Pull up a chair and tell me your memory.
Why does it matter to you?
I want to hear your story, your point of view.
Tell me what happened to you.
Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened.
The podcast that features folks from all walks of life telling us of one childhood experience
and how that event has impacted who they are today.
I'm your host, Jay Rehack, and like you, I've had my share of childhood experiences that have impacted who I am today.
But I'd like to think that everything that happened, good or bad, has made me a better person.
That may not be true, but that's what I'd like to think.
Tell me what happened is sponsored by Sightlining Publishing, publishers of quality books, including Susan Salazar's classics,
One Little Act of Kindness, and I've Got Peace in My Fingers.
All right, today I have as my guest Dr. Casey.
Dr. Casey is a fellow podcaster.
She's also an intuitive thought-provoking leader, licensed as a mediator, life and sex coach.
Dr. Casey has been working as a life coach for more than 10 years.
She's the author of 10 books.
She's the host of the podcast Speaking Freedom TV.
But her favorite accomplishment is being a mom and a community leader,
taking pride in growing and shifting the world into a healing and wholeness with love.
Welcome to the show, Dr. Casey.
Hi Jay, thanks for having me.
Dr., are you ready to tell your story?
I am ready.
All right, listen, I'm going to get out of the way.
I'm going to mute myself.
I'm trying not to interrupt you, but at the end I'm going to ask you just one question.
And that one question is, how do you think what you're going to tell me has impacted who you are as an adult?
So take it away, Dr. Casey.
Thank you, Jay.
So the story that I'm going to tell is about a time when I was about 16, I had some little trouble, although I was a very smart child growing up in high school.
I got expelled after a couple of fights.
Then I switched schools, went to another school and began to start again.
For my story, I did not have a very present mother or father. I lived with my grandmother at the time and I was fairly used to doing what I wanted to do with my days and nights and weekends.
And in this particular juncture of my story, I was coming home from school to get some clothes for a part-time job that I had at a jury store.
I had one of my friends to ride with me to my house so that I could pick up some clothes during lunchtime at school.
When I got there, I could smell the alcohol on my mother's breath and in her body, seeping from her pores.
I went upstairs to the room to get my clothes and she immediately started asking me questions about why I didn't pass the test at school and why did I lie to her about passing the test.
I told her I didn't know if I had lied. I just thought that I did well and that's what I told her.
She got extremely upset about this test that I felt.
It was a little bit my fault and I'll only take the blame because after I got out of eighth grade in middle school, I passed all of the tests that I needed to pass to graduate.
So I would prove myself at a school, get on a roll and then I would just not do anything because I felt like there was no need to do so much work if I had already completed the test necessary for graduation.
So I did not pass the test and she began to be very belittling and belligerent, verbally abusive, calling me out of my name, calling me out type of things.
And to eventually we got downstairs, I was trying to leave to go back to school so one I could take my friend back to school but also so that I could go back to school and then later go to work.
Well, things did not happen that way.
Once we got downstairs, my mother started telling me how I was in shit, excuse my language, and how I was all types of bees and holes and just all types of things.
And to the point to where I eventually turned around and told her that she wasn't shit because if I wasn't shit, I was a byproduct of her.
Now, after trying to leave her snatching the keys out of the car and prohibiting us from leaving in the car, we began to tussle a little bit.
She actually came and she literally ran up and attacked me hitting and punching and everything.
And I was trying to fend her off because she's my mother but also trying to protect myself.
And she ended up being in sort of a headlock.
It wasn't my intention but it was me trying to defend myself without fighting my mother.
That turned probably worse than anything ever because from there we ended up scuffling a little bit ended up on the ground where my head was positioned above a piece of concrete.
And my mother started beating my head on the concrete.
I remember grabbing her hair trying to pull her hair trying to use my hips to thrust her off of me.
I also remember even trying to bite and do anything that I could just to get her off of me but nothing at all was working.
So from that my friend that was there she then stuck her foot up under my head so that my head would not continue to hit the ground.
My mother at that time began to swing at my friend and call her little bees and whores and why she was helping and she would get her to.
And then she began to strangle me like literally hands around my neck strangling me and I was still trying to fight for my life at the time.
But that was not working.
My friend said that my eyes was bloodshot and rolling in the back of my head and then mysteriously a man in a white car around the corner at that time there were telephone booths still and we called the police officers, which were already there because
my grandmother's neighbor called the police that ended up with me going to a place called Daybreak.
It's a runner race shelter where they send children who are homeless technically.
And from there I ended up going to live with a cousin who had previously kicked me out.
And from that moment, I began to get the idea of going to the military.
A family friend in law, I should say, decided that they were thinking about going to the army and asked me if I wanted to go on a buddy pass.
And at the time I thought, well, maybe I'll think about it. I was still a little bit young and still undecided on what I wanted to do. And I felt like I had time to think.
But that seed planted something deep within me that led me to eventually join the military within the next 69 months.
And that was the thing for me that really changed my life the most. It's so crazy because I used to play on the military phone a lot.
I would call and hang up, call and hang up until I got the courage to actually speak to the guy that answered the phone.
Now it may have been helpful that his name was for real because he used that as his catchphrase when recruiting me.
So every time I would ask something, he was like, yeah, for real, like my name. So it was just a clever way for him to win me over to the military.
And that is my story.
I'm so sorry that that happened between you and your mother. It sounds horrific. It sounds terrible.
Something that I'm sorry I had to experience is all I can say.
It sounds as though, however, that the military or deciding to go into the military really helped turn things around for you a little bit.
But I don't want to speak for you. I want you to tell us how you think that that experience impacted who you are today.
Because now, of course, you're a successful doctor, you're a coach, you're a life coach.
So clearly you've turned things around from the tough start that you had there.
But I'm going to stop talking and let you tell me how you think it's impacted who you are today.
Going through the incident with my mother was one of the most trying things that I've ever experienced.
It led me to a deeper relationship with God. It led me to trying to figure out more of my life and what I wanted to do with myself.
It made me want change and structure and discipline. So in between the time of my mother trying to kill me and being homeless and then going into the army, I had a lot of soul seeking to do.
I had a lot of coming to myself to do. I read the Bible a lot for a while. After that, I, you know, I was still running around kind of in the street, so to say, because I was 17 years old.
So I was still trying to be a 17 year old, but I had to make some very tough decisions for myself.
And where I'm from the urban community of Dayton, Ohio, on the West side, it's a lot of not gangs, but a lot of violence, a lot of drugs and everything else.
So at the time, the decision to join the army was about long term success.
When I decided to even consider it, the things that made me consider joining the army and the things that I would recommend to any person that needs some direction in their life is that in 20 years, I thought that I was going to retire.
And I knew that for the rest of my life, I would pretty much be set that was the goal when I joined the army. I went in with the thought process of being there for 20 years.
And I wanted to go mostly because of discipline. I felt like I needed discipline. I was very smart. I had a lot of things going for myself, but I was homeless.
And I was on my own in which I was used to being on my own, but I was not used to being homeless. So the army provided everything that I needed to sustain myself as a 17 year old woman without any guidance.
And it really changed and shaped my life now. In my army experience, I did go to war, which was something that was a point where when I was deciding to go, somebody asked me, hey, well, what if you go to war?
And I told them, well, I know somebody to get killed on the same street that we were standing on. So going to war and experiencing that type of threat was no different than being on the street of my neighborhood and could possibly have the same ending.
So I did ended up going to war. I was in the Iraq war and I served in Korea for a while. The army was the best thing that I think that I ever did for myself because it taught me the true meaning of independence.
It taught me the true meaning of being honorable and having integrity and just having a moral compass about my life. I will say that after the army, I could definitely see the difference between me and those in my same age bracket because my mindset was more mature.
My mindset was more experienced about what really happens in the world and how to move forward. So that was the pivotal thing for my life and it played a part into who I am today because it taught me determination, which allowed me to continue on.
I have faced a lot of things in my life, even after going to the army, even after being out and being a veteran, but the sheer will of determination that I have from the things that I've experienced have helped me prepare to be a better version of myself and to be a better version of love for other people
because I know that if I've experienced the things that I've experienced and there's somebody else that may not be as strong, may not be as comfortable, may not be as vulnerable to even express the things that they're going through and they may even feel alone.
So sharing my story, sharing my experience and going through it helps somebody else. Now, the last thing I'll say is I always told myself after my mom tried to kill me that if everything that I went through was just for me to be able to help somebody else, then I wouldn't change a thing and I was grateful for it because so many people can be helped by just seeing someone overcome things that most people don't overcome or experience.
That's beautiful. I'm very moved by your story. I'm impressed because I don't know if I could have endured everything you've endured so far, but let me ask you very quickly. Did you wind up, you look like a very young woman on the zoom here. How many years were you in the service?
So I ended up having a couple of knee surgeries my second year in the army and into my third year so I only ended up serving three years, nine months and 15 days. They tell you that I didn't count. But I did ended up being technically medically retired now.
And I have been in this state of retirement for at least about 10 years and I won't say that it's easy because as a disabled veteran, I do have my challenges, but it's definitely worth the decision of doing something different.
Thank you for your service. I've known a number of veterans and I can only say thank you. That's not a whole lot, but thank you very much for that. Thank you very much for your story, Dr. Casey. I am moved by it. And as you said, I do believe that there are people out there who when they hear your story will be motivated in a way to say, you know what, this woman went through quite a bit and she's still standing.
You know, still a success. She's still trying to help people. And if she can do it, I can do it too. I think that's one of the beauties of listening to great stories or success stories. So thank you again for that.
Thank you for having me. And if you ever need another story, I have plenty.
All right. And that's good to know.
All right. Well, that's our show. I'd like to thank Dr. Casey for coming and telling us that very sad story, and yet a story of hope in the end.
I'd also like to thank our sponsors, sidelining, publishing publishers of quality books, including Susan Salazar's classic, I've Got Peace in My Fingers.
So until next time, this is Jay Reac asking you all to please stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody. Tell me what happened to you.