kiyosaki. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every single day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something and to learn something new. That's Barack Obama, and I want to add to that that, when it comes down to you, to your own personal what you need in order to be your best self, there is nothing wrong at all for asking for help. And if somebody is making you feel shame or embarrassment or like there is something wrong with you asking for help, then it's time to just move on. Les Brown said ask for help not because you are weak, but because you want to remain strong. I'll leave you with that. Thank you for listening. Again to Real Talk. We got you. We again to Real Talk. We got you. We can do this together. There's purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
