#807 After Dark: One Thing After Another

Kelly has a child with type 1 diabetes and a lot more going on.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 807 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I didn't understand when I began recording this episode that it would be an after dark. But I've, I've given it that distinction because the person we're going to be speaking with today suffered a number of different abuses throughout their life in the past and they get spoken about. And I like to put stories like that in the after dark category so people know what to expect. So in a few minutes, we're going to speak with Kelly, she's the mother of a few children, one of them has type one diabetes, a bunch of autoimmune stuff in her family, and some different issues with her son, and herself. You're going to hear about it all as the conversation unfolds. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one and are a US resident, please head over to t one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry complete the survey it will not take long and once you've done that you're helping to move type one diabetes research forward right from the comfort of your home. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo penne Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. today's podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one. They're a great organization helping people with type one diabetes, check them out touched by type one.org or find them on Facebook and Instagram. And lastly today but certainly not least, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes. If you're looking for a way to give yourself insulin that's not through a pump, but you'd like some of the features that pumps offer. You want to find the in pen from Medtronic diabetes at in pen today.com

Kelly 2:21
My name is Kelly. I am a neurodivergent mom of a neuro divergent child who is also a type one. And I also have two other kids like Kelly

Scott Benner 2:37
and you've got me googling immediately. That's fine. I feel like neuro divergent is a new fancy word for something I already know. Yes, it is right? Yes, neuro diversity. Neuro divergence. Neural variants refers to variations in human brain and cognition for instance in sociability learning attention, mood and other mental fluctuation or functions fluctuations, function sorry. In the case of you, how does that how does that

Kelly 3:13
so I have diagnosed ADHD and dyslexia and I'm currently looking into the process to see if I may be slightly autistic.

Scott Benner 3:25
Okay, but what what about you made you want to look into that?

Kelly 3:33
My social awkwardness and my inability to take social cues from people like I just am horrible at reading facial and body cues. Okay. And I tend to be I am overly friendly. And I I am awkward, extremely awkward. Is that,

Scott Benner 3:57
oh, Kelly, by the way, when we were talking before we recorded you were so boisterous and now you're like demure which is fine, but I might ask you to put the mic back a little bit to your mouth.

Kelly 4:08
Okay, well, I think I was running around a little bit. Because with with my neuro divergence, I had written you down for the 30th and then all of a sudden, I got like, a little thing on my phone. And I was like, oh, it's today.

Scott Benner 4:27
Oops. So how old are you?

Kelly 4:30
I am 48 Okay, this October.

Scott Benner 4:32
It is anything about your social awkwardness, been an impediment? Airlife.

Kelly 4:41
Um, relationship wise, extremely. I don't have I don't really manage to maintain relationships at all. And that can be ADHD. But I also tend to just, I just can't deal with people's stuff. It's draining and too hard. Okay? It's too hard for me.

Scott Benner 5:08
So one thing at a time, you can't deal you can't seem to hold relationships together. But you're married. Do you mean like, like friendly relationships? Yeah. Okay, friends, is that because people back away from you eventually, or you get overwhelmed by them and back away from them?

Kelly 5:25
I believe there's something called a I don't know, if I say it, right. I lose my words a lot. That's the ADHD. Well, there's, there's this issue where you're, you do a lot of masking. And so you're, you read people, and then you try to pretend to be what they want, or you take take up. You take a behaviors that you think somebody else likes, you know, and over time, when you get really comfortable, it kind of falls away. And people aren't cool with that.

Scott Benner 6:03
And then you're come off as harsh or what how do you think you come off the people when you stop masking?

Kelly 6:10
I had somebody tell me, I was frigid. Okay. And the dating? No, I was a business relationship. Okay. I used to work with people. So so it was like, they liked me, like me, like me, and then like, four to six months later, I'm too analytical. I'm to book books and numbers, and I have no interpersonal relationships. I have just no ability to relate to people. That's an it's very lonely.

Scott Benner 6:47
Okay. What Why is it worked with your husband? How long have you been married?

Kelly 6:51
I've been married 15 years. Um, because I never ever messed with him. I don't think I've just never been anybody who other than who I am.

Scott Benner 7:05
Why do you think you didn't do that? Oh, I can tell you that story. Well, if it's a story, then perfect.

Kelly 7:12
It's a good story. I, I do have friends that I managed to keep who understand me. But I went on. I had an employee told me that she thought I needed to get out. And she was my friend. And so she said, Hey, meet me out here for dinner. You look terrible. You haven't been taking care of yourself. And I had been sick. And so I went to meet her. And then she tells me halfway on my way that by the way, I'm on a blind date with this guy. And you're just my, forgive me. My safety net? Because who knows he might be a murderer.

Scott Benner 7:55
Well, then, if listen, if he isn't a murderer, then you who have not been taking care of yourself and have been sick will be a perfect sidekick. For this scenario. You'll just I

Kelly 8:04
know, right? Well, here's the thing. I'm a six foot tall redhead, so I tend to intimidate a lot of people.

Scott Benner 8:15
I might look sickly sir, but I can fight.

Kelly 8:18
Exactly. So it was that kind of thing. And in the process of sitting there at a bar, getting drinks and stuff. My friend told her date that she was sitting with her six foot tall redheaded friend. And then the date and I got along really well. Okay, I see. And seven days later, he asked me to marry him. And two months later, we were married.

Scott Benner 8:47
That was 15 years ago. Yeah, for 28 around there.

Kelly 8:55
When I met him yet, Was she upset?

Scott Benner 9:00
Because it's possible. Kelly, you're confusing neuro divergence for stealing people's men.

Kelly 9:08
That can be a little bit of a problem too. But I don't want to, you know, yank my own train on that one.

Scott Benner 9:15
I think it's blow my own horn. But I got Well, you're

Kelly 9:18
right. Anyway, you're right. See, ADHD is fun. She, it commenced like this. I told him, he was a player and he took my phone and called his phone from it at the dinner while she went away to do something. And I said, you're on a date with my friend. I'm sorry, this is a bad idea. And then the next day he called me at my job because he knew where we both worked. And he's like, it's okay with her. I talked to her. And I was like, really? That's really bold. And then she called me and said, Go out with it. I'm okay. still weird.

Scott Benner 10:06
How do you? How do you get proposed to in seven days?

Kelly 10:12
I don't know. I don't know. I wouldn't even kiss him for four.

Scott Benner 10:17
I think you know, and you don't want to say on a podcast. What do you think of that? It's okay. No, I

Kelly 10:22
swear to you. I think it has everything to do with us just spending a lot of time talking. And I wouldn't kiss him. I wouldn't you know, do anything with him because I just have to add this to add this huge, like cold sore up

Scott Benner 10:38
my mouth. During

Kelly 10:42
cold sore. Oh, my mouth. I looked like I was dying. I had pneumonia. I wasn't just sick. I was sick.

Scott Benner 10:50
All right, Kelly. I gotta figure this out here. And forgive me for being blunt. Do you have great cans? What's going on? Exactly. Something do Oh, do you? Okay.

Kelly 10:58
I do. I am. I'm not just a six foot tall Red House. I was a really hot six foot tall. I modeled in the 80s and 90s. So, okay, I I'm not I'm very pretty.

Scott Benner 11:12
I see what happened. Okay, now. I mean, I'm trying to figure out you're not touching. You're not kissing him. You're, you're just talking and then you're getting married. And I'm like, I don't understand what's happening here. But I've seen

Kelly 11:21
with a lot of cuddling. Alright, that's about it.

Scott Benner 11:25
What kind of a player cuddles

Kelly 11:29
the one who realizes the girl he's out with has a fever and she can't keep standing.

Scott Benner 11:35
That's very kind. Oh, okay. All right. So yes, very kind. So you, but you didn't, you know, there were no errors about anything. You didn't pretend to be somebody different or do what he likes or something like that. Which by the way, it's I don't I know nothing about this world. But there's a there's half of my brain here that saying if masking who you are on a date is autism than every girl I've ever met as autistic.

Kelly 12:05
Masking is ADHD and autism, excuse

Scott Benner 12:08
me, if it's anything is what, you know what I mean? Like if it's like, I just thought people put their best foot forward generally, like you're telling a story that I've heard before told like this. I met a guy. I pretended a lot. You know, like what he liked. Eventually it came out that I didn't care about basketball. And we broke up and then one day I was out my friend not looking to date acting like myself, and he liked me. Pretty much right, but that's ADHD.

Kelly 12:36
I have ADHD. Yeah.

Scott Benner 12:37
Okay. But I'm not saying you don't have ADHD. I'm saying that's a function of it.

Kelly 12:43
Well, ADHD, a lot of times you're well, for me, you have spatial issues. So my clumsiness has a lot to do with my spatial issues. I could just walk into a wall and I, it's like, I don't know how that wall got there.

Scott Benner 12:58
So I did it. I used to walk into corners. Like when I turned corners, going from room to room, I would always brush into the edge of the wall. Yeah, that's a special issue. Yeah. And then one day, I said to myself, hey, stop doing that. And I've never done it since. Like, literally, it was the thing, like I would close cut the walls, my turns, and I would always like be bumping my shoulder on walls. And one day, I remember stopping myself and saying, This is ridiculous. Don't do this anymore. And I don't think it's happened to me in 15. So I don't know, like, I'm fascinated by this because you're you and anyone else who has ADHD or whatever. Partly describes. I mean, I don't know, like, like losing a word. Give me more examples of what ADHD is, that's what I need.

Kelly 13:47
Well, there's all different people for you from people.

Scott Benner 13:50
Have you ever heard me you? Yeah, I will

Kelly 13:53
get into a conversation with somebody and I will veer off into another direction and tell a whole other story with a severe like when I'm telling the story. My emotions build up. Yeah, real easy. And then I get emotional and like React. And I'm, I tend to be and then I'll lose my words when I'm trying to when I get flustered. Yeah, with names. I'm horrible with names, but I know that people's faces, and I can't, I have trouble. I'll reread the same sentence over and over and over and over again, on something and if I'm not interested in it, I just can't even it won't come in my head. I can't. It's like, it's like, I'm speaking. I'm reading Latin. You know, and I just, I can't understand it. It's like a foreign language all of a sudden, are you done?

Scott Benner 14:45
I'm sorry. I just want to check to make sure you're okay. If we keep talking about this, because I don't. I'm not I'm going to come off. Like I'm minimizing what you're saying, but I'm not I'm just trying to have a conversation around it. You're describing me. I don't have ADHD How do you know? Why would it matter? It's my question, I guess I'm 50 out of the house, I have kids, everybody's happy, they're safe, we pay the bills. And once in a while I look somebody in the face and don't remember their name. And I tell stories, and I can get emotional while I'm talking. Is that a problem?

Kelly 15:18
It's not a problem. But it's a problem when you're in an environment with a lot of people and they don't accept you.

Scott Benner 15:26
Yeah, I mean, I understand that. I really do. But what's the difference between that? I'm going to, you're going to help me if you can, you're going to explain things to me. I don't understand. What's the difference between that? And me being? I don't know. I'm just going to try to make something random up. Like, what if I was just a person who just talks about basketball, I have no other real interests. I love basketball. So much basketball is what I talk about, I go to my job. And every time I'm in a social setting, I bring up basketball. Turns out, nobody in the office likes basketball. And because of that, they don't talk to me as much. What's the difference?

Kelly 16:04
For you? You don't realize they don't like it? Who? Like,

Scott Benner 16:07
here's the question, Who cares? If they don't like basketball? I love basketball.

Kelly 16:12
See, that? Who cares thing, right? That happens over time, doesn't it?

Scott Benner 16:18
No, I don't I've been like this my whole life. I am very fairly comfortable with who I am. And I have met people who really liked me kind of like me and don't like me. And I tend not to talk to the people who don't like me. But that's never once made me think that I have a social disorder. Well, so I'm trying to figure out what makes what made it a problem for you enough that you had to say to yourself, I need to go speak to somebody to find out what's happening, because I'm having that much trouble.

Kelly 16:46
Like that's diagnosed as a six year old. Okay, in the what,

Scott Benner 16:51
I'm sorry, I couldn't communicate,

Kelly 16:53
I wasn't taking up speech. I wasn't. I didn't have the same skills other children did. And I was different. And I needed somebody to help me do the things that other people did. Thank you. Stop me.

Scott Benner 17:09
I'm sorry, I had to be off, I want to understand, thank you, I'm sorry, good.

Kelly 17:12
For me, I had to take Ritalin from the age of I think I six to I took it till I was 14, to be able to even focus on anything because somebody would come talk to me, and they'd be talking about one thing, and then all of a sudden, my mind would go somewhere else, and I'd bring up something else. And they'd be like, are you listening to me? Or if they tell me, you know, I had a really rough day, and my boss really sucked. And then I would tell them? Well, I've been through that. And I would give them a story. And they thought that I was narcissistic, and trying to hijack the conversation, when I was just trying to empathize with them. Because one of the ways people with AD HD and autism tend to tell their own personal story to say, Hey, I'm with you. I understand what you're saying. Right? It's not, it's the only way we know how to interact. And for other people, they either think you're a narcissist, or that you were not right in the head.

Scott Benner 18:24
What if they're the narcissist? What if they're terrible? I know some? No, first of all, but listen, if someone comes up to you, this whole podcast, by the way, is people telling me stories, me relating things that I've gone through back to them, right. And so in this setting, that's expected. It's a conversation. I think, in life, it's expected. It's also like, if someone comes up to you and says, Oh, my gosh, this thing happened to me. And I'm terribly upset by it. And I can't dig myself out of this hole. And you're listening to them? And think, Well, I would like to help them. I've been through something similar. Let me explain it to them, like how it happened to me. And then maybe they'll grab some commonality from it. Or maybe I've made a decision they haven't made that they'll find valuable, and you tell them your story back if that person was then to say, I can't believe you're trying to make this about you. I think it's possible they have the problem not you.

Kelly 19:25
It's just how it's every conversation you have. So

Scott Benner 19:29
so so no matter what happens if if so if I came up to you, and I was like, I love this Yellowstone, it's on the Paramount plus Have you seen it? And you instead of going I have not seen Yellowstone or I have seen Yellowstone and I enjoyed it. You will say I watch a TV show to that I really like and then tell them about it. Is that the vibe? Pretty much okay. All right. You're really helping me understand this because because I think people say vague things when they're describing complex issues, and we never get down to the real root isn't like, like the stuff that you told me in the beginning? I was like, Okay, these are the things I've heard people say before. But were like, how does it really, really impact you? Like, that's, that's what I'm, I'm very pleased that you're able to explain to me. So thank you very much. So six years old, although may I say you grew up right during the Ritalin revolution, the Ritalin revolution. So you could have grown up at a different time and somebody wouldn't have given you Ritalin? Correct. Did it slow you down?

Kelly 20:30
Oh, my God. So taking Ritalin for me was like, taking a pill that gave me constant tiredness and depression.

Scott Benner 20:39
But you could have but you didn't change the subject in a in a conversation anymore as a six year old?

Kelly 20:44
No, I would still change the subject in the conversation. But I wouldn't sit there and have a million different topics going on in my head. Like right now I'm staring at my microwave wondering why is that metal over there? This silver and the other one is that silver and it's just popping in my head right now while I'm talking to you and I can't get it to leave me alone.

Scott Benner 21:05
Okay, that's interesting. Why do you think there are two different colors of silver what's occurring to you right now.

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Kelly 24:01
It's, it's like more bent, it's bent as the the light hits it. And and the the silver on the stove is more flat. And they both were put in at the same time. And they're the same company and I don't understand.

Scott Benner 24:13
Right. So one of them's reflecting the light differently. You think?

Kelly 24:18
Yeah, there's that? Yeah. But it's the same company. And it just looks completely different. And it makes me think that one has a different level. I don't know maybe a plastic polymer in it.

Scott Benner 24:30
Yeah, right. Maybe they were just saving money somewhere.

Kelly 24:34
But I'll go off and I'll go look that up and try to figure it out. Well, okay, and that's that's ADHD, all of a sudden, a whole other topic comes into your head, you lose everything you were discussing, and you can't get away from it. So then you'll do something called hyper focusing. And you'll take an interest in something which is extremely helpful when you're learning about your child.

Scott Benner 24:59
You Interesting. And then but and you find this a problem like, I don't know what your day is like or

Kelly 25:04
hyper focusing is not a problem for me, okay? Because then it's all all all that. But when I'm all all that my husband has said you have to stop. You have to stop. There's other things to do. We have three kids, please. You know, you need to focus on other things.

Scott Benner 25:23
And are you able to do that when he brings it up to you?

Kelly 25:27
Yes. Okay, I am able to do that. It's just

Scott Benner 25:32
is it upsetting when somebody tries to break you away from your hyper focused activity?

Kelly 25:39
can be frustrating,

Scott Benner 25:41
frustrating. Okay. All right. I understand. Thank you, Kelly. That was really well done. I appreciate I know, that probably wasn't easy to do. And I appreciate you digging through it with me. So you have three kids. They are how old?

Kelly 26:02
1311 and

Scott Benner 26:04
813 11 and eight and which one of them has type one?

Kelly 26:08
My 11 year old son love your old son. Okay,

Scott Benner 26:12
how long ago was he diagnosed?

Kelly 26:16
So I go back and forth. I can't remember the exact year but my father in law told me it was five years ago, January 17.

Scott Benner 26:26
So he was six.

Kelly 26:30
And that's what I can't remember. I for some reason, can't remember that. That much.

Scott Benner 26:37
You know how I do Arden's diagnosis they she was diagnosed when she was two she'd only been to for a month. And she was born in 2004. So Arden was diagnosed in 2006. That's how I ended up doing it. Because if you just had what years are undiagnosed, I'd be like, 2006, like I ate come slower.

Kelly 26:56
So I'm basing my little one she was two and a couple months. So yeah, it was two. I think it was

Scott Benner 27:04
cool. Okay, so about six years old. Were there any other autoimmune issues in your family line?

Kelly 27:12
Yes. Okay. Goodness. Yes. Who and What? My mom has severe rheumatoid arthritis. My sister has Hashimotos my other sister has ankylosing spondylitis. My brother has rheumatoid arthritis. I don't know about my little brother. But yeah, and then. Who else? Oh, my mom is bipolar. I don't know. We go back. I listened to a lot about that.

Scott Benner 27:48
Yeah, I mean, that's all actually all very interesting. So this is it. So there's you said your younger brother. I don't know. Because you don't know your younger brother just because you don't talk about it.

Kelly 27:58
We he stayed home when I left. And so I don't really have the best relationship. Gotcha home.

Scott Benner 28:07
Should we dig? Should we dig through that a little bit before we get to your son? Or what do you think?

Kelly 28:13
You can absolutely go ahead because I was gonna, it kinda like everything comes back to trauma. So

Scott Benner 28:24
well, how old were you when you started experiencing that at home?

Kelly 28:29
trauma. I don't know. I remember being three years old. And my mom was locked out of the house and trying to open the door. And I couldn't get the door open. And her screaming really nasty things at me. And I I realized she left me home when she went to the store.

Scott Benner 28:55
Okay, so sleep. So you were a three year old asleep. Your mom went to the store came home and then couldn't talk you through unlocking the door so she yelled at you. Okay, Mom was bipolar. You're saying

Kelly 29:08
she's she was bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Okay. That's a lot, which I only realize I learned recently from a social worker

Scott Benner 29:20
by describing her to somebody who was able to say no,

Kelly 29:23
no, somebody who interacted with her later in her life. After she was I don't know, that's very complicated story. It doesn't

Scott Benner 29:33
matter. But you figured it out somehow. Okay. Your father, what was he in the situation?

Kelly 29:43
He was a nice man who went to work at like 4am and came home at 10pm. And he just couldn't put up with his wife and wouldn't give her the finances she needed because she was irresponsible with money. And so he just avoided her like

Scott Benner 30:03
she was the plague. Okay, but didn't leave her.

Kelly 30:07
He didn't leave her until she forced the issue.

Scott Benner 30:11
Gotcha. How many kids now? Did they have? Five? Where are you in that line? For? You're the fourth. Yep. Okay. What so was the the wrath of her mostly yelling? Or was it other stuff?

Kelly 30:30
It depended on which child it was. My mom used to like to humiliate my, just above me sister. She would just humiliate her and hit her in the most egregious ways, like, and she she was unhappy with how my sister cleaned the bathroom. So at two o'clock in the morning, she pulled her out of her bed to clean it again.

Scott Benner 30:53
Yeah, that's, that sounds pretty classic, actually, for what was going on with your mom. Your mom was not getting any treatment. I imagine what she treated with alcohol or drugs. Do you think

Kelly 31:02
so? Because my mom had severe. Oh, god bless the word. What does that rheumatoid arthritis. She was doing a lot of experimental things that other doctors had given her. And she was doing like, I mean, I remember she did a study on the MRI, like she volunteered to be one of the first people to lay in there and get tested on how to use an MRI on a person. And so she was always like a guinea pig trying to find a way to get I mean, like when I say my mom was severely disabled, her hands were just so bent and swollen and, and her face and she was on prednisone all the time. 24/7 which makes you aggressive, and irritable. She was on so many drugs, methotrexate. She like seven different drugs. But I don't believe any of them dealt with her bipolar. Or I didn't at that time. I don't. I don't even think she completely knew she was bipolar. And if so she used to, like I remember when I was like three or four. She just went away for three months. And didn't come back. Yeah. And we'd go visit her in a hospital. Okay. And then it happened again, when I was like six. And after she had my brother, I was six. Yeah. And it was just a lot of my father saying that one's not she doesn't have ADHD. That's not real. And my mom, you, you need to get better. And what's wrong with you? It's not real.

Scott Benner 32:44
So your your dad would say that your mom's problems weren't real or that the kids problems weren't real, or everybody, all of us anything. All of us? He probably didn't have the bandwidth to talk about. One more problem, I would imagine. Yeah.

Kelly 32:57
No, he did not. And he didn't only till the more recent years, even acknowledged stuff like that.

Scott Benner 33:04
Yeah. Do you still speak with him? My father passed away last year. Oh, I'm sorry. Prior to that, were you in touch? Yes. Yeah. But with your mom? No, no. Okay. My mom

Kelly 33:18
passed away in 2015. And I really hadn't talked to her since my grandmother had passed away. I think I was 26 at the time when my grandmother passed away. And the time before that, I was 16.

Scott Benner 33:33
Oh, my gosh. So you left at 16.

Kelly 33:37
I was I tried to leave on my own. Because my mom was just being erratic. She broke up with my boyfriend for me. She quit my job for me, which I had a job and I was buying groceries for our house. And that meant there was no food. And so that was a problem. Plus, that meant I couldn't go do anything. And she was always screaming your father doesn't give me enough money. I don't have any money, do anything. I have nothing. He's just trying to make me die here. It was. It was delusional, delusional, delusional, all the time. It was and so I took all my stuff. One day, after I walked home from the job, I thought I was going to I had worked in a video store. And I walked home. And that day, I took all my stuff. I got garbage bags, filled it up and I live. I was on the third floor of the house. I dropped them out the window and then I went to take the garbage out and I asked my neighbor to let me put them in his driveway, which he did, because he was kind and he realized my mother was unwell. And then I told her I would like to call my father And then I wanted to leave, because I couldn't take it anymore. Yeah. And she cried and yelled at me and said it. This is not working. You're You're kidding me. This is silly. And I was like, you're taking everything away from me that we need. And so she's like, Well, why don't you just go to your friend's house. So she drives me to my my friend's house. Which was really her friends, her, a girl who I was allowed to spend time with. I wasn't allowed to have any relationships with anybody, by the way. But then, it was all about control for my mom, let me tell you, and I went there, and she wouldn't let me take the bags out of a car. And she then said, I they had me go to school. The next day, I went, I went to a Catholic school, just so you know, a private school. And that afternoon, the police came and told me I had to go on a different bus. And I had to go to my father's house. Except I have nothing but my uniform on. That's all I own. Yeah. So everything was to take everything away from me. Well, if she's gonna do this, I'm gonna go through everything. She hasn't made sure she gets nothing.

Scott Benner 36:20
of value. Yeah, no, I've heard this story before from other people. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. So did you eventually make it to your father or no?

Kelly 36:32
Well, so my dad was dating some lady and living with her at that point, and they were gonna get married. And so I went to my grandmother's, and I got the top bunk, and a small bedroom. And my big brother had just come home from college, and he had graduated. And so he had the bottom bunk, although he'll say he never shared a room with me. But we did. And he, I essentially got like a pile behind the bed. And I had to kind of start new except a week later, and my mom said that my trial was over. If I liked what I was dealing with, then I can come get my stuff. And so I had a friend from work, take me to my house, and my mother then wouldn't let me in the house called me nasty whore, and said that, I don't deserve any chances. And so she gave me bags of things that weren't mine.

Scott Benner 37:33
Ah. Let's Catholicism is really working for everybody.

Kelly 37:38
I know, right?

Scott Benner 37:41
You guys Irish.

Kelly 37:44
We are a whole bunch of things. But she's Irish and I, Irish and English. I don't know. I've never completely understood my grandmother's background. Her mother. She, she I as far as she never told us about it really completely. And it's taken a couple of years of digging, but I believe she was English.

Scott Benner 38:04
Was her mother like this? No, no,

Kelly 38:08
her mother was like the life of the party. She was a woman who married divorced a man when her daughter was two in the 40s and 50s. She was a real head turner, by the way, I think I think I looked like her. Okay. And she had another husband, who was like 30 years older than her. And he was like a popular restaurant tour in New Jersey.

Scott Benner 38:39
Interesting. That's really

Kelly 38:41
New Brunswick area.

Scott Benner 38:43
Any of your brothers or sisters have any signs of bipolar?

Kelly 38:49
No. Well, maybe my little brother. I don't know. You know?

Scott Benner 38:54
Sure. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. She's so Kelly. You expect and probably through therapy and talking to people who know better about stuff like this than you and I, that some of your issues come from growing up in a scenario like the one you just described? Correct. Okay. And even though you were there for just the first 16 years, once you left, I mean, what happened between 16 and 18? Just lived your grandmother's while you finished up school?

Kelly 39:28
No. So it really I had tried to keep that job where the person had helped me and I really loved working there. But it meant like riding my bike 13 miles. And so I started living at my boyfriend's house a little bit and sleep like I would, I would go home to my grandmother's house like Monday night and then on. If I had to work I would maybe go Back to my boyfriend's house on Thursdays and then I would sleep at his house and then, you know, it was a bunch of stuff that went on with me kind of hanging out with friends and staying at friends houses rather than at my grandmother's house because my grandmother was old. And it was, I felt guilty, because I felt like I was taking advantage of an old lady.

Scott Benner 40:25
Okay. I understand. So did you go to college then?

Kelly 40:31
I did, but I took a year off. So

Scott Benner 40:34
between 18 and 19, you took a year off? And then but you did go and complete a column well,

Kelly 40:39
okay, I did not complete college. I went to school. I was 19 When I graduated from high school, because I was older because I stayed back in like second grade or something. And I was I was still in the private school because it was in the divorce decree. My father had prepaid for everything. So I still going to the private school I was going to, and then senior year, I got pregnant. And you know, we did not continue that. I understand them. Okay.

Scott Benner 41:26
Yeah, no, I understand. I started doing the math when you said it. So okay. And then

Kelly 41:31
I couldn't bear to go to school or do anything. All I did was, I kept my job. My boyfriend went off to a university that was far away. And his mom was like, Oh, you can live with me. It's okay. I love you so much. And I was just like, I can't live with you. I can't even stand to be here.

Scott Benner 41:50
Right? What part of the General General part of the country did you grow up in?

Kelly 41:55
I'm from New Jersey. You're from Jersey.

Scott Benner 41:57
Okay. This is a hell of a story, Kelly. It really is something else? And is there a moment ever in your 20s? Where you feel like, I've, I've gotten away from this. And then No, you've never felt clear of it. So

Kelly 42:17
I just, I, like a lot of people who have learning disabilities or disabilities in general, they tend to gravitate to trying to understand people. And sometimes that means making bad decisions, especially when you don't understand how to interact with people so well. And then I ended up with a man who was horrible who abused me. I'm sorry. It was like, so before I left my mom, she did start using drugs and alcohol. And she was doctor shopping, is what I think she was doing. But because she couldn't afford the drug she needed for her. Rheumatoid arthritis. So she was I mean, literally, and this is when I could do it. She she'd pull up in front of the local liquor store, and she'd say, here, bring this note in and get a 24 pack. And that 24 pack was every day.

Scott Benner 43:11
Okay. She was drinking while she was drinking that much to get through. Yeah, yep. And then, do you think people, younger people even understand the concept of your parents sending you somewhere with a note? Like my, my wife, my wife used to get sent to buy cigarettes with a note?

Kelly 43:30
Oh, but she would she would smoke a pack a day, too. Yeah. So it was a lot of smoking, a lot of drinking. And then

after I'd moved out, and I actually had cried to my dad to go to the court to try to save my little brother. And he's just said, I just don't have the money to deal with your mom. And I was like, Oh, okay. Because we're all disposable dad. That's great. So my dad had lived it. So in between there, I had moved in with my dad and his new wife. And she was worse than my mom.

Scott Benner 44:11
Dad could pick up I know,

Kelly 44:13
I know. But then you think about this. That was how I picked relationships. And I never really had a really good healthy relationship because that that relationship with the boyfriend she made me break up. That was actually a really nice relationship.

Scott Benner 44:30
That's probably why she made you stop doing it.

Kelly 44:34
Well, yeah, and she didn't know a lot of stuff. And she, she made this story up. She told me, I heard him talking to his friend in the backyard. He's gonna try to have sex with you. You're not gonna have sex. Let me tell you. I'm going to stop it. And I was like, Oh, okay.

Scott Benner 44:54
How old were you at that point?

Kelly 44:56
Um, I was 16

Scott Benner 44:59
Did you already have so So the kid, no, no. Okay. Well, he was probably going to try to have sex with you. But that

Kelly 45:06
wasn't. I was trying to do that with him. And he told me no.

Scott Benner 45:14
Okay. She did. She didn't

Kelly 45:17
know that.

Scott Benner 45:19
She No, yeah, no, I'm saying she obviously made up the story, but it was, it was a reasonable guess is what I'm saying. First, for a 16 year old boy to be thinking about that. Correct? What behind? Just generally, I don't need you to go very deeply. But relationship in your 20s where you said it was abusive? Was that physical or mental or? Both? Both? How long were you?

Kelly 45:48
In and out for 10 years. Every time I'd get out, he'd like, come back to my door. I mean, I had, and he was always like, Oh, he was, I mean, the first time he hit me. So I actually went off to, I went to the community college, and then I had gone down to New Orleans to live. And then I was going to go into two lane. And then I had been assaulted by a roommate. So I left

Scott Benner 46:28
at Tulane.

Kelly 46:31
We were in a house. We weren't, like, Okay, I

Scott Benner 46:33
say, I hadn't

Kelly 46:35
even really started school yet.

Scott Benner 46:38
And this was a sexual assault.

Kelly 46:41
No, no, it was a girl. And she was my friend.

Scott Benner 46:47
And she just hate like, hate you that kind of thing. You don't have to tell me. Yeah.

Kelly 46:54
Okay. Um, it started months earlier over a guy. And I had, I was in college, and I had a friend. And this friend one day goes, Hey, you want to go to a Matthew sweet concert? And I'm like, Yeah, I want to go to a Matthew sweet concert. And so I'm like, okay, oh, my God. He asked me out, like, this is awesome. And I get in the car. And there's this other guy in the backseat. And I get in the front seat. And he's like, Hey, do you mind getting in the backseat? And I'm like, oh, yeah, no problem. And then we stop at somebody else's house. And we pick up this other girl who then proceeds to stick her tongue down his throat. And I'm like, Oh, I guess this isn't a date. Oh, I'm seeing that I'm supposed to be with the other guy. Oh, okay. I wasn't used to that. And then we were very good friends for like two years, and we were just only ever friends. And then one day I said to him, I said, I don't understand why you never, ever wanted to go out with me. And he said, I did. I asked you out. But you said that you wanted to stay single. And I said, Yeah, like not get married. And he's like, Well, I perceived you wanted to be single, single. And I was just like, great. And then he kissed me. And then my friend got upset because she apparently had started to become attracted to him, which she always knew that I was attracted to him. And it was like, why? So she said, you either stop it, or I'm not your friend anymore. And so I stopped it. Kellyanne, I told my guy friend, sorry.

Scott Benner 48:57
Everything about your story is making me not about you, by the way, just in general, because I live in the world too. All I can think is like, is everyone out of their mind? Like everyone? You do not I mean, just in different and spectacle spectacularly odd ways. Like between, you know, interpersonal relationships and dating and, you know, parenting and nobody can like, like, no one in your life can come close to making a good decision. It's, it's fantastic. Like you've actually moved so far away from how you grew up. It's, it's, it's laudable, honestly, do you know what I mean? Like it's it's fascinating that you were able to get to where you are right now. Yes, if you ever stopped to just kind of celebrate that.

Kelly 49:51
I do. I do. celebrate that. Good.

Scott Benner 49:54
Good. I mean, it's like you climbed out of six different pits. It feels like

Kelly 50:01
I've, it feels like that to me too. But sometimes people say that your stories are so outrageous that nobody will believe them.

Scott Benner 50:09
No, listen, I have no reason not to believe you. And it makes sense if you kind of reverse engineer it. If though if you at six years old, which by the way, Listen, I'm not a doctor, I wasn't a doctor in the 70s. I don't know what I'm talking about. But I've seen people put on Ritalin and it wasn't good for them. And no, I could stand here and make a pretty solid argument that a six year old shouldn't be able to keep a single train of thought while talking to a bipolar a woman and her husband who made six babies with her five babies or whatever. Like, like, you know, it's, it's not like you were, it's not like you were being raised by the Queen Mother. And and you you don't I'm saying like there was a lot of craziness from your mom. Like, why are we? I mean, if I could put myself back in that moment, I don't think I would put your mother in charge of making a decision about whether or not to medicate you at six years old. Do you see what I'm saying? And and so, now you're in it, right? Well, listen, you were in it the minute they had you like, right, so you're in their hell. And now you're being brought up with their ideas, you're being brought up with their, you know, limited ability to parent. And then they do it to more people by you know, they have kids, and then you guys live in a bubble where this is happening, your father gets more and more this illusion to move away your mom's slides further and further into her mental illnesses, which makes your interactions worse and worse and worse. And then it's no doubt that it's just not a surprise, that you would continue to end up with people like this. It's probably what you gravitate towards, even though you don't realize you're gravitating towards it. Like there were probably kids at Tulane that weren't going to hit you. But how the hell would you find them? Because that's not what you think of as the world. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. It just feels like, you know, this thing breeds more of this thing. And then when you try to leave it, you find more people like that. And then when you actually find people who aren't like that, that's probably when you don't deal well with other people.

Kelly 52:24
Well, the girlfriend, the girlfriend that assaulted me, she was like, my best friend of like, three years. And, and she, she wasn't I ride or die. Yeah. And I was living in her house with her a lot. Like, I would come sleep with her at her house, not like sleep with her. Not like that. But like, roll out a bed, that bed thing. And I'd sleep next to her bed. And it was. And so like, when it came to her the guy I was gonna choose her because she's my ride or die. And she was like, the only girl ride or die that I had ever had that kind of liked me.

Scott Benner 53:10
And maybe that's all I'm wondering is if you didn't grow up like this, in this scenario, if when you got to college, your ride or die would have been a different person. Probably yeah. And like, what is it about? Like, when you stop and think about it, it doesn't. It doesn't shock me that you were very good friends with a person who eventually could come to strike another person. Because I'm guessing that subconsciously, we're all drawn to people that we recognize. Somehow, hey, you know what I mean? Even if it's not like, even if in your in your like, functioning like conscious mind, you're like, look, that's how my mom is. I don't want to be around people like my mom. Like, even if you know that. When you start making small, subconscious decisions about people and things. I'm assuming you choose stuff that you're more comfortable with, even though that comfort isn't good for you.

Kelly 54:11
When I look back, now, I can see that but in the moment, I didn't see it. Sure. I couldn't see it. And when when I left her she, she they the roommates all voted me out. I mean, I'm the one that got strangled, and black guide, and I got voted out of the house because they said I cause too much drama. When I didn't think I caused any drama. Actually, I just kind of went to work and came home and was saving to try to pay for my first semester. Yeah. And so yeah, that wasn't working. And so I never got to do that. And then I came home and she called me lots of names and said that I would never, ever do anything successful and a bunch of other things that she said to me so that when I came home there's this guy I was just looking for somebody to pick on, I guess.

Scott Benner 55:05
And you probably look apart at this point after having gone through these things so many times, like, Oh, I was

Kelly 55:11
so skinny. So I was I, you know, I can look back at old pictures and be like, God, I was really pretty. What was I thinking I was so low on myself. I never. My mom used to call me. Uh, she called me a fat whore.

Scott Benner 55:26
Oh, all the time. That's sweet. And what I was thinking was is that predators can recognize prey. And you've been preyed on by so many people, that it probably, it probably exudes from you, and you don't even realize it. And so they're like, Okay, well, this one will be easy for me to manipulate or whatever it is. They're thinking of doing? Probably, yeah. Oh, that's terrible. It really is.

Kelly 55:54
I should have just stopped it. I don't. I didn't stop it. The first so I had moved back in with my grandmother. And she was she I mean, she's in her 90s. Okay. Wow. And we had it was just a couple of weeks after I moved back. So it was probably like, February. And he was doing stuff with somebody else. And I was just like, oh, well, this is not like, well, I didn't know that. Well. Oh, dang. And I dropped. I was drinking a wineglass on my front porch. And I was 21 at this point. And I dropped it. And he said, You, you threw that at me. You. You purposely tried to hurt me. And I'm standing I was like, No, I didn't I just I'm just so I'm a klutz, I'm just a big klutz, and I didn't, you know, you're just angry at me. And then he, he's, he, like, back slapped me. And then I ran in my front door. And he knocked me down and, and he choked me to like, I was unconscious. And I woke up in my own bed with him behind me, making sure I was okay. telling me how much he loved me and all that stuff. And I would never do that. And, you know, thank God, your grandmother didn't come out of her room. Oh, my God. He was like two in the morning. And it was just always from there on end. Because my sister lived with me at this time, too. And she was at one of the universities locally. And he would just say he could take them both both out, if I ever told anybody.

Scott Benner 57:46
So he was willing to threaten to kill people around you if you talked about what happened. But he had to wait for something like the wineglass to fall to hit you, which hitting you is what he wanted to do. Like for. It's got nothing to do with you, Kelly. I don't imagine you don't know that now, years later. But like, he's got his own significant issue. He's just waiting for anything. That's an excuse for him to lash out the way he wants to lash out.

Kelly 58:17
Oh, it's just, it was constant after that. And that was like, he used to get upset that I wouldn't pick him up. And I was like, I work too, you know, and that's my car. He didn't have a car at the time. And he's like, you're supposed to pick me up at this time and do this. And I was like, Okay. It just, it was just easier to go along, than have to put up a fight and have him threaten people in my life. And so you know, I did it. And then one day, I thought, hey, let me do something because I'm having this relationship and it's sick, I guess. And I'm trying to, you know, love this person, I guess, because this is what I'm stuck with you. Everybody in the world just like this. Apparently, my view

Scott Benner 58:58
is now starting to feel for sure.

Kelly 59:01
Pretty much how it feels. And so I ran to a Starbucks in like two towns over and then came back and brought him coffee. And then the people in office are like, yeah, he's like, left. You were supposed to be here earlier. He was looking for you. And I was like, Okay, this is before cell phones. Okay. I had a pager. But I then find him walking home, which was way too far for him to walk, but he was going to do it apparently. And rather than call his parents he, you know, called me and I didn't answer the phone, and I didn't you know, so, yeah, I picked him up, and there's some construction and he's yelling at me and I'm like, Hey, I got you this coffee. I thought it would be a great surprise. I thought, you know, it'd be really nice. I even brought the people in your office. Some coffees, and I thought it was I was just trying to surprise you with something sweet and kind. And he took my wallet and threw it at my head while I'm driving and went out the window in a construction zone, so then I stopped and crawled on the ground wall, all my stuff is on the road. Nobody ever did anything. You know,

Scott Benner 1:00:11
it's demoralizing. It's terrible. I don't even I mean, there's obviously nothing to say it's just, it's, it's a mess. I don't know how you don't know how you got this far through it to be perfectly honest. It's, you know, it's just one thing after another. And it was,

Kelly 1:00:30
yeah. But one day, I, all by myself broke my leg. And I was standing on my front stoop, reading my mail, I had moved to my own apartment at that time, because every apartment I lived with roommates with always told me he wasn't, he was not allowed to come to it anymore. They didn't like him. And I guess, their way of trying to push somebody out of my life was to say, Hey, you can't live here anymore. If that person's here. So I finally found my own place. I'm reading my mail, I fell, because I have facial issues. And I broke my leg. But it was a hairline fracture, I could still walk, but it was so excruciating, excruciating ly painful that he got to my house that night. And I said, Do you think you can keep taking me to the ER, he's like, you're fine. There's nothing wrong with you. And I go, do you? Do you see the bruise on the leg? Can you take me to the ER? And he's like, No, you're fine. And it was just, it was always like that, you're fine. And then within like, two weeks, I went to my doctor's and I just cried so hard to her. And I mean, she knew what was going on. Right? She knew she, she cuz I was like, I'm so depressed, I'm this or I had other things that would happen.

So she took me down to the ER and tried to admit me

Scott Benner 1:02:04
to try to get you away from him in general. That and the other things, yeah,

Kelly 1:02:10
okay, get help. And I didn't understand what was happening. So I had to call my sister because I if I was admitted, that would affect my job, and how is that going to pay my bills, I don't live with anybody. And I don't have any support system. That guy is my support system at this point where I'm so isolated. And my my sister's husband's a psychologist in a hospital system. And he talked them out of it. And I went home. But in the process, I was required to join the crisis Women's Center, at the hospital. So every week, I had to show up at overlook Hospital in Summit, New York Summit, New Jersey. And, and, yeah, I had somebody named Christine. And whether she knows it or not, she saved my life, because she taught me how to talk to him and not get hit, and to mirror behaviors to him. So I did what he needed me to do at the time. But then when it came down to breaking up, she always says, you're always trying to break up with him, and you're trying to get out of the situation. And I said, Yes. Well, he has to think he's breaking up with you. He's got to break it off. And so they taught me over four or five months of going every Tuesday that I, I would tell him, yep, I'm going to talk about you and how you treat me. And they said, it holds him accountable for his behaviors. And, and the process of it, he broke up with me. And I was 30 at this point. And he never stopped coming to my house or ringing my phone or checking on me at work. Just so you know. That went on.

Scott Benner 1:04:11
Yeah, until you meet your husband. I don't even Yeah, you Kelly. I don't even know what to say that it's a that it's necessary. That a crisis center teaches you how to slowly break up with a lunatic. Like that's just it's that that is necessary, I think says a lot. Really. That's my God.

Kelly 1:04:37
And that's what a lot of people don't understand about women and abuse. They want to get out. Why don't they get out? Because if they walk away from this person, this person is still behind them. Because they think they own you. He he got married in those two years to somebody else. wouldn't leave me alone.

Scott Benner 1:04:59
Wow, it's Yeah, I mean, listen, if you want the the high level takeaway from this ladies, and I'm being serious here, don't take guys that can't afford their own car. I swear to you, it's an indicator. It just really is. I don't know why in a driving society. If a guy's asking you for a ride, I'm telling you, there's something wrong. That's all. I don't mean to to make light because I'm not I really feel like that's something that you should pay attention to as a red flag. I

Kelly 1:05:30
helped him get a high powered job don't really don't think he he didn't. He ended up driving a Porsche.

Scott Benner 1:05:37
Jesus. I know. That's, that's just upsetting. Alright, so Well, okay, so Kelly, you know, that's a long that stuff, I guess pretty, pretty far from your past not probably doesn't feel like it when you start talking about it. But you know, 15 years ago or more. So when you meet your husband, and things are just normal? How do you, you're able to accept that and just move on and be normal?

Kelly 1:06:05
No, no. I'm just not a normal person. So I can't accept that. And I guess I guess, I guess my, I don't know, I just, you know, I sing that song to myself from like, Sound of Music. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

Scott Benner 1:06:24
That's what helps.

Kelly 1:06:25
It does. I sing it to myself every time I'm like, How did I get here? I wouldn't change a thing. I'm so glad I'm here. Because where I am, I'm having a very happy I've. And I didn't know what normal was until I met my husband. And then he's just just really nice, intelligent guy. And so I when he, by the way, just so you know, when he asked me to marry him. I said, you don't even know me. I'm crazy. I have ADHD. Do you know I have ADHD? And I'm dyslexic? I mean, I walk into things all the time. I'm a huge clucks. Are you sure you're ready for that?

Scott Benner 1:07:06
Yeah, you should not have done that. You should have just said to all this guy seems normal. I'm definitely going to start trying to hang around with normal people.

Kelly 1:07:14
Well, at that point in time, I didn't I wasn't sure he was normal, though. Because I actually did. I did date, like numerous people. And the first minute they did like, anything controlling or anything weird or anything, just anything. I was like by sorry. Nope. Yeah. So it was it was like two years of me dating while that other guy is still following me around calling me and showing up my house on random moments. Yeah. And

Scott Benner 1:07:45
so we're split. Let's interest that. Well, it's interesting, because your life is beginning to split in two different directions. But it took a very long, long time for that Velcro to pull apart. And because the bad boyfriend person was still trying to stick to you, and you were trying to go in a different direction. And let's, I mean, it's amazing that you were able to and it sounds like you know, with a lot of help from people.

Kelly 1:08:11
I did. I've always had angels out there. Yeah, helping me. That's and that was one of those weird things. It's so weird. I'm not I know I'm Catholic, but I'm not religious. But you remember that boyfriend I was telling you about the the one my mom made me break up with Yes. When I broke up with when that guy broke up with me, but really I broke up with him in a very long, elated way of doing things. It was no a lady elaborate way of doing things. I started having dreams about my ex boyfriend of that time. And what I hadn't known is the day that he broke up with me was the day that that he died.

Scott Benner 1:08:52
Wait, wait, hold on, stop. Start over which boyfriend, the boyfriend my mom broke up with when you were like 1616 The boy wanted to have sex with you.

Kelly 1:09:06
But no. She said I wanted to have Yeah, that she said yeah, he died. He died with cancer. When he was 29 Oh my god. I didn't know. But the day that my relationship ended with the bad guy. I had been dreaming about him for a little bit. The first day of the first boyfriend. I mean really honestly, he was my first boyfriend. And I had been dreaming and he always had told me you know, I he had always said he did love me. Stuff like that. And I even add had kept up with him over the years, even though I was dating other people he had you know, he had still been my friend. And then when he met his wife, I guess he had come to my house and he had said something to me. Um, you know, I met somebody, and I wanted to just make sure it was okay, that this is the way I'm going because this may be something and I didn't know what he was asking me. I think I was like 1920, right. And I was like, I don't know what you're asking me. Because we're not together. And he's like, Well, I'm just checking if we couldn't be together. And I was just like, I'm like, you live so far away from me. I don't think this would work. I'm in college. I'm just trying to be free. I mean, I'm just trying to be free at this point, because I had such a tumultuous relationship with the previous guy.

Scott Benner 1:10:36
Oh, yeah, I have to tell you, if you would have gotten back together with him, and he passed away 29 from cancer, I would have thought that's on brand for Kelly. You know, like, I'm actually the whole time you're talking, I'm thinking the diabetes for your son is on brand, like because you must have just, like been like, oh my god, is this like, this stuff never going to stop. You know what I mean? Like, just, I mean, cuz you're, you're, you're build a life. You're doing it now. And then your son gets diagnosed? I would have been. I mean, I'm asking, how did that strike you at that time?

Kelly 1:11:12
So I'm part of that relationship where I was abused was a lot of abuse in the car. And so when this happened, so you have to understand what my husband's job is first. Okay. My husband works at sea. He's a merchant mariner. He's a chief engineer on a ship. Okay. Okay, and so he leaves for like, 10 to 12 weeks at a time, sometimes the longest he's left it's 141 days. Well, I'm by myself. And so we had gone his dad likes to sometimes sometimes he flies out of where we live or Hill, we have to drive down if he depending on which port he has to go to. We drive to look like Elizabeth or something. New Jersey? Yeah. That port. And so I was meeting my father and my father in law in Newburgh, New York, because that was kind of midway for us. And he would take him the rest of the way to New Jersey. And we would we sometimes go to like a local popular, inexpensive, breakfasty kind of place, like not a diner, but a popular. You know, I'm trying not to say the name. Sure. And so we had gone there that morning. And I was leaving my husband with my father in law, and my son is sitting across me. And he orders a plate of pancakes. When he's six. Granted, he's a big kid, by the way. Because I'm six foot my husband's six, two, so yeah, we're not small people. And he ate three huge pancakes. And then he asked for my father in law's parents cakes, and he ate those two, those four pancakes. And then he took my soda. And he took the toast that was on the table, and anybody sausage or bacon or anything, they had anything that was leftover, he asked to eat. And I, I was like, what is what is up? And so he had, we thought I had had him at a doctor's office twice in the last couple days, but we have to move to bring daddy to work, you know. So this is what we do. And we drove down, we dropped. My husband was my father in law, and I said, you know, I'm gonna go to Target afterwards. Because we don't live anywhere near where there's a target. Just so you know, there are places there's no targets. And every time I tried to go shopping, we had to go back to the bathroom. I was like, literally every five minutes. I don't even know what his blood sugar was, but he was graying. He was had to go the bathroom so much that I was like crying I pulled over on the way home like six times so he could I had a minivan so he could pee out the door

Scott Benner 1:14:13
right there's no way he didn't love that right? He probably did. Oh my gosh, you're saying it now and I'm like I want to do that.

Kelly 1:14:24
I wish I could but I hear you can if you get this certain little cup thing.

Scott Benner 1:14:29
Female I would find that freeing I believe to pull over on the highway and just pee out the door.

Kelly 1:14:35
Pretty much but I you know yeah, things are best years old and I'm a spastic. I have a two year old in the back. And then I have at that time my other my other child is eight. And we had had a rough time with her the previous year because she had a burst appendix. So I'm like super on guard mommy. Well, let me tell you. I'm feeling my son's belly. Is this tight? Does this hurt? Does this every day I at this point, every time he gets sick, that's what I would do. And he's like, No, I'm fine. I was like, then why do you have to pee so much. So, I actually had had gestational diabetes during my third pregnancy, okay, for my two year olds. And I had. So here's one of my ADHD moments when I went into the hospital to be trained by the nutritionist who also apparently is a type one diabetic. I was giggling because at that time, my son was three, three to four, somewhere between there. And he had just gotten diagnosed with global dyspraxia. But they had suggested I modify his diet to make sure he wasn't allergic to anything read to make sure he wasn't allergic to this, because he had always had stomach problems, like eternally crying, stomach problems that his stomach hurt. And this is years before he got diagnosed, you know, and it was just even as a baby, always crying, always giving something for his stomach. Always, I never slept anyway. Because and then I had another child. So it was just take this food away, take that food away, we went gluten free for a year, it did nothing. Like took all any kind of things with dyes. We did all this stuff. And in the process of going to learning about nutrition, I sat there with this nutritionist who's telling me that I have to do all this stuff. And he's looking at me, he's like, why are you laughing? And I'm like, so many months pregnant. And I'm just laughing because I don't know how to react to all the different diet things. Now I had to do that I was already doing for my kid. And I was like this. I'm laughing because life is funny.

Scott Benner 1:17:01
But as bad as I've been through worse, what do you think of that? Yeah, but

Kelly 1:17:07
I didn't say anything. I just I was uncomfortable. I was very uncomfortable. A this guy was pretty hot. Be I'm embarrassed and see I'm inappropriate at this point. So I say nothing. I just sat there, like, smiled and laughed a little. And I was just like, so he had told me some things, some signs that I had to look for. And these were all the signs that my son was having. Yeah. And he didn't know that he saved my son's life by telling this stuff. So several years later, guess who's our pump trainer? The hot guy.

Scott Benner 1:17:49
By the way, if girls were uncomfortable around hot guys, I think this explains why people are so comfortable around me. I just realized that now when you were saying I was like, Oh, that no one's ever been uncomfortable. Oh, then I was like, I got it. Alright, I say. So, okay, are you? I'm dying to know, Are you incredibly good at diabetes? Or do you struggle with it?

Kelly 1:18:15
Well, I hyperfocus That's it. I'm sorry. I spent the first couple months figuring everything out. And while my kid is MDI, I kept him so he's never been number one, his diagnosis before 10. Number two, his a one C was 7.8 a diagnosis. So I caught this early pretty early. Yeah. Because of the guy in my nutrition meeting, right? And then it just it saved his life. And I then went down the rabbit hole of diabetes. I didn't even I knew of you because at diagnosis, my doctors the nurse practitioner gave me your name the city city. She gave me your juice box and listened to Juicebox Podcast but at that time, we didn't have cable. We didn't have any of that stuff. We had HughesNet which is a satellite, okay. And I didn't have enough data to listen to you.

Scott Benner 1:19:17
That's nothing I can do about that. Kelly. That can't be my problem. But I understand the idea. Wait, what hospital by the way. Albany Med, Albany med. Okay.

Kelly 1:19:28
And Albany, med pediatrics. endocrinology is our doctor and they are amazing. We see a nurse practitioner Christine Wohlfahrt. And she is an amazing endocrine. NP. And she's awesome. And so is nurse Nancy and Kristin all of them. They are awesome. Let me just shoot them. Yeah. And so we also you know, Alex, I shouldn't have said it. Well, Alex is my son. Okay. Uh, Alex has I don't know, I've always been able to handle this. I've always managed, there was a lot of sleepless nights. Let me let me tell you, those sleepless nights were spent. I like literally stayed up for like five days straight when he was diagnosed and just read, read, read, read read. And here's the hyperfocus I can read that stuff if I have a desire, and it was constant and with in. So, two days after we came back from the hospital my son started vomiting. And I called up nurse Nancy. And she, she was like, Well, you know, just just do straight basil. And just give him sips of soda or sips of drinks and just stay there with him. But you have to make sure he gets insulin. So drink insulin, check blood sugar, and I was like, okay, okay, I got this. And I'm on like, freaking out. I sat next to him, his bed on the floor, the entire two days that he was sick. I kept him out of DKA. I kept him below 200. And he just had a stomach virus. There's just a fluke. But when he was diagnosed, one of the the, of course, you know, he had to be diagnosed on a day that was like an eight inch snowstorm. And I had no coverage for my kids at home because my husband had left to go to work. Yeah, and was already in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Scott Benner 1:21:38
At this point. He has the global dyspraxia diagnosis already or Yep, yeah, that's already there. And am I understanding that correctly? I'm looking online here. It's also referred to as clumsy child syndrome. Yep. Confused matters more developmental dyspraxia. Basically, DCD refers to an overall motor incoordination. Yeah, like bumps into things.

Kelly 1:22:05
But so when he was 10 months old, he broke his arm. Okay, and we couldn't even figure out how he broke his arm. Because we had our mattress on the floor, and he had kind of crawled off the bed at me. i It was like, 11 o'clock at night, and I just went to the bathroom. And yes, my kids slept with me in the bed. And that's just what we did. Because he never slept anyway. So yeah, he broke his arm had a buckle fracture in his I think it was his right arm. Yeah, it is rest, right. That's where you get those? Yeah, yeah. And he had a lot of accidents that were just really fluke. Like when he was like to, I don't even know how he cut himself. He found a way to cut his hand so bad that he had to get stitches. And I was like, I was all I did was walk around the house, and we were playing hide and go seek it with my daughter. And I was like, I don't even know what you touched. Yeah, like, I couldn't find it. But I found bloody hand marks on the back door. And I was like, what happened? Where's my kid? You know? And, yeah, it was just always awkward things. And at this time, my daughter was getting speech therapy. And she was three years, two to three, she got speech therapy, and he was like 1011 months old. And the therapist looked at me, and Katie was her name. And she goes, Hey, Kelly, there's there's just something not right about Alex can just, he's not meeting. He's not meeting the milestones the way he should be. And I was like, Well, the doctor says, you know, everybody's different. So I was like, Yeah, everybody's different. And she, we then got him some help. After he was age. One day, the health department came in and assessed him. And he got speech therapy from Katie and both my kids at the same time. And they were both helped. But then all of a sudden, he qualified for occupational therapy. And so they come to your house where I live, and they do that, and it's all covered through the health department, because they're trying to help kids get to where they got to. And we're always going to developmental pediatrician at this point in Albany. And so, yeah, I'm slowly we got a diagnosis over two years, after a lot of assessments and then my son has, for most of his life, had yoga therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, because he also seems to have hyper joint mobility issues too. Okay. And he's, he grows so exceedingly fast also, which is a little bit unusual, but it's, it's good but he if he was to do like, say he was to run down the road, he fatigue so much his knees and joints hurt so bad. He stops and he his blood sugar drops like really fast. So more abnormally than a normal person or a normal type on there but

Scott Benner 1:25:12
the key I'm sorry, good.

Kelly 1:25:16
I was gonna say he just everything is quicker and faster he fatigues he gets shaky. Even before diabetics because of the global dyspraxia hands shaking. They once told me he'll never be able to ride a bike, he rides a bike. He'll never ever play with Legos. He plays with Legos, he'll never be able to write his name, right? Well, given time, he's still, in my experience, men don't have the prettiest handwriting. So

Scott Benner 1:25:47
what I'm seeing here symptoms of this can include poor balance, poor posture, fatigue, clumsiness, difference in speech, perception problems, poor hand eye coordination.

Kelly 1:25:57
Yeah, his speech was really delayed. I mean, when he would say I have videos of when I look back at videos, back when, when he was Wow. Like, he would talk like that. Right? It was it was different. So here's the thing, global dyspraxia, just like everything else, there are. Everybody has. There's a severity level and less of a severity level. Every time they've said we can't do something he does it. So

Scott Benner 1:26:28
Harry Potter has this. The actor the actor? Yeah. Interesting. Yes. A lot of people do. Right? No, it's actually the thing I was reading says that five to 18% of the population may have it. Yep. That's interesting. All right.

Kelly 1:26:43
I believe it comes under the bracket of dyslexic diseases are developmental delays, not disease.

Scott Benner 1:26:52
And so it's not that I haven't enjoyed this. But back to my original question from 10 minutes ago. How are you? It's funny. I was having a good time. How do you end up managing like do you hit your goals for his blood sugar's what are your goals?

Kelly 1:27:09
So here's the deal. I keep his goals 85 to 180, because we, the doctor and I have talked about it a lot of times, like when I will check him, his blood sugar's always significantly lower than the Dexcom says, and we think that there's, so here's the thing that goes with this. He also has, like, it's not gastroparesis, but it's a slowing of the intestines. But we've started to think that it has actually everything to do with global dyspraxia, not diabetes, the all the motor skills, motor movement throughout the body is less. So we think that he has his blood flow and everything might just be slightly slower, slightly less.

Scott Benner 1:27:58
So the process of his waist coming out is slowed.

Kelly 1:28:04
Yeah, okay. Like I said, he always had stomach issues. He's always had so many issues with the stomach before we even got diagnosed. So it was always trying to figure out what he was allergic to. They did allergy testing, they said, pretty much nothing might be sensitive with milk. Have you

Scott Benner 1:28:24
tried, I'm gonna end up saying this a lot, because it's been helping Arden but have you tried something simple, like digestive enzyme along with his meals to see if it moves things through better?

Kelly 1:28:35
You mean a probiotic?

Scott Benner 1:28:37
No. More specifically, there's, there's like digestive enzymes there's, you take them right along with the meal.

Kelly 1:28:46
And no, I haven't tried this. Yeah. I'll take the suggestion though. Worth a

Scott Benner 1:28:50
shot. I mean, you just kind of pop them with your with your food. Okay. And then if he's not eliminating on a good schedule, adding maybe like magnesium oxide might be valuable. We have

Kelly 1:29:05
added magnesium, magnesium oxide did add magnesium. I don't know if it's oxide, though. Check. That's just magnesium. Man. And so he gets a leg pains, a lot of leg pains throughout his life. He's always had severe leg pains. But he's also he's 11. And he's 511.

Scott Benner 1:29:25
Yeah, that's hard to know. Well double check the magnesium because there's a couple of different versions and magnesium oxide is what you're looking for to go to the bathroom more frequently.

Kelly 1:29:38
They have him on MiraLAX eternally, like he just takes me relax every day because if he doesn't, he has that whole slowing. And so he'll go super high. And then when he actually eliminates he'll go super low. But for him it's like I've found him at like 29 So

Scott Benner 1:29:56
like quickly happens fast. It does Yeah, cuz his body When he empties out, then his blood sugar drops, right? Yeah. So they have him on a laxative. Does the laxative work or not really?

Kelly 1:30:09
It does. It does so, and everybody swears it's not bad for him. I've read a lot of reports, I've gone back and forth, but this is what helps. And I don't really enjoy the low blood sugar like that. No, of course. So like, I will go in there and it will say he's 85. And he might be 40. So it's harder, and has a one C has always a sense diagnosis, his first visit after being diagnosed, he was 6.2. And then he was five point, I believe it's 5.6. But last, last, a one C was 5.6. The one before that was 5.2. We've always stayed between 5.2 and 5.6. Am I am maniacal controlling person I might be. But I also we loop also, at this point.

Scott Benner 1:31:09
Sounds like you're doing well. You really does. Yeah.

Kelly 1:31:13
We don't have a lot of side effects with things. But I take things a little bit more serious than other people do. And my husband just backs me up. He's the tech guy. He he codes on his own anyway, building systems and stuff. And I am I'm just more medically capable. That was what I was gonna go to school for. So

Scott Benner 1:31:34
Gotcha. Well, here's something very quick about magnesium. I'm reading from a health line article. Because of its low absorption rate in your intestines. Magnesium Oxide may lead to digestive effects like diarrhea, so if you're not going, it gets you're moving it strong laxative effects are why it's commonly used to treat constipation. Jumping ahead a little in the article. In contrast, magnesium citrate, magnesium acetate, I'll tolerate magnesium malate, and magnesium glycinate all have high absorption rates, and are more effective at increasing magnesium levels. So if you're trying to actually bring your magnesium level up, you don't use oxide. But if you're trying to make yourself go to the Poopoo oxide is the way to go. And sometimes doctors get that messed up. So check the magnesium to make sure you have the right one.

Kelly 1:32:23
So we're not using magnesium to help them go. Number two, we're using the magnesium to stop the leg pain.

Scott Benner 1:32:31
Is it but is that working for that? Yes. Okay, good. Well, then maybe that's maybe you could do some magnesium oxide. In addition, yeah, it would be my was what I would wonder and digestive enzymes are I'm just gonna pick one that I'm aware of a second the company called Pure that makes it I mean, a lot of people make them but I'm choosing that one to try to find the find what's actually in it for you

why not? Tell me Give me a second

you must be thrilled that like something about your personality is actually helping with something like with diabetes, right? That's pretty cool.

Kelly 1:33:38
It's it's very encouraging. And because of my searching because of my hyper focusing, which actually I'm trying to kind of get away from sorry, that's my text messages. That's

Scott Benner 1:33:52
okay. That's what happens. You get a text.

Kelly 1:33:55
Yeah, that's my I love that. I love that. That movie.

Scott Benner 1:34:00
What's it from? I couldn't hear it. It just sounds like kids.

Kelly 1:34:03
What is it? What is that guy? Steve Carell movie. This is how I do things with a

Scott Benner 1:34:12
ripoff. cartoon. Oh, a cartoon.

Kelly 1:34:15
The cartoon is the Steve Carell movie where he's, he's the bad guy, but he's really the good guy and he adopts his little girls.

Scott Benner 1:34:21
Oh, he's grew like crazy. Yeah. Stuff like that.

Kelly 1:34:27
That's the little girl screaming. I'm so happy about my unicorn.

Scott Benner 1:34:33
Alright, so I'm looking specifically at the pure encapsulations version of the digestive enzymes they list 391 milligrams of proprietary. Enzyme blend, amylase protease protease six lysosome lays lactase Lepus beta glycinate I'm not I'm butchering these words in Virtus cellulous Alpha Gala, Tosa. Oh my goodness. protease three phytase, and people who know how to pronounce these are probably like Way to go, Scott. He must cellulous. So I don't know, honestly, what any of that is, what I can tell you is that Arden was digesting your food slowly. And we went to a regular doctor who, like, immediately turned us off by like acting like she was gonna need pain medications and all this stuff. And we were like, Wait, what the hell like this all seems very like, like a big leap, you know, not something she'd want to do. So we added these, these enzymes to her meals, and the magnesium oxide to her diet to help her go better. And she had a real great like, change. We bumped into a little bit now when she's at school, there's so much fried food in the cafeteria, that she's starting to kind of like even though she's taking this stuff, she's having some troubles. So we actually talked to her last night and said, you know, let's cut things out with oil and fried stuff, like and she's like, that's gonna be hard here, but do that. And I think she's got some stress to be in a college, you know, for the first time. So but I'm telling you that for months, this was when she was on a reasonable diet at the house. This stuff was helping just 1,000,000% So it's not expensive, and it's worth giving a shot to you. So good luck. Yeah.

Kelly 1:36:29
I don't we don't even do any fried foods here. Really? Yeah, ever.

Scott Benner 1:36:33
Yeah, we don't normally either. And then, you know, she's, I think she's realizing like, she's picking stuff up in the cafeteria, and she's not paying attention to how it's cooked. And so we had that conversation last night to pay attention to that.

Kelly 1:36:44
But that's how you get the freshmen 10.

Scott Benner 1:36:47
Well, it's how you, it's definitely how you eat a bunch of oil that you don't realize you're eating and it's not good for you and hard for your body to process. So Kelly, let me ask you if there's anything we haven't talked about, that you meant to because we're up on time.

Kelly 1:37:01
Oh, um, oh, I was gonna tell you about the diagnosis when he was diagnosed. That affected my, yeah, complex, complex. PTSD, tell me because when he was diagnosed, I had to leave him at the hospital without me to go home because I had had to ask my brother in law to come get my daughter from school. And I had my two year old with me. And I don't do hospitals very well, at all. Since since forever. But because I was so highly abused in a car. I couldn't get in the car to go home. I had to like work myself into the car to get home to leave him. I see. And it was a struggle. And it really affected me. And it was like the first time that I had to deal with the abuse in yours.

Scott Benner 1:38:06
Oh, I see. Okay, so the PTSD kind of just triggered you. And then it brought back your desire to not be in a vehicle because this is where the guy would yell at you and hit you. And so when your son's diagnosed, the eight you get better whatever happens happens, and then all that stuff comes back. Well, it's interesting.

Kelly 1:38:27
And that's like the first time I actually had to kind of confront a little bit of it with my husband.

Scott Benner 1:38:33
Oh, because all of a sudden you can't get in a car. And that doesn't make any sense to your husband.

Kelly 1:38:38
No. For years, I've told them please don't speed around corners and stuff it I get like I get like, I guess I get nauseous. Okay, yeah, nauseous in the car. But if I'm driving car, I have no problem. There's some control things. But when I was leaving that day, I just broke down and fell on the ground. And I just couldn't deal with getting in the car. And I'm putting a two year old in the backseat going I can't believe this is happening and I can't believe leave my kid. And I can't believe I have to trust these strangers, which I don't trust anybody because of all my experiences. Sure. And I just struggled so much just to get in my car and drive. And then of course it's snowing. Eight inches. It took me it's usually only an hour drive to Albany, but it took me like three hours to get home. And then three hours to go back. Yeah to be with my kid. Oh, that makes sense.

Scott Benner 1:39:39
Yeah, but so it makes sense that it takes longer and at the same time. You're you're staying away from him longer because it's taking you longer which is also making you upset. Yeah, well that's a vicious circle.

Kelly 1:39:53
It is. But yeah, I I just focus on everything and That's what it is. And he's got a lot of support at school. He has a one on one aid with him. 24/7. Yeah, he's a smart, smart kid, by the way. No, I imagine. He's a smart kid. He doesn't believe that he's smart, because he's always been stuck in those special classes with other kids. Yeah, I understand that that's a little frustrating. And this is probably the first year that he's actually moved into the normal population completely. No Good for him. That's excellent. So yeah, and but he has an aide because with the global dyspraxia in his hands, he sometimes shakes and he can't, the fine motor skills just when he's in a situation, you can't tell if it's the diabetes, or if it's global dyspraxia? Oh, I see. He may need somebody to dial into his phone for him.

Scott Benner 1:40:48
Okay. Oh, I do understand that. Okay. And so somebody, he has an aid for that?

Kelly 1:40:54
Yes, he does. He has an aide 24/7. And, you know, the nurses are always just because he's also coming into his own where he wants to do everything himself. And it's been a bit of a struggle. And recently, we've been dealing with some like, hey, you know, we are not with you. And this, the sitter didn't know that you gave yourself six units of insulin. Why did you give yourself six units of insulin? And then take another 14? No juice, yeah. Oh, within a half an hour. And he was like, what? And then he's like, I'm like, Yeah, tell me that you deleted something in there. Because I'm thinking you did. He's like, Well, and I'm like, we don't really like using basketball me. But it's just little things like that, that he wants to take on himself. And I'm bold with insulin,

Scott Benner 1:41:48
like, you know, he's struggling. He's struggling to do stuff. He's,

Kelly 1:41:51
he's struggling to do stuff on his own. Because, you know, he's, he's 511. And all this responsibility is put on him. And people think he's way older than he truly is. He's 11. Yeah. And it's, it's a power struggle recently. And

Scott Benner 1:42:06
he's got his body, but not the mind for it yet. Correct. Yeah. What happened to my niece? By the way, I hope this doesn't seem like I'm turning this into a story about me. But that's a reference at the beginning of our conversation. But my niece got really tall very quickly. And it was hard not to treat her like she was older. Because standing in front of you, it felt like she was interesting. Yeah, I see that. And then he got this other, plus the hand eye coordination thing and everything else that's happening.

Kelly 1:42:36
And I mean, developmentally, he's, he's, he's more where he should be developmentally. But he's all masculine. And he wants to be a tough guy kind of thing right now. Yeah. The only boy here when dad's away. And it can be a little overwhelming on me. And more recently, I mean, literally, in the last two months, he went from five, nine to five 511. And it's like, when I say, Hey, you actually have to take care of your room. And if that means filling your diabetes shelf up with your stock, that means you're doing it, right. And it's just, you know, you got stuff like that.

Scott Benner 1:43:17
I hear. Okay. All right, Kelly. Well, I can't thank you enough for sharing this with me. I'm sorry to push you away real quick. But I have to jump on a different phone call. So I'm good. I'm up on my time. But I I don't know why I didn't realize this was going to be an after dark episode. But here we are. It definitely is. And I'm, I mean, I'm, I don't obviously I telling you, I'm sorry, for what happened in your life is meaningless. But it was it was nice of you to to share it with everybody. So that they can, they can can listen along and maybe, you know, recognize some things that have happened to them or to other people in their life. So I appreciate it very much.

Kelly 1:43:56
Thank you for having me. No, I was and I'm happy and I'm safe. And I'm sound

Scott Benner 1:44:01
No, I know, it's the hardest thing about these conversations. When people go back into their past to relive things you can kind of get like, you can think like, oh, that's happening right now. But you were describing stuff that had happened to you in the past, which is obviously incredibly impactful, and it's impacted the rest of your life. But at the same time, you're not in that crisis at this exact moment. But no, I'm in a great place. Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly 1:44:26
There's hope for everybody out there there's hope get help and and Domestic Violence Crisis Center. They are there to help you. They will get you through it. And they give you a lot of work for you to get through life. And then I've just I've just isolated myself more and how could you not during the pandemic, but I live on a homestead I homestead and I have chickens and there's goats down the road and horses and cows and I farm.

Scott Benner 1:44:53
Nice. That's excellent. And I kept thinking while you were talking how 20 more years from now, how much farther away that'll feel Oh, it will. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com forward slash juicebox. I'd also like to thank Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes and remind you to go to N pen today.com And of course, touched by type one.org. A really sincerely wonderful organization that you should learn more about touched by type one.org. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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