Send a text directly to us and let us know your thoughts!
What if privilege concealed a haunting reality? How might a childhood steeped in wealth and opportunity still harbor dark secrets and unimaginable hardships? In a compelling conversation that will surely grip your senses, we journey into the life of our remarkable guest, a young woman adopted from China and raised amidst the trappings of a wealthy New York turned Florida household. Unravel her story as she uncovers the deceptive nature of privilege, the constant dance of school shifts, and the repercussions of extreme parental control.
Imagine a mother relentlessly driving her daughter to excel in every sphere of life, her love for horseback riding and auto racing becoming mere tools for approval. Join us as we recount our guest's bravely plotted exit from a toxic family environment, fleeing with a mere $100 and a handful of belongings. Her tale becomes even more awe-inspiring when she faces the challenges of transitioning into independence and handles the consequences of her daring rebellion. As our conversation deepens, we will touch on the harsh realities that many children confront despite a seemingly perfect backdrop of wealth and privilege.
Thank you for listening! We thrive on your support. Please subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share our episodes. Your engagement helps us continue to produce high-quality, thought-provoking content. Join The Redacted Podcast army and be part of a community that values truth and justice.
If you have a story that needs to be heard, contact us at Team@TheRedactedPodcast.com. Follow our journey on TikTok, X, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook for more updates and exclusive content. Together, we can make a difference.
Send a text directly to us and let us know your thoughts!
What if privilege concealed a haunting reality? How might a childhood steeped in wealth and opportunity still harbor dark secrets and unimaginable hardships? In a compelling conversation that will surely grip your senses, we journey into the life of our remarkable guest, a young woman adopted from China and raised amidst the trappings of a wealthy New York turned Florida household. Unravel her story as she uncovers the deceptive nature of privilege, the constant dance of school shifts, and the repercussions of extreme parental control.
Imagine a mother relentlessly driving her daughter to excel in every sphere of life, her love for horseback riding and auto racing becoming mere tools for approval. Join us as we recount our guest's bravely plotted exit from a toxic family environment, fleeing with a mere $100 and a handful of belongings. Her tale becomes even more awe-inspiring when she faces the challenges of transitioning into independence and handles the consequences of her daring rebellion. As our conversation deepens, we will touch on the harsh realities that many children confront despite a seemingly perfect backdrop of wealth and privilege.
Thank you for listening! We thrive on your support. Please subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share our episodes. Your engagement helps us continue to produce high-quality, thought-provoking content. Join The Redacted Podcast army and be part of a community that values truth and justice.
If you have a story that needs to be heard, contact us at Team@TheRedactedPodcast.com. Follow our journey on TikTok, X, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook for more updates and exclusive content. Together, we can make a difference.
Thank you for tuning in. This is gonna be the third episode of the Redacted podcast, so we've had two already and hopefully you've enjoyed them and you've stuck with me this long, so I thank you for that, this episode and this guest that we have on today. We did the interview and we almost didn't publish it. And I was thinking and watching it back and after talking with her and I'm like, is it that sensational enough? Is it that deep, dark of a secret to be worth putting out there? And then, after thinking about it and listening to it again, I decided that it was.
Speaker 1:And this is a story of someone who had been abused by her parents for lack of a better term. But it's an unconventional abuse, what you'd almost call a common abuse, and it's something that, as you listen to the story, you could think to yourself. Some elements sound like good parenting, maybe even, and some people might think they're doing the right thing. But, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and there's a lot of parents and there's a lot of kids out there and if you listen to this and you learn something from it, and it can help you in some way.
Speaker 1:that's why we put it out. Thank you for tuning in and enjoy, and I'll see you next time. Okay, thanks for tuning into the Redacted podcast. We have our guest here who's been so gracious to come and speak with us today under the guise of being anonymous. In the back there we got Pamela, our producer. She's been sworn to secrecy. She won't reveal who you are. Your voice has been changed a little bit so we can't tell exactly. So thanks for coming out.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's a. You had a hell of a story and it kind of caught my interest and we can just kind of we can go back and talk about the beginning of it. But it caught my interest so much because I think the first thing you said to me was you know, with maybe wealthy kids or accomplished kids or something like that, which is kind of how you grew up, that not everything is what it seems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, growing up and looking back from this day and explaining to people that I don't know about my upbringing. They're very confused. If I don't have like a four hour sit down with them, could they say but all these great things happened, why were you so depressed or why did you jump around so much? And without the full story, I think it's hard to understand and know the details for why all those things were happening at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's. I think that's just something we can maybe help build some understanding by walking through the story and kind of telling what happened. So from the beginning, you were adopted from China, right?
Speaker 3:Yes, I was adopted from China when I was six months old, so I don't know much about my Chinese heritage, who adopted me, or the agency I was from or anything relating to China, because I flew over from China to New York when I was six months old so I didn't have any understanding of China. So that's why, when people ask, I'm like I really have no idea. And then, growing up, my adoptive parents, who are American, german, irish, italian, who are from New York, they did not inform me about anything about my Chinese life.
Speaker 1:So did they get information on it?
Speaker 3:They may have gotten information, they would not like to talk to me about it. When I was elementary school, I asked a couple of questions, nothing too serious, but basically the end answer was you're our child, you're American period.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I mean tall and tense in purposes you were, but you have to be a little curious about it. Now did you say you figured out the city?
Speaker 3:in China. I know the city, but anything beyond that I have no idea of.
Speaker 1:What city was it?
Speaker 3:Nanjing.
Speaker 1:Nanjing, where's that at?
Speaker 3:It is the Middle East of China. It's one of the big cities. Okay, yeah, one day I'll go back.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you know a lot about that area, or the culture or the people? I?
Speaker 3:do not. I've done some YouTube documentaries and some Googling, but I don't have any first-hand information or experiences with it.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you were born sometime, and we don't have to say specific, but sometime in the mid to late 90s.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:During that period and China still had one child implemented.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that could be one of the reasons why I was adopted out. There's obviously could be dozen different assumptions of why I was given to an agency or left down the street cause. We don't know. Yeah, no idea so lots of things are up in the air about that.
Speaker 1:But it seems maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be a strong contender.
Speaker 1:Likely as to why, and that's kind of messed up. It's messed up in a way, and obviously you're here and happy now and we don't have to debate which place is better to live, but it's messed up and there's a lot of kids that ended up having to be adopted doing somewhere else. A lot of bad stories from one child.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely from that.
Speaker 1:So it, like I heard someone say, like it kind of wiped out a generation in China, a generation or two, and we're like you didn't have the same amount of peers and they ended up going a lot of different places and just a lot of bad atrocities with that. So you came over to a. It was a pretty wealthy family, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, both mom and dad side. They came from good, stable households and then my dad had his own businesses throughout his life. He did law district attorney things in Manhattan for I don't know how many years, probably like between five and 10, realized he didn't like it, then went into the business world and was very successful there. So yeah, I grew up on Long Island for age six months until about five years old and then did some half summers and winters between Florida and New York.
Speaker 1:A lot of New Yorkers come down to Florida.
Speaker 3:Yes, I found that's a trend.
Speaker 1:Yeah right. So then at some point you moved permanently down to Florida.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for most of my life, from ages, I guess, six, up until 18, I was in Florida.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're with a wealthy family in Florida, yes, which is like I mean people listening out there, that's like wow, a wealthy family in the grove in Florida, that sounds great. That's the dream, and I mean, there's great things about it, but your experience with it was, I guess, a little different than maybe what people would know and kind of walk me through when things started happening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my life in New York since I was very little I don't remember much about, so I guess my first real memory started when I was in Florida in like the kindergarten age range and very naive young when I was little in that range just, you know, play with my sister at home, just very everyday things. But then around like Let me stop you there, so you had a sister. Yes, also adopted from China. Not related to me. She was from a different city.
Speaker 1:And what's the age difference there?
Speaker 3:Three and a half years and she's younger.
Speaker 1:So she's three and a half years younger than you, so your first memory is just to back up. So you're like kindergarten age and you're playing with your two three year old sister.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just like the Barbies, the everyday things when you're at that age.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. And then what were the first kind of things your parents had you involved in? Or when did looking back at it now, when did things get a little strange?
Speaker 3:Early elementary school. They wanted me to be obviously as successful as I could be, so I every parent, that's not. Yeah, enrolled in a public, a private school for my kindergarten in half a first grade and that led to a string of many different schools. I was jumping around from kindergarten up until I was 18 years old.
Speaker 1:Well, kind of like at the beginning I mean little so people can see. So you're jumping schools already.
Speaker 3:Yeah, already from the first year. Yeah, first year and a half In first grade I was pulled out about halfway through. I was too young to know the details for this one and the reasoning why I was pulled out, but I just was like it didn't really bother me at this time because I was still too young. So I was doing school but also started getting more involved in activities.
Speaker 1:Like extracurricular activities and such.
Speaker 3:And things like ice skating, choir, piano, violin, gymnastics. There were a lot of different extracurricular out of school thing that I had to do.
Speaker 1:You say, had to do.
Speaker 3:Yes, not all of them were by choice and I think I was kind of a stubborn kid where I didn't really want to do them, but I didn't really have a choice so I did them anyways. Yeah, when I was in the early elementary stages, I would say ice skating, gymnastics, violin, choir were the one that stood out. There were some other little things like swimming, but that didn't last too long Cause I did ice skating and I did like a couple competitions, a handful like between five and 10, I don't remember exactly, but I still have to like go to the rink, practice and I mean ice skating and gymnastics.
Speaker 1:Just from my own experience, that's intense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was definitely tough on the body.
Speaker 1:Like the practice. Yeah, and. I was still, you know little, growing and Now, if we're just kind of sticking in five to 10 years, old at grade school period. Like you're signed up for all these activities, all these different sports. Which ones did you want to play?
Speaker 3:I did not like ice skating. I didn't like it. I felt I was too flimsy, not graceful for it, but I just did it anyways. There was one girl who I was semi-friendless. She was actually going to like compete in the Olympics. She was in the big training program and gymnastics was okay. I really enjoyed the beam, but the other part of it not so much. But it was more like I just wanted to do it cause I liked going on the beam having fun rather than going to compete in it. Okay.
Speaker 3:I remember I did an art class for a little bit.
Speaker 1:You just wanted to play.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wanted to have fun.
Speaker 1:You just trying to play.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And maybe you weren't interested in the having aptitude or being good or winning competitions. But yeah, you're just trying to play at that point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wanted to have a hobby, meet people who wanted to do the same activity with me, but I felt like my parents more were pushing me for a competition life rather than the hobby pastime for whatever activity I was going in for.
Speaker 1:Just having fun with it. Yeah, you weren't in it for that. I kind of. I have girls that are that age and you know they do stuff and I kind of tell them, if you don't want to do it anymore, we won't sign you up again or we won't keep you going in classes. But if it's something you want to keep doing, by all means do it. If it's not fun, you know.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's good, like trying different things, but if it doesn't work out, you move on, try something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So like how many hours of practice were you maybe between all of these activities? That was every evening pretty much.
Speaker 3:I want to say at least five times a week I get off from school, say 3 pm, then from 3 to 9, or so 3 to 8, I would be doing gymnastics, violin Every night would be something that was going on.
Speaker 1:That's insane.
Speaker 3:And especially when you're only six years old. It was very draining.
Speaker 1:Well, that's like you go to school at eight and you don't get done until nine. It's a 13 hour day for a six year old or a seven year old or an eight year old and that's kind of and doing things that maybe you don't have that much of an interest in. Like that sounds kind of awful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was felt more forced and enjoyable after doing the activity, for, whether it was months or weeks, whenever I got sick of it. Finally because at first it was cool and new, but then, after having to do lessons and be more serious about it, I just didn't want it. And then the other thing was when we moved to Florida we were on a farm with horses, cats, dogs, 14 acres.
Speaker 1:So I was also horseback riding, that sounds wonderful too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's pros and cons to the life, but horses were also a big part of my growing up.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you? Were you interested in that, or was that something that was kind of presented to you like you're going to be interested in horses?
Speaker 3:Well, my mom rode when she was growing up and in college, and from New York to Florida. We had two horses. They were older but just like how I was doing all the other different activities, horseback riding was one of the millions of things that I was also doing at the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you have all these activities going on. And then so tell me about your schools. You switched schools a lot, even early on that started something that continued, but just how many schools did you go to elementary for?
Speaker 3:I can't name off the top of my head the exact without going school by school, but I want to say it was 10 to 12 different schools from kindergarten to. I was 18 years old and if we're just going to be focusing on the school topic right now, there are different reasons why I was in and out of schools. Okay. I think I stayed at a school for average of seven, eight months. Okay. Yeah, like I said, kindergarten to first grade, that was only a year and a half.
Speaker 1:Second grade so you're not even finishing years at some of the schools no well, second grade I did a full year.
Speaker 3:It was this very hippie school. But I can say I've done private, public, montessori, charter, homeschool, dual enrollment, pretty much anything except for a boarding school I have had some taste of. Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and some of the reasons I don't know when, all the elementary school why I was changing so much. But as I got into middle school and high school, when things were getting a little tougher, I started to understand the reasonings why. When I was in sixth grade I went to two different schools school number one for the first half sixth grade school number two for the second half. That's crazy. And the reason for the change in the middle of that one was because we were in PE and we were all kind of just running and by accident the girl in front of me extended her leg out too much. I extended mine. We kind of got tango tripped. Nothing bad, it just happened Like a kid accident?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like a really normal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we both tripped on each other, whatever. But when I went home like I was obviously had some knee issues, like it was a little bloody, and my mom got like super furious at the teacher, the PE teacher and then the principal. The next day she went into the principal and started like screaming Geez. We were out in like the waiting room outside of the principal's office and she was like yelling. And then all I knew was 10 minutes later she walked out and said we're leaving, you're never coming back here. So that's why I went in for another one. And then I remember in ninth grade that's what was she saying?
Speaker 1:She said I remember why. It's just.
Speaker 3:Why would you let this happen to my kid? Why didn't she get sent to the nurse's office? Why would you let her come home? Why didn't you call me? And I guess the PE teacher didn't seek it with a big enough issue to call someone. I mean the kid trips Like that probably happens a hundred times a day.
Speaker 1:My kid's trip? Yeah, probably a hundred times a day, yeah.
Speaker 3:And she. When we were at PE and after our trip they gave me a band aid, some Niels four and whatever. You'll get better, it was no big issue, just like. A basic little kid injury yeah some cuts on your leg, you'll be fine, but my mom really hyped it up to be this big like, oh my God, she lost her leg or something.
Speaker 1:So she was pretty overzealous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's definitely a very protective parent and would throw things out of proportion very often.
Speaker 1:They say now a helicopter parent would that?
Speaker 3:She was definitely more than a helicopter parent More than a super helicopter like a fighter jet parent. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're switching schools a ton. How was I mean at grade school? I know that's when you're making friends.
Speaker 3:I did not have any friends. There was only one girl who I was friendless. I met her in the third grade and the only reason why we remain friends was because she wrote out the same barn that I did. We took lessons together and she liked horses, so that's kept us together.
Speaker 1:So you had a consistent thing.
Speaker 3:Your schools weren't consistent. I mean I never really got to hang out with her much because I would see her at school. I got taken out of that school. I'd see her at the barn for the lesson. But even the barn for the lesson was not go hang out, play around. It was you're here for your lessons, so you gotta be serious in participating and improving on your skill. But our friendship got cut short in the. I think we probably stopped talking around seventh grade, so that was only like a three or four year friendship.
Speaker 3:Which at that point would lot to me.
Speaker 1:And this whole time you live in the same, I think.
Speaker 3:Yes, from my home You're living physically. Yeah, from ages like five to 18. I'm in the same physical health address. It's not like I'm moving anywhere.
Speaker 1:But you just keep jumping schools, and that's I mean. I talk to friends now that, like you know, I'm friends, people I know and they won't move because they don't want their kids to lose their friends. That's like a driving factor A lot of times and like, oh, we can't move until they graduate high school, or you know that we don't want to move during this time, cause that's tough, and this is like the opposite. This is like I mean to say how many schools did you say you went to?
Speaker 3:A dozen, and that's not even exaggerating, it was literally a dozen In 12 years of school, you went to a dozen schools.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was like that. One reason was the whole falling on the ground. It's not even a big deal it happened. But then in the ninth grade I was depressed at the time I didn't want to do the work. And then for mass class I came home with a C and they were used to me getting like A's just cause. Up until then it's kind of a loney sandwich work. It's not actual big schooling as much A loney sandwich.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3:So I come home with a C cause now I don't have a math foundation cause I've been jumping around so much. I don't know the long division, I don't know how the algebra.
Speaker 1:Every school is a little different and at different spots I was just getting thrown in, taken out, so my STEM base is terrible.
Speaker 3:I have no foundation in that, so so this actually hurt. Yeah, in the long run your education?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think maybe it seems like your mom's intention was to give you the best. She was trying to make it almost perfect. Yeah, and if a school wasn't perfect, or? If you weren't performing as she thought you should perform.
Speaker 3:Something that the school is doing must be wrong. It couldn't be anything else is what I think, what was going on in her mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I come home with a C and she goes in and yell at the teacher for not teaching well.
Speaker 3:And I do say, and like I admit, like I was lazy, I was a kid, I didn't want to do the math homework, I didn't feel like studying, I didn't want to ask for help. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So very natural. You know I'm not doing that well and she's like well, you're never going to get into a good college with that on your port. So time to move schools again. So it was different scenarios like that. Or another time was I was homeschooling now, cause I was in and out of homeschooling. So every transition between a public, private part of Montessori school, it just homeschool for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Intermittently.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Through grade school, middle school, high school, you're homeschooling for periods of time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and during this homeschool time I didn't really learn anything educational wise in the books for my school it was more just go back to sports and activities type of thing. Okay. Yeah, but if she saw like a school get ranked number one in the county for that year, she's like we got to enroll her in this, we go so good for her education.
Speaker 1:Okay, which is in the end not cause I'm getting switched around so much, but Well, there's a lot of things that I kind of see that are really bad about this so far, and it sounds like on the surface, oh, she's wanting the best for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean all of this 12 different schools middle of the year, homeschooling, not making friends, not being able to follow along with coursework it seems like the worst thing for you. It's like a recipe to mess up your education.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it made me very unstable in terms of friendships, knowing how to talk to people, and by the time I was like 14 or 13, I was very quiet, very shy and I had a lot of issues communicating with people because I didn't have the practice that I should have been, because at school I was always a new kid and no one wants to talk to the new kid that much.
Speaker 1:She's like a professional new kid.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Geez.
Speaker 3:So that was a big thing to overcome later in life.
Speaker 1:I mean that had to just be super awkward, like if a kid goes through one or two school changes in their life in their 12 years. I mean that's pretty big. I talk to adults that are like man, I moved school once in middle school and that screwed me up so bad and that was the worst year of my life at that point. And here you are, just no, it was in and out every time, but it did lead to depression.
Speaker 3:And for me just not being able to talk to people. So I remember for one part of my life when I was probably like it started when I was around 10 or 11, got worse from like 14 to 17. But if I don't really talk to anyone, if I'm more neutral, that's the easiest way to avoid conflict, not to get yelled at Cause. I was also afraid of getting yelled at from my mom for not doing well enough, whether with a sport, a music or grades, Because I'm like well, if I look too sad, she's going to yell at me and tell me why I'm not appreciating what she's giving me enough, but if I look too happy, she's going to start taking things away. So if I remain neutral, that's the best case scenario, so I can exist in life without having to deal with conflict.
Speaker 1:Well and it already seems right off the bat that your mother was kind of a huge source and maybe more so than your dad was was kind of the you're trying to please her or just get her off your back. One of the two.
Speaker 3:It was a combination both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, she was the main driving factor growing up of, I would say, a big source of my problems, which were depression, being antisocial at the time, not feeling good enough, and it was because she wanted everything to be perfect in her way and I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone because there was no one else to talk to you, because I didn't have a consistent like being around anyone else.
Speaker 1:No, you weren't allowed to basically foster any kind of friendships or relationships.
Speaker 3:And going back to the girl that I knew from the third grade to the seventh grade, the one who I rode with. I had one sleepover in my life and it was with her, probably around the fifth grade, and that took like a lot of convincing to be allowed to go to her house. She came from a very good family, very nice people. That was like my first and last sleepover of my kid life because I went there. I had a great time. We rode bikes around the neighborhood, we made popcorn, we went swimming. I had a blast for that 24 hours.
Speaker 3:And that was something I wouldn't be able to do because I was always under supervision. Like going to the grocery I wasn't allowed to not touch the cart when I was little and I had to like always be there. Like I couldn't go to the other aisle to get cereal, so like having a friend could go biking around the neighborhood was like the dream. Then the next day I get home and my mom was like so what'd you guys do? How was it? So I told her what we did and she's like that's so dangerous. How did her mother let you go swimming, go on a bike ride, not be in the kitchen while they were cooking? What if you burned down? What if you got burned on the house or like got hurt or something?
Speaker 1:And I was like huh, you were in fifth grade at this point, yeah, and you're just riding your bike out in their neighborhood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was like, what do you mean? I'm like we were fine, we had a really good time, and she's like, no, no more, you can't hang out with her. No more sleepover. This is bad. So I'm like, oh, I should never have told her that I just kind of shot myself in the face for like any kind of future hanging out with people. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then our friendship in the seventh grade ended. Not by me and the girl not liking each other, it was because my mom thought that her mom was just too dangerous. So no more communicating, cause I didn't have a phone back then. So we were literally 10 pals and then it was like, really cute, we would write little notes to each other, mail them, get them back. And we did that for like two years when we're not riding. But then she's like, yeah, no more. So then-.
Speaker 1:And she thought I mean, did she ever expound her?
Speaker 3:And I remember she was also very against any kind of alcohol or anything. And when I was older in life she's like I want you to sign a saying where you're like never drink alcohol, never get drunk it, never have sex before marriage. So she saw her mom having glass of wine and she's like how could she do that? There's children here. It's not like she was drunk, she had one glass of wine.
Speaker 1:You gotta be kidding me. Yeah, so she was this religious, or was so?
Speaker 3:up until I was 13, 14, I didn't do anything religious at all. The closest thing I got to a religious practice was in choir. We would sing in the church on Sundays sometimes, but that was more for choir than for religion. And then I think the big switch was when I was at that 13, 14, however old around that young teenager age my mom and dad had someone die, one of their friend. They went to a funeral at this big church and then from then on out they're like Christianity and everything. Now they both grew up cast like in classic school, but now they're like full well. She was more like Christian.
Speaker 1:But you didn't have like a. I guess you didn't have a super religious upbringing.
Speaker 3:No, I don't think it was religious at all.
Speaker 1:Having you sign something like that. Yeah, and that's when I think I was 16 or 17 when she said that Judging another mother for having a glass of wine, not being drunk. She wasn't-. Yeah, it wasn't like she was drunk, she just had a glass of wine. If you were religious, I guess maybe it would make more sense if it was some kind of a strict religion, but it almost makes it a little more bat-chick crazy that it was just-.
Speaker 3:Well, she was just very paranoid all the time, like I was. Like one glass of wine. I'll make you drunk.
Speaker 1:Judgment or paranoia or just like man, that's kinda nuts.
Speaker 3:But then after that funeral they went to. Then it was like, oh, now we got to go to church. And if you wear something, I remember one day I had just a regular t-shirt on, not revealing at all, but you could see my nipples, cause I didn't wear a bra- Okay. She's like oh, this is very bad, you need to be more conservative with your dressing. I'm like this is literally a t-shirt.
Speaker 1:Was it in your house or was it-?
Speaker 3:I don't remember exactly where I was, I just remember getting yelled at for it. Jeez. But it was probably like I didn't go anywhere at the time, so maybe I went out to like the mailbox or something Like yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So from that point on she got more religious, but then she implemented practices like you're gonna go to hell if you do this, or the Bible says something against this, so you shouldn't do it and you should always honor your mother and father, like that. One kept coming back and I was very fed up with that statement. And I'm like. I don't care, and that made me unreligious at the time and I'm currently unreligious because I don't believe in it.
Speaker 1:Well, and I don't think it was. It didn't seem like it was from. I don't think religion was the problem, I think it was. It sounds like everything else your mom did.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then she's using that as kind of a hammer to reinforce why she does this or why you should accept it. So, between everything, extracurricular activities and switching schools and kind of almost keeping you from developing any friendships. What else, I mean, what are some? Was she? Was she really hard on you? Was she pushing you? Exceptionally?
Speaker 3:hard. Okay. All right. So to go back now, I guess, into more of a sports extracurricular term. Okay.
Speaker 3:For elementary squad did those 10 different sports, music type things, something that really stood out and I don't know why this one was more than the other extra extracurricular things. But with the violin, for some reason she was 10 times harder on that. I don't know if it's because she wanted to do the violin but she never had the opportunity to. But I have very bad memories about the violin. To this day I would go to my lessons.
Speaker 1:What age did you start violin? Four-ish up until Four years old.
Speaker 3:Ten-ish.
Speaker 1:So you did it for six years.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I did and you had?
Speaker 1:did you like it at all? Did you have any interest in it, or?
Speaker 3:The beginning was kind of the same as I'm just doing it to do it, which turned into a hatred because of the way I was treated when I had to play. Okay. So I had to do lessons two to three times a week and then I also was in the symphony and that was seasonal, but once a week on the weekends for like two hours in the morning. I saw they were terrible because she would yell at me and obviously I'm young, so lots of mistakes happen. You play a wrong note, you something's out of tune, whatever you know, you're young and you're learning. It's not going to be perfect off the bat, but I play one wrong note and she goes crazy, like bad shit, crazy, start screaming at the top of her lungs Like why didn't you do this right? Let's try it again. I do it again. It's not perfect. We just did this again. Why can't you get what you do? And, like, practice takes time.
Speaker 1:Is this at home or is this? This is?
Speaker 3:at home. She would go completely nuts over.
Speaker 1:So were your lessons two, three times a week. That was all at home.
Speaker 3:So the lessons we had to go to the teacher's place. Okay. And I think I had two different teachers at that time and the practices had to be at home every day for 45 minutes to an hour and it was horrible. It was probably the worst saying and this is why, like when I listen to the violin, sometimes I've had to tell friends to turn it off because all I could hear is her voice yelling.
Speaker 3:Geez Like what is she why aren't you getting it? You need to do better. And it was just sings of me playing the wrong note, not because I was doing it on purpose, it just happened. And then, when the yelling wasn't good enough, she would like jam the violin into my neck and it made me red and it's very bad.
Speaker 1:She was just kind of like. The demeanor of it is probably what is hard for you to struggle with is because it sounds like she was just trying to make you feel like garbage and then putting some physical, so she's jamming it, so you're holding it and she's like yeah, because there are some instances where, like, I put it on the couch because I'm like I don't wanna do it anymore, that kind of thing, but then she would pick it up and jam it in and say you're doing it now.
Speaker 1:Geez, that's horrible. I mean just to think of like a little kid and it's. You can tell how much it still affects you too. It's like PTSD over that. That's tough.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like, out of all the sports music things, that one's definitely the worst.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is something that I mean. You really didn't even wanna do. This was all for her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and like right now. My assumption for it was she wanted to do it when she was a kid or growing up, but she didn't have the opportunity. So she's now making me do it. So she's like living her dreams through me, which is something I didn't wanna do, like the violin, so there was a lot of pressure, but if anything, I associate the violin with force.
Speaker 1:Geez, and I think that's it's something very important for people to hear, because a lot of parents end up putting some of those unrealized dreams onto their kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And to see you here 15, 20 years later and it still tears you up, it still emotionally affected you in such a strong way that I mean it's just don't do this to your kids, guys.
Speaker 1:I mean that's really horrible. I mean these kinds of things that we try to get our kids to do should be something that they enjoy, something that's fun for them and teaches them about something You'd almost hope it would be a skill you can have your whole life Like. My kids are learning piano a little bit and it's like one of those things I wished I learned so I could have it my whole life and see a piano and sit down and play it or something. But you won't even look at a violin. You don't wanna hear it. That's intense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was that, not having anyone to confine in that I felt safe to talk to. So I just would endure the pain at home, like mentally, physically, and I was able to get out of it when I was like 10 or 11. I don't know how. I think it was just only the battle between me and her and my dad was he? My dad was very passive for the most part and in a bit cowardly because he would not stand up to her Cause. Like, even though they're married, they can disagree on things, but it's like a very controlling.
Speaker 3:What he was like. He even told me when I was older I don't wanna disagree with your mother, cause she's gonna start screaming and it's gonna be a whole ruckus and I wanna avoid that. So with him, I would talk to him more than her, but I couldn't go fully in depth cause I'm like there's nothing gonna be done about it, it's just gonna keep happening. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So he did say like we could try different things. So after I would say late middle school to high school, that's when I started getting focused and I did horseback riding and auto racing Okay, I mean my two main things and then everything else dropped off. But even with those two things like horses, like I do love to this day, I have really good experience with them cause, you know, living on 14 acres, it was a sport, but also I'll go to the barn with the instructor to practice three times a week, but then I'd ride at home and just not being in the house, being like with an animal, helped a lot.
Speaker 1:That was probably like a safe place for you to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I competed in horseback riding Like I did shows when I was little. But then middle school late middle school to middle of high school I was competing every two weeks. I would say, okay, big horse shows doing really well nationals. Everyone was like, wow, so much good stuff. And that's when I think people on the outside who met me, whether they were adults or kids, they were like you're just a rich kid that gets everything. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I didn't feel that way because everyone who's in those two sports are both also, like, financially well off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those aren't inexpensive by any stretch.
Speaker 3:So I did horse jumping for a very long time and I would ride a lot. I would go and get up at 5 am. If I had school at 9 am I would do all the horse chores mucking the barn, sweeping water, hay grooming come home, ride two to three horses, because at that time now we have six horses, four rideable. So then I'm riding three horses a day at home and then, less than I would do, probably two horses. Or.
Speaker 3:I was just riding, I would say average three horses a day, sometimes four or five, but lots and lots of horseback riding.
Speaker 1:Now, were you being pushed to do this or was this something this was?
Speaker 3:something that I did like but, it was more than I wanted. I didn't like how she because, riding with a hobby mind, she turned it into more of a trophy child type situation of look at my kid in her pony. My pony got number two in Florida within the newspaper. And that's all she's gloating about, and so I felt more was for recognition.
Speaker 1:Did you feel proud of that?
Speaker 3:I was very proud of it, but I'm like I mainly want to do it just because I like the pony. Even if we don't show, I'll just ride in the backyard. I'm cool with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so and there's like this fine line between trying to engage your kids and do activities and competition to where it's for them, and then it seems like she's got a lot of these pushes and you said trophy child. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Like your kid does something good, we get a little hit of dopamine up here. You know like, oh, they get an acolyte, a little hit of dopamine. Somebody says, oh my God, she's so wonderful little hit of dopamine grades, kind of the same thing. But you know you have to keep from becoming maybe she's, I don't know addicted to that.
Speaker 3:That's something she's chasing and you are the I think she's chasing the approval of others yeah, and then she gets the approval of others after success from her children yeah. So then if the children are not successful, she's not getting the approval. So now she needs to push the kids more.
Speaker 1:She's not getting that dopamine, that good feeling Cause she seems like she was just an unhappy person. Yes, I don't know how that's gone from. She sounds very unhappy with herself.
Speaker 3:But very insecure, like wouldn't let someone take a picture of her. We didn't have a single picture of four people out of family in the house.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, you didn't have one picture.
Speaker 3:We had pictures of me and my sister. Okay, and it was just like.
Speaker 2:But of like your whole not the four of us you had a family of four.
Speaker 3:There's no holiday photos around the house.
Speaker 1:Does a picture exist somewhere?
Speaker 3:I don't think a picture of the four of us together exists ever, Unless it was one that she didn't know was taken. Like, growing up I maybe saw three photos of her because she didn't like pictures being taken back then or something. I remember one without a horse and one like a school yearbook or saying but like pictures of her don't really exist cause she would not allow it. So it was some kind of insecurity thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then some yeah, so it was a physical insecurity of her, of her appearance or whatever was going through her mind. But also she likes to be the caretaker in the I don't want to say leader.
Speaker 1:Behind the scenes leader.
Speaker 3:The head, the top dog, because obviously in her family she was the top dog or our family top dog.
Speaker 1:But so I mean you're growing up through this and I mean I would call it abusive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I didn't know that it was abusive. I thought this was all normal because To an extent.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not the worst thing anyone's ever gotten through, obviously, but I think there's something I mean just emotionally abusive, about not letting you develop friendships, pushing you to do things you don't want to do, and you know it's making up for her own insecurities, and I mean, yeah, that's just really tough. What were your grades like in high school?
Speaker 3:High school was a little rough, I would say I averaged out a, b somehow, and I mean she was mad about them, but it wasn't the worst of it, like I wasn't getting screamed at for that as much. I would get yelled at, but it wasn't like her top screaming level. Okay yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're in high school, you're isolated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cause I, now that I'm more conscious, you still?
Speaker 1:haven't developed a lot of friendships.
Speaker 3:Nope, cause, after the one girl who we were not allowed to talk to each other in the seventh grade Okay, from seven to 10, I literally had nobody and bouncing around schools and I remember the girl from that.
Speaker 1:It's a very fragile age too.
Speaker 3:She told me she's like well, if you don't like where you live, you can only like move out. And this was from the fifth grade or something, and that hurt. What that sentence like always stuck to me when she told me I'm like oh, I just have to make it to 18. Then I can go buy a apartment somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I was very depressed, 9th grade going forward, maybe even 7th grade, I just remember I was like 10, 11, and I'm like I was Googling, seeing how to move out what to do with finance and just trying to like self-educate myself to prepare for when I'm 18, I'm moving out your research in early high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, about moving out on your own.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I remember, like sitting at the computer looking at houses, like obviously what I was doing not the best plan, but I'm like, okay, maybe if I do this and save up money here. Yeah, and when I was 14, I ended up working at a restaurant right next to their office. So when they would go into the office I would just walk over literally next door because I knew the owner. Then I would bus tables fill the drinks. So I started working at a restaurant. It wasn't a lot.
Speaker 1:At 14 or 15.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would only do like two or three hours under the table, but you know, 10 bucks an hour. Add it up over time and I was very conscious about my money and I was like I'm saving every dollar of it.
Speaker 1:But you're like, what's strange about that is, I mean, most kids are like, okay, I wanna get a car. I wanna buy clothes. You're like I mean it kind of sounds like you're saving to move out as soon as you can.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was the whole thing, and I didn't want like because they were providing food, housing. I didn't really pay for anything at this point because I'm still a kid, but I'm like I want my own money. So even if I say no, it's moving out, I'm just gonna go, whether it's buy a car or buy an apartment or do something.
Speaker 1:I mean that's. I think a lot of people wouldn't be able to relate with that. I mean that's kind of a heavy thing. Now that you're thinking about it like a freshman in high school, you should be saving money to go to the movies or man.
Speaker 3:Well, the thing is, I didn't, I wasn't allowed to go to the movies, and there was one situation.
Speaker 1:You weren't allowed.
Speaker 3:I mean I could go with her, my dad, but not like go to the movies with a friend if I had them and there was during one homeschool group.
Speaker 1:Is this through high school?
Speaker 3:Oh, this is my whole life I wasn't allowed to go to the movies. So this one high school group invited everyone it wasn't just me, like parents were allowed to go to because, like homeschool, high school kids, I guess everyone the helicopter parent, but not to my mom's extreme. So it was a kids animated movie. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we get to the movie theater, my mom obviously was going to stay the whole time while we go to the movies. And then there were a lot of people cause I guess all the homeschool kids were coming on this particular day, and she said it's too dangerous here, we need to go. And I was like what do you mean? We have to go. We just cause we lived in the country with the horses, so we just drove 35 minutes to the movie theater. We show up, we see the homeschool group.
Speaker 3:I wasn't like buddy buddy with the people there, but I was in the same homeschool class with them, so I knew them. So I was very excited cause this is like a new thing for me and I'm like 15 now, and she says, nope, we're leaving. So we get to the movie theater and then we go back home and it was just, I guess, too crowded so it was too dangerous. I didn't understand the whole context, but I was like what do you mean? And the other mothers even were like why are you going to leave? And she's like this is too stressful, this is too much for my kids, we need to go.
Speaker 1:So she's projecting her own problems and her own issues onto you and then depriving you of simple things like a little social time a little fun, like a little normal kid fun. Yeah, wow. And then so obviously there's no boyfriends. I mean, if there's no movies, there's no boyfriends.
Speaker 3:There were no boyfriends, not even one of those you know. We dated for two weeks in middle school hold hands type situations. My first boyfriend was when I was 16, online.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I mean online you can. In person you definitely weren't allowed to.
Speaker 3:No, there was because I wouldn't be able to hang out with him or anything, and I was depressed. I had no romantic feelings, I had no want or motivation to even make a regular friend and so I didn't think of boyfriends. But I met this really cool person in 10th grade when I went to a private school, and even still to this day we're good friends. But I was at this one particular school for one year and she was there and I wasn't allowed to have any kind of social media. Facebook, twitter, anything like that was a no, and my mom was like they can steal your information, you can get kidnapped, they can see a picture of you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was like the chances of getting kidnapped from the Facebook probably not. Like there's a lot of bullies in the following.
Speaker 1:I mean a little online safety I can. I don't think that's too strange, but I mean.
Speaker 3:Like. Another instance was one of our auto practices. Me and my sister were in line with the group and the guy they're talking about. We are going to make cartoons for everyone. So, to get the app to make the cartoon, you need to Facebook. And I said oh, I don't have Facebook. I'm not allowed. They're like we can make one and then you don't have to use your name, you don't have to go on it ever. We're just going to make an account for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you can have the app and we can make the cartoon Like a little sneaky, a little sneaky. Facebook.
Speaker 3:So it was not in my real name. I never logged on to it Cause I also have a guilty conscience. I'm like I can't do this behind her back. Okay.
Speaker 1:So, Was it a guilty conscience or was it fear?
Speaker 3:Both, but anyways. Yeah, so Facebook was made again. Never went on. It Not in my real name. I'm like, okay, this doesn't really count, Cause it's just to make the stupid little cartoon Fast forward. One month cartoons made, it was all good, whatever. I completely forget it ever happened Like the Facebook count cause it was like minor, my sister got mad at me for something.
Speaker 3:She tells my mom that I have a Facebook. My mom took away my laptop for about two weeks and I told her. I'm like I promise you I never went on. It was not even in my real name and she's like you disobeyed me and this is what you get.
Speaker 1:So the boyfriend, the boyfriend you met online.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so then after that.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was that had to be sneaky.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it definitely was sneaky, and I would say the boyfriend happened about two years after that incident and the girl from school, from high school, like we'll just call her X X introduced me to like Skype in this one video game and she's like well, like an online game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and like nothing bad, just a stupid little game. And she wanted to stay friends after we both parted from the school. So she's like we can call each other in Skype and stuff and like, okay, now again I'm not allowed to have it, but I'm like I really want to hang out with her but I can't. Like I probably was able to see her once every two months. Oh geez.
Speaker 3:But like it was very little Cause at that point. Now I'm 16. So I'm able to go to her house for a couple hours and then get picked up. But I'm like it's something and I appreciated it once every two months 16,.
Speaker 1:that's incredibly restrictive.
Speaker 3:So we would Skype her. But then she put me in this like group of some people all over the US and I'm like this is like the coolest thing ever, Like I could just talk to people and, even though they're strangers, we're having some cool conversation and it was mostly just dumb video game related things from high school students, college students.
Speaker 1:Did your mom know about this?
Speaker 3:No, this was all at 10 PM under the cover. Very, very sneaky.
Speaker 1:So this is sneaky.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is my first hack of rebellion. So this one particular guy I really liked personality and we started now just talking one-on-one and not only during the video game session was like all the other 10 people and he was like, yeah, if we were in person or something, we would date. So I guess we casually dated around 16 to 17. I wouldn't call myself very serious. I'm like, okay, he's cute, we talk, and that's basically it.
Speaker 1:That's about it.
Speaker 3:And then, when I was 17, him and his family came to Florida from Illinois for vacation.
Speaker 1:So he's from Illinois.
Speaker 3:Yes. So I was like, oh my gosh, I wanna meet you, but how am I gonna meet you? And he knew about my parents, because this is now because I have Skype up in my room running just to talk to people. They heard all the yelling, like all these people online. They were like this is not normal, the amount of yelling that goes on in your house. And I'm like what do you mean?
Speaker 1:Oh, so they can hear your parents arguing or screaming.
Speaker 3:My parent, mom and dad yelling at each other or mom and dad yelling at me type of thing, and because they wouldn't yell in front of other people if we had a guest in the house or when we're in public. Okay. It was always more of a behind the scene yelling type of thing, because they wanna look good in front of other people.
Speaker 1:I mean, was there just a lot of that growing up? A lot of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but again, I thought this all perfectly normal. Every night, people yelling at each other, this is how every family goes.
Speaker 1:And then they're telling me now Every night, people yelling at each other.
Speaker 3:I'm scared like these strange high schoolers from across the US are like this is not normal, and I'm like I was so confused.
Speaker 1:So then Was that one of your first little inklings at the house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was my first thing.
Speaker 1:Where you're like hmm, maybe something is a little fucked up with those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I didn't know what exactly it was, but this was my first sign of me questioning it. So now this guy and his family come to Florida.
Speaker 1:So I was like that had to be exciting. It was very exciting.
Speaker 3:But I was very nervous because I've never snuck out of my house, Like, even though I couldn't see people, I just would suffer from being literally alone in the house, homeschooled and having the horses and doing things too. Okay, I'm gonna do this once and it's gonna be fine. I don't think he's a murderer or anything from online. So I said I would get dropped off at X's house for my three hour, four hours. I would usually be at her house between like three to five hours like it was a little bit less than half a day, and then my mom would come pick me up. So I got dropped off at her house and she knew the plan X was like okay, so you can get dropped off at my house and he can come pick you up. Okay.
Speaker 3:So, me and him, we went to the beach.
Speaker 1:Little secret.
Speaker 3:Yeah, secret, it was my first date, first time I had anything with the guy. So, like interesting, it went pretty well. Like went out to brunch, walked by the beach. Wow. And then got picked up. My mom knew nothing about it. The only people who knew, I guess, were this online friend group and X.
Speaker 1:Were you like sweating it out? I mean, I was definitely like Like thinking you're gonna get caught afterwards.
Speaker 3:Well, during the whole brunch thing, cause we were still in the same city as her, like chances were, she's probably not going to this exact brunch place, but I'm like very anxious, like she could show up any time and like murder us both.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:But I'm like, hey, I had a break.
Speaker 1:What would she have done?
Speaker 3:She probably would have started screaming and taken me out of there and maybe called the cops, like I didn't know what was going to happen. I'm like I don't wanna find out At 17. Yeah. Man.
Speaker 1:And I think you kind of struck on something there, Like oh, he's not a murderer.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:You know that I guess being naive I mean to this point, 17, 18, you're probably a lot more naive than the average.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cause I was very isolated and while most people have little chances and they have small little events that build up to big things, I just kind of get pushed into them and I take it out and life brings it.
Speaker 1:But I mean that's an important thing, cause a lot of kids. Like you said, you get incremental freedom.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:That allows you to kind of build up your fucking, your senses, your, you know your danger, what to do, what not to do, and you kind of get these incremental, bigger and bigger doses of freedom as you grow up, and that's what, by the time, you are 18.
Speaker 3:That You're prepared for it.
Speaker 1:You're as prepared as you can be, but you know 16, 17,. Like kids, that age should be kind of doing their own thing Under the watch of their parents.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Like that's what a parent's there for, to like guide you a little bit and nudge you back on the right path at that point, so you should be practicing your independence.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, but saying what I was not allowed to be independent and I'm I don't consider myself a rebel from up until 16. Like, I didn't really step outside the line cause I was too afraid to and I didn't want to push the boundaries, and I'm like, honestly, I just wanted to be a good kid and then, when I was 16, I was just so frustrated and I just wanted to go.
Speaker 1:So I'm like so your first actor rebellion was like over a boy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm like I'm already depressed yeah, I already kind of. I wasn't ever suicidal, cause I've always been optimistic but I'm like I already don't want to be here. So literally anywhere could be better than here, so I'll just do it.
Speaker 1:What was the? What was the depression like? Was it just like an overall sadness? Was it like? Did it? Was it physically taking you over where your body just felt tired, worn out? Like what was that?
Speaker 3:My depression kept me to myself. I didn't. After not being, after not having the chance to talk to people, when I was younger, I decided it was more of an internal breakdown that was crumbling for many years. So I started, my motivation dropped, yeah, and then I think my moods were very heavy. Everything I did costed 10 times more effort. Yeah. Whether it was to go ride the horse, to go vacuum the house, like it just made everything harder to do. But I'm like, hey, I just got to do it.
Speaker 1:You're just kind of plugging through, yeah and not. You know a normal, energetic teenager, excited for the future, excited to meet up with her friends or excited to go to school.
Speaker 3:Like the depression definitely heavily weighed into school because I didn't want to do the work, so I was just taking it as I it and I didn't want to reach out to anybody and I didn't know I could like talk to someone at school, Maybe something would change. But also at school, some of the other people that briefly knew my mom was like you have a great life. So I'm like they're not going to understand and I don't know if I should share this with them, so I didn't do anything about it.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of tough. I mean cause from the outside. I mean things look really great, you got, you live in a nice house. You got horses, your own horses. I mean that sounds like a dream. You know wealthy family, but under the surface there's pressure, depression. You know you're not learning the skills you need to be a successful adult. And I mean, when we look at parenting, really the the grand point of parenting is to make a successful adult.
Speaker 1:You know you raise a kid, hopefully they learn all the skills and everything they can while they're with you and then you get to see them go out in the world and hopefully be happy and functioning and just kind of living in the world. And it seems like your mother, your adopted mother, is raising you for her and for, basically, instead of what she could give you to go out in the world, it's what could you give her?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it felt like she was trying to fill a void in her soul that she was never able to get, and I was more of just a vessel to carry out actions and different things to make her feel better.
Speaker 1:Did you ever get a sense that she I mean, did it ever just strike you like she doesn't give a shit about me?
Speaker 3:I did not know that until I was 18, 19.
Speaker 1:You couldn't.
Speaker 3:I just, I was unaware.
Speaker 1:You thought parents were just maybe like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought parents were like that and it wasn't until I was the older teen when I started realizing that after. So back to the guy who I did it online and met one. Oh yeah, yeah, we kind of sidetracked from that. That's all good. But I Was 17. This is like the summer of 17 for turn 18 in the winter. Yeah. I saved up about $5,000 from all these side restaurant hours. Oh geez because I didn't spend any money.
Speaker 1:I Was like well, you weren't, you weren't going out anywhere.
Speaker 3:I didn't have to buy food or pay rent or anything, so I just and did you care about clothes or fashion or any of them?
Speaker 3:Not really like any kind of Standard clothes she would buy. Yeah, like when it came to material items, as long as she approved of it, you can have it. I wanted the newest saddle Sure, that's no problem. Okay, this really cool toy, remote control car sure you can have it. So long as she approved of that, I could get it. But I wasn't very greedy in that way, because I really have no wand for this stuff. I didn't ask for it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I was paid on to the table because I was like illegally working in these restaurants, mom and pop, yeah. So it was literally all in a drawer about five grand and one of the 18. The plan is now to buy an apartment in the city of then or Just buy a car and go from there just to get away and drive somewhere, I don't care where you would.
Speaker 1:It was gonna be one of the two would still be in high school when you turned 18. Um.
Speaker 3:I Technically should have graduated but I was doing a homeschool slash dual enroute course at the local college. Oh I was doing one like history course at this homeschool place. Okay, and.
Speaker 3:I'd go just like once or twice a week, do the class for two hours and Come back home, yeah, but then for the State college class. I was enrolled in college courses with college people. Yeah and I did about 27 credits, but I was failing miserably. Oh gee like 1.7 GPA. It was horrible. Yeah but they didn't know about that, cuz I just didn't talk about it now and so that's where I wasn't termed the school.
Speaker 3:I didn't have a GED, I didn't have high school diploma, but I was doing college work because they wanted me to get my G. No, they wanted me to get my a degree the same time. I finished high school, when I was 19. Okay cuz they said that would be better for me because knock them both out with one stone, which I guess in Syria days. Yeah, yeah. They didn't know about my alternative plans cuz I couldn't talk to them about moving out so I wasn't allowed to secret runaway plan.
Speaker 3:Yeah so, and I do feel like, because I was not able to talk to her, I would get a no or a screamed at. My default from 15 16 year olds was just don't talk about it because it's not getting anywhere. Yeah, so, yeah. So, summer of 17, I have money saved and I'm just gonna keep Working these restaurants, cuz I was only doing a couple hours a week, but it all added up.
Speaker 3:Yeah so they're getting like 10 bucks an hour, but I'll still riding and I'll still racing cars and even though it's racing cars in a professional I had my racing license at the time, I was not allowed to drive a regular commuter car and and people were very confused of that like other, have a driver's license. I did not. I didn't get my driving license till I was 19 or 20 and Whoa the people on the race, you my gorgeous, you just weren't allowed. I wasn't allowed.
Speaker 3:Wow and I was allowed to drive with most adults, unless my parents knew you like you're, but you're racing. Yeah, I was on a karting team to do F2000.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was doing really well.
Speaker 1:I mean that takes a lot of Smoker skills, or yeah, no, I would have to skills.
Speaker 3:So when I was doing the racing and I was home schooled Because if I was in a school I would just go after school, but if I was in school I would be dropped off at like 10 am and have my lessons till like 4 pm A couple times a week.
Speaker 1:So this is racing.
Speaker 3:Yes, karting.
Speaker 1:How did how did that come? Was that something you wanted to do?
Speaker 3:my dad was super into NASCAR growing up. I did not care about NASCAR, but he was a scorer at a local track, okay, and sometimes he would take me and I would just watch the races, but I had no interest in doing it and then One of his co-workers from that race track said you should Get involved in something open wheel. I think you'll really enjoy it.
Speaker 3:Yeah so we ended up going to this open wheel, no karting track and I did the rental cards. Really I thought that was so fun. And then I started doing the local competition, like citywide and then state, and then I started doing the lessons and to International so. Process build up from start to Getting on the team and racing competitively Wow. But my teachers, they always said we're like, so you're racing at international level. In the next season You'll be in a big car.
Speaker 3:Yeah not just a car anymore, but a car that most people like they don't let you drive it unless you have a background.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:He said why aren't you allowed to drive a regular car? And now they let me drive their car around the track and stuff and around like the little stuff, but like not on the road because it was legal. Yeah but I Was like well, my mom doesn't really let me do anything, you know. And she's like well, cuz he kind of got it. But also at same time he's like you've been doing this professionally, you can't ride, drive the car or the regular car.
Speaker 3:So that's how I differate to people racing on a track is for sport. Yeah, driving a car on the road is for independence. So those were why the reason why I wasn't allowed to do it, because my mom wanted me to depend on her. Oh yeah, I was allowed to be independent and that seems to be you. That's the recurrent case, kind here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seems to be kind of a bit of a theme. Mm-hmm is, you know? I guess they talk about narcissism a lot where it's isolating your kid and then kind of breaking them down, berating them, keeping them easy to control. She didn't want any rebelliousness, she didn't want disagreement, she didn't want any of that. Yeah, a lot of it's just about. Was she she ever nice, or did she ever praise you? Or is it more just punishment when you didn't?
Speaker 3:There was definitely Punishment when it did not go well. A hundred percent there across the board for everything. Yeah, in terms of getting praised, I'm trying to think, like right now, of when I got a good job, I'll get a good job, like I had the horse competition you get first place. A good job, you get well. But it was very quick, it wasn't big and the thing is, the bads highly outweighed the good, yeah, and then over over critical good memories.
Speaker 3:I can't think of any good memories from the house growing up. The only good memories I could remember were like going to Disney because for a birthday or something we had the annual pass. Yeah, but that was more about go up for the day, come back type trip. Yeah, there was no yelling at Disney or stuff, was more just going the ride and have fun she's. But Other than those little things I can't remember so um, tell me about your, your big escape.
Speaker 1:You've been saving your money up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my money was going to $5,000 in a drawer, some cheap car or apartment. But then my dad got arrested that summer. Oh geez. I still to this day. I don't know the full details because they didn't tell me at the time, but they owned a medical testing lab and there's a lot of paperwork and different Documents that are involved. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Some paperwork or document of some sort was mislabeled or misprinted or forged or something Like. I don't want to say something, I just don't know, but it's something along the line of the documents. Yeah. So now he's in jail and we don't know for how long, and this is like new, this literally no one had this coming. It was just they came to the office, they arrested him and we're like huh, what happened, geez? And I think it was like a $10,000 bail that was posted.
Speaker 3:Okay now, even though they have money in the account. My mom did not have access to that money, especially that large of a mount, because she would just kind of go out and send my dad's money, because my dad, he was always ahead of the business. Yeah, first she owned a motel, now he owns a medical testing lab. Yeah she didn't have a career. I know she worked as a florist when she was in college, but yeah.
Speaker 3:When I was alive she was in and out of a nursing program, did not finish, as far as I know, and Would just kind of go out spend the money and type of thing. So there was a limit, I guess, on her because I don't know they're all they financing, but she did not have access to $10,000 at that time. So I decided because I Really I want to do the most I could and I know money comes and goes did she bring this up?
Speaker 1:I mean, was she saying to you, like, I don't have the money to get your dad out of jail? What is she saying?
Speaker 3:It was just freaking out. She was calling a lot of people what should I do? How should I do this? And then I I Thought about I'm like, well, I could help him, but I don't know, I really need to move out. And then she was like Can I borrow some of your money? And then I just felt really bad, really guilty, and I'm like this is a very high level Sign of urgency that we need it now. Yeah, so I ended up giving them $5,000, literally all of it, just because I'm like I'll find another way. And I felt like if I didn't do that, I would have felt like really guilty or have something in the back of my mind like something could have been done, but I didn't do it.
Speaker 1:You're giving it. You're giving what you think is. You're giving them $5,000 to get your dad out of jail yeah, your parents, who are very wealthy. I mean, do you got how many horses? We had six horses, all $20 to $40,000, like I just have six horses, but you need to give your mom $5,000 now. Did they ever pay that back?
Speaker 3:They never gave it to me like that. No, but I'm not asking for because money's money, I don't care about it. No, but.
Speaker 1:Something's weird about that, like she just I mean, if she knew your plan, do you think maybe? No she didn't want you to have cash.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I think it was just a sign of urgency. We need it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean so obviously they they had to have $5,000 to repay their into a bank account. But afterwards.
Speaker 3:I have no idea.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:So yeah, because I remember they don't share any detail their stuff with me, so I just kind of guess and hope and assume and Like, if I borrowed, if I borrowed money from my kid and I had it.
Speaker 1:I mean they obviously had, they weren't struggling financially right.
Speaker 3:No, they're not. From what?
Speaker 1:you could see.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like how fucking weird, like I couldn't imagine not.
Speaker 3:I just assume, maybe because all the bank accounts and all the income was under his name and he can't get to it. She can't get what he was.
Speaker 1:Out of jail, you bailed him out.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, after so he was in jail for a week and then he came out and then I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:Did he know that you Went to money? Yeah, hmm.
Speaker 3:So now back to the plan of leaving. I tell this guy from Illinois I'm like, well, I had money, now it's gone. And he, I don't have the whole situation. He's like, okay, I really want you to get out of that situation. So, yeah, what if I buy you a plane ticket two days after your birthday and you flap to Illinois? And I'm like, let me think about it. So I spent like two weeks thinking about or who, at however long. And I'm like To my friend X. I was like, should I do this? I don't know how this is going to go. I've never really I've had him once, I've never been to Illinois, I've never really left the house. Should I do this?
Speaker 3:You weren't missing much so she's like well, just let me know what your plan is, because we're young, she's like well, I don't know, yeah, fuck it. Yeah, so I guess it was October. It wasn't too far below. I'm like, okay, let's go with that.
Speaker 1:And then I ended up. This is your plan to escape.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I ended up getting $100 from my neighbor because I was helping him with his tractor. Okay so now I have $100 to move out.
Speaker 1:So I told X, I said Did you ever ask your parents for that five grand? I you never brought it up. You were never like hey about that five grand.
Speaker 3:I didn't care. At this point, I don't know if I was a depression or anything.
Speaker 1:This is your plan though You've been. You've been making this as as a plan since you were 14. I was just working little jobs and just literally stuffing it in a drawer, not buying anything, not spending it anything, just to get out. So if you wanted to get out, you would have your own money and you just I guess maybe I was too afraid to ask them.
Speaker 3:Yeah or they would. Well, they, at one point they did say like, oh, we'll put it to your college or something, and I just didn't care about college. So I'm like whatever. So, yeah, I accepted the plane ticket from him, and so the new plan is now they hired like an uber driver for my house to the airport and he did pay for the uber and the plane ticked it and then I had $100 and I had literally A suitcase, a little bag and a backpack and that's what I left with to Illinois.
Speaker 1:I got on the plane and nobody knew.
Speaker 3:I told X, but she didn't think I was serious.
Speaker 3:She's like you're not very good, so you've never done nobody in your family, no no one in my family and what I did was I wrote like a three page handwritten note, put it behind a picture because I didn't want them to see it, and then like Go to the airport and then stop me. So I put on my desk We'll call soon, don't worry, something like that. Like two little sentences and then put the big note behind the table and then I was like I was going to tell them after I got to Illinois that the big note is there, in case they were like to cut me off or anything. And that note like explained like everything so I'm on the plane. Obviously, silence your phone.
Speaker 1:This is two days after you turned 18. Yeah, I just turned 18.
Speaker 3:Because I didn't want to do it when I was younger, because I didn't want any legal complications and also, remember, I don't really have any. I don't have any real. I have my state ID and then I scourge the house for my social security card, so that's my only like form of identification. So I was just kind of hoping like that would get me something once I move out, because obviously I didn't want to get a job once I move out.
Speaker 3:So I land and then I'm still on the plane and that's when we're stopped. You know, waiting that 30 minutes to get off the plane. Turn on my phone I'm not kidding A hundred missed calls, slash text messages. They're all blowing it up. They're like where are you? And like at this point I was only gone for like six hours or something, because it's like a three hour plane ride there. I got there an hour before, yeah, so it wasn't like I was gone for a full day or anything. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And how I did this was because she went out shopping. My sister was at school, so that's when I'm like, okay, now's the time to like eat it. But she kind of went on like a regular shopping schedule in the afternoon. So I knew like I'm like she's probably going to be out and that's like my three hour, the home alone time, so we'll probably do the Uber ride now.
Speaker 1:You read this down to a science.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're like Andy Dufresne and the Shawshank Redemption with us.
Speaker 3:So I checked my phone and I'm like I kind of assume this was going to happen. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I'm reading all these text messages and I still have all these texts to the stage just because I almost got a restraining order on her. But I thought it was going to have to be a whole legal case. But she was like call, call, call. Where are you? Are you okay? Did you get kidnapped or called X? We talked to her parents. Like I'm reading all these text messages and I'm like, oh God, this is more dramatic than I thought. And then one of them said we called the FBI and I'm like huh.
Speaker 3:So I ended up calling her back and she's screaming on the phone and I'm on the plane. I'm like I don't want to do. I'm like she's telling me how my dad on the floor having a heart attack, the police were at the house. And the police were at the house because I had to speak to one of the officers. Oh geez.
Speaker 3:The FBI were called because apparently they could have been a kidnapping. I said no, I willingly left. I'm an adult, I can do this, and that's why I wanted to wait until 1118, because I didn't want the whole thing when I was 16 or 17 to play out, I got you. So during this airport thing, I'm just trying to like say I'm here. I should have just hung up on them, but I didn't know better.
Speaker 1:I just I felt.
Speaker 3:I felt obligated that I had to talk to her and everybody. And then my dad was like are you okay? I'm like yeah, yeah, but it was mostly he's just. His concern was are you okay? Her concern was why are you doing this? You're rebelling, you're a terrible person.
Speaker 1:You're hurting me. Yeah, and it was basically that's what she's saying. She's saying you're hurting me.
Speaker 3:And she's like I need you whole-.
Speaker 1:Why are you hurting me?
Speaker 3:And now the whole thing is you can't survive without me and you can't get a job. No one's going to hire you. And then she called me a mail order bride, and all of that.
Speaker 1:A mail order bride.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was the one. The text message is.
Speaker 1:What? How does that? Make sense so.
Speaker 3:I guess it's because I ran away with the guy I met online. Oh Jesus. As teenagers. So then he picked me up from the airport, we went back to his apartment. Yeah, I was very anxious.
Speaker 1:Are you anxious?
Speaker 3:Oh, I was like crying the whole time, like breaking down.
Speaker 1:Dread. He's just like full of dread.
Speaker 3:It wasn't more dread, it was more. Everything is new. Yeah, like an extremely new situation for me to be in, like moving out of the house but running away, but also a new state, but also people I don't know and no one knows, like there was a lot of.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's the independence. I mean, that's like you went from nothing to.
Speaker 3:Literally everything.
Speaker 1:To everything Like.
Speaker 3:In, like when from no boyfriend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in three hours you go from not even having, like practice, boyfriends.
Speaker 3:No, there was no practice.
Speaker 1:Like literally you're moving in. Yeah, the second day meeting him we just A dude from the internet, and it was scary and their ex was like you know.
Speaker 3:Be careful yeah. You don't know, but from all the other internet friends who were around the 18 year old. They're like he's probably fine, he's not going to murder you. Yeah, he's just another 18 year old trying to help you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah. So in Illinois, the first three days I did not leave the room. I was very in shock. Yeah, I was crying. I did not eat for three days. I just my body wasn't functioning because of everything that happened. And then, after the week, like I started Huge change. I mean After a week I started like walking around but the weird thing was two cops from the state school that he was going to or it might have been like three times, but anyways, they came and they knocked down our door and they were like, are you okay?
Speaker 3:We got calls and apparently you're the girl and this is the guy. We got to make sure you're safe. And I'm like, yeah, and they looked around the apartment and looked normal. They're like okay, we're good Bye. So yeah, the police literally knocked on the door to do checkups.
Speaker 1:Was this from your mom? Maybe?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you tell her where you were stuck?
Speaker 3:I did not tell her the city. I did not tell her anything. I remember when she was on the phone with X and this was out on the plane, so I didn't overhear the conversation, but my mom was yelling at X and her mom. Okay.
Speaker 3:And obviously her mom didn't know anything. But she was like how could you let her do this? I thought you were a friend, you would have prevented it. And X just started crying, Like we're just kids. When X knew about my situation and she was like, if you want me out? And then my mom was threatening her parents with the cops and the FBI and her mom was like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:So yeah, so I'm guessing my mom sent the cops up there. I think they wanted us to either get arrested or me to get sent back. But they found like nothing looks super fishy, you're not hostage, so they let it be. Well, yeah, you're an adult, yeah, you could do whatever you want at that point.
Speaker 1:So you live up there and I mean, you got to get a job, you got to find a way to make money, and now you're in a relationship. And how did that feel? Was it freedom, but it's responsibility? It's freedom, but it's responsibility, right?
Speaker 3:And the responsibility part was, I guess, one of the easier parts, because when I was living at home I was still in charge of like every single chore and that's what my grandpa would call me, cinderella, because I was still in charge of the barn. I still had to do like the mob, the vacuuming, like I had an hour of the chore every day.
Speaker 1:So you were used to the hard work.
Speaker 3:The hard work part was easy and basically the whole being pushed for sports translated into the job. And since I already worked restaurant jobs, luckily I got my social security card when I was digging around the house for it, because I just ended up becoming a server for that one year in Illinois, working literally 50 hours a week Because I didn't know what to do. I'm like I don't have much plan in life, I'm just going to work and make money and save it. I opened my own like little bank account with the stage thing on my own. I didn't really spend it because at first I didn't have any real friends and me and the boyfriend at the time we would like go to the movies, go on walks, but we didn't do anything like super expensive or crazy, it's just little local things.
Speaker 3:And then it was really cool being like it was my first time in my life where I felt like a community, because a bunch of the people in the restaurant they were all the same age as me college students there. Even though I was in college and since I was working like all the shifts that I could, I met a lot of people and then they invited me to like go to their house and I didn't have a car but it was a college town so I could just walk over and everyone lived within a mile or two of each other so I would just walk to their house play some board games. I went to some parties Like they were all very low key parties, nothing crazy, maybe like 15 people, but I'm like this is crazy.
Speaker 1:Did you try drinking for the first time?
Speaker 3:I tried drinking a little bit. I never got super drunk or anything. And I'm like, oh, this is a bad, like just relaxing. And now this is like my first time being like a kid flash young adult and it was very enjoyable in that sense, Like having the community, having the friend being able to go to their house.
Speaker 1:Like the freedom relationships friends.
Speaker 3:Even though it was an ugly town in a state that was foreign to me. I'm like this is like the dream which, if someone was to look at it and be like you want a corn town or you could have a hat, like Florida, which was beautiful, I'm like the corn town was like so much better. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I'm from Illinois. It's funny, I'm a recovering from.
Speaker 3:Covering from the Illinois grade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:But even though I was still having like a really good time making my first like community friend where I could just go to their house and show us them, it was also like I had a lot of guilt and a lot of pent up emotion in me so I sometimes just go and walk the night cry. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I felt guilty for leaving and I was trying to talk to my parents a little bit. So I'm like, okay, now that they can't yell at me, now I can hang up, which is nice. So if she's yelling too much, there's always the end, the call button. So I tried calling her and him, for mom, dad, for a little bit. Same thing. She would just yell at me. Why'd you go? You're such an ingrateful, really. Berate me, belittle me, call me very negative words. So I'm like, why would I talk to her? Let me just call the office to talk to my dad. We did that a couple of times. I just talked to him and I was trying to state how I felt to him for really the first time in my life. Fully One time I called him when she was at the office and, like I didn't know, she was at the office and he picked up and I could hear her screaming at him and she's like do not call him here, you're not allowed to talk to him without me. Jesus.
Speaker 3:And that's when I stopped communicating with both of them, for like a couple more months.
Speaker 1:That's horrible.
Speaker 3:So that was basically the summary of like Illinois. Like I got my first job and I was still very smart about my money. I'm like I don't want to just spend on stupid things. I want to build myself a future and I have a lot of like goals Seeing it, I didn't know what goals I had. I was in the exploring my options phase.
Speaker 1:You might be the first person ever that ran away to Illinois.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most people run away from Illinois to Florida.
Speaker 1:So eventually you come back to Florida.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So after sitting down with a friend who I met in the restaurant, I thought she was very intelligent and we were talking about our goals and everything and I'm like she's like, do you see yourself forever in Illinois? And I'm like I like it here, but I don't think it's forever because that's the semester left. Like people would come and go from the restaurant, they just would graduate leave and that kind of thing and I'm like there's not much for me to do here.
Speaker 3:I don't know what I want to do with my life, but this is a very small town and I do want to accomplish something. I don't know what something is, so she's like where else would you move? I'm like, if anything, I like Florida. I didn't like my house but like Florida and fine, like scenery and I know the job scene is good there and I'm sure like I'll be able to move here from a bad situation and make friends less than a matter of months and I feel I can take that skill and apply that wherever city I moved to in the country of the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you've adapted a little bit into, you've caught up to, I guess, your peers.
Speaker 3:And then me and the boyfriend at the time we broke up. We did had very different lifestyles and we had different goals, so it did not work out. So when I was talking to her, she's like maybe you should move back to Florida, not for family or anything, just to go to a bigger city now and try to start finding myself a real job. Because she was like do you want to work in a restaurant for the rest of your life? And I said no, I don't, I want something else. And she's like, well, in Illinois, in this town, unless you have a degree, your only option is a restaurant. I'm like, yeah, I don't want that forever. So I ended up flying back to Florida. I met up with X and we were exploring two different little cities in Florida and I interviewed for two like marketing type jobs just to feel it out. And I'm like I don't know what I want. And I was with X for about three or four days. She's like you could stay with me for as long as you need, Don't worry, I'm here for you.
Speaker 1:Does your mom know you're back?
Speaker 3:She did not know I'm back. She did not know I was coming back Because after the whole.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is a year later too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was in Illinois for about a year. X was like you could stay here. I'm like this thing is like I love you, but I really want to have my own place or do my own thing, like I don't want to stay in the town I grew up in, I want to go somewhere else, just not sure where. And then I'm like I felt bad and still guilty and I felt like I left on extremely bad terms. So what if I contact my parents and meet for an hour or two, have a restaurant, sit down and see?
Speaker 1:if you can patch it up, make some kind of salad, some kind of relationship.
Speaker 3:So she's like are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, why not? I don't think I thought this part through because this was more of a once I moved back to Florida because my original situation was not going to talk to them at all, but I'm like yeah while I'm here. I'll do it. So I called. I either called her text and I just said I'm in the town. I'm only going to be here for like a day or two. If you want to sit down, we can. Okay.
Speaker 3:We all met at this restaurant because that's dropped me off and she's like. It was very awkward. It was just me, my mom and my dad, I think. I don't think my sister was there, but maybe she was. I don't remember, but it was the most awkward conversation, most tensioned conversation slash sit down with anyone I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1:Do you think she was trying to play nice? I think she was trying to play nice I because that tension I mean from what you described growing up it was, it was yelling, it was screaming, it was you do what I want.
Speaker 3:No one was yelling no, also in a public place, but she also didn't have any power at that point Right.
Speaker 1:And she doesn't, she can't tell you what to do and you kind of proved that. But you know that tension like I can almost, I can almost visualize like maybe trying to play nice, maybe biting her tongue a little and trying to maybe find a way to manipulate her to get back in or to get you to do what she wants again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what I gathered from them was like okay, we didn't communicate well, we didn't have an understanding, let's try it again. And from that I'm like okay, I had hope. I'm like, now that all this year has happened, maybe this could be good again. I've heard stories where you just got to leave, come back, and maybe this is that situation. So I agreed to move in with them for in unspecified amount of time. I said we'll try it, let's see how it goes. And I like okay.
Speaker 1:So you decided that this was.
Speaker 3:So then we went back to Ex's house, picked up my two suitcases, went back to their parents' house. I was very uneasy there. I just kind of, you know, kept to my house myself, so try to make it like normal, you know, make my breakfast go outside. At this point they gave the horses to the old trainer who actually moved. So we don't have any horse at this point because I was like the only one involved with the horses, so that time you moved back, I mean just generally, how did that go?
Speaker 1:Did she fall back into control?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it started with a lot of hope for me and I'm like, okay, I could finally maybe have a family that I always wanted. And then, as the days went on it wasn't even months, it was days the dream shattered. I ended up getting like a job at a restaurant. So they would still drop me off at this new restaurant job Because I still want to make my own money. No, I don't have a driver's license at this point and I did get bullied a little bit because now I'm like 19, almost 20 or something like that and they're like why is she dropping you off?
Speaker 3:I'm like well, I don't have a driver's license and I'm not allowed to drive, and now they just think I'm a sheltered kid. I didn't tell anyone out this particular restaurant about the whole past year because I didn't know them. That was a lot of effort. I just kind of threw my tables, wasn't why it left.
Speaker 1:So that was like the only thing I was doing. You didn't get a driver's license, just didn't care to.
Speaker 3:Well, I ended up getting it in the same little couple months time period, so I still okay. The only time I was let out of the house still was to go work this restaurant. But now I have like actual shifts and I was working 40 hours a week because I'm an adult now.
Speaker 1:And now you're 19, 20.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm still. I wanted to go to a little get together downtown. I saw it online on some website but for like pop culture or something. And I'm like this will be so fun. I asked if I could go and they're like no, and I'm like why not? They're like it's late, it's 9 pm, you. Lots of bad things could happen. Like this is actually a pretty safe town. Like chances are, nothing bad is going to happen.
Speaker 1:You just lived on your own for a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was walking down the street. I was sleeping over at my co-worker's house, yeah, and you learned decision making and you nothing bad happened.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:So she's like, no, you can't go to that. And then I'm like huh. And then I tried for one other thing and I got no. And then I called my friend back in Illinois I said I think it's happening again. I've been here for like a month and a half and I'm getting the press. Tie was before Everything I just overcame in the past year. It's coming back really, really quickly and I didn't say go to fact me. And if it would, I thought it would take a longer time. Yeah, she's like get out of there. I'm like, okay, how should I do this now? So they always want me to go to college. So how I ended up getting out of their house. I was probably there for three or four months and that's it went really bad for those three or four months. Like the yelling to me was not as bad because I knew if they started yelling at me bad, I'm dipping. Yeah. So they were still very, very protected.
Speaker 1:You knew you could get out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I knew I would have just called someone and gone now as soon as something went bad. So they weren't yelling as much. So like some yelling but nothing. But they were yelling at my sister like 10 times worse. And I said if you want me to go to college because I wanted to try and find like a happier medium compromise way out, so I'm like I'll enroll to our of the way in another college. And they were like, oh yeah, you should go to college. So I ended up enrolling there and I did pay for my tuition at the community college.
Speaker 3:It was cheaper because it was community and even though I didn't have a GED or a high school diploma because I did my one year of dual enroll, they accepted me at the community college. And how I got around up there, they did give me, like a loaner car, a little Kia. For that little bit I got my driver's license literally the week before I got enrolled in this college.
Speaker 1:But you're living separate. That's the important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm still living separate. So during my year and a half at this college and I only had to do a year and a half because I had previous college credit- yeah.
Speaker 3:I went to class, I still worked my little restaurant job in the other city and I was communicating with them, just trying to keep it on neutral terms. It was definitely more negative than neutral. It was more just tolerate each other, try not to make anything go south too much. But hey, I'm not there, I'm two and a half hour away. They can't really just show up. So nothing too terrible went on in that period. They still got mad, yeah, but the thing is I would always like I'm working, I'm in school. I can't just come down for that a week.
Speaker 1:Seems like she's still holding something back. Maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I only went down to them and they only came up to me a little bit. I don't know how many times, but it wasn't too many. So it got through. And then I had my own college friend and stuff and I was doing things. So it was fine. I was in the best relationship ever with them, even though it wasn't good. It was just more tolerable because I was not there. And then I graduated from that school Really good. I was in the 1.8 GPA, better than my 1.7 beforehand. And then for my AA I went to a state college or state university to finish my bachelors. Okay.
Speaker 3:Because the other one, the community college, just to get your AA. They didn't have bachelors programs. So I moved again to get my bachelors. Now I went down to them a couple of times, whether it was a holiday or something. We tried to speak a few words just so nothing goes bad and then I leave. It was more in see your face. Okay, cool and leave. And.
Speaker 3:I didn't want to spend time to their house. If I never had to go to their house, I wouldn't. It was just to maintain a relationship. Not good, just a relationship. Yeah. Now I'm in this new college and I drive down for Thanksgiving, she blowed up like terrible, like screaming, like she hasn't done since I was in high school, type screaming, like watch screaming. And it was because I was telling her in this new college university you know it's a big university- I joined some academic programs.
Speaker 3:I'm doing more of the big university type thing that people do, like a party or something. She's like you went to a big party, Wow, you're going to get drugs. You're going to all so many different things, you can't drink. Oh, you joined and I remember I said I joined the.
Speaker 3:American group and I went to like a couple of their meetings. And now again, I'm only at this big university. The master's started what August. Now it's only November. Yeah, I'm not going to tell you to this, but making friends there was really easy because it is a big university. And she's like why'd you join the American Asian society of this? And I'm like well, because I'm Asian. Like I want to learn more Now. I'm like.
Speaker 3:I want to explore the culture and like it's interesting to see like other Chinese kids there and I like want to talk to them.
Speaker 1:Understand.
Speaker 3:She went all out. She's like you're not Asian, you're not Chinese, you're American, you're white. Wow. And I'm like I'm Chinese born but I'm American raised, but there is still a mix in me. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So then she was like you're not grateful for everything we've done. If you're in China, you would have been a sweat factory or you would have been killed because of your girl, and they didn't want girls or single policy, that kind of thing. So she was going how ungrateful I am to been adopted. And then she was. I said some other little stuff, like saying that we're very everyday conversation about new things I'm exploring and I wanted to do something in the arts because I really, when I was younger, like writing was a form of escaping and I would just do it as a passion. But I'm like, maybe I want to do like writing more as a career. And she's like well, that's not going to make you any money, that's, I need you to do something else. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm like but I really want to do this, and she's like you don't know what's good for you, I know what's good for you.
Speaker 1:It's control. It's that control yeah.
Speaker 3:And then after that Thanksgiving, something happened because I stayed overnight. That was Thanksgiving dinner, one terrible no one talked. I get up in the morning and she's like okay, I thought about it, I need you out of this house, like you're not part of the family. Something like clicked. I don't know what she's like, you're just really ungrateful girl. So I just I had no no like saying I'm like, okay, I'm leaving. Yeah. So then after that I went back to the college. I talked to some of the friends and I'm like I really just need to cut them out of my life. I've tried now for two years after leaving, like I was like it's a toxic relationship and it's a cycle, it keeps going.
Speaker 1:Yep, even though now I'm like she plays nice for a little while and then go back Fucking. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And they're like, yeah, you need to get out of this. And they were good friends. So they're like, okay, what if? And I was still paying for my school at this point they did help me with the apartment, so they paid for the apartment. I paid for the college class. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'll still, you know, work at a restaurant. So I said I want nothing to do with them. I don't know if this is for now or forever, but I need to fully cut them out and not talk to them. Yeah, so I was still driving their car around. So I said let's drop that off when they're not home, Just keep it in the driveway and then leave. I'm like, yeah, sure, we'll make it like a little thing, We'll stop by another city, have a dinner, go to the beach. I'm like, yeah, sure, why not?
Speaker 3:So the plan was it was me and four friends me and one friend, one car, two other friends in the other car. We drove down a couple hours to my house and we have like a gated community, so you needed to pass code. And the other two friends they got there like five minutes before me and they called me and they're like what's the gate code? I'm like, try this code. And then I tried, they tried the code. I'm like, okay, it's not that it changed. I'm like there's a couple other code. Just wait for me to get there, Cause I think maybe I had a vap or something in my car. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm like just I'll be there soon. They're like oh wait, don't worry, we just got in. They were only like a minute ahead of us now, okay, okay, so I'm gonna let you in. Sure, I'm like now don't go to my parents' house, cause I'm like I gave them the address, I'm like just in case she was home, cause now I don't know her current schedule. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So just stay, like on the road next to it. I'm going to drop off my friend like to your car. I'll drive it in the driveway and I'll walk back to you. Okay, just in case. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're taking a whole. You got a whole plan here?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So they started driving and they're like this car is like going to your house. I'm like is it a white trailblazer? They're like yeah. And I'm like oh yeah, don't like don't go close to that. That's my mom and they're like, yeah, she's not like turning around and circling our way and stuff, and I'm like, just get away from her. That's probably my mom. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm like just stay away, if anything, drive away. And then I get in and now my mom's uh, the street right next to our house and she pulls up next to me cause obviously she know into the car and I'm like I wrote down my window, I said I'm dropping off the car and then the person who was passenger to me, he got out, went back to the other car and I'm like, cause I didn't want him, like involved. Yes.
Speaker 3:What's about to happen. So I go into our driveway. I my whole plan was just to turn the car off, leave the key and see in. Go. Yeah Well, she dragged me out of the seat. Um, like I parked the car, I turned it off and I was like opening the door, she dragged me out.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 3:And like she like choked me and she was like pulling me and it was like the first time she was extremely physically abusive and like she was like you need to go talk to your dad and get inside and I'm like, um, I'm just like trying to get out of her. I'm not like super strong, but like I just was trying to get out of her arms and she was like trying to pull me and like put her arm around my neck. Like I don't think she was trying, she was trying to just like drag me in the best she could. Like I literally like slipped out from her arms somehow and like ran to the friend's car. Geez.
Speaker 3:And then we, like, we drove away and that was the last interaction I ever had was like her, the family, the house or anything, geez yeah.
Speaker 1:That's an intense story. It really is, and that's um. She just didn't want to let you go and it wasn't for your sake. And that's, it seems like once again a recurring theme.
Speaker 3:Like to this day, like after that physical abuse which was a lot more than the emotional, like the emotional and the words and like the violin was everything that was emotional, mental abuse, a little bit of physical, but the one big physical accident was a lot more than the emotional, which made me like cause. I figured maybe I'd go into this thing where I want to contact them again. But no, from then on, like when I think of them, I think of that and I'm like I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh, it clearly wasn't working either, everything you did to try to patch things up.
Speaker 3:And then just driving by, like seeing having my three friends from college look at her. One of the things he said one of the friends said. He said seeing her face literally sucked the life out of me of how mean she looks and I'm like, yeah, so I mean that was a couple of years ago. That was about four and a half five. Yeah, four years ago, something like that.
Speaker 1:So what kind of? I mean just from the, the high pressure, childhood, the helicopter, parenting, the emotional abuse, what kind of lasting effects do you feel, like you still?
Speaker 3:like so for like the negative effects when I think back to in detail, like giving those two stories, like I still cry. Yeah. It's like hard to relive. She comes back in dreams there's been. It's not too often, but maybe once every three months. I get a really intense dream. I'll wake up crying and the dream is just her yelling at me or choking me or something. Very bad. It's a little.
Speaker 1:PTSD.
Speaker 3:It's very intense in the dream and I wake up and like I'm still shaking and I tried therapy from two different people a couple of sessions. They were like talk it out, but it wasn't going too many places and I felt like the most relief I get is just talk it out with like friends versus a professional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you ever get like intrusive thoughts, Like like waking, like while you're awake? Like something just washes over you.
Speaker 3:It usually doesn't happen too randomly, unless I'm just really thinking about it. And now that a bunch of years have passed I don't just ponder anymore, I just want to let it go. But if something were to ask me about it, like I can tell the story vaguely without the details, and I'm okay, the details make it harder.
Speaker 1:Thank, you for sharing those two.
Speaker 3:Little things, like if I feel like I'm disappointing someone or from a failure, then her voice will come in my head like you're disappointing me, you're not doing well enough, you're never succeed, and that just it kind of is a broken record in my mind. It just goes and goes and I'll be at work. And there was one instance where I broke down at work because I was just feeling a little sick that day. Yeah, and then instead of like telling me, boss, I need to go home or anything, I just from a tiny sick. It just was like, if I tell my boss I need to go home, he's going to think I'm a failure, he's going to be disappointed, he's never going to, I'm not dependable, and so, from a little thing, those words kept going and I just started crying and he was like what's wrong?
Speaker 3:I'm like I just caught started breaking down. He was very not aware of the situation, because I don't just tell people this like on the daily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's you know a little bit of trauma, I think, and you're still carrying, I guess, from that abuse, so to speak. You're still carrying that a little bit now and that's tough. What would you say to someone in a situation like yours, or what would you have told yourself back then when you were younger, maybe when you could have spoken to someone about it?
Speaker 3:Or I would say speaking to someone would be step one, because I didn't realize that was an option. I could talk to a school teacher or a coach, end up about the situation and let it out that way and see if there was ways they could step in to help. I just didn't know I could have done that because I was either one two to press to reach out, or two, my mom had so much control I felt fearful to speak out about it when I was young. And then I would say, like, if you can't talk to anyone, also try to have a good relationship with yourself so you don't resent yourself and hate yourself for outside things that you can't control at all. So really understanding yourself of the action and how this is going to be like Loving yourself, forgiving yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and really forgive yourself for whatever's happening at the time. It's hard to be optimistic at the time, but it's not forever and at one point there'll be a way out.
Speaker 1:And you're doing well now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, after university I graduated cum laude, did really well. Yeah, I've had a boyfriend for the past year and a half. We're doing well. I have a very stable job. And then I say the most important thing, I have a very good friend group and I know if anything were to happen I could rely on them. But even if it's a fun thing, they're always down to go to a concert or something. So I'd say that's like the thing I'm most grateful for right now in my life, or to friends.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome to hear and I mean you seem to be doing great and thank you for sharing that story. I mean that's a hell of a story and I think it was important that you tell it, and important for other people that might be experiencing that, or even parents that are, I guess, being way too hard on their kids. I mean you want your kids to do well, but that's a story of just control and expectations and just being way too hard.
Speaker 3:And I wanted to share it. And, even if I cry, I want kids who are in the situation to know they're not alone and that they can overcome it, even though the road to overcome it is very hard. And then for people who are outside of it, sometimes they look in and say you have everything you can want, you have a nice house, you get any toy you want, your clothes are good, new, new. But in reality, unless you're seeing the full picture, there's a lot of stuff that happens behind the closed door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not what it seems. You might have looked lucky or privileged, but in a lot of ways you had so much less than other kids had as far as love, understanding, support, stuff like that. Well, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for tuning into the Redacted Podcast. Till next time, take care, stay out of trouble. We'll see you in church.