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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 606 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When I began the after dark series, I thought these episodes would just be topics that don't normally get spoken about in the light of day. But were very important and things that happen to people all the time and should be heard. At some point in the process, I began to hear from people who had experienced their own, sometimes very traumatic situations, and wanted to come on and tell their story. I'm not great at articulating this. But I've heard it told to me so many times that I believe in it truly. So when someone reaches out with a particularly heavy story, I like that they want to come here and tell it on the Juicebox Podcast, I'm glad that they feel like this is a safe place. But you should know when these episodes are going to deal with difficult topics. And this one today is just extremely difficult. I'm going to tell you a little more about it after the music hold on tight.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn, find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'm going to tell you a little bit more. But I'm going to tell you a little more about this episode before it starts up. So today's guest will remain anonymous. She is an adult who lives with type one diabetes. And she grew up in a home where she was physically, emotionally and sexually assaulted as a child. Her story is incredible. She wanted to come here and tell it, I hope you listen to it. But if you think it's going to be upsetting to you, I just wanted you to know that these are the topics they're going to be covered today. Although by the time we get to the end, you'll hear how she's doing now. And it may feel more like a story of triumph to you. But you're gonna have to give it a shot and see what you think. I personally think that it was incredibly brave for her to come and do this. I hope you feel the same.

Anonymous Female Speaker 2:33
Hi, everyone. I am a 32 year old woman. I have survived childhood abuse. And I also have diabetes type one.

Scott Benner 2:43
And we're gonna keep you anonymous for this conversation. Is that correct? Okay. Yes, I can You can call me Scott. And I'm just going to talk to you like you don't have a name. So, if I sound rude at some point, you know what I mean? Oh, then to worry about it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's start. Let's start simple. I guess you are. How old were you when you were diagnosed with type one? I was 1919. Tell me again. You're 3432 32. Okay, well, that's like 13 years ago.

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:17
Yeah, I've been half of Well, almost. I'm almost in the half of my latter point.

Scott Benner 3:23
Yeah. What is that noise in the background?

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:26
It's my dog that was just asleep. He was just asleep like a beautiful angel. And he woke himself up and he's, he should stop now. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 3:39
Sorry. But we might have to kick him out. Is it a big dog?

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:45
He is a pitbull, but the only thing is that because he's deaf. He doesn't necessarily know how obnoxious he is sometimes because he can't hear

Scott Benner 3:54
why I have to admit I don't think dogs are cognizant of how, like you're Have you ever thought that the dogs walked through the room and thought oh, I'm so sorry for the interruption.

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:06
Like I'm sorry to interrupt sounds like you're in a meeting. I just have a quick eye lick.

Scott Benner 4:10
I felt like it was a bigger dog at least 50 pounds because it sounds like somebody who's just turning a side of beef over on the floor. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:18
Wow. Yeah, he touched to one of my absolute sup on the floor and he whipped it with his tail. But he left now I think he he knows he's like too good for us. So we should be.

Scott Benner 4:28
Even a deaf dog knows when he's interrupting a podcast recording. That's excellent. That's right.

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:33
That's how good your podcast is. Oh, he

Scott Benner 4:35
saw the look on your face. He's like this. This lady seems upset. So. Okay, so you were diagnosed at 19 years old? were you living at home or were you in college or where were you in your life?

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:47
I was in college and I had to. I was a full time college student and I had two part time jobs. So one job was in my hometown. One job was in the city where my college was so I would go back and forth. It's kind of like one definite spot. But I grew up in a very small town and I grew up in Brazil. So at least where I grew up, diabetes wasn't a thing at all. I had never heard of diabetes met somebody with diabetes. So I actually had to go to the ER three times until they tested my blood sugar.

Scott Benner 5:22
Wow, hey, listen. I'm sorry, we keep doing this is the dog walking around? Are you shuffling papers? You

Anonymous Female Speaker 5:27
know what? I got this. Okay, I'm just, I'm gonna throw them all out on the street to pay rent in just a sec. Right, so doors closed, dogs have been sent to the shelter. Just kidding.

Scott Benner 5:49
Yesterday, a woman had birds in her garage. Oh, no. Talking, we're talking a little bit and I said, Hey, what's with all the birds? And she goes, those birds aren't in this room. I was like, they are coming through crystal clear on your microphone. She's like, are you serious? They're in the garage. And I was like, Is there a door between you in the garage and stitched up as I could get close up, please? So yeah, it's just microphones are just, they're so good nowadays. You know what I mean? And we're all used to, we're actually all used to the ones that come on our cell phones that have that noise cancelling. And those are not great for this because you don't hear it on a phone call. But when you're recording it, the noise canceling. It stops everything. So you don't how do I put this hold on? How do we talk about microphones in a way that will be so Okay, so I'm speaking right now. And if I were to stop speaking, the background room that's behind me right now is the same when I'm speaking as when I stop. But when a noise cancelling headphones stops, it literally shuts off the transmission. So you get into this kind of like a it's almost like electronic silence, which is different than when the person speaking. And it's, I mean, it's nitpicking. I've lived through it. Okay, sometimes. But anyway, the point is, microphones are good. And they can hear birds near garage.

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:15
Yeah, I'm impressed. I didn't even hear my dog.

Scott Benner 7:18
No, no. And I could hear like their nails going across the floor the second time and like the body like turning over, and you can even hear collars like laying down on the floor and start it's fascinating what you can and I'm, you know, I want to hear your story. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:33
and this is not a podcast about dogs.

Scott Benner 7:37
You want 30 More seconds, and I might have to be okay, so you had you got type one, you're 19 you're away at school, you're busy person had a number of jobs in different towns? What are you going to school for?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:52
Education?

Scott Benner 7:53
Okay, are you a teacher now?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:55
I was I was a teacher of English as a second language. Okay. That's what I used to do before I moved to the US. Oh,

Scott Benner 8:03
okay. So you're not in Brazil on a log? No,

Anonymous Female Speaker 8:06
I moved here seven years ago. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 8:09
Now, I don't normally do this. But I don't like to ask ham fisted questions to get us into super serious stuff. So I'd prefer just to be honest about it and say that, you know, all kinds of people reach out to be on the show. And, you know, the reasons they want to be on are incredibly varied. But every once in a while, someone sends a note that like, stops me in my tracks. And yours was one of those. So I think I'm just gonna ask you upfront, why is it you wanted to come on the podcast?

Anonymous Female Speaker 8:42
Well, when I reached out at first, I didn't have that in mind. But after I overthought it for quite some time, to reply to my email, I realized that I think I think there's value in my story, not because it is rare, or different, or anything, I think what happened to me is quite common, but it's very rarely talked about, and I'm in a place in my life, after you know, of course, healing is forever in everybody's life. So I'm still in it. But I'm in a moment where I'm able to talk about it, I think in a easy, not so overwhelming way. So I think there's value in if there's a survivor that went through similar things still listens to you, and they feel a little less alone than he was already to work there.

Scott Benner 9:32
Okay, great. Well, I appreciate that. And for reasons, you know, that everyone will understand soon enough, I'm going to do my best. This isn't something I have any first hand knowledge of so I might be a little clunky around it, but I have good intentions and, you know, we're gonna we're gonna get through. Alright, great. So, I mean, where do you want to start? Where do you think the best place to start is

Anonymous Female Speaker 10:00
No, let's try it. Let's start from the beginning. Okay. So I survived sexual, physical and emotional abuse from my parents. There's a lot that I don't remember, there's some that I recovered in therapy after several years. So I try to not speak on what I'm not 100% Sure. But if you out there have gone through trauma, you know that it's not that simple. But what I do know for sure, is that my father was a pedophile, and he started grooming me and touching me inappropriately, since I was very, very little, I remember being maybe three, something like that, like, I'm still the age where you sit on your parents lap. Now remember, he would watch pornography and touch me or just have me sit in there. I have a memory of my mom holding me down when I was a little older, while he was doing similar things. And then, as I got older, it kind of escalated into other types of abuse. He was also an alcoholic. And my mom didn't want to have a kid with it. So I have an older brother who's two years older than me, and she didn't want to have another kid after him. And she used to say she didn't want to have a daughter. So she has said before that she wanted was she had aborted me or that she had had an abortion. So she wasn't very loving. So she was like, she just wasn't a mom that was present at all, even when I was very little very, like neglectful didn't take care of me at all. And then she was always annoyed at me. So I kind of had this dynamic going on. My mom didn't give me any attention at all and kind of was happier if I wasn't around if I was just in my room quiet. Otherwise, he would say all sorts of horrible stuff scream me. And then my dad kind of had the perfect opportunity. Because since I didn't trust my mom, and we weren't close, he could make up all sorts of stuff. You know, he's to say, they I was the one that he really loved and that my mom was jealous. That's why she was mean to me. So to not tell her that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 12:32
Do let me know Don't be sorry. I just have a couple of quick questions. Were they abusive to your brother at all?

Anonymous Female Speaker 12:41
You know, I always say that that's my brother's story to tell. If you ask him, he's going to say no, his childhood was wonderful when everything was perfect. But I do want to note that to this day, he lives he's married has a kid and still lives with my mom. So like, they don't have the most healthiest relationship overall. I remember, my dad was very physically abusive towards my brother used to call him. I don't want to use those slurs, but used to call him all sorts of things and say stuff like, if my mom, this is my brother, being a baby, of course, this is a story that I was told, but that my brother would be crying and he would scream at the baby and say that only gay babies cry like some nonsense like that. And so he was always very strict with my brother. I have some recollection of some abuse involving my brother, but I don't know for sure. I don't remember for sure.

Scott Benner 13:44
I understand. Yeah, I didn't want to talk about him too long. I just wanted to understand if it was specific to you or systematic, you know, throughout the family. Do your mean, I think this is an obvious question with a yes answer, but I'm looking for your opinion, or are your parents mentally unstable?

Anonymous Female Speaker 14:04
Yes, I think so. Okay, I mean, I'm, I know, doctor but

Scott Benner 14:12
but I do have some firsthand knowledge of the people. I don't see right now. Not you know what I mean? Like, I don't mean like, so. Like, I listen, what I know about this fits in a thimble. But there's, there's the idea of like, kind of criminal. thought, like, you know, a criminal way of being, you don't mean like, you know, it's like, I don't know what to take it out of this for a second. You couldn't. I mean, my life is not such that I would be forced into this, but even if it was, I don't think I could bring myself to burst into someone's home and take their things. Like I just I don't have whatever's in my head would not let me do that. I I'm certain I could not sexually assault a child. Right? Like, and so what? What allows a person to do that has got to be some sort of mental disconnect somewhere. Right, right. Like, I mean, do you spend much time thinking about the the nuts and bolts aspect of what let them treat you this way? Or do you talk about it more? In a, an emotional way? Like how do you? How do you get through something like this when you're doing it, I'm assuming talk therapy and probably some pretty deep psychotherapy too, I would imagine, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 15:36
So what I tried a couple of different therapies throughout my 20s, and nothing really worked. The main reason was because there was a lot I didn't remember. And that at the time, when I say that, I mean, a visual memory. Like when you're, most people think of memories, like we're watching a movie or a scene of a movie. And I found this therapy called EMDR, which is I'm going to butcher it, II I movement, something that the DEA,

Scott Benner 16:03
I gotta tell you, you're about the sixth person to bring that up on this podcast.

Anonymous Female Speaker 16:07
Oh, my God. And let me tell you that that is the most incredible thing I've ever done in my life, completely changed my life. But at the same time, I said this to a friend and kind of pressured her into doing it and she hated. So let's just keep that in mind. It's, I think it's for a certain type of person in the way that you process things. EMDR is a therapy. For those that don't know, it involves, it's kind of like a stick of lights and you're supposed to think of something, it could be just a smell or a sound, whatever it is the thing that triggers you and you keep looking at these lights as they change because you're trying to process both sides of your brain to actually process their memory because when you have a trauma kind of freezes on one side. And I couldn't do the I want thing. So I always use the buzzers under my legs. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:57
Just for people's edification. It stands for eye movement. desensitization, desensitization, why can I talk? De Jesus? That was terrible. It was hard. It's D sensitive to zation. Geez, oh my God, I feel like an idiot. Alright, I emptied senses, I can't do it descent. On a second descent. I can do it. When I read it. D desensitization and reprocessing? How come when I roll over it, I can't find it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 17:29
So many syllables as well.

Scott Benner 17:33
There, you know, like there are some, you know, e m dr.com tells you that it's a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Wikipedia calls it a controversial form of psychotherapy. So, you know, yeah, Wikipedia, I guess is the thing where everybody can say whatever they want, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 17:56
Right. And I mean, I'm sure some people dislike it, it's a very, it's a very uncomfortable type of therapy, because all you're doing is just sitting in a memory, I'll give an example without being too specific. I used to have just women's people would raise, start raising their volume when they're talking, I realized that I would get this, this weird feeling in my body, like, I don't know, it just felt so uncomfortable. So I started talking to the therapist about it. And I ended up describing as if I had hands touching more than two hands touching me. And I was trying to, like, shrink and disappear. And that's the, the sensation that I had. And so all you're going to do is just sit on that couch and feel that exact thing as you process it. And sometimes more memories will come up because you're kind of like organizing your brain. And sometimes you just cry, sometimes I would scream, whatever it is, you just take it out of your brain so that it's almost like when trauma happens, your room is all disorganized, it's a mess. And then as you process your memories through whatever therapy really, I just find that EMDR is very fast. You kind of make boxes for stuff and you put items there so I can pick something be like oh, this made me said This happened when I was little and involved my brother and I put it in that box. So it's not constantly affecting my everyday life.

Scott Benner 19:26
Now I mean, listen, whatever works is amazing. You know what I mean? That that something helped you was this absolutely fabulous. It did. I'm gonna do my best to pick through this without like, like you said, like without going unnecessarily deep into it. But did. Would you say that the verbal abuse the sexual abuse or the physical abuse was most frequent or did it all just happen in a hodgepodge?

Anonymous Female Speaker 19:57
It all happen to All, it's always all mixed. Like you couldn't, sometimes my dad would be angry at me. Pretend like I did something wrong when I didn't, and then punish me by abusing me sexually. So it's hard to put hard to separate. It's almost, but maybe the verbal abuse just because how much easier it is to verbally abuse your child. If that makes sense. That's probably the most common, but it's hard to try to say.

Scott Benner 20:33
So. Anything was an excuse. Were there days where you weren't abused? Probably okay. But that would be hard to imagine. Like, like you. You never thought like, wow, May was great. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 20:51
right, right. Right. And so it must be the summertime. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:54
my gosh, everybody's just, you know, you know, people love the summer. Wow, you're a different life, right? So this starts when you're very, very young. How long does it go for?

Anonymous Female Speaker 21:06
I don't remember exactly when it stopped. But I know for sure. It was before I turned 12. Or around that age only because it's it's in this has always been like that, when I was in sixth grade is when I start being able to access normal. I shouldn't say normal, regular memories, like I remember going to school or remember silly stuff that happened in school stuff that embarrassed me. And before that, I was probably so dissociated all the time just to survive all the different types of violence that I don't you know, if you're not present in the moment, you don't pay attention. It's like when you're driving somewhere, you go all the time you just dissociate, because you know, the way top up logic. So I don't know for sure, but probably around 12.

Scott Benner 21:56
Was that purposeful? Or was it just like the disassociation? Like did you ever think, well, here it comes, I'm just gonna try to do my best to go away in my head, or does it just what happens?

Anonymous Female Speaker 22:13
I want to say it was, it was purposeful, but I don't think it was a logical decision, because I was little, you don't have knowledge of different scales to be like, Oh, I think I'm going to do this. I think he was just what I navigated towards, I used to have the citizens, I used to have this anime that used to play on TV. And when I was like, around eight, or nine, and I used, I started pretending like I was going to go join the Air, they were going to come and get me and I would join the enemy. So I started creating this entire, like series of me as a character in my old say, and what I would do, and I would think about every detail. And I just did that all day, just so you know, because he was better to think about that. And you're so little, you don't necessarily know the difference between reality and fiction. So I did, Scott. So I packed a little bag. And for some reason, I decided that that's when they were going to come and get me. And I just laid in bed and waited for them to come and get me. I was so confident that that was going to happen. And he did not I woke up the next day, I was still in the house. I was so sad. I guess I just remember. Yeah. That's interesting. And so kind of our premise like that. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So either do that you fantasize or you just I don't think the reason why I don't think it's purposeful is because I don't think people usually associate purposefully, it's not a thing that you manually go in. It's kind of just a thing, you you do an audit because your brain is like if we don't go somewhere right now. We are going to lose our mind and you know, survival skills kick in so

Scott Benner 23:56
yeah, and you can't fight back. You're too small. And I mean, people your mom's holding you at times and yes, so you just I guess you have to just give up

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:06
right even but even when I if I scream they would just hurt me more or they would hold me down or they would then hit me in a different way. I tried. I learned that a fighting he was only going to make it way worse. So it was better to just think feel think I was that and that sounds so horrible. But that's what it was just be dead. Okay, because everything else I tried was just worse.

Scott Benner 24:35
I understand. Was there no physical damage? Like why did a doctor never notice or like a loved one outside of the family? How how to how do they keep that invisible?

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:50
That is a great question. So where I grew up, things are very much what happens in your house stays in your house. type of deal. So it wasn't like growing, being going to school in the 90s, where I went, it wasn't very much like modern us now where you talk about good touch, bad touch, and teachers are so involved. We don't even stay in school for that long and we don't have sex education in school. At least we didn't. Well, that was there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 25:24
it did. Did it ever occur to you to tell someone

Anonymous Female Speaker 25:29
I think I'm, I feel like I tried once, because I remember my dad being so angry at me. And like, he hurt me so bad. He, he just, he just hurt me so bad. And they always hurt me in places. Like, it's not like they would pardon my language, it's not like they would punch me in the face, you know, like, my mom would hit me with a belt, for example. And I would get these horrible marks. I have some marks to this day from the belt on my butt. And so it's not like anybody will see my book. And my mom would never let me go to anybody's house, like my classmates houses, I could never go anywhere. I couldn't even play outside. Like I was very much kept in the house. And then we didn't have people around the law. And my parents were very much the stereotype of successful like, we were in a white community, and they were white religious communities. So they were white. They were Roman Catholic, and they were like, upper middle class. So it's not like anybody looked at us. And

Scott Benner 26:36
yeah, no, I, but they didn't want to let you. I would imagine get somewhere where you might get the nerve to say to somebody, hey, they, they hurt me helped me. You know what I mean? So they want to kind of, so did you feel like a person? Or did you feel like I don't I've been, by the way for 10 minutes trying to think about how to ask you this question. I can't come up with a better phrase. But you know, Are you a person to them? Or a sex toy?

Anonymous Female Speaker 27:03
I think I was a thing, not a not a sex toy? Because while there was all the sexual abuse, it wasn't, I mean, I don't know, I guess we would have to ask them. But I feel like I felt like I was a nuisance, and just this ugly, horrible thing, not a person. That's not a person, because that's not Yeah, that's how you treat people?

Scott Benner 27:30
No, of course, like you would have to. I mean, I'm trying my best. It's, it's a difficult. It's hard for you to, it's hard for me. I mean, I can't speak for anybody else to put myself in the position of either of your parents. Right? Like I don't, I'm trying to imagine what they were doing. Were thinking, but I can't like I can't find it in my head. You don't mean like, so you like, are they? Do they? I don't know. hate you for being, you know, a reflection of themselves. Like how deeply into this. Like, there's just there's so many possibilities for why they could be this messed up. It's not even worth guessing. Right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 28:12
Well, I do have a theory because of course, it's I've been for especially during my 20s I was consumed with just understanding what happened. But let me just say something first, so that the other thing makes sense. So that's how they were until about when I was like 12, whatever. And then I don't know what happened, something happened. And then my parents started fighting all the time, and sell the dynamic in my house changed in my mom, the distinct that now my therapist calls it, of course, I can't remember again, dissociative identity disorder, I think it is, which is like you kind of create your own little world. And so my mom, my dad was always present. He was kind of out of the picture. And then my mom started telling me that we were always like best friends. And we used to do this together. And we used to do that together. And I used to tell her everything and what's wrong with me? Why am I mad and being so ungrateful. So then it kind of like, messed? I think that was the worst part to be honest. It just messed up with my head. So then, everything I said wasn't truly never happened. That was crazy. Or she tried to get me diagnosed with stuff.

Scott Benner 29:24
She was trying to rewire you so as you got older, you wouldn't out her?

Anonymous Female Speaker 29:29
Yes. Which works, right worked because what it did is that it made me question everything. And it was only my 20s that I started being sir. And you start talking to people about it, right? Because the reason I think later I wouldn't share it with anybody I never took I didn't tell people until I was 22. I told her one friend and she took me to the police station, but that's a different story. And so you're so I was afraid of telling people hey, I think this happened to me, but I'm not sure Maybe I imagined that because you don't want people to think you're crazy,

Scott Benner 30:04
right? Did you feel crazy? Sorry? Did you feel crazy? Yes. All the time. Okay, all the time. And by that I just mean like unsure of anything.

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:14
Yes, you don't you don't know anything. Like, did you end it impacts me to this day? I'll say something. And I'm like, did I say that? I don't know, if I said that. If I'm having an argument with somebody, I get very worked. I could get worked up and then I can't I have no idea what happened to be like, No, but you said this. So it's very runs deep for sure.

Scott Benner 30:35
Okay. Have we covered this enough for your liking?

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:40
Ah, I think I actually answered, I didn't think I answered your question about why I thought my parents are the way they are. So I think that it's a combination of things. So my mom has this. So my parents are children of immigrants. They migrated from Italy to Brazil. And it is in their culture that like mental health is not a real thing. You're just like depression is being lazy. And if you're crazy, you go to the crazy home and you just die. They're like that traumatic, old school veal. And so they grew up without any awareness of them or any addressing, I think my mom was always weird, because when, when she was little, they sent my mom a weight to stay in other people's houses for a year at a time and, like, help them clean the house and work for them kind of an exchange of a go to school. They only did it to her and she had like, I don't know, 1011 siblings. And so I think my mom went through her own share of trauma. And it kind of broke her to the point that she developed this di D to kind of cope with her life. And the only way she can do it is by making this stuff up. Because she does it to this day, from time to time. She's kind of like, a little different. She will talk about the past different. And if you tell her it doesn't happen, she'll just ignore you like she goes blank. Her eyes just get weird. She doesn't say anything.

Scott Benner 32:13
So do you think they were abused as children?

Anonymous Female Speaker 32:17
I think my mom was for sure. And I think my dad was too because my grandpa, his dad was a horrible man. horrible man. And all his all my dad's brothers are weird. Like they all sexualized me when I was little, it was just very normal in my culture. Like, there's no such thing as a little girl. There are boys. And then there's women, you know. So like, they will talk about my body as I was growing older and what looked like wow, and what grew and what didn't girl and if I looked like this or that I looked sexy, it was just the strangest thing, but because they are all living in this bubble. It was normal. I was the weird one. You know, for them. It's all normal.

Scott Benner 33:02
Wow, that's insane. How do you are you you're married? Yes. Do you have children? No, no. Do you? Would you be afraid to have children? Yes. Okay. Do you think that's a real concern? Or do you just think that's an abundance of caution, just in case you? Like a switch? Like, are you worried that a switch is gonna flip in your head? You're gonna be your parents?

Anonymous Female Speaker 33:28
Yeah. Well, not to the extent that they worry, but I, I can sometimes I get mad at my dogs who I love deeply. Don't get me wrong. I rub their bellies several times a day. But I can see myself getting annoyed or I might make a comment. And to me, I sound like my mom. So I'm like, if I can't handle it, like a dog, I'm not gonna put a child in this world. And I can that's just how I became though I'm not going to do it. Unless I'm sure I can do a good job. Yeah. And we as we've always had so much going on. i We didn't want it that to plus I have diabetes. So then I was worried about being pregnant. My diabetes was always out of control. So then be I couldn't, it was just a mixture of things. But in the root, the root of it. I think I'm just scared.

Scott Benner 34:20
Yeah, no, I listened. There's a, there's an avenue where you could talk about this and say that you're making the same decision in a long line of people making insane decisions. So you got to break the cycle. And if you can't be certain that you can, exactly then staying out of the cycles, the best thing you could probably I mean, it's sad for you, in in 34 minutes of sad things that have happened to you. This is one of them. But still, it may be it's the kindest thing you could do. If you're can't be sure.

Anonymous Female Speaker 34:52
Yeah. And I mean, the thing to some people might think it's selfish. I think it's a beautiful thing to say I did not get to have a normal childhood. I was working through my teenage years, and I was struggling with so much PTSD and just life stress and all the consequences of my undealt trauma during my 20s. Now we are finally in a place where we can enjoy life. And so like my husband taught me how to play something, I hadn't played video games before, it's just something were stupid. He taught me how to play video games. So like will game some nights, or I don't know, I just before I have a kid, I want to give the kid that lives inside of me the time that she deserves. And then maybe who knows? In five years, I might feel different. But you know, I don't want to just keep, like you said, cop making the same mistakes other people

Scott Benner 35:46
do. How do you bring this up with a with us? A spouse or a potential spouse? Like, at what point do you say to your husband? Like, this is my past? And I want you to understand it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 35:59
I usually wouldn't bring up with people. Well, I usually wouldn't date before too long. On purpose, but with my husband, we were going out and then we slept together. And I have I have some scars on my intimate parts. So he, you know, he asked the next day, what the scar? Well, one of these scars was about. And so I told him because that's how I am if you asked me a question, don't ask what to do. I don't know. So I just said, all my parents were really bad people, I think is what I said. And then he had certainly talked to my mom, he was a little confused about that. So he asked me questions. And I was never, I never went to too much detail. Because I don't see a benefit in it. But you know, he, if he is with me, he's my partner he needs. It's important for him to know me and to support me. So throughout my therapy, I would come home and be like, Oh my god, I remembered this that involved this, and it's making me feel like this. And he would just listen and tell me he loves me. And he Okay, and hug me and stuff like that. So he has been there for a big part of my journey and recovery memories. How?

Scott Benner 37:15
How is it being intimate as an adult? Like, are you able to? I don't know what my question is like, it seems like this would be ruined for you. But is it not?

Anonymous Female Speaker 37:29
It is not? I think, Well, I went the other route. The survivors usually go. I was always hypersexual. Since I was a teenager, just always, I couldn't. And he was it's the mean that if you were to unpack this alone is so much because I didn't know this might sound weird to people. I didn't know. I could say no. So if somebody would come and hit on me, then I would, I would just be like, oh, and just have sex with them. Because that's just what I'm supposed to do. And if I liked people, I really wanted to have sex with them. Because that's according to my therapist. That's how I learned to connect with people. So I didn't I never had and I had plenty of complex potassic Like, seeing stuff, feeling stuff, all the end, but it never happened during sex.

Scott Benner 38:22
Okay. What about did you say? Are your parents alive? Yes. Okay. Do you have any contact with them?

Anonymous Female Speaker 38:29
I stopped talking to my dad about 10 years ago when i Something happened. And I could be for sure. I was like, deaf, he for sure that this to me, because of course they deny everything. And I stopped talking to him. And then I went to the police and I did a police report. Of course, he went nowhere. But the point of me doing that was to show them that I remember it and that wasn't the frame anymore. Okay. And then I spent several years not talking to my mom. They are the reason why I moved. I came to the West because I got a scholarship for a master's degree. And the reason why I kept trying scholarships far away was because I wanted to be as far away from them as I could. It was the only way otherwise I was going crazy. My mom just got my mom is so strict in every way was so it just couldn't get away from her. She would like I would move to different towns. Sometimes I would move from city to city twice a year and she would just find out where I was and go there, whatever. So I, my mom and I talk now mostly on a text basis. If you ask her she'll tell you we were best friends and we call each other every night but we just text sometimes.

Scott Benner 39:42
Okay. Do you was my question. Hold on, I might need a second. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll have some tea. Got it. Have something give me a second here. Hold on. Oh, Okay. All right. I'm just gonna switch gears because I'm overwhelmed. And if I'm overwhelmed, and the people listening might be overwhelmed too. Oh, I'm sorry. You feel like oh, no, no, not overwhelmed. Like, no, you don't, you're taking me wrong. Like I, I'm pleased that you're so willing to talk about this. It's just it feels like that there's a million ways to go with this conversation. And I don't I don't know how valuable they all are, or I don't want them to be just, you know, just for the sake of talking. So, I'm just going to go back to my my original I understand how you handled sexuality as a as a young person, that all makes complete sense. How how do you trust somebody enough to get married? Is my question I guess, like how did you make that leap?

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It's my question, I guess like like, how did you make that leap? Did you didn't mean like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 42:03
yes. Well, okay, let's do the true story. Yeah. How about we do that one, okay. Instead of the version that I usually tell people when they ask like how we got married? Well, so the thing with my husband was I before him, I I was always alone and prefer being alone, I would go out, you know, meet people have sex, but I didn't want to see them again. Like I was always like that I never wanted to get married. I thought marriage was a waste of time, blah, blah, blah. When I met my husband, I don't know what it was about him the moment I saw him, and we met online. The moment I saw him, I just felt like I knew him. Already. Like I when we saw each other, we hug as if like we had missed each other. So I just, we will something about the combination of things that he is. And now of course, I understand. You just made me feel so safe. So it was just that that was that. And we started dating and we were like, living together. We were set. We didn't talk about marriage specifically though, but we were together. Now. That doesn't mean I trusted him. Of course, I had several years of shame, some Sorry, I had to deal with because I, of course didn't trust him at all. And I would do the thing I would check where he was check his phone, check his computer, everything about everything all the time. And well, he was always understanding and patient about things. So he and he was I think secret. The key with my husband was that he was only so cool and chill about it. So if I were like, Babe, I'm sorry, I'm crying. It's just that when you said this, I thought you meant that. And I think you're going to live now. So I started packing a bag. And all he would say would be it's all good babe, I love you. I'm not I'm not leaving. But if you want to pack a bag, if it's gonna help your brain, we can pack a bag, you know. So that was the key with him. So he always made me feel very comfortable to just share the craziest stuff, whatever I was thinking and very understanding of it.

Scott Benner 44:10
Does he have a past trauma or some experience with this? Like, why does he understand what to do?

Anonymous Female Speaker 44:20
No, he's just the sweetest little thing is just a very sweet man. He, I have a lot of rage, right, a lot of anger that I've worked on and will forever carry a little and he has a tuber for something different. He was adopted when he was a baby. And it was kind of tough on him on that. And he didn't experience abuse in any way. But he understood my anger, I think so he didn't judge whatever way I was reacting but that's how he is just an example Scott. Yesterday we had a ridiculous argument because I got mad at him because he said I saw a spider. And he just put the spider outside of the house and I'm afraid of spiders. And he just said he doesn't want to kill the spider. It doesn't make him feel good. So he's not gonna kill the spider. So that's just how he is. He's just if anybody came to him with anything, he's just like all love and understanding.

Scott Benner 45:20
No, that's amazing. Well, I'm very happy you found somebody like that. That's how long have you guys been together?

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:28
Six years married five years? Well,

Scott Benner 45:30
good for you. Alright. Can I ask a last question about your parents? I don't mind God. Do? Do other people see them as normal? Or do you think that the people in their social circles are like those people are cracked up? And they just kind of like don't mean like, how do they come off to the world as my question.

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:50
I used to think that they came off as very normal people. And I think they did within the very small circle of people they saw, like, my mom and my dad had their own business. And we only hang out with our uncles and aunts, we didn't have people outside the family. And we barely had people over and they barely left, my dad would leave because he would go out to my mom, stuff like that. Just spent a bunch of money. That wasn't his but my mom was always home working. So it's not like they were out there constantly exposed to people that were different. But later in life, when I started out being open to people about what happened to me, more than once, I had just random kids that I was either a classmate with or friends with, or neighbors. And they told me, you know, your parents were always so weird. I knew there was something wrong because they were so weird. And one of them even told me that the reason why she stopped wanting to play with me and come to the house, chicken once and she didn't ever want to like hang out again was because when she went in the house, she felt like my parents were looking at her funny like, we were 12 or 13. Like objectifying her. Yeah. And you made her so uncomfortable that she remembers it to this day, so probably not. It's fake did not come out as normal.

Scott Benner 47:16
Okay, God that's frightening to think that they might have been like, assessing whether or not she was a good candidate for their insanity. You know what I mean? I know

Anonymous Female Speaker 47:25
because who knows in the problem is because they will not admit to anything, because of course, why would they? Who wants to go to prison? So they it's it's impossible to understand the motive the motives behind some weird thing because they will they will never be like, Oh, well, I was thinking was if I do this, than I do that. Like you mentioned doctors before. I rarely went to the doctor when I was little I can't we only go to the doctor if it's like an ambulance. Like an ER emergency because my mom believes she was a Reiki healer.

Scott Benner 48:04
Okay, I'm sorry, to me the left

Anonymous Female Speaker 48:07
that go ahead. But that was what she did. Now. She's something else okay. But at the time, that's what she was. So then she would just if I was in pain, she would lay me down and frickin do Reiki on me and place them goddamn nature music in the back. Or like they would make I don't know what they're called here. But they're like these little homeopathic drops. And she would just go to this woman and she would make me these drops. And she would just give me these drops. And that was fine. And and you don't complain about pain? Because cuz that's you don't complain. So

Scott Benner 48:42
I might have been like, hey, instead of the drops could just stop helping me. That'd be great. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 48:47
what's your mind?

Scott Benner 48:48
Could you just like, let's, let's put this in order of importance, shall we? Yeah. Well, okay, so we're pretty far into this. And I don't understand why this is a podcast about diabetes, I guess is what I should say. So what's the what's the intersecting? Do you really mean? Like, why me? Why did you reach to me?

Anonymous Female Speaker 49:14
So because so I my entire life, my should say, my 12 years of diabetes. Whenever I reached out to I had a doctor. And I mentioned that I had a trauma or whatever, that it was never important. It was never talked about it was never addressed. And I don't mean that as like a therapeutical approach to what I'm saying. He was just that that wasn't important. Oh, and nowadays, I can tell you how my diabetes switched from zero to 100 by making some changes that if a doctor had told me years before, I wouldn't have maybe lost years of life later on You know what I mean? Cuz so like what I came to learn. And now again, we should definitely have a doctor explain this. But like when you go through trauma, and in particular, so when people talk about cortisol, right, cortisol increases your blood sugar, because you're stressed out people usually think about, you have a test, you have a job interview, you're mad, whatever. But with complex PTSD, it's, I could be having the greatest day of my life, and you're looking at my Dexcom. And it's shooting up for absolutely no reason. Because there is a part of my brain that is just reliving the, what happened? And I don't even know because it's all the way in the back of my head.

Scott Benner 50:44
Yeah. Like you're like in a constant state of fight or flight? Almost.

Anonymous Female Speaker 50:47
Yes, yes, exactly. So just as an example, I used to have horrible, high blood. Sugar's during the night, even if it was perfect. I would go to sleep the minute I fall asleep, it would start going up. And doctors are always like, Oh, no, will you does that it was always they would try different things. And because he was different every night at different times different quantities, then at some point, they would just be frustrated and just be like, well just do your best. Yeah. But then when I would go for my a one C, they would act like as if I didn't care for pleasure. Even like, so let's say one day, it starts going up at 2am. It goes all the way up to 400. I wake up for no reason at five, and I do correction bowls. And I go back to sleep, and it's still going to be 400. When I wake up, it was like as if insulin didn't make a difference. And so eventually, this year, I reached out to a naturopathic doctor. And she said, Have you ever experienced trauma? And I said, Yeah, why do you ask she was like, well, because usually people who experience severe trauma might have while developing usually have something up with their adrenal glands. So let's test your thyroid. Make sure that's not what it is first. So I got all those tests. And by the way, you can get those online from actual labs. So even if you have a doctor that doesn't believe in anything, then you could you know, if you can, if you have access to that, of course you can, you can do it on your own. And then so my thyroid was perfect. It wasn't that. Then I started taking what's called cortisol regulators. It's just the pill you take at night, and it's like a natural medicine. And Scott, you don't understand, like, I saved the graphs from my ex come forever. I used to have i Hold on, I'm gonna flip. Here. Alright, so like, I saved it. And I sent it to my endocrinologist and she never even replied, but whatever. I'm not remembering that. I'm not holding.

Scott Benner 53:03
She, she doesn't want what rage I assume is inside of you, and that you could let out at any point, appointed her?

Anonymous Female Speaker 53:10
No idea. She, she doesn't understand. It's, it's forever. I might not remember what happened to me. But I now keep track of everything on a spreadsheet. So okay, so this is the thing I sent a sir. So a random night, and this was right before I got my period, which, which you would be usually just out of control blood, you can increase my Basal to 2.5 Doesn't matter, it will always be in out of control. So then he started going up at 12am. He went all the way up to 250. So when I woke up, I was like, Oh, I'm going to get my period. Let me change my Basal profile. So then I did the one that had more, you know, higher insulin. Then that night at 4am. He went all the way up to 400 and then just stayed up there. So it was like, Oh, wow, that's horrible. So then the next morning, I went on my settings and it changed my Basal from 1.4 to 1.9. And then a 2am bed night he went up to 380. So like he barely Yeah, the difference in We tried everything. Trust me, the doctors we tried it. Then that night I took the next time I took a cortisol regulator and my blood sugar was 150 all night straight like straight line. And he eventually got low so then I adjusted it the next day, and eventually after I just did it. I was using only 1.3 units an hour during the night and my blood sugar was about 100 Dean tire night. Like just the perfect line.

Scott Benner 54:50
How long again figure this out.

Anonymous Female Speaker 54:55
To adjust or to try the

Scott Benner 54:56
cortisol the the cortisol idea how long ago did you figure that out?

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:00
This was a couple months back, maybe Wow. Okay. Three, four months back. I haven't done it once. Yeah, I have an appointment in a month. And I can't wait to show it to her.

Scott Benner 55:12
And I imagined two very. I mean, just easier, right? Like, life's just easier.

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:18
Oh my god. I mean, it changed. Everything changed my mood, my motivation levels, just how well I rest at night. Because it would be just my life. I wake up in the morning, and it's Hi. So I always start the day with a huge correction.

Scott Benner 55:36
This boot Did you just appear? Hello? No, no, I'm sorry. I thought you. You said he was crashing. I got so quiet as he's gone.

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:43
I did a dramatic pause. Oh.

Scott Benner 55:47
So weird place to get tired of me saying I've had enough of this Goodbye. What was your a one sees prior to this? I know you don't have a new one since you figured it out. But what were they prior?

Anonymous Female Speaker 56:01
So that he was the last one was 8.1. The one before that was like 7.6. And then I had periods in my life where I was very poor, or I didn't have access to health insurance at all. So I used to do insulin only enough to not go to the ER. And I was working because I had to, you know. So because I was as an immigrant, you know, there's a lot you can do. I had a long period of time I couldn't I wasn't allowed to work because I was on a student visa. So it's not like I can just go work and make money and buy insulin. And so I would go to Walmart buy the cheap insulin they had at the time. And so I would say the highest Scott that my blood my I'm sorry, my ANC has ever been highest ever was 15 point something.

Scott Benner 56:56
So you were really fighting with it just to keep it down in the eights and the sevens. Yeah, you've been a lot of effort into it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 57:03
Yes, when I got a seven, I cried, because I just felt for the first time. And mind you I'm not saying like, I was doing everything right, my diabetes. You know, I was making terrible decisions. I was exhausted. I just wasn't in a mindset that I could take care of my diabetes, the more I process, what happened to me come to terms with it, let go of emotions, it's easier for me to be in the moment and then stop eating when I'm full. Remember to Pre-Bolus into you know, that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 57:36
I think you're it's incredibly mild. The word is I'm looking for, but I'm amazed at how well you continue to take care of yourself. Like, has there ever been any self medicating? Do you drink or do drugs? Or like? How do you know you just woke up every day knew just right? Yeah, do something bad? Did you ever feel depressed? Do you ever think you were clinically depressed?

Anonymous Female Speaker 58:04
Yes, I was. Well, duh. So the reason why I never did drugs, honestly, looking back now was I think it was because nobody offered them to me, I wasn't in a place where

Scott Benner 58:15
I was I was the only thing

Anonymous Female Speaker 58:18
that I had times in my life. Where I was, I'll give an example. I started having these. I don't know what to call them. I'll call them visions just because I can't remember the proper term, where you see people when they're not there. And I would see a men's figure and it was all black. And I would see him everywhere. And I would be working and it would be in the corner of my eye and then that would blink and you would be right in my face. And sometimes I could hear talking in my ear. That was the worst for my for my PTSD. That's when I started going to EMDR. And it completely went away. 100%. But if somebody one of those days, that time I had two jobs, two jobs. My husband was struggling with addiction. So I was just so sick of everything. If somebody had been like, hey, Matthew, let you sleep at night. Do you want to try it? I've been like, sure. Yeah. So I drugs was easy. It was just luck. And then alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic. So I don't like drinking. I would drink socially, but I'm not a big drinker because I don't want to be like he is

Scott Benner 59:27
a kid. Anything that seems similar to him is a no.

Anonymous Female Speaker 59:31
Yes. So what I did was I smoked cigarettes, I would smoke like a pack a pack and a half a day. And it was literally what kept me going and sometimes when I would be really depressed and I would get suicidal, then I would I would call like a 100 Suicide Hotline and just talk to somebody from Ireland calm.

Scott Benner 59:54
You know, I think that one of the things that I liked most about this conversation and the fact that you came on is that while your example of trauma is obviously, you know, I mean, if there's a scale of one to 10, you're obviously at 10. You know what I mean? But still, that everybody suffers through something. Yeah. Right. And to see and, and, you know, yes, it's not to this degree maybe, or maybe it is for some people, but but, you know, you still can see the impact the cause and effect of a problem or stress or anxiety or, you know, and how it can come back and affect your, the rest of your life. The management of your type one, your mindset, even, you know, that allows you to either, you know, put effort or not put effort into your health, because maybe you just don't have any bandwidth left to to make any decisions with. So while your example is, I mean, just, it's over the top, obviously, it's still, I think everybody can take from this, you know, some sort of a connection. And, yeah, I'm just, I'm really pleased that you did this. I'm not done with you. I'm just, I'm just,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:01:12
I still have left of hassles my cup of tea. So yeah,

Scott Benner 1:01:16
we got tea, we're still going. I you know, at one point, I pulled up one point, while you were talking, I had this thought, like, if I went to the mall, and there were 1000s of people at the mall, how many of those seemingly normal people are sexually abusing their children? Like, I just thought that because I can't imagine that that exists. And obviously it does. You're telling me they exist. And and I pulled up some statistics. And there's they're really staggering. You know, I, you know, victims of crime.org says that one in five girls and one in 20. Boys is a victim of child sexual abuse. self report, studies show that 20% of adult females and five to 10% of adult males recall childhood sexual assault or incident. It just, I don't know, like, I guess it's one of those things that if you don't know about you, just imagine it's a one off problem. You know what I mean? Like, it's some random thing that happens to a random person, but

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:02:21
pick a bug. And I understand that to Scott, because it's so heartbreaking to think about that. And then nobody wants to live in a world where that happens so often. So I don't think even people do it on purpose to ignore, I would say, this type of violence, it's just because it's just it's too much. And then he opens up. Like, we were talking about having kids, right. I the thing, you just wondered how many people in the small sexually abused their children. That's, I think about that all the time. I meet a nice man, my dad was very charismatic. Everybody loved him. He was like the life of the party. And when I meet an adult man, a father who's very, has a similar personality, I think I wonder if his sociopath I hope he doesn't abuse? You know,

Scott Benner 1:03:10
yeah, no, I can't see how you don't look at everybody. And just think like, which one of these people is a? is a murderous robot? Yeah, I mean, like, Jesus, I don't know. I, I, what you've accomplished, from where, from where these people put you to where you are now, I think is nothing less than stunning, like, the fortitude that you showed to get to this point, is just on common. And I mean, I, at some point, like, while you were talking is like, When is she going to talk about her heroin addiction? Or, you know what I mean? Like, like her like, like, because I would have, I mean, that that would have made complete sense to me.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:03:51
Right? And if somebody is out there listening to this, and you are a heroin addict, hey, do what you got to do, you know? Well, no, sometimes. Yeah, I got to just survive until the next i for a long time. All I do is just survive until the next moment, and then figure out the next moment. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:09
So there's no ability to like, you can't sit down roots or plan for your life until you find some way to deal with this, I guess, deal with it's appropriate. He can't just you can't ignore it. Because it's not going to stop and you can't just eject it right? You can't just give it away. Like you have to do something. I think high level to work through it in a way where it can't be impactful to you day after day. Is that right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:04:39
Yeah, that was my experience. I think people process things different. I am the type of person that I when I'm doing something I like to go in depth. So even if I'm searching, do can cows to bubblegum, I'm going to like go into this deep rabbit hole, purple gums and how they're made. And so that's how I approached my trauma. too, I have a just as an example, I have a friend, she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather. And she has a very different way to approach it, she thrives the most by, she talked to her mom about it, she did what she had to do. Of course, her story is very different. So in her context, she, she just wants to move on. She wants to like, let go and move on. That's how she does it. And it works really well for her. But if I tried to do that, I would start triggering all sorts of stuff, I had to first go inside of me and figure out who I was, despite of the trauma, so I could slowly like peel off. I used to think I was always so nervous. And that wasn't me. That was just my response to trauma. And just keep understanding and processing and putting stuff away. Because I tried to ignore it for as long as I could. I think I would have done it forever. Really, because who wants to remember? Because when you remember a repressed memory, you remember the sound? You remember the feel the smell? It's a lot? I don't think anybody does it just for funsies. But to me, I had to do it was the only way because it was important for me to know for sure.

Scott Benner 1:06:16
Yeah, that this actually happened to you so that you could then process it and try to move past it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:22
Yes, because of all the gaslighting they did in my context. He made sense.

Scott Benner 1:06:28
Right, using some young people hip terms, we got to make sure everybody understands gaslighting. You know, did you know yes, the older people aren't gonna know what you're saying when you

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:39
you're sliding is when it could be very minimal, like I fall and hurt my knee. And to me, I feel a lot of pain and you'll go like, That's not that bad. It's not It's barely scratched. That's a PG 13 example. But so gaslighting is when you coerce a person to believe what they went through is less than what they went through. It's very common in domestic violence when you have an abusive partner as well. Parents do it a lot. It's like kind of a manipulation to you tell people your wasn't as bad as they remember or something like that.

Scott Benner 1:07:16
Gotcha. Yeah, it's a it's just a it's a young hip term.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:07:20
What's the old hip term? Oh, no. Line line

Scott Benner 1:07:25
lying. Yeah, be what you just described as someone lying to you and saying that something had that happened to you didn't happen to you. But now it's got like, I make this assertion all the time. The internet has, has made it so that we have to name everything. So because you can't talk about it. And it's not searchable, like if it doesn't have a name. So everything gets a name now, which is kind of nice, because this is a very like, like Wikipedia says gaslighting is a colloquialism loosely defined as making someone question their own reality.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:07:59
Yes, yeah. That's it. That's it.

Scott Benner 1:08:02
So you now this word is in place of the explanation that, you know, I had a had an experience with somebody, and they tried to tell me it didn't happen. And instead, why

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:12
didn't they tell you? It wasn't as bad as you remember?

Scott Benner 1:08:16
I listen, I don't know how you play off. What happened to you? Like, how could someone tell you that's not as bad as you remember? You know what I mean? Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:25
I'll give you an example. My mom will say, I'm like, Mom, you beat me with a belt. What do you mean, you were always loving? You know, I mean, in my head, so I can say I just say things like that now. But I used to scream at my mom and throw things against the wall. Like, don't be mistaken. Wherever point you are in your journey. That's okay. We've all gonna be there. It's just a spiral of different moments, you know? And so she would be like, What are you talking about? I've only slumped you and I'll say, Mom, what are you talking about? You hit me with a belt. Right? It's that love. And she'll be like, I only did that if you were misbehaving. And that was nothing compared to all the times that I made sure you had a roof over your head and you had food at least I never let you starve. That's also gaslighting.

Scott Benner 1:09:12
Yeah, right. Well, sure. I held you down. But wasn't there dinner afterwards? Like, right? Yeah, yes. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, that that. Wow, that is a disconnect of reality. That is fascinating.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:09:29
I know. And then it makes sense. If you understand that about her, it's easy to see how she could be so okay with her kids being abused. Yeah. Because you're not if you're not there in your body and you never address your own trauma as a child. If when you were a child, you negated your childhood so you can survive. You can't see it in your kids either. Right? Because if I ignore if she acknowledged my abuse, who knows what's gonna trigger and then she's gonna have to acknowledge her own abuse,

Scott Benner 1:09:57
right? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think It's an astonishing Act of Valor that you don't spray paint the word rapist across the front of their house every three days. I just really like, I'm not kidding. Like, I don't know how you like, I think it's amazing that you're beyond needing to. I don't know, like, like, make sure everyone knows, you don't I mean, like, I know, that would be valueless to you like, don't get me wrong, but that it's not at the tip of your brain is such an accomplishment. You know what I mean? Like, it's really wonderful. Honestly,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:10:34
I had to just give up cuz I that was my five for a long time I needed them, both of them to admit, not everything that something happened admit that anything happened, and they just wouldn't. And I realized at some point, that I don't need them to tell me happened for me to know that it happened. i They don't I was giving them all this power. You know. So then I kind of switched gears for me when I realized that you don't want to admit then screw you, whatever. I know it happened. But you of course, it was a long way to get to that point. A lot of screaming in that way too.

Scott Benner 1:11:11
Right? Well, I just I can't You can't imagine how many people who have been through traumatic things who have just been ruined by it and can't find their way out of it. You know, and how even understandable that is?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:11:24
Yes, I think I had some privilege because I was able to go to college. So it allowed me to leave my hometown, and meet different people, people that were very loving and caring, just good friends. And I always had, you know, I never I didn't experience poverty as well, when I was a kid. So that would have been another layer of trauma. So I think, you know, it was just I had while I went through all this, I also had privilege that I know some survivors don't get to have. So it was just some random combination of things.

Scott Benner 1:12:02
Oddly lucky. Yes. Yeah. I guess that's not a word you use very often. Yeah. I mean, I thought earlier, when you talked about the scholarship, I thought, Oh, well, that's the anime crew coming for, you know, like, somebody got you out of

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:15
there. Oh, it was the sweetest thing to say. How

Scott Benner 1:12:19
it occurred to me when you were saying I was like, Oh, they got together finally and sent her a scholarship.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:26
gonna smile all day thinking about that.

Scott Benner 1:12:30
It was the happiest thing you said this whole hour? wasn't hard to find, you know?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:37
Well, you know, so many good things happen to is just that the episode is about that. So

Scott Benner 1:12:42
yeah. Can you can you? Can you tell people a little bit about that? Like, what do you like day to day now? How do you see your life? Sure.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:52
Um, so um, I like where I am right now I've come to I used to think I was like, into no discipline and expense being spontaneous. And I always wanted a job. Like I wanted to be a un Peacekeeper, I wanted to just travel around the world doing crazy stuff. And the more I did therapy, I learned that that's actually the opposite of what I want. What really brings me joy is peace and safety and routine. And that really helps my diabetes to so I really like where I am right now we bought a house to it's going to be two years ago. And we moved with moved states. So we move closer to some people who care about us because my husband is also very alone in terms of family support. And so he's adopted, he has two sets of parents, right. So I get to have one of his parents pretend they're my parents, and he has the other set of parents. So we have what I understand this family, we rescue these dogs that we love so much. And I've had you know, I've had a career for for a while now. And so I mean, I mean a good spot. For sure. And I mean in this didn't start now but I just I'm able to really feel things what made me start going to decided to face all of this and I was just I wanted to feel good things and I realized you can just shut down the bad things, you shut down all things so for me to feel the good, I had to feel the bad. That's how I saw it. So you know, I've done wonderful things, guys, I mean, I move to a different country. I've traveled around and I have great friends, very dark humoured individuals, and I feel really safe I got with this cortisol regulator and I have the ice you have an Omnipod but I have the I'm the worst I bike I can't remember my pumps name at the moment the one with the control a que tanto sorry tandem I just got

Scott Benner 1:15:02
finally someone brings us up. And it's in an episode about childhood sexual abuse. And she can't remember the name of the pump.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:12
I'm sorry, don't revoke my warranty on the system, please.

Scott Benner 1:15:18
funny idea to call you later. And they'd be like, hello. I know you didn't give your name. But we know it's you.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:24
We've searched through that system, and you're the only one with this and that and that. And my pump just goes off and like never turns back on. I

Scott Benner 1:15:32
don't know why shut it off remotely. They're like, nope. Yeah, well,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:36
they're definitely not hiring me to be a sponsor that we know for sure. Now,

Scott Benner 1:15:40
I think it'd be a terrific sponsor. Well, well, tell me again, the name of like the, are you still taking the medication for the cortisol? Or is it something that you have to take every day? What's it called?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:53
Let me go get it one sec. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:15:55
really do want to know, sir.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:59
Alright, so this one is called integrative therapeutics. And it is a cortisol manager. Now, I know that there are different types of cortisol stabilizers, I would have to be a doctor to tell you, which one would be a good fit, if it even is a good thing. For the first days that are so you only take it one at night. You take it when you go to sleep.

Scott Benner 1:16:30
This is an over the counter thing. It's not a it's not prescribed.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:16:35
It's not prescribed, because she bought it. The doctor got one for me to try as a present. And then

Scott Benner 1:16:42
I think, is there a yellow stripe across the label? Yes, it's

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:16:46
on Amazon.

Scott Benner 1:16:47
I found it. I know the Google look at how it works. And find a bill online. So this is just something your hippie doctor gave you. And it's all things that

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:17:02
really changed my life. Help, it completely changed my life. I fall asleep faster. I had a very hard time falling asleep. I stay asleep. Of course, it's not heavy prescription drugs. So it's like I'm taking Xanax, I wouldn't know. I've never taken it. But it's a little more natural. And I am a little more comfortable. Taking something that's more natural, because with diabetes, you never know what's gonna mess with Well,

Scott Benner 1:17:30
listen, if it helped you like this, I wouldn't. I wouldn't care if you had to buy it anally. That's amazing. Yeah, actually, you brought up something earlier that I was really thought was terrific. And I had no idea about that. I could just somebody could do a thyroid stimulating hormone test online.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:17:47
Yeah, it means it's legit from the actual lab.

Scott Benner 1:17:51
Yeah, maybe Google it like places like quest and LabCorp. Like quest is cheaper. If I'm looking online, I'm understanding it correctly. But it's such an amazing thing. When people have endocrinologist, excuse me to get a drink, that are will say things like, oh, it's not your thyroid, and you were like, well, I have a lot of thyroid symptoms, you know, and then a lot of times, they don't want to help you with it for some reason. I mean, this here is saying 28 bucks, at, you know, at LabCorp or 40 or 20 bucks at Quest $49 at LabCorp. This sounds like something that without insurance is reasonably affordable. If you think you're having thyroid symptoms, and your doctor won't help you. But that's pretty cool. You know what I mean? Just be careful hiring. Yeah, be careful that you don't fall into the your within range answer. I always like to say that because, you know, if you're, you know, I think in range is something like up to eight or 10 for TSH. But you're gonna see symptoms over like to like to point one if you if you if you really have a thyroid issue. So with thyroid, I'm not a doctor either, but treat the symptoms, not the test number is how I think about it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:19:06
Yes, I completely agree. And you could do, you could do the detailed thyroid or the simple one, or you could do cortisol you could do which is hormones overall. And the way I did mine was he came to my house. I checked with the doctor first because I was I couldn't believe it. I could just do it on my own. So she was like, No, this is a legit lab laboratory. Go ahead. So I got the detailed thorough one it came through on the mail, and you have to poke your finger which for us was like you know, whatever. Yeah, exactly. So you just poke it and you kind of like hold your finger up straight in the air and you let the drops. Some drugs fall inside this little file and you seal it up and you send it back and I think mine took about two, three weeks to come back. So it's not if you are like me, and you experience some social anxiety, you could do it in your house and not even less stress about having to go anywhere.

Scott Benner 1:20:07
Everyone can do it. i We had my children's gut biome tested recently, and they had to basically poop in a box, so you can figure it out.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:20:16
Can I ask you a question? Oh, please? Did you then send it over the mail? Or do you drop it off somewhere?

Scott Benner 1:20:21
Interesting question. And I had these very same thoughts. So you mail it? No. So the next time you're, you know, the next time you want to be upset at your FedEx guy, just remember their jobs not as great as you think it is. And I mean, how great did you think their job was to begin with? So? Right? Yeah, no, there, it's so you, there's a collection tray that you put in the toilet. And like, you're not literally just like, although I think with one of them, they just did it that this was a thing in my house, like, we got the collection kits. And the kids were like, we're not doing this. Like, they sat around on the on a shelf for a while. And finally, my wife and I were like, look, we really want to, you know, we want to do this to see if you know if any of your issues, maybe you're coming from this. And so after you put the sample on something dry, then you have to take a spoon, not a spoon from your house, a spoon that comes with it, and get pieces of the sample from different sections of the how do I want to say this? Alright, so why not imagine a log of human feces? You would you want to take this little spoon and go around to different spots on it. Take Okay, and then fill up this little tube that has some liquid in it up to a line and then you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, seal it up. It goes inside of a bag that goes inside of a bag, like by the time you don't I mean, like it's in 1000 bags and boxes. By the time it goes into the FedEx thing, but and then you ship it off. Yeah. And then they send a detailed report of your gut biome.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:22:03
Oh, that's wonderful. Maybe I'll do that. Now. If you don't mind me asking everything. Did you get good? Good news from bad?

Scott Benner 1:22:09
Is it good? They both needed something of an adjustment. Ardennes was more out of whack than coals was. Okay, but little for you. Trying it. I'm gonna do it too. Just because I said to them, I'll do it if you do it. And then I was like, Huh? Yeah. I'll try it. Like, I need the comp. It's a little expensive. So maybe the company will hear this and be like, Sure, Scott, we will send it to you and you can try it.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:37
Tell them to send me one two

Scott Benner 1:22:39
is super interesting. I'm willing to spend the money on my kids. And then when it comes to me, I'm like, that's fine.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:22:46
I'll do it. If it's free. I'll be alright. You know, my body the thing that keeps me going alive and able to do things we ended

Scott Benner 1:22:53
up having to give Arden like these three different kinds of supplements that they're not you know, nothing met. It's a I don't know why I can't think of the word all the sudden. Like, why do people tell you the yogurt? Because it has like live cultures and a culture in it or something? I can't I can't believe I can't think of a really good I just got so upset.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:23:19
Because cuz I'm the foreign so I have a good excuse to not remember.

Scott Benner 1:23:22
Yeah, I'm gonna figure it out. And then we're all gonna be really embarrassed that I couldn't for me that I couldn't think of it. Oh, probiotics. Yeah, Jesus.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:23:36
I did not Google it. I totally know,

Scott Benner 1:23:38
like, different different probiotic pills that they're taking one of them. One of the kids, I think it's Arden is taking one that is somehow like the culture of like, I don't know how to explain it. But I can tell you that when you open the bottle, there are tablets inside of it. And the tablets, when they're all together in the bottle smell like crap. Like Like literally and when you section one of the mountain take it away from the bottle. It just smells like bad cheese. I don't know what's worse. Arden goes I can swallow this. It only smells like bedsheets. And I was like, Okay, so anyway, you take it for like a month or two to just try to help rebalance things, you know, get good, good gut bacteria. At the level of belongs at bad back bad, bad gut bacteria. Remove that kind of stuff. So who knows if it helps them It helps them and it was worth a try.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:24:33
Oh, cool for you for doing that for them. That's really cool. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:24:36
I'm a real I'm a real you are. You get the badge. I have to thank actually Dr. BENITO who came on and did my thyroid episode and and to not joke around, she's my hippie doctor. So you know, and Arden has another issue and we're going to go to another integrative medicine person because sometimes you just have to look outside of the mainstream when you need different answers. Yeah, absolutely recording that, I think.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:25:03
Yeah, and I think that's the thing, big thing with just medical practitioners, I understand they go to school. And I mean, I mean, doctors are wonderful and amazing. First of all, I don't mean anything that would contradict that. But they go to school and focus on this one thing for such a long period of time. But sometimes, it makes sense. Like, if I broke my wrist, you only need to look at my wrist, of course. But when it's a part of your body that is connected to so many other things like your nervous system, your darkened system, like whatever system it is, it's, it's in the now there's so much research on trauma, for example, and the impact on your health and development and all of that, I just wish, I think he would improve their practice if they could incorporate at least the lenses of understanding, not becoming a naturopathic doctor or nothing like that. But just understanding that there's more to it and that he might be worth exploring, just asking a question taking, suggesting a test, telling people to Google like just any guidance, because Kelly's I always was very, I'm sorry, dependence on my doctor, it took me years to become confident that I could just do a Google search and figure something out on my own, I would always wait for my appointment to ask them, and they never knew,

Scott Benner 1:26:25
well, well, not different than diabetes, your situation is just uncommon, right? Like the human body is meant to endure what it's meant to endure. And, you know, yours got way more physical and mental abuse than I think a person is, is expected to be able to, you know, shoulder, and that can have actual physical impacts on you. Right? It could change you. Yes, on a cellular level, obviously. I mean, I don't know what mental illness is to you. But you know, at some point, someone took a perfectly healthy little baby and did what it what they did to you that changed your mind. It changed your your physical responses to things, you know, your, your social and psychological responses, things. They changed you they beat you into a different shape.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:12
Yeah, yeah. So I was developing to so when you go through things as children, they impact you in a deeper level, sometimes than when you're an adult, but even a traumatic, sorry,

Scott Benner 1:27:25
I didn't mean to step on you. I'm sorry. Good. No,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:27
no, you go first.

Scott Benner 1:27:28
I was just gonna say like to go to a normal doctor and be like, hey, help me. That's not something they're trained for.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:34
Exactly. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. But maybe they could be like, Well, I have heard before the sometimes trauma can impact your bottom line, maybe we should just check that. Because if my doctor had, and my doctor refused, if my doctor had prescribed me, the cortisol tests, he would have gone through my insurance, he would have been a lot cheaper. So just even to speak, being open

Scott Benner 1:28:00
and able to afford it, you know, yes. Being able to afford it's not lost on me that poop in the box thing wasn't cheap. So you, you would think it wouldn't cost much to put your own poop in a box. But it was pricey. So you're wrong.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:28:12
Yeah. So it's great that there is this option now that makes us especially if you like, I live in a small town, I don't have a lot of Doctor options. I do have a much better doctor than I had before. But if you're in a situation like me, where you don't really have options, and you cannot afford to take time off from work, and just drive two hours to go see a doctor, and then come back, then at least if you have access to you're able to afford these things online, I did two tests. One is as a birthday present for my husband, because I couldn't afford it. And then the other one, I saved money and then I bought but I understand it's you know, some people just cannot Well, yeah, but that's okay. Still prior

Scott Benner 1:28:57
you prioritized yourself and you saved and you made it happen and that's pretty amazing, too. So you're you're a wonder you really are. I wish I can I'm only sorry. I can't like I'm only sorry, I can't use your name to tell you how amazing I think you are because I feel empty because I'm just talking around who you are. But I think it's really quite unique and special what you have accomplished.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:29:22
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay, and you know, just think that who knows how many people you meet that you would never took people talk to me you would have no way because I enjoy I love life i because of all the things I was denied and all the pain I endured I really value the good things so if I if it's a nice day out and I buy an ice cream I'm gonna enjoy it maybe more than somebody that just has that since forever. Yeah. So it's you know, I love life and there's so much about life that I'm in love with and love experiencing and and stuff. So sometimes you might meet people like that you would never tell that they went through stuff but so we should always say Think approach people with like, what's it called a trauma informed approach to just right? You never know what people have been through. So let's just be loving to each other. And just in case, yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:30:09
don't want people to leave this thinking, like, how many people do I know are freaking creepy? Like, I want them, I want them to leave. Like, you know, if you asked me what the connection between your story and diabetes is, to me, your story highlights that there are people who are going through things that you'll never see. And that sometimes, if you get a little lucky, and you get the right support, and you work hard at it, and you don't give up, you can get through things that you don't think you could possibly get through that an onlooker would look at, and just think, but I don't know how you didn't just jump out a window, you know what I mean? And instead, instead, look where you are. And my thought is, if you could do that wrapped around all this, well, then that should be encouraging to someone who just thinks they can't figure out how to get their Basal, right, or to Pre-Bolus pizza or something like this, like you don't mean like there are, I'm not saying that one difficult thing to gates, another difficult thing, I'm saying, Look at what people are capable of. And right everyone listening is capable of something like this to have overcome, overcome, you know,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:31:22
so we so are and just remember, if you've experienced trauma, and I will give an example, I used to my old Renata insulin, and I would just forget to change my sight, like I would just have no insulin for hours sometimes. And it wasn't like I was doing it on purpose, I would look and be like, Oh, I have to change it. But I also overwhelmed all the time, I couldn't, I just would get distracted and forget it. And just be kind to yourself, if you if you're having a hard day and diabetes is not working, just know that some things are not a direct result of you doing something wrong, you are doing the best that you can. And that's going to look different in different ways. But don't like people. And I say that because I experienced that a lot. Don't let people shame you. If you don't have the diabetes results that they wanted to have, and I'm not saying don't do the best you can, of course, take care of your health, but just know, if you've experienced things like that. Remember to love yourself first, you know, be kind to yourself, you're doing your best.

Scott Benner 1:32:23
And the answers that you need are out there somewhere. And yeah, you know, don't give up looking for them. Don't accept people's assertions that maybe this is as good as it gets. You know, it's not always going to present itself immediately. In, you know, I think that this podcast has a lot to do with that idea of really the idea that this isn't how mainstream talks about diabetes, really. But here it is. And if you want it, it's here, it might be difficult to pick through. I mean, I hear people say like, there's so many episodes, I'm like, You're welcome. You know, like I hear, they give it to me. And I'm like, You're welcome. Now you do the hard work of picking through it and getting what you need out of it. Like, I can't come to your house. And and you know, to me, yes, shuffle you along to success. And I Oh, no. My point is, is that if the woman you're listening to right now can do the things that she's done. I can't imagine what everybody can't do you know what I mean? Like there's there should be no end to your there should be no end to what you think you can accomplish. You know, you should just try and don't give up.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:33:38
Yes. And if you're trying it doesn't work, it took me 12 years to figure out how to not wake up with a tie on my Little Reader, you know, just don't it takes time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:33:50
Yes. How did you? I'm sorry, it seems so terrible to ask this. After the whole thing. I really I I just want to make sure that the connection is obvious to people like how did you find this podcast? And has it been valuable to you? And how?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:34:07
Let me tell you, so I was can you remember I was I do yoga, yoga helps me a lot. I also do intermittent fasting. So I was doing yoga and I realize I love yoga. Why don't I look for a podcast about yoga? And I was looking at wellness podcasts and stuff. And I was like, Wow, I've never thought about the possibility that maybe they're popular podcasts about diabetes out there. So then I picked one I put diabetes, whatever it was a different one was from a guy from I don't know, maybe I think New Zealand or Australia. And he I swear I swear to you, Scott, he said, If you want your blood, if you want to lose weight, your blood sugar's to get lower. Stop being lazy fat. I swear that's what he said on the episode that I hope so. I was like, oh, maybe this isn't for me. And so I was bummed out for a couple of days. And then I was like, Oh, let me try again. And then I found yours. And I saw he had all these categories. So what really, I think in your podcast has improved my life so much, because I started listening only to the after dark episodes. Because whenever people gave me diabetes advice, I never took it into consideration. Because I always felt like, well, but that doesn't apply to me because I have this other stuff going on that you don't know about whatever. And I learned, it was really the thing that made my brain make the connection that most people that have diabetes have something else, like I listened. And I listened to an episode of a girl that was allergic to insulin, and it blew my mind away. I was like, if this girl can do diabetes, I'm going to start spending time and just learning. So then I just started listening to a lot of episodes, and just I've been learning so much. But what made me lower my guard, my defensiveness was just listening to all the after dark episodes in a row.

Scott Benner 1:36:11
No, it's funny, I think I originally thought of the after dark episodes as bringing people into a world that they didn't know about. And over time and years, I've heard from enough people with, you know, you know, uncommon stories like yours, that he did say that the after dark episodes to them are the core of the podcast. It's easy, because it's so uncommon, again, to find these stories, these stories just don't get told very often. I mean, you've done something. Now that I mean, if you would have told me five years ago, that a person with your life experiences would come on here and share them on the podcast, I'd be like, that's never gonna happen. You know what I mean? But it all started with me saying, like, it's so it's so strange. I get started with me saying on the podcast one day, hey, do you drink a lot and have diabetes? Because if you do, I want to talk to you. And then these two people heard that and went to their friend and said, Hey, I think that guy on that podcast is looking for you. And she's like, I don't know how to feel about this. But I am like a pro level drinker. And I have type one. And so she came on, and shared, and I thought there should be more of this. And then I went to a guy that smokes weed. And then before I knew what I was talking to people with bipolar disorder, you know, people, I mean, at this point, now, you're the third person of some sort of sexual assault that's come on. And, and so much more divorced families, an adult of someone who grew up in a, you know, a divorced family. These are the stories that people like you who are more plentiful than we want to think need, like they need to hear themselves reflected weekly, we always talk about, like, reflecting people and, and, you know, I can't think of the word again, because I'm not young. But representation, right? Like, we always talk about representation about like, you have to have more black voices, you have to have more gay voices, you have to have more trans voices you have, nobody ever says we have to have more sexual assault survivor voices, you know, we have to like because it's difficult and uncomfortable to talk about, and I don't think it should be. So that's why it's here. Because that's what I think, the best way the best for doing that Jesus took an hour and 40 minutes for you to say something I was the best. Like, I don't know.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:38:43
You should have started with that question. And then we could just talk about that. And when if you want, we could stop this restart and just do an episode about that. I'm teasing.

Scott Benner 1:38:51
I don't need you to tell me now. Let's let those dogs back in before they run away.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:38:58
They're sleeping in the other. They're just fine. But my husband works from home and so they they live their best life.

Scott Benner 1:39:04
It's 2021 We all work from home. I wish I worked from home do not it's days. I like it. And there's days where I'm like, I gotta get out of here. You know? Yesterday here, we'll finish with something completely frivolous. Love it. Yesterday, I walked downstairs. My wife's working in what we used to be our dining room, but now I think is an office. I'm pretty sure she's gonna get rid of our dining room table. I guess we'll eat in the kitchen. And my daughter's at the countertop in the kitchen. She's doing homework, my wife's working and, and I walked downstairs the middle of the afternoon. I was like, I'm gonna go out. And everyone's like, where are you going? Because that I'm not that guy. Like, I'm like a I'm not like I'm going out guy. And I was like, I'm gonna go get a manicure and a pedicure. And they were like, Why? Because that is not something I do. And I said yeah, As I said, about a week or so ago, I realized that my toe was sore. And it was my nail. And I just have been growing my nails out with the idea that I would reshape them in a way where my toe wouldn't be sore, which seems like a reasonable decision. And I said, now I'm looking at my nails. And I realized I do not possess the qualifications to handle this. And they were like, Why don't like I don't think I know how to cut my nails right? Or this wouldn't have happened to begin with. I'm 50 years old. I'm going to go let somebody else do it. Then I'm going to look at what they did and try to mimic it next time. And so like 10 minutes later, I had my feet in a bath and a gentleman was rubbing my calves while woman was cutting my fingernails. And I have it was lovely.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:40:43
I've done it too. It's the best thing. Oh my God, it is so warm. And then when they scrub your like your ankles off the best,

Scott Benner 1:40:50
I'm not even embarrassed. It was a it was a half an hour that I enjoyed. And you shouldn't be embarrassed

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:40:56
just to be proud of yourself for taking care of yourself trying different things good for you.

Scott Benner 1:41:00
Yeah, I just am. I gotta tell you, too. I'm always embarrassed to my fingernails. And today, I'm not them on top of that desk. Like you know, when you take a picture and you're holding something. I turned my hands so you can't see my nails usually. Ah, I didn't realize that. And then I saw them yesterday. I was like, why is this lady so much better at this than I am?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:41:22
So did you figure it out? Do you think you can do an accent?

Scott Benner 1:41:25
I don't know. I better just make more money and let her do it. But yeah, they look really good. She, by the way, no clear coat or anything. I just was like, you know, I'm like, I don't need a coating. I just cut them for me, please. They're really, I can't believe I'm saying this. They're really so if for people keeping track. Now, if you're still listening to this afterwards, after the person who we spoken to today, has told you all of the sad things. If you're still here an hour and 40 minutes later, and you're keeping track, I'm now getting my eyebrows threaded with my daughter and I got a manicure. So they say I'm on my way. I'm gonna look good. Soon. That's great.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:41:59
It's better posts, you should do an omni pod sponsored thing on your page and take pictures, holding things you don't make up for the last time

Scott Benner 1:42:09
you pick up my hand model now. i Yeah. My hands are huge. And my family constantly makes fun of how big my fingers are. So I don't think I'm a hand model. But

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:19
be proud of your hands. Don't let them hand shame you.

Scott Benner 1:42:24
If that becomes a thing, I'm gonna say that you're going to have caused it. Because I can't imagine anyone who said that before.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:31
Just stop oppressing your hands. He can't control the size of them. They need to love them the way they are.

Scott Benner 1:42:36
Next time someone mentions how big my fingers are. I'm gonna say stop oppressing my fingers.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:42
Yes, yes. And be assertive about it. People need to learn to boundaries, right?

Scott Benner 1:42:45
Damn, well. Well, thank you.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kaipa pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL. You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. And I want to thank today's guest for coming on the show and so bravely telling us her story. Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I can't thank you by name. And I'm really glad that you were here. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. You can find more after dark episodes in your podcast app. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm topics like drinking weed smoking, trauma and addiction. Having sex with type one diabetes, depression and self harm, diabetes and co parenting bulimia. Bipolar Disorder, heroin addiction, psychedelic drug use divorce from the perspective of an adult child diabetes complications, other eating disorders. They're all available in your podcast player. Just search Juicebox Podcast after dark. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm you can just scroll down and find them right there on the website.