Whats the story, if It is good or bad.
After ю don't know its the one and only leave
okay!
NO ANELE NO RE Instead yo.
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Welcome to Transformation Talk with Angela R. Strong.
In today's episode, we have a special guest, James.
We will be discussing his transformational journey.
As a child, he faced something that was very traumatic and it changed him forever.
He had to learn how to overcome those challenges and gain more resilience in order to have a successful and fulfilling life.
Thank you for joining us, James.
Yes.
James, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I am originally from the St. Port, Louisiana.
I have a long career in law enforcement.
I'm still currently in law enforcement now.
Just a different capacity.
I'm now basically in Lafayette.
That's why I made my home as of now.
Pretty much all I'm doing now is my work and I'm pretty much training.
I'm just now pretty much getting to a point in my life where I think I'm going to say beating back all the obstacles I've had.
But I can say that I can handle things a lot more now due to the stress or mental health issues I've had in the past.
Can you touch on some of those things and how you have coped or managed it, how it's affected you growing up?
Anything that you've dealt with, how have you gotten past it?
What methods have you used?
I'm going to say for most people, you deal with PTSD and you're dealing with childhood trauma.
I don't think you don't actually ever just totally get past it.
It's a constant battle every day.
What I find as I've gotten older is not so much how I deal with situations or how I deal with the stress resonance.
Just not dealing with it at all.
The initial incident that pretty much got me down this past was when I was 11 years old.
My mother was shot and killed by my father.
I was 11 and my brother, he's nine and all that happened.
My father was a police officer.
My mom was a registered nurse.
So he wasn't a poor family.
I would say we were probably up in middle class.
We had everything we wanted, everything we needed plus some of the things we wanted.
I remember the day it happened, I was just getting back home from, I think we were going, well I was getting ready to start the following school year.
We were going shopping for school clothes.
So that's what we were doing that day when we came to the house.
My brother was baking a pizza, watching some kind of movie.
I didn't even hear, I'm arguing, didn't hear, all I heard was three gunshots.
I ran back there and I kind of saw the aftermath of what happened.
Then we were told to leave.
We were sent to our neighbor across the street house.
I'm trying to remember all this.
I remember the body, your brain protects you from these memories.
I'm trying to remember exactly how it happened.
So I remember going across the street to my neighbor's house.
I remember them at the alone, seemed like forever.
I remember them bringing my mom out on the gurney and they were pumping the stomach.
That day was kind of a blur.
Everything that I've gone through in life has kind of stemmed from that.
I went from being a happy good lucky, living your old kid to basically a grown man mentality and basically a day.
I was treated different from my brother for the reason I didn't feel like the people that were around me didn't care anything about me.
I didn't get help mentally.
Now I might talk to a counselor once or twice, but that was not one year enough.
People thought I was okay.
I guess I was an athlete.
I played football.
I ended up getting found in my way into martial arts.
So I was doing so much things physically and I didn't show any outward signs of having issues.
But they were always there mentally.
I didn't have help with them.
I spent my first, probably my freshman year of high school.
I remember my whole freshman year, I was still going to court, testifying against my father to put him away in prison for what it says like.
I was doing that while going to school.
I remember my freshman year of high school.
So all those things, not having parents, not having a father figure, having anger issues.
I had all those things.
I just feel like I was lucky.
I found martial arts, there was a school right down by my house that I would go to and have any money for lessons.
I would go there, he would let me train for free.
I would clean up, do stuff around the dojo.
That's how I got my start in it.
That's really what helped me starting off.
I kind of channeled all my energy into that.
I was a good football player.
I liked the little lift and weights, the power lifter.
So anything that I could physically put my energy into, that's kind of what I did.
So I never got in trouble in school and then getting into fights.
I didn't try to hurt other people, but I also don't believe none of those things, they were just putting band-aids over an issue.
None of those things were a permanent fix.
However, when I started looking in, since I was doing all those things, people thought, oh, he must be okay.
But I wasn't okay.
I was just keeping busy to keep from having to deal with what was actually going on.
I'm glad you touched on the fact that you never get over it.
It's something that you're constantly dealing with and you just learn to cope.
People think that people that don't have issues or think that they don't have issues, they always say get over it.
Everybody loves people.
I've been in a relationship so with people.
And you find out as you get older, a lot of people have issues.
The issue might not be what your issues are, might be something else.
But it's hard for people to take on your problems if they have their own problems as well.
And something that's severe is some of my things where people would say, and I was guilty of this myself.
I'm guilty of it now.
I would say, may as well get over it.
But then I have to catch myself, even though their problem might not be as severe as what I think you should be worried about.
For them, that's a problem. So I say, I feel them to just get over it because I mean, people just tell me that even though maybe as an adult when I was trying to find help when I was trying to talk to people who I thought cared about me.
You know, we realize that people really don't.
You, people assume that you can just get over it.
You can't just get over it.
It's a process, right?
And everybody's process is different, right?
But the process, there is indeed a process.
And you cannot do it without counseling.
You know, you can't, you can say, well, I can go, I can take this physical stance.
I'm going to, I'm going to lift weights.
I'm going to go work out.
I'm going to do all this physical things.
But that's, that's a band aid, right?
That's just a temporary fix.
It's almost like, you know, working out and the trainer became like a high drug addict.
You know, an alcoholic uses that to mask his pain.
I was using that to mask my pain, right?
I was using the gym.
I was using, you know, working.
I was using any kind of anything I can do to keep myself busy.
I would use that and sort of just sitting down and focusing on the thing I need to focus on.
And, and that's, and what you just said is, man, it's going to, it's just come correct.
People think who don't deal with PTSD, who have not had to deal with mental stress or any kind of severe trauma.
Even people that might have, they just, you know, they might think they've healed in their own right.
But for them, they really have, they think they have, you know, and they think that you should just do that.
And they think that you should just better just get past it.
And you just never truly really do you, you just like you say, like I, like we've said, we hope with it differently.
Right.
So I can recognize myself now that I've, you know, gone through counseling and done all those things.
I don't take medications or anything like that anymore.
I know I have several counseling where I, what to, um, that I can talk to.
Um, I don't need to lean on them as much as I used to, but, you know, now I can almost, you know, kind of feel it the sense of them myself.
And the depression is something that we don't know.
I still don't think they even have figured out and you may correct me wrong.
They didn't figure it out.
You know, what the onset of depression are.
I can't tell you what triggers my depression.
I can tell you I could be completely happy.
I can just, and I can just feel depressed out of nowhere.
And then I can just come out of it.
I don't know where, uh, that's a negative hazard.
We going on for me to be depressed.
You know, I don't know.
I don't think that you can figure it out what it is, you know, or maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, just kind of.
Oh, I don't know.
I'm only in some cases.
I think with everyone, it starts different.
Our triggers are all different.
So what may trigger you may not trigger somebody else.
And then it can also be nothing is triggering it.
You just, it just, it just comes.
It just like you just, you just feel it.
Like you say you're, you're, you're happy, go lucky.
And then just, you're just sad.
So then people don't look like you're, you know, you sniffing other spouse.
Okay.
Maybe they don't really understand.
I put a strain on your relationship with that person because I know for me personally, I didn't even know what was going on with me.
Like I had no idea why I was acting the way I was acting.
I didn't know what to my PTSD.
I just knew that all this, all these years I've been able to kind of cope with things.
But all of a sudden I just couldn't anymore.
All of a sudden things that I thought I had done what I couldn't do with them anymore.
All of a sudden things were making me angry.
The things that I would normally be kind of push this out.
Not at now.
I would, I would get mad about things, my behavior changed in a way that I did not like in myself.
So I really had to get help, you know.
And I, in relation to that at the time, you know, that young lady, she, she kind of, you know, noticed it.
And of course, I know she, she put me in a direction to get him.
She didn't, we didn't stay together, but she did at least help me get started on that journey, you know.
And that's people's choice.
You know, maybe they, nobody, some people can deal with all that, you know, deal with everything.
And I understand, you know, well, you know, that's not what some people sign on on for.
Now that being said, that's just not the person for you if they can't.
But that's not, that's their, that person's choice.
But I do appreciate her getting me started in the right direction.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Well, one thing about depression and PTSD, some, sometimes people can notice something's wrong, but they can't, they can't pinpoint it themselves.
Or especially if they haven't been diagnosed.
But sometimes they'll know something's wrong and they'll say, okay.
But it is, it's also up to us to figure out, okay, we need help.
But when we, when we figure it out is when it happens, like there's no, no set time.
I know for me, I think I can do everything myself.
It's a long time for, for me to get help for my PTSD anxiety and depression.
It wasn't until 2017 that I got officially diagnosed and I went to the doctor and I just say, hey, I need something to help me help me focus.
And next thing I know the captain comes and takes me to the mental health place.
But for me, it was just that simple because I noticed that I wasn't focusing.
I couldn't focus on accomplishing things that I have been accomplishing just fine.
When things happen and they happen right on top of each other, that's when, when it gets to us the most.
Let me go talk to somebody and figure out how to get this help that I need.
And that, and now you gave.
So I look at martial arts.
And that they help with that, you know, so.
You just said, when things stack on to each other, right?
Yeah.
And I look at how I look at that is your, your opponent.
But we train people how to fight, right?
Yeah.
But you, you're training a mentality, not also much and not really training somebody to fight another person.
And that you are training to fight another person, but at the same time, you're, you're, you're cultivating and mentality.
Okay.
I want to fight through this adversity.
I want to fight through this challenge in your regular life that challenges could be one obstacle after another after another after another.
Right.
Stack on top of each other.
So you're sitting there, you're looking at, man, all these problems just stacked up to here.
Right.
How can I get over that?
How can I, how can I defeat that obstacle?
How can I fight against that opponent per se?
Right.
And it looks insurmountable because we're looking at them stack on top of each other.
Well, what I realized I got to do is focus on one problem at a time.
Yes.
Right.
So if you and your dojo and you're like, we do some call here, we do it, do some call and I take that listen and I, and I spring into them.
My, my, my students.
Before we do it.
I said, this is not about you getting beat about several people because we're going to do some color.
Ron Robin or Bull and Ray maybe you might call that where you go.
Well, you're in the middle.
Right.
The poems are, they come at you one at a time.
Okay.
So each time you have to stop and when that opponent or IE obstacle attacks you, you have to do some to defend yourself against that opponent.
Right.
You might be in the ring.
You might have been in the middle for the two minutes straight, but it might be three or four people attacking you in those two minutes.
You have to, you have to adjust.
Each person can be different size, can be different speed, strength, fighting style.
You got to adjust.
You can want to have to come.
You got that on the wheel.
Yeah.
You got to take that same mentality and do things in life itself.
Right.
I got, man, I got to pay this bill.
Let's just attack that problem.
Let's attack the opponent.
Right.
Let's get that done.
Next one.
All my car broke down.
Okay.
Now let's get that taken care of.
My kids are going back to school or they had an issue at school.
Okay.
Now that's the next thing.
Let's get that taken care of.
And soon we just, we just taking those opponents, those obstacles that fight to each thing.
And then you look up, you might, you're past the, you're past the threshold.
Y'all, that's how I start looking at things.
And that's what, that will help to me.
I ain't saying it's going to help everybody else.
You know, it's the fight.
It's, it's, it's, and I don't mean a physical fight.
It's a mental fight.
It's a, a, a, that mentality that we're trying to train and get and get things.
And, you know, and hopefully they can find it, that, that motivation.
And maybe me talking here today, reading a book about somebody else or whatever the case
may be, but that's my main reason for sitting down and sharing my, my story and my, my methods.
Cause maybe that might be something to someone else, somebody else can.
Yeah.
Most of the time we keep quiet about what we're dealing with because I did that for a long
time.
I kept everything to myself and something happened with work and I realized I need to
say something because I'm quiet.
So sometimes people take that as a weakness.
So if I don't speak up, then they just keep coming and keep coming and keep railroadin.
So it's got, it got to the point to where I said, okay, you know what there, I'm seeing
other people go through this.
Other people are coming to me because they're dealing with this, this types of situations
as well.
So it's time to speak up.
It's time to figure out a way to help other people.
One thing I've learned is that when you deal with trauma, especially as a child, like you
have and like I have, you, you grow up with those traumas and sometimes you turn to bad
and sometimes you turn to good.
You're either going to do one of the other.
So I'm glad to see that you, you, you use your trauma to, to be better, to become better.
I've known you for a long time and I can see the changes that you've made in yourself.
I can see the growth and I do want to say that and let you know that I see that and
that I'm glad that you're helping other people to get better and sharing your story.
I mean, you know, the thing I want most is for people to have understanding, like, because
there are so many people that are going through this same type of stuff, right?
You know, the same might not be the exact issues, might not be the exact thing that caused it.
But it's the same end result, right?
It's traumatizing to them.
They don't know what to do.
They want to deal with it.
You know, say, you know, you have a, you know, a boyfriend or a girlfriend or something and
they just don't understand what you're going through, right?
So because they don't understand it and it's not the ideal situation for them.
So they just break away from relationships.
They just go deal with somebody else.
They think it's easier to deal with, right?
So, and then what does that do to the person with this going through the trauma?
How they feel?
That just makes them feel like they're even more, more virtual.
So, you know, I'm going to tell you, it was the Christmas before last person.
Yeah, about two years ago, you know, I was very, very, the holidays.
I was very, very down all by myself.
You know, I haven't given away, I start giving away.
I mean, I had a few thousand dollars in the bank.
I saved up.
I gave it all away.
I was going around to homeless people, giving 100 dollar bills.
I had, you know, swords, you know, martial arts stuff.
I had, you know, my video games, my play.
I gave all this stuff away.
Oh, my plan was, my birthday was coming up in December because the right before Christmas.
My plan was to not be here.
So I, I'm thinking back on it now.
I just can't leave.
I let myself get to that point before I started actually, you know, getting help.
So, you know, I got cut my hair.
I went, bought up some fresh clothes.
I wanted to be dressed nicely when they found my body.
Correct.
I had a few of my friends, the several people.
Explaining to them, and structure though, what I wanted to be done with what I had left.
I haven't nailed them off yet.
I had a pretty nice place.
So I had a, my TV was there and I was on my phone.
I had a little sofa over there and in that sofa over here, I had a bag full of things.
I had written letters to everybody explaining to them why I did what I did.
I left instructions for them.
I had my best clothes that I had bought, had a fresh young kid.
I was, I wanted to make sure that when they found me, I wasn't, and I cleaned my house.
It was spotless.
I went here, but you came to my house and find my body.
I wanted it to be pristine.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I was, my mind was so screwed up.
I did not want to be here.
I called people that I thought cared about me.
So both of them were like females that I was dealing with at the time.
I had the same time, but you know, at the, you know, at the time.
So I called one.
She's like, I don't have time to deal with, I can't deal with this right now.
And this didn't, and just hung up and blocked.
She actually blocked me.
I was telling her, I was feeling she bought me.
I called another one and she called the police on me.
She please came to my house and I lied to him.
You know, I said, oh man, I'm good.
You know, they didn't really give a shit.
You know, they come knocking the door.
Man, you okay?
Man, I'm good.
You know, they wait here.
I just took one step inside my house.
I will see my done in my soul for they would have seen.
You know, they didn't kind of visitation.
They would have seen how other things.
I'm wrong.
That would give me a red flag.
Hey, this guy ain't good.
We need to, I don't get some help.
We get I'm saying but they did.
They normally do it.
And it can get gone.
We just got like he goes to a church on Louisiana having to hear in Lafayette.
He goes to a church on Louisiana Avenue here in Lafayette.
Oh, there's a devil.
There was a little thing there.
There's a devil friend.
There was a friend. This is the name I had met him.
She was proud of doing something.
They hung my TV for me.
I had met him through a friend and he was a real big to the church.
He was I was trying to sell stuff because I was trying to he's like a
I was trying to sell.
I mean, he's a good, good guy, good family guy.
And he called me right right in that country.
He called me.
He's trying to sell me something.
They're selling some kind of TV package or something else.
You know, listening to him.
I'm like, that's what it was calling me right now.
And, you know, I was kind of breaking down.
I just kind of broke down and told him what I was in the house.
And he's like, man, you don't sound good.
Wait, what's going on?
And I told him what I was going to do.
And he said, you know, he was in the church.
Him and him and his pastor, they came to my house.
They sat with me.
Those letters I had, I had written, you know, they he took those.
They stayed with me until I was OK, but, you know, a few hours after that.
And I got through that time period.
And after that, I really got into, you know, going to church and started,
you know, praying to God.
And that's what really, really, really helped me the most.
Then I started going to counseling.
And then I just started just slowly.
Just, you know, you kind of got to know the Michael Jackson, you know,
the man, the mirror, right?
You kind of got to look yourself in the mirror and you got to have
some tough conversation with yourself.
And you got to kind of get your shit together.
You know, there's kind of lack of better ways to say it.
You know, I can't make it no more plain than that.
I mean, nobody's coming to save you.
Yeah. You know, you got to work yourself, you know.
And that's what I realized.
I had it was just me, right?
You know, I have to save myself.
People can people can lead you to the water.
They can they can lead you to where you got to go.
But even when you're training, you know, you're an instructor in martial arts.
He can teach you how to throw the kid.
He can teach you how to throw the punch.
You can teach you all those things that you to apply to, right away.
Right. So same thing with this.
So I took advantage of what was what was handed to me with God.
I feel like God put him in my life for that reason, for that reason.
And I met the owner of the school's name, Mr. Harry, Harry Duyong.
He's the owner of this place.
And he's given me a chance to kind of pour that into other people, you know.
Oh, God truly believe I have a passion for training.
I love teaching people.
I think doing it through martial arts or physical training is so much of a better
way than doing it through drugs or alcohol, even popping those pills
that the doctors give you for depression.
All that. How about we get in here and we get your body to get yourself physically fit?
And physical fitness can lead to mental fitness.
And then, you know, we know, we got to know like a family here.
You know, we people have issues.
We sit around and we talk about, you know, and all that we can do here.
Yeah, I'm not saying I would get professional help yet.
We'll be on account for this personally.
But how about we do?
We do I do diligence and let's help people.
Let's take care of each other.
Don't just shun somebody away.
Oh, he got that. He got that PTSD.
You know, that's not no no STD.
You know, it's not it's not something that you can take a pill and get rid of.
It's something that you've got to constantly work on.
And I just think the world, us as a whole, we just don't care about each other anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
That's basically the bottom line.
If everybody and they tell me I care about somebody that you can get something from.
Right.
Oh, there's people in general.
They use to care about somebody that, oh, if I deal with this person,
I get this in return.
How about being a good person?
See somebody and he whether it be mental, physical,
you know, I know most people don't have a lot of this hope and income nowadays
because it comes so bad.
We know what's what's what's giving somebody five, ten dollars
if they need they hungry or need a meal or whatever.
I don't see nothing wrong with that.
But that's just me.
I mean, I mean, I think my mentality is you don't fall between them.
You know, I don't think people really feel that way anymore.
Everybody's just worried about themselves and.
And that's why we are in the place we are now as a society, you know.
You got somebody that's got going through things I'm going through.
I could have easily chose the other route.
Right. Yeah.
And then with my physical abilities, my physical size and where I look.
You know, I could have been killed by some police officer
because I got in the I get pulled over or I go somewhere
because I'm not mentally stable, I'm doing dumb shit, you know,
please get called and because of where I look, I get I'm gunned down.
You know, they don't talk.
They're not going to negotiate with me.
I could have even been there.
I could have either been locked up in jail somewhere.
I could easily.
I could have easily chose the other route to go.
But for whatever reason, I don't even know why I chose that route.
You know, I know growing up my my dad, you know, I always watch him train a lot
with the police officer to back home. And one thing I remember
being grown up in that house, so he was always training.
You know, it would be guys come to our house
or the police officers and I would go watch them train.
Yeah. You know, these are these are black men.
These, you know, and I and I will look at them in all these.
They're to me, they look like, you know, you know, a lot of six, seven, eight,
nine or the time that that time period.
And I'm just watching these men who are idolized,
you know, lifting weights and running, shooting, I mean, doing all these
amazing things. I'm just like, these are these are just this is what a man is to me.
You know, man, it should be this is what he should be, you know, physically fit, strong.
I mean, they were all a little more muscular.
You know, these wasn't some.
So that's kind of how, you know, my eyes will do to that is what a man
should look like, you know, so that's just me.
I'm not saying that's how it should be.
I'm just saying that's, you know, probably why I geared myself towards
the physical part, then going towards, you know, drugs, alcohol, you know, stuff like that.
So so on the flip side, if I had seen drugs
growing up, I had seen alcoholism growing up.
I had seen those things.
I probably would have turned towards those things.
That's what I would have known.
But I didn't see that. I saw people working out.
I saw people going to the gym.
I saw people training in martial arts.
I saw people doing so when I that's what I
be your toward when I had issues.
So but at the same time, I didn't do the second step,
which I didn't I didn't go professional counselor.
I didn't go talk to anybody.
I held all this stuff in and I will only let it out in the gym.
I will let it out in training.
I will let out when we're sparring somebody.
I will let out then.
And but that was only temporary fix.
I've never ever ever got to the root of the issue until recently.
So OK, I'm going to revert back to your childhood for a little bit.
So how has your childhood experience impacted your approach
to building and maintain relationships as an adult?
Well, at first it was it was a bad one, you know, because I didn't trust people.
And if, you know, plus not having, you know, you know, people
send out to realize how important a father figure is.
I remember seeing my my mom and dad interact.
They never argued in front of us.
My dad was always mostly a workman when he was home.
Oh, he was even to my mom made more money than he did
because he was probably a nurse.
But he would get the checkbook out first of the month.
He would get all the bills.
And I will see him at he would grab his calculator.
I can remember like yesterday's like my word on a kitchen table.
You know, old school couldn't do it on your phone.
You had to you had to go right to the top, you know, so he had this
this this manual calculator, right?
He was having sitting there and underneath it would be
you know, some some legal pass.
He'll be right now.
So then on the on the right side of him would be the bills, right?
He will go take the bill.
He will go.
I guess he's subtracting the balance from the tick book.
They brought a check.
You know, you had to go to the mail.
You had to mail them off back in the day, right?
So you had to go.
You had to have had to have a whole stamp to have the envelope.
I remember this like like it was yesterday.
He would take the take the checks.
You'll put them in the envelope.
Post office is not too far from my house to what will, you know,
there's a Walker.
So sometimes he would die all around my bike behind and we'll go to the
post office.
And I'll mail everything off.
You'll say stuff to me like, you know, two things.
You can be poor as dirt and be in shape and clean.
You mean you got to be rich when you want to, right?
Yeah.
Oh, my mom would say stuff to me like, you know, God blesses you to
bless other people.
Right.
So, you know, if I become a millionaire one day, that money ain't
for you.
That's for everybody else.
You know, that's the thing that she would, she would say to me.
But with that being said, it's like an older.
Once all that happened, you know, I lost that guidance for a long time.
I didn't know.
So the thing is, I mentioned it from a day, you know, I had to learn
about women, which I don't still don't know anything about.
I had to, you know, learn how to handle business.
I in college, I went to college, my roommate, he had his dad was a
state trooper.
So his dad was, him and his dad were kissing them.
Kissed.
They were real affectionate.
We just like, man, I will look at them strange.
His dad will come and he, they will get a hug.
You know, I'm not talking about this all over each other.
I just, he showed him so much love and compassion.
I just didn't understand that.
But you know, I had to buy my own car in college.
You know, his dad bought his car.
So we both got caught at the same time.
So mine was off my split.
And his was, that was handed to him.
But then we got to a wreck.
No, he got through it before I did.
He got to a wreck.
He called his dad.
If dad comes down, tastes care of the gifts.
And no, in a month, he's in a new car and everything is taken care of.
I get to a wreck.
I have no idea what to do.
I have nobody to call.
I had to figure it out on my own.
You know, I didn't know the car.
I had an insurance without, I just knew to pay the bills.
I don't have to call a person to go get a, to get a, a, a, a,
the estimate and the person had to come.
Just didn't give me a, I didn't know none of that.
Yeah.
I didn't know.
So it's a little thing like that.
I didn't, you know, I didn't have, I just don't do my half thousand college.
So I didn't know how to shave.
Right.
My college roommate, the one I just said, he, she taught me how to shave.
He taught me how to take care of a vehicle.
You know, he showed me how to keep it clean, check the oil, all those things.
I didn't know how to do it because I had nobody to do it.
Right.
He only, I don't think he even knows this, this point that he was teaching me these
things.
And I was, but I was like, I've never told you.
So I didn't know.
You know, so those things, like you asked me how those things as a child,
I think you as a, as an adult in relationship, you know, because, you know,
I'm looking at people.
And I'm so quiet.
So now I'm being more observant about things around me.
No, when you're all reserved and stuff, what are you doing?
You're quiet, right?
You don't talk much.
So people look at you like, why are you talking?
Yeah.
Something was wrong.
But really, I'm just trying to learn because I don't really know what's going on.
Right.
It's just wise, you know, just, you know, we had a big family growing up.
But once all those things happened, our family split.
So I didn't see my family.
So we didn't have family functions or anything like that.
So when I got with someone or they should wise they had family functions.
I didn't know how you're sitting in the corner looking like, well, dang, this is how it
was supposed to be.
I was so amazed by just the smallest things.
I didn't have that.
No, just some, some of us having a family around.
I was like, man, I didn't, I've never had.
I had a family functions.
I was like, eight, nine years old, you know, so I didn't know how to look, you know, it
just seems like that, you know, we deal with other people.
They think that should be easy for you to do.
Right.
And that traumatic experience for your childhood that took away from you know, the abilities
to somebody to show you that I'm wondering that I'm being that environment that how am I
supposed to know how am I supposed to, to adjust to it when I've never been in that
situation.
Like being in crowds of people, I wasn't comfortable.
I wasn't comfortable, you know, talking to people.
You know, because you kind of lose a little of your self worth.
Me personally, I was told, I wasn't, I was told a lot of native things about myself.
So it killed my self image of myself, my self confidence, my self worth, you know, those
are things I'm just now starting to get, get back, you know.
So your communication skills, it was hard to develop those as a child, because of your
traumatic experience.
So how, how did you develop those and what's the difference of how your skills used to
be versus how they are now.
Emotional part, I still, I still work on that.
I don't like to show them a lot, but communicating was, I mean, just like now I have a student
that I got to teach now.
So I got to be a communicator.
And I think, you know, martial arts helped me in that because of even at the police department,
one of my jobs was to teach cadets.
Right.
So I had no choice.
I had to be able to communicate.
Right.
That department didn't want to hear no excuses about my childhood trauma.
Why can't I communicate to these people on how to do whatever I'm teaching them to do.
Right.
So I kind of had to, you know, crash and burn it.
So I had to go from being so shy and timid.
Didn't want anybody to look at me because I thought I was such an unattractive, ugly person
because that's what I was told I was to not have to stand in front of, you know, 30, 40 people
and pretend to be this self-confident, reassuring person when I was none of that.
Right.
Inside, I was none of that.
I had to predict something that I didn't feel I was.
But now I've had to develop that as far as, I mean, like I say, I still got work to do
as far as emotional, emotional stuff.
It's just hard to trust people with your feelings, you know, even when we're talking to under
the spot as, you know, you're opening yourself up to other people's opinions.
People's opinions.
Everybody's going to have one.
Right.
Everybody's going like, well, he could have, you know, he could have done this, he could have done that.
Well, you know, unless you're in a situation you don't know and know as a child, you know,
I remember this happened to me as a child.
So as a child, you don't even understand what's going on.
For me, I became kind of like a recluse.
I just, I kind of drew into myself once all that negative stuff happened around me.
It's kind of like, I don't know, I was a Dragon Ball Z fan, right?
I still am.
And I would always veer towards, you know, when the characters, when they power up, they
have this force field around them, right?
And, you know, when they transform, they kind of, they all, they scream, they let out these
energy fields.
And when they're doing these, when they do these transformations, these energy fields
around them, and when they're in an energy field, it's kind of hard for anything to penetrate.
Right.
So that's kind of the standard I took.
I'm just going to surround myself in this cocoon, this energy field to where, you know,
people can't hurt me anymore.
Right.
But in doing that, you know, you really, you really retard your development as far as
communicating skills, emotional skills, relationship skills, all those things you need to develop
a relationship where, man, I didn't get chances to develop those, right?
So in your relationship I was in, I didn't know what I, I didn't realize that what I
was doing was detrimental to it.
I thought I was just being how I needed to be to protect myself.
I was being so selfish.
I wasn't thinking about the other person.
You know what I'm saying?
I realized, which has been now, I would be over the relationship more or so because I
realized my, my deficiencies, right?
So now that I know what I, what I was doing wrong all this time, I can fix it, right?
I can be self aware of, okay, I can't be this way.
Yeah.
And also if my partner is having an issue about, you know, something, because of what I've
done, I can recognize it and I might get help or through it if she lets me, you know.
Okay.
So what advice would you give to other children or young adults who have experienced the loss
of a parent or both parents at a young age?
If you are a child and you're going through and it's something fairly new and I'm, you
know, looking at the news, I'm seeing stuff happening all the time, those children, it's
going to be hard for them to, they're going to have to hopefully help an adult in their
life that cares about them enough to give them help because they're not going to be
able to get it themselves, you know.
And I just pray to those children get the help they need because they don't get the
help they need at that age when it happens.
I got lucky.
I was able to keep my wisdom by myself and not end up, you know, I could have been that
crazy son of a bitch trying to kill Trump my son of a bitch.
You know what I'm saying?
Because my mom was all messed up.
I was filled by the grace of God that I didn't go that way.
I could have gone that way.
It was very easy for me just to say, you know what, hurt people, I'm hurt, I'm going to
hurt other people, right?
What did I say?
Hurt people hurt people?
Yeah.
It's easy to just let yourself go easy to just do that.
But for some reason I just didn't.
And I was just praying for those children that somebody somebody in their life, some
concerned adult will get them the help that they need as an adult.
If you're still dealing with trauma from a child, you're going to have to stop blaming
other people.
Which is what I was doing.
I was every time something went wrong, why don't she understand?
Why can't she understand me?
I am not like it.
You know what?
You've got to face yourself.
You've got to look yourself in the mirror.
You've got to do the work on yourself.
You're not a child no more, right?
Don't have the excuse of, you know, oh, this happened to me when I was a kid.
Yeah, it happened to me when I was a kid.
And I'm going to say this, yeah, people should understand more, right?
People should be more compassionate about that.
But it's not the reality.
It's just not right.
You know, you got so many people that are just walking away from somebody because of
stuff that, and I thought was someone's there.
You know, I was like, man, you deal with somebody and then when you tell them about your past,
right, they ain't going to do with you.
It's about some of your parents did, right?
Your father did.
And they walk all your life because they just said, man, if this happened to you as a child,
they're in a way you could be straight now.
So they leave you alone.
They make a decision to like whatever issue you might have, they don't want to deal with it.
So they have to do it, right?
I thought there was someone there.
I would be like, man, there's someone fair for me to be penalized because of something that I had nothing to do with.
Right?
However, now that I understand those people who decide to walk away from you because of some kind of trauma that you had nothing to do with,
those people want the most for you, right?
They walked away from you, the main room for the person that is for you.
And before you can deal with and damage that person, you need to fix yourself from the door.
You have to do it.
And just know it is an ongoing process.
You're going to have some great days and every now and then you're going to have a bad day,
but you need to try to limit the bad days.
So they're having a one bad day of weeks.
You try to have one bad day a month.
Then go from one bad day a month to, you know, a couple of bad days a year.
Is that possible?
Yeah, it's possible.
You just have to, you have to just, you have to, man, you got to be so much, you got to be so self-aware of yourself.
You get what I'm saying?
Like you have to kind of, can you kind of feel things in your side of your body whenever you have an issue with something?
Maybe you can test this.
Can you feel the change inside you coming on?
Because you understand yourself now.
So you take steps like, okay, I'm feeling this way.
I feel it coming.
So how do you deal with that?
How do you stay in your house?
Do you work with people?
Maybe go watch a movie, go do something you enjoy, go do something like that.
And then that brings you back, you know, to where you need to be so you can continue on with your day.
That's how I will tell an adult to deal with it.
But the one thing you cannot do is hold it in.
You can't hold it in because it's going to destroy you.
It's going to destroy you.
Looking back, what do you wish people had known or understood about your situation as you were growing up?
I don't think them knowing because I mean back then while I'm from everybody knew.
Nobody would talk to me, of course.
I just wish people would have restarted and asked me without okay.
Instead of assuming if I was okay.
That's it.
Because I wasn't okay.
Yeah.
You're experienced with trauma.
Has that influenced the way you react to other people who's dealing with trauma?
Yes, because I understand it.
I can tell you now one of our students is going through something and she was talking about it.
My mind I'm like, that's not that big deal.
However, you know, to them it is a big deal.
So before I understand it.
But now, man, you know, people don't understand how much just somebody listening to you.
Yes.
Right.
Just you being a listening ear to somebody.
How far that'll go.
Right.
Somebody called you who's having a problem.
Right.
You don't understand.
People don't understand you being that listening ear could be the difference between them hanging up their phone and getting help.
Or hang up their phone, put up a gun.
I think people need to need to realize that, you know, stop being so selfish.
And if somebody call somebody thinks enough for you to call you for help.
Do your best to help and all that and all that probably means is listening.
Yeah.
It don't cost no amount of money to listen to somebody because I don't think it does at this point.
All right.
Oh, it don't cause you no money to listen to somebody.
And if they think enough for you to call you because they haven't they gone through a tough time.
Then listen to them.
That can that can be the distance between you don't know what you could be saving them from doing they can be getting ready to go hurt somebody else.
They can be getting ready to go hurt themselves. They can be getting ready to make some real bad decision.
Some other kind of decision that that's decolonizing legally but they called you and your words to them.
Help you know or you just letting them vent to you on the phone or in person or whatever occasion may be.
So I just I just really want people just to be a listening ear.
You know, don't be so quick to just throw people away.
When they know don't be nobody's crutch.
Because at some point time they got to they got to kind of walk on their own.
I'm saying.
Oh, but you know, help got help help them.
You know, and if you and if you can't, if you if you're not able to listen, we're not able to be there for them and be that listen here because you just got your own stuff going on.
And don't just be like, oh man, forget this. You know, just throw them away. Say, hey, you know, you know what?
I'm gonna I'm gonna I might know somebody that you can talk to you know saying and they connected with that person because you might I can help them yourself but you might connect to somebody else that they can help.
You know saying so that's all I would say just try to help people just been a listening ear to somebody can make a long way and help people.
And you know, if I had somebody that will if I had somebody that would listen to me.
Somebody I can actually talk to why I feel like actually cared about me.
I would have been a lot further along.
A lot sooner than I am now that makes sense.
Yeah.
Okay.
Is there something that you do to honor your mother in your daily life.
Um, what I try to do now is not I'm conscious of it. I just try to be a good person.
Is it, you know, I try to pull another people as much as I can to my detriment. I help people.
You know, sometimes I put myself in a bind trying to help other people because that's kind of how she was she would always sell people.
That's what I do now if anybody needs my help and kind of hurts me because sometimes I don't understand why people don't help people more.
You know, I just like man, if somebody can come to me for help if it's something I can do within a reason, I probably want to do it.
But no thought of anything in return.
If this is this I'm not going to help some woman that needs my help and then because I'm trying to see where they're later.
You know, saying if she needs my help, if she thought I'm going to ever help, then I'll say she just needs my help.
I'm not doing anything for anybody with any thought of anything in return.
Nothing.
I'm doing it completely out of the goodness of my heart because I don't know this. This is the way I think people should be now.
I don't know. The world just isn't set up that way anymore.
That's not rewarded. You don't do it for rewards, but it's almost like you're almost discouraged from helping people nowadays because of.
Yeah, I won't say everybody's a user, but it's a lot of users out there.
A lot of users out there and that's why I don't have issues that it's like, do I help, do I not?
But at the end of the day, man, I just, you know, for my mother, I don't do anything, you know, sometimes when her birthday, when the anniversary of her death comes around, I get a little depressed.
Her birthday is coming up. I'll get a little depressed.
And, you know, holiday time is usually when I get the most depressed or I feel down.
But, you know, the last holiday, I wouldn't help homeless people, you know, you know, we had a cold snap down here.
And I went around my own time, I own money, picked up homeless people, got them little cheap hotel rooms, get them off the street, you know.
I did that because I believe that's something that she would want me to do to help people as best I could.
You know, I didn't have a whole lot I could give, but I can give that, you know.
What do you value most in life?
What I value most.
That's a good question.
I don't think I like to work value. I do think what I hold dear to me most now is just, you know, I'm older now.
I think the time I have left with the people that are left like my brother, his kids, you know, we don't, it ain't many of us left with my brother, his kids, my kids, just, that's what I hold dear to spending time with them.
I just kind of pass on my lessons that I learned, you know, to, to, you know, the ones that come come behind us, you know, I'm saying this.
That's really it. I really don't have, I really don't have much that I think that's a good question.
I just never thought about that. I never thought about that. I can say this, you know, with, you know, me trying to form myself.
I've, I've, I've been to through two police academies have been through in the military. I've been to all this martial arts store had a few, you know, amateur fights.
I've, I've, I've played college football and all I've ever had happened to me was like a spraying ankle and a spraying like a, a, a pull the muscle in my shoulder.
So I could say that I just been kind of lucky that that that's that's that's all I heard my my left knee hurt my left knee one time.
And I'm like, man, that might just be a reason why I'm still here. Maybe I'm here to help.
But maybe this is the reason why I help, you know, I'm talking to you. I'm helping people and I can do this, this place.
Yeah, that's really what I, what I value. I just, I just really want people to understand this illness, it's an illness is disease and how, and just how that can have and how, and how they can help themselves and how they can surround people, surround
themselves with people that can help way help each other. Right. So that's really all I can say about that. I had to think about that question again.
In closing, do you have anything else you want to share?
Oh, I would say, like I say, just just coming together as, as, as people, I mean, a little country now, we're divided by, you know, political stuff is going on, you know, who knows what's going to happen when after the
international election, we got it was three or four weeks that for that, what November 4, two weeks, maybe, or November 5 election day, you know, what's going to happen if, you know, Camilla wins, people go crazy in the street or what's going to happen to me, I mean, we don't know.
I would just say that people just need to come together. Black, white, blue, green, just need to take care of each other. I'm not a weird person. You know, look at it looks like this, I guess, but that's really what I think about. I don't, I don't, I would prefer peace.
I prefer things to go smooth. I'm prepared for it not to be peaceful. I'm prepared for things to not go smooth by would rather things be peaceful and go smooth. You know, so that's really a lot of saying in closing I just want people to understand, you know, people that have had trauma,
people that have that go through PTSD, and a lot of things that we do or have done were not purposely to do to hurt anyone.
But, you know, me personally, I can say myself, I've hurt people, because I wasn't able to communicate properly. You know, wasn't able to express my feelings properly.
Wasn't able to deal with, you know, certain things or emotions properly. So I ended up hurting people that I'm going to say maybe a couple were asking, I'm only trying to help me.
And because I didn't know what that looked like, you know, somebody can do something for me. I'm just sitting there looking at my why are they doing that?
And I was like, why are they, you know, being nice to me? I didn't understand that, you know, but, and I'm laughing now, but, you know, it's just weird that, you know, I had so such a low opinion of myself that could it's not just on my show me I will look at them like there was
something wrong with them. Like, why are you being nice to me? You know, like, it's such a, that's such a bad mental place to be in. That's why I was there for so long.
So, it's my idea that they love me. I didn't know what that meant, because I love myself. And if somebody did try to help me or do something, why is she doing that? Why what's going on? What's wrong with you? Why are you trying to help me?
You know, and that is that is, but that's that is on me. That's why I had to look at myself and say, you know, you me, I got to do better. And then, and improve myself.
And then once and now I can pour that into.
So, well, I will say, I want you to know that you are worthy of love to be loved properly by somebody with women when we care about a man, we do things for them. We buy things for them.
If if they if we see they're hurting or if they need anything or we hear them say is something they want and it can be something that don't cost much or or we just hear them talk about something.
Like, we automatically will, will, will, if we're in the store and we see it, we're going to get it because that's our man and he and that's something we heard him say, like that's that's what women.
Good women do I won't say.
So don't ever take what someone is doing for you as as as a negative that's just they're just showing you love.
Yeah, I'm not gonna say I only had, you know, I can say I can remember two instances in my entire life or that's happened. Everybody else has been, you know, people are partially been dealing with in the beginning and can begin with so.
Well, yeah.
Thank you so much for joining our podcast.
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