Naming What Was Never Mine to Carry - Michelle

“I spent so many years trying to figure out who I am rather than just being who I am and figuring out how to love her.”

What if we remember childhood not by what happened, but by how it felt? In this episode of The Healing in Sharing, returning guest Michelle shares a story built from fragments of memory, emotion, and survival. She opens up about childhood trauma, inherited shame, teen pregnancy, marital violence, motherhood, and the silence that can keep families protecting what should have been named.

Michelle also shares the full-circle moment of talking with her dad before publicly revealing her childhood trauma. Central to the story is the loss of her daughter, Maddie, a grief that transformed Michelle’s view of faith, purpose, and healing. 

This is a raw and honest episode about breaking silence, naming what was never yours to carry, and choosing a different ending.

Contact Michelle: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michellecbutler11

How Can We Prevent Shallow Water Blackout After Maddisyn’s Loss? - Michelle: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1771834/episodes/16156164

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Book: Why I Survived; Where Survival Becomes Strength

The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Melissa Turri.
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Transcript

Michelle Returns With Missing Piece

SPEAKER_04 0:01

I'm grateful you're here today. I'm Jennifer Lee, and this is the Healing and Sharing podcast. If parts of your past still feel close, childhood wounds, loss, or moments that continue to shape you as you unpack them, this space was created for you. The Healing and Sharing is where women tell their stories honestly, connect through shared experience, and take steps towards healing together, letting others know they are not alone. Here, survival becomes strength. Before we begin, a gentle trigger warning. This podcast includes discussions of domestic violence, childhood trauma, and other sensitive topics. Please take care of yourself and ask for help if needed. You always come first. Thank you to Melissa Turrey for composing the beautiful opening melody. To learn more, visit thehealing sharing.com. Now let's begin today's journey. What if we don't remember our childhoods by what happened, but rather by how it felt? In today's episode, Returning Guest Michelle shows a story told through fragments of memory, emotion, and survival. She opens up about growing up in a home shaped by neglect, abuse, and generational trauma where safety was uncertain, love felt conditional, and shame took root early. We talk about fractured sibling relationships, teen pregnancy, forced choices and years spent in emotionally and physically abusive relationships, all while never having a clear model of what a healthy home or partnership looked like. Michelle also reflects on motherhood and the painful work of breaking cycles while still killing herself. At the center of this conversation is the loss of her daughter Maddie, who bravely faced cancer and later lost her life to shallow water blackout. And as you listen, there's a moment where this conversation takes an unexpected turn. This feels incomplete. It's missing something. What unfolds from there adds a deeper layer to her story. She shares the part of her story where she told her dad about opening up on this podcast. His reaction will surprise you. Michelle, thank you for being my friend. And thank you for being my guest today. Welcome to the Healing and Sharing podcast.

Deciding To Tell Family Secrets

SPEAKER_02 2:59

I can't thank you enough, girl. I I love you to pieces, and I'm so thrilled to be back here talking to you again.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Absolutely. I am so happy to have you here too.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

I gotta tell you, I just got a sign from my daughter too. You did? As soon as you ended speaking, my screen came up. I got a sign from my daughter. Yep. Aww. And was it a picture of her on the screen? It's a picture of her, but it was also 10.06, and that is the time that she died. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 3:31

Wow, that gives me chills. Yeah. You reached out saying, Jen, I have something else I want to share. Something you had not talked a lot about. Is it time to share? Is it not time to share? Something that so many of us all go through, right? And you decided, okay, I want to start talking about this.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Don't tell our family secrets. Well, I think it's just high time that we stop the madness. You know, we stop the cycles, we stop the generational curses as we call them. I definitely want to move forward and I want this to air. I'm gonna talk to my dad before it does.

SPEAKER_04 4:15

Now, would Joe like to hop on and tell me what it's like to be the friend?

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Hello, darling. How are you?

SPEAKER_04 4:22

Good.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Good. Thank you for being part of the conversation. Absolutely. Thank you for hearing me. You know it's a tough one. Injustice in life is one of the worst things. And Michelle needs to give peace to herself. Uh she's going to give her dad the respect that he deserves. And she has a wonderful respect and she has a wonderful relationship with him now. And she's going to tell him exactly because she needs the peace. She's gone through this her whole life. She's lived it for 57 years. So it's for her sake, for her mental health, for everything. And if she can help even one young woman out there, then this is like a home run. And she should be proud of herself because many people would just like not say anything. I love that you encourage the conversation with the dad ahead of time. She asked me yesterday to think about it. I thought about it most of the night and today. And I said, So you have a great relationship with the dad, and you just need to tell him it's enough now. A hundred years from now, whenever Mike goes, that's her dad. At least he knows she told him. And she he doesn't have to hear from anyone else.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

You know what I hear interestingly, who is he may have been holding this in himself, not knowing how to start the conversation. And you may, you may provide a very healing, forgiving space for him as well that you never anticipated.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Even no matter how he reacts, I really am detaching. That is my most powerful thing I can do is detach from how everyone else feels about this. Because I have held their secrets for so many years. And it has only hurt me. I mean, my gut is in turmoil every day. I'm gonna be okay with this by the time we air. And I am making sure of that. My soul, my spirit told me this was needed, that I had to open my mouth and call you. I started the ball rolling, I'm gonna keep the ball rolling. I I'm not gonna stifle it. It because that would be the old me stifling it. And the new me is balls to the wall, we're going. How do you all feel? Empowered. Yeah, strengthened and kind of a superhero. Yeah. Not not like the world's superhero, but my superhero, my inner child's superhero, my little girl's superhero, you know.

Naming The Shame Cloud

SPEAKER_04 6:57

So a lot of people don't remember their childhood clearly. They just remember how it felt. When you look back, what's the first feeling that shows up for you?

SPEAKER_02 7:10

It was shame, and it was a lot of it. And I carried the shame. I mean, I still carry shame. I have to have conversations with it now, you know, and say, actually, I don't think you're mine. I you can go find your rightful owner, you know. But it was shame. And I used to just be under this cloud of shame, and I couldn't, I didn't know where it came from. I didn't know why. I just knew that I felt this dooming, glooming shame cloud that consumed me. And I would wake up with it in the morning, I would go to bed with it at night. I mean, I've heard this before. You've probably heard this, what you go to bed with at night. You will wake up with in the morning, and that's why you're supposed to do your positive affirmations and blah, blah, blah. I'm telling you, it's the truth. I went to bed just thinking how shameful I was and how horrible of a person I was, and how nobody loves me, and I've I'm not lovable, you know, and so I should be ashamed. But there was a part of me inside, girl, that knew it wasn't mine. I it couldn't have been all mine. It was too much. I've never done anything that bad in my whole life, you know. It's like where is this coming from?

SPEAKER_04 8:29

Sometimes it's not what we do, but what's been done to us, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Absolutely. And it was other people's shame that I was carrying for them.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

You know, I grew up hearing shame on you. Did you grow up hearing that? Mm-hmm. You did something wrong, shame on you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

You should be ashamed of yourself. That's what my mom said. You should be ashamed, Michelle.

SPEAKER_04 8:54

And gosh, you know, uh, I don't know about you, but even hearing those words now, it resonates differently. It does. When did you name it? When did you name shame for what it was?

Ketamine Therapy And Releasing Shame

SPEAKER_02 9:05

You know, I hate to even admit this, but I think it was only about a year ago because I was doing ketamine therapy, and this is all since Maddie died, and this whole Pandora's box opened up, right? And I had to figure out why don't I love myself? You know, everybody tells me I'm lovable. And I mean, my family that I have today, my friends like you and Joe, and it's not my blood family, it's my chosen family, you know. They all say that I'm wonderful. They all say that I'm lovable, they all say that I'm, you know, the greatest thing since sliced bread. So why do you think you're the worst thing, Michelle? It started as a question, but I always had this deep soul feeling that it wasn't mine, but then I didn't really have the tools to figure it out and to figure out where it came from and how to get rid of it. In doing ketamine therapy, I had this one particular experience where I had been journaling, you know, they give you prompts and stuff like that, so that you really start digging into that center of your brain where you want to heal. So I had done some journaling about this shame that I was feeling and where it was coming from. And in all of my journaling, I'm like, this is all my mom. This is all my mom. And then I started thinking, and I think from her mom. And I don't really know that much about her mom, but I'm thinking it just went bling, bling, bling, bling down the line, you know. I went into this therapy session thinking I'm gonna get rid of my mother's shame. I'm gonna give it back to her, you know. That was my intention that I set. And I had this experience where I was back in the womb and I literally could see the placenta and that uh the womb all around me with all these blood vessels everywhere, just look like a sack with blood vessels everywhere. And so I knew I was in my mother's womb and I was buckled down by like almost rubber bands or something like that, from me to her, okay? And I could feel the most desperate, horrifying shame that I've ever felt in my life. And I was so uncomfortable. And so I just started like fucking the rubber band things off of me, you know, and they would go boing and they'd go back to her. And so I just kept every single one I could see. I just kept letting, you know, cutting it, cutting it, cutting it. I came out of that a free woman. I'm telling it, it was incredible to me. Now, again, like we were talking about in the beginning, I still have days when I wake up with the sham cloud and I'm like, no, this is the old thing. This is not my life now. I don't do this cloud anymore. Move along. It still wants to try to show up. I mean, it was showing up for 56 years. So that's not something that you just do one treatment and it's gone, gone. You have to keep working at it. But that treatment was amazing. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

Wow, that is fascinating. And I can't imagine. Wow. Yes, and I think you are right because it is a generational thing where chances are her mom said it to her and then it just kept right on going down the line.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

But it's not only that, it's shame about sex. I mean, because there was so much sexual abuse, and I think probably I'm not sure because my mother doesn't, we don't talk anymore, and she never shares any of this stuff, never did with us. She just raged on us. So I don't know how far back the sexual abuse goes in or if it was my dad's family, mom's family, where it came from. I have no idea. There was so much more than just that you should be ashamed of yourself. You know, there was serious, serious shame that I I don't know. I just, it's unexplainable to me because it literally was like a heavy coat.

Snippets Of Memory And Sibling Distance

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Well, you talked about remembering things as snippets instead of full memories. And so what has it been like piecing your story together now as an adult?

Teen Pregnancy And Forced Choices

SPEAKER_02 13:00

You know, that's such an interesting question because I I almost want to say I don't even know. So I was talking to my sister for most of the year, and then I I don't know, she ghosted me again. So she had shared with me, and I think this is the beauty in our on again. She shared with me a lot of answers to my unanswered questions because she remembers everything. So she shared with me who she thought abused me sexually when I was young, two to four, maybe years old. She shared with me a lot about my mom and my relationship. She shared with me a lot, just a lot of things that I didn't have a recollection of. I do feel grateful that I have some more answers, but I also see the beauty in not remembering through my entire life. Uh, I see how I coped better. And I feel like it's just God's grace. It's just God knew how much devastation I could endure. And then graciously, he gave me a few more snippets of my life in bringing my sister back to me. But he gave me this incredible family around me, this incredible village that I have now that could support me, love me, reassure me, and really be the family that I always craved, that I've always missed having. Because I think God knew I couldn't have done it without you guys. You know, I couldn't have made it, I wouldn't have made it. And for me, it's like, you know, why am I this way? Because I don't have those memories. Why was I promiscuous? Yeah. Why was I having sex at 14 years old? Why was I pregnant at 16? And how did all of the abandonment that I've had from my mother mostly, but my sister and, you know, wherever else, because I am pretty sure I attracted that. Like with all of the abuse, I attracted abuse. What is your first memory? Oh, my first memory is driving up the street in Colorado. We were moving from Iowa to Colorado. We moved to Lakewood, and we lived on at the top, very top on the corner of this big, huge hill. Okay. And which was great in the wintertime. We sledded all the time, but this was my first memory. We're driving up in the you know, family truckster, and we pull in, and the kids across the street come running out. Hey, neighbors. So, and that was Jenny and uh and David. We became great friends. So, but yeah, that I was 10. I was 10 years old. That's my first memory.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Wow. So, from there, what do you remember? Or what was your life journey like then after 10?

SPEAKER_02 15:56

I had the position in the family to not rock the boat. My sister rocked the boat all the time. She always had my mom angry and crazy and whatever, right? My brother had learning disabilities. He's younger. My sister's older, I'm in the middle. He had learning disabilities, and he was the youngest, and he was a boy. I got straight A's. I was into sports. I ice skated like six hours a day, six days a week for when I was young. And then um, I didn't like ice skating as much. It was too individual sport. I wanted something, you know, more community type. So I went into softball and I really excelled in softball. It was it was fun. And I had my girls, you know, I had my posse and I loved that um because I didn't have that at home. I was the outcast, I was the black sheep, especially after my parents divorced, because I was like my dad, and the other two were like my mom. And so my mom obviously glommed onto them and is like, eh, gross to me. When I was then 14, and this part blows my mind. And I, you know, if you're listening and you have a 14-year-old daughter, please listen carefully. Because my parents thought it was okay for me to date a senior. I was a uh freshman in high school, and they thought it was okay that I dated a senior, a senior who clearly has hormones, etc. So I don't know why my parents, they just said, Yeah, go ahead, go take her on a date. And literally, I was having sex on the couch with my parents in the house. I was having sex in the car with him in front of the house when he's dropping me off. And it got worse and worse and worse. He started using drugs and drinking and all of this stuff. He's 19, he's 20, he's 21. Well, we dated for four years. And he'd come home and he'd want sex, and I would cry the whole way through it, not wanting him to, you know, and he'd force himself on me. And I I believe nowadays they call that rape. You know, I got pregnant, so we thought we should stay together and all of that stuff. Where were my parents? Like when I'm figuring all of this out, or we need to take care of our children.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

How old were you then when you got pregnant?

Intrafamily Sexual Trauma And Betrayal

SPEAKER_02 18:23

I was 16. Well, the first time they made me have an abortion. I believe I was 16. I was almost 17 when I had Justin. I was like three months away from 17. So, but I was the first one in my high school back then. That was in the 80s, you know. They sent me away to teen mother's school because I was shameful. I should be ashamed of myself. Knocked up at 16. How is this like all on me now? So then I give birth to Justin. I'm 16 years old. It's summertime. I gave birth to him in June. I remember this very vividly. My mom coming down the stairs with her luggage, and I'm sitting on the couch with Justin holding Justin. She goes, Bye. I said, Where are you going? I'm going to live with my boyfriend for the summer. Bye. That was it. I had a newborn baby. I was 16 years old in a 3,000 square foot home all by myself with this child. Scary.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

And where is your dad at this point? Are they divorced?

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Well, they were divorced. See, my dad never wanted to deal with this crap either. So he worked a lot. He traveled a lot. He traveled for work. I mean, that was his escape was work, you know, and he's very good at it. He's climbed the ladder and did very well. He was successful. I have to say, in my dad's defense, he has taken accountability and responsibility and remorse and everything. I mean, he knows, and he's said it so many times to me, Michelle. I'm so sorry for the things that hurt you so much in life. And now he's dying. He has ALS. That's just another source of, well, he's my dad. And I told him the other day, I started out my life being daddy's girl, and I would like to end your life being daddy's girl. I would like to have this come full circle and just let everything go that's in the middle. Let it all go. We don't need to talk about it anymore. We don't need to keep saying I'm sorry. We don't need to feel guilt or shame or any of this stuff. It is what it is. It was our path. We chose it.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

And I love that, you know, the daddy's girl thing. I love that. So we're saying prayers for your dad, too, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

So you grew up being daddy's girl. You had the good grades, you were the athlete, but your life shifted in high school as a teenager. How did that play into your identity?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

I could no longer say that I was the best kid in the group of us or whatever. And I think that's what I kept striving for was to just be the best kid. I just don't want to piss my mother off. I'm just gonna be the best one and she won't get irritated by me. And to be honest, it worked because she beat me way less than she beat them. But the neglect was what really hurt me. I asked my dad too about this. Was I a wanted or planned pregnancy? And he said, No, you weren't. And your mom was not happy. And I went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. There it is. She didn't want me from the beginning. It's not about me, it's about a child. She didn't want another responsibility. She didn't want more responsibility. It was enough having one baby. But you know, it's what you did, Bethane. You got married, you had children, and you did the thing, right? It just was what it was. That's how life rolled. So she did what everybody told her to do and what everybody else was doing. And How could she know what the consequences would be? You know, we were so unaware as a society back then.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

Right. 20 years from now, we look back, we'll be like, oh my God, I didn't know anything.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

You know what? My one of my really good friends told me one time, she said, Michelle, you can't fall off your path. It's your path. And I just thought, oh my gosh, that's so profound, you know? I was like, I love that. I wrote it on my mirror. I had it up there for like a month or two.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Wow, that's so true, though. And yeah, that's yeah, I love that. Now, Michelle, there is another layer to your story, uh, something that is all too familiar in families, but rarely talked about. That is intrafamiliar sexual uh trauma. That is just another layer of shame that occurred in childhood that carried you into adulthood. Can you share with us how you navigated that trauma?

Domestic Violence And The Escape

SPEAKER_02 22:59

We were teenagers at the time and growing breasts, and he thought, hmm, those look fun. I think I'll play with those while we were sleeping, right? So we both woke up to our brother playing with our breasts. And see, my brother at the time, he was actually home for his first weekend away from this home that he had been put in. So my brother was 15 at the time, and the little boy was five. They would leave my brother with him to babysit him, and he would play with this little kid. Um, he went away for like six months, and then he comes home for a weekend and he fills up his sisters, you know. I don't think what you're doing is working when I just say that. But guess he defended him. My parents. What do you what do you expect? He's a teenage boy. Well, I expect him to not incestually touch his sisters, and I expect you to handle it. I expect you to help him own it. And the reason I don't talk to my brother today and have it for years and years and years, is because he won't own it. And he wants to shame me about it, and he won't even say, I'm sorry, I know what that did to you. I protected my little brother his whole life. He was picked up, and I defended him and defended him and defended him. I mean, I literally would beat boys up because they were being mean to my brother or my sister for that matter. And it really did affect my entire life. And trust, and how do I trust people when I can't even trust my own family to have my back? How do I ever trust anyone? You know, I became very independent because of that.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

So for you, you did not know what a healthy relationship looked like when you were growing up.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

No, and then because of that, I finally got rid of my son's dad. You know, he was just an abusive pig. I don't know why I was ever attracted to him. I really don't. I look back and go, what? But I needed love. I needed someone to love me. I didn't have that feeling of love at home. I didn't feel like I was loved. And so that was why I was okay with what How was and how he treated me and whatever. And that's why I got pregnant again after the abortion, because I needed someone to love me. So I was 21 and I have a a job at Black Angus Steakhouse, and this cute guy walks in, and oh my gosh, I'm like, oh, who's that? I just fell madly in love with this man. Well, he started isolating me and you know, keeping the family away. So we were living with his roommate, who was also his sensei. He was a black belt and karate. This man beat me within an inch of my life. And the sensei let it happen. It could have been 20 minutes. I really don't know. He's choking me over the sink, you know, bent backwards over the kitchen sink, and he's choking me. And the sensei finally comes in and he says, That's enough. You need to stop. So let go of me. He went up to his room, and uh the sensei poured, I think, like a shot of bourbon or something like that, and handed it to me. And he's like, Are you okay? I just was like dumbfounded. I mean, this whole side of my bro face was bruised and swollen. Uh, my ribs were cracked and bleeding, and you know, am I okay? I I don't think so. Of course, the next day, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it'll never happen again. I don't know what got into me. I don't, you know, I was drinking last night. I shouldn't have been drinking. I know better than to drink, I won't drink again. Yada yada yada. And I went, okay, thanks. This is on January 1st because it was New Year's Eve that he almost killed me. By Valentine's Day. Okay, this is the second time he was gonna beat my ass. The reason he was beating my ass was because he was he was jealous. Clearly, I loved somebody else or wanted somebody else, and he had just a lot of insecurities and stuff, you know. But God's grace. Again, I'm I'm just gonna say God's grace all the way through. This is this is what has kept me alive from homicide or suicide, I don't know, whatever. I got this little whisper in my ear, just tell him, let's just calm down and smoke, right? Let's get a cigarette. Let's let's just calm down. He's like, okay, yeah. Then I said, I quickly said, I don't have any cigarettes. I gotta run out and get them. And girl, I went out that front door and I ran as fast as I could to the closest convenience store. I called my dad from the pay phone, because we still had those back then, and I said he beat me up again, dad. And my dad said, I'm on my way. I love my dad. He really did always come through for me. Even when we weren't getting along as well. He still always came through for me. But he came and got me, and then he put me on a plane. So that's when I moved to Arizona, and uh life got very different after that.

Rebuilding Life And Seeing Red Flags

SPEAKER_04 28:09

So you're in Arizona now. How old are you?

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Yeah, 22. And I did a couple of years in Bullhead City, made a ton of money and spent every dime. And then I moved over by my mom. She was in Cottonwood, Arizona. I decided to go to beauty school. That was really the beginning of making a life for myself. I went through school, I started a career, I was very successful. I met Maddie's dad cutting his hair, you know, ignored those red flags and married him. I mean, you want to talk about red flags. This man had six counts of child abuse against him. That's a red flag. Yeah, but he was sober at the time when I met him. First three years of our marriage was amazing because he was going to AA and he was going to anger management and he was doing all those things from probation, right? We were best friends, we were great family. And I got pregnant with Maddie at four years in. And I had been trying to get pregnant the whole four years. This is my shot in life to be the mom that I always wanted to have, to be the mom that I always thought I deserved to have, that I think everybody deserves to have. I was so pumped and I was all in on this baby. I don't think really wanted another kid either, because he was six years older than me. I was 32, he's 38 years old, and he already had his full family. You know, I was raising his three children with him. So he had everything he needed. He didn't have to prove anything to himself left. It was just me that still needed to prove something to myself and still had a desire, a need for a chance at doing it right. I kept telling the doctor, I'm having a boy, I'm having a boy. And the doctor kept saying, You're having a girl, you're having a girl. And I was like, No, God wouldn't do that to me. I had seen in the four, four and a half years now that we'd been married, I could see how he treated his daughter very differently than he treated his sons. And he really didn't like her. And so I kept arguing with the doctor, no, make it a boy, make it a boy. My my marriage is gonna be over. This is a little girl, you know? When I was six months pregnant, the doctor tells me, Michelle, this is a little girl. This is a little girl, he said to me. And if you do not accept that right now, I want to tell you, your little girl is feeling everything you feel about her inside you right now. She knows how you feel, she knows what you think, she knows what you're going through, she knows all about you already, right now. And so if you do not come to terms and accept her as a beautiful, beautiful, bouncing baby girl, you are going to hurt your daughter and it will be deep. He was just the coolest man, and I'm so appreciative that he said those words to me because it slapped me in the face. But I also knew at that point that I was getting a divorce very soon because I was not going to let my daughter be raised in a household where it's okay, oh the police show up every weekend. Um, it's okay to be yelling and screaming and have chaos and anger. Um, I don't want anything that had anything to do with abuse in raising my daughter. The reason I came back to you and said I I want to be on again is because in the last year of my life, I have had so much awareness come to me, realization of what's way more true, which is that I am lovable, which is that I am spiritual, which is that I am of God. But it's a different journey once you accept things and you stop fighting them.

Motherhood And Breaking The Cycle

SPEAKER_04 32:01

And what she shares next is what happened after she found the courage to speak to her dad. How did you start that conversation?

Telling Her Dad And His Response

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Well, I thought about that a lot. So, what I told him was that I was doing all of these things. I started with endless gatherings and how we're building events here, you know, that are healthy and whatever mental health, et cetera. I told him that I was getting ready to write my next book, too. And he's like, Well, what's it about? And I said, Well, it's gonna be kind of a tell-all, dad. And it's about my life and it's about how I've survived what I've endured. And he said, Oh, wow, yeah. He goes, That's gonna be great, Michelle. I'm proud of you. And then I said, and this all started with a podcast, Dad. And so the podcast is coming out next month, and it's going to be informational, like secrets will be told. And he said, Oh, so everyone's gonna know what an a-hole I was. And I said, it's not like that, dad, but everyone's gonna know Marty's secrets now. Well, whoever listens will know my brother's secrets. I said, you know, I need to heal and I need to share my experience with the world, so to speak. I said, I don't feel like I've gone through all of this and endured it all just for nothing, you know, just to sit in it and keep it myself. I feel like this is something I need to help the world change. God is calling me. Anyway, like I said, he never even flinched. His voice never shuddered, he never paused. He didn't, it just was it flowed out of him, and it was so healing. That was healing, you know, because I I did alter a family dynamic. I did. Yeah. Wow. You know, I was nervous. I'm thinking my dad is surely going to protect my brother again and protect my sister and protect everyone but me. My dad, he's acknowledged what he's done and he's taken responsibility. And he's remorseful, and he does try to show his love for me in the best ways he possibly can. Um, but there was still times, just even at the last visit, he was protecting my sister and not me. And so I mentioned to him, you're still protecting everyone else and not me, Dad. You're still doing this. After all these years, it's such a cycle you don't even realize it. You just jump right into the role. Maybe he listened to that, but he received everything I said so well. Like I could believe it, but I couldn't believe it because it's really the first time in my life I've really, really felt supported in what I was doing, especially in this speaking out place of my life, freeing myself at the expense of possibly some other feelings getting hurt. You know, that was that's inevitable, I think. But I think my feelings have to stop hurting.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Yes. And you can hear it in your voice and you can see it in your face. There's um like a a lightness.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing the whole process with me because I think we we would have shortchanged the bigger picture anyway. And the whole story will be coming out.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

If someone listening feels stuck in their pain or being defined by what's happened to them, what do you want them to hear right now?

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Work through it. You know, it sucks and it's hard and it hurts, and you cry and you get raw, but work through it because it's worth it in the end. You have to go through it. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you can't go under it. When you dig in and you do the work, you are rewarded. You are with peace, with internal peace, with spiritual peace, with an awakening, so to speak. I think fulfillment, you know. I I mean, I spent so many years trying to figure out who I am rather than just being who I am and figure out how to love her. I have to go back to talking to parents really quick because it's so important, it's so crucial. I know that no parent wants their child to go through pain and suffering and all of that stuff, and yet, you know, we all will to some degree. However, if you can just really be present and and not judgmental, don't judge your kids. They're another human being that God put on this earth and they have their path and they gotta do their stuff. But I think if you guide them better, then they'll make better decisions along the way. If you can just keep your kids out of that mindset that they deserve uh suffering and life's uglies, I think it would make a world of difference. And I think we need to be aware about that today because my parents weren't. I don't think your parents were aware. I I think that generation just was kind of unaware. We'll just keep it at that. And no judgment, and God has a plan for the whole path, not just ours.

SPEAKER_04 37:31

And I think we're the generation now during this time where we found our voice.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Amen, girl.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Yeah, it's time to share so that we can break the generational trauma now as people are talking and opening up, realizing they're not alone.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

I just I have conversations now, and if they can't handle it, they can't handle it. That's okay. Maybe one day it's gonna click in their head, and there's gonna be one instant in their life that happens, and they're gonna go, oh my gosh, Michelle was right. I just did what Michelle said. And then that awareness grows like a mustard seed. So share, share, share, and stop shaming. That's my final word.

SPEAKER_04 38:16

Michelle, thank you so much for being my guest today. Thank you. And remember, you are stronger than you think. Until next time.

Advice For Healing And Parenting With Presence

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Wake up and you put one foot in front of the other. Same routine, same face, you just keep on pushing the few level four, putting everything on the show. If you make it home, it all is a good one. I'll give you some four days, keep you.