#1365 Trendsetter

Amber's type 1 diagnosis, family history, weight loss journey, relationships, and finding balance.

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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
Welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Amber is 34 she was diagnosed with type one diabetes about three and a half years ago. She's the mother of two children, and she's got a really interesting story that involves her family and her ex husband, and I hope that you enjoy listening to her today. 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 when you place your first order for ag one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink. Ag one.com/juice, box. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com if you are the caregiver of someone with type one diabetes or have type one yourself, please go to T 1d exchange.org/juice, box and complete the survey. This should take you about 10 minutes, and will really help type one diabetes research. You can help right from your house at T 1d exchange.org/juicebox,

today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company who's working to make the invisible visible through their blue balloon. Challenge life with diabetes is like doing everything in life while trying to keep a balloon in the air. The blue balloon is a powerful metaphor for the daily struggles that those living with diabetes go through. Medtronic invites you to join the challenge by taking a video of yourself balancing a balloon while doing something in your everyday life. Post your challenge on social media with the hashtag, blue balloon challenge and follow at Medtronic diabetes on Instagram to see other blue balloon challenge videos. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries, gvoke hypo pen. Find out more at gvoke glucagon.com forward slash Juicebox, the episode you're listening to is sponsored by us Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call, 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us. Med, Okay, whenever you're ready.

Amber 2:39
Oh, wait, okay, one more time. I'm sorry. Wait,

Scott Benner 2:42
that was the first time. No, that's definitely staying in just so you know, this is now the opening of your episode. Go ahead.

Amber 2:49
Hi. My name is Amber, and I have been a type one diabetic for three and a half years now.

Unknown Speaker 2:55
Amber, how old are you?

Amber 2:57
I am 34 you

Scott Benner 2:58
sound 34 isn't it weird that 34 sounds like something like when you listen to me, I don't sound 24 right? Correct? Yeah, you sound like you're in your 30s. That's so interesting. You're 34 and you've had type one for three and a half years. Oh, yes,

Amber 3:16
okay, right at the right at the break of

Scott Benner 3:19
COVID, right as COVID was happening, or as it was ending, as it was in full force. Did you have COVID Before you were diagnosed? So I had COVID before

Amber 3:29
it became COVID The December before the outbreak. I'm from a little town, and there was suddenly crazy sickness going on, and people were in the hospital for months on end, nobody could figure out what it was. Yeah, it was COVID.

Scott Benner 3:44
My wife talks about that all the time. She's like, Gosh, look back, people had COVID for a while. We didn't know what it was. And I was like, Yeah, I actually, to give my wife a ton of credit, she said to me, I don't know how long before COVID, like, maybe a month or six weeks before. She said, Hey, there's a bunch of people are sick in China. We're gonna get it here. And I was like, I was like, what? She's Yeah, it's gonna make its way here, a cow. She goes, Oh, it's a virus. She started explaining it to me, and I'm like, right? I said, but that's in China. And she goes, it'll get here. And I was like, Oh, she goes. She said to me, I swear to God, my wife said to me, in time, everyone on the planet will have had this virus that's wild. She should play, you know, she's like, a biology degree or something. And, um, I don't know, she gets paid every week. I don't ask a lot of questions. How it happens? You don't even and while she was talking, I was like, this one again, talky, talky. Talky doesn't know what she's saying.

Amber 4:40
She was onto something, huh? Anyway, I

Scott Benner 4:42
was kidding about that. My wife is almost always right, except when she's acting like crazy, and even then, she's right a couple of times. Yeah, correct. Yep. You may have already named the episode, but I'm not going to tell you yet. Okay, what I think it is, so is it called?

Amber 4:59
Wait? We, can we start over?

Scott Benner 5:01
No. How did you ask to start over when you hadn't actually started Welcome

Amber 5:06
to my brain. My friends love me. It's great. You were like,

Scott Benner 5:09
I was like, go ahead, whenever you're ready. And now, usually all that gets cut out, right? Like you listen to the podcast. What usually happens is, like, there's ads, and then you just go. You hear like, Hi, I'm Amber, and I'm 34 years old, and I was diagnosed, Bucha, right? But yours is gonna go, Yeah, it'll stop, and then people will hear,

Amber 5:30
Oh, my goodness, wait, that's so big, Wait,

Scott Benner 5:32
can I start over? I was like, all I was thinking was, wait, you started already?

Amber 5:39
This. This is me. My name is Amber. This is how my life goes. This is on a daily basis. Welcome, welcome. What

Scott Benner 5:45
do you mean by that? Tell me. Tell me about that

Amber 5:47
I am just what what you've heard so far. It's just literally me and my brain. It's it's an interesting place to be in my brain, my my kids love it, my boyfriend, everyone gets a good laugh at me, and it's all in they laugh with me, not at me. They say.

Scott Benner 6:03
They say it alright.

Amber 6:06
They say it's with me. I laugh at myself a lot. My brain is just an interesting

Scott Benner 6:10
place to be. Wow. I need an example, though. Well,

Amber 6:14
that would be the perfect example. And then I hadn't even started, I had already shut down and say, Wait, can we start over? And you're like, Wait, what just happened?

Scott Benner 6:21
Oh, there's a lot of moments where we go, what did Amber say? How does that relate to reality? Like that? Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to start talking to you. Then that's fantastic.

Amber 6:31
It's fun. It's fun your whole life, like that. Honestly, I think it's been in the last couple years I just, I have so much going on. My brain is non stop to where I just, I can't complete sentences. I don't always it's it's chaotic in there. It's chaotic. But I'm a busy woman, you know, and I just have a lot going on. And

Scott Benner 6:54
do you, what are your I don't usually start like this, but what are your blood sugars like? What's your range you stay in what's your A, 1c that stuff.

Amber 7:02
I sit my a, 1c sits around like 6.3 ish, I would say, what's hot? What's

Scott Benner 7:09
a high blood sugar for you,

Amber 7:10
like 171 80. I know some people are great with like a high being like 130 we're not there yet. I'm a work in progress. I my highs are, you know, my alarms are set at 170 and after that, I consider myself high.

Scott Benner 7:24
Okay, okay, well, your a one sees like 6.3 do you have a lot of lows? No, no, do not. So you're not 170 often, then maybe three hours a day, something like that.

Amber 7:37
Yeah, it's usually in the evenings. I tend to eat higher fat at dinner, and it's something I keep telling myself to stop doing, because at that three, four hour mark, my alarm goes off because I set it to 160 at night. So it's usually in the evening, sometimes after lunch. It depends. I normally eat the same thing because I work out a lot. I'm very consistent with my my working out and my eating. I eat the same thing almost every day. So anytime I kind of venture off, is when I, you know, sometimes I'll get a spike

Scott Benner 8:04
when you tell yourself not to do that anymore. Do you actually use the words or do you think you're going to say it? They go and then don't get it out. No, I

Amber 8:11
tell myself. But I'm also stubborn, so sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I'm just not paying attention. You know, I got two kids here and I got three cats and Amber don't pay attention. Tell

Scott Benner 8:21
me about the argument yourself is having with itself, about about fatty foods.

Amber 8:26
It's basically like, you know, whenever people want to quit doing something, they have that inner dialog and then whether they follow through with it or not. You know, it comes to that like your determination and your willpower. I have very strong willpower. I do a lot every day that I don't necessarily want to do. But when it comes to food, I'm like, Hey, we're not going to do this tonight. And then I'm like, oh my goodness, bacon sounds phenomenal. No, we

Scott Benner 8:51
are definitely doing this. Yeah, yeah. So this is your Is it fair to say this is the place where you're so in controls in other places. So here's where you cut yourself a break.

Amber 9:02
Sometimes I try not to cut myself a break with food. I mean, I'm, I'm really, really, really good with food for the most part. So I wouldn't say this is where I cut myself a break. I'm very strict with my eating. Yeah, I don't, I don't know what it is. Well,

Scott Benner 9:16
that was my other question for you, after what you told me so far. So eat the same things over and over again. Did you do that before diabetes?

Amber 9:23
I did so in my 20s, I had gained a lot of weight. I was pretty heavy. And then when I was 25 I started going through the process of going through a separation with someone, and then, you know, eating healthier and getting in shape. And then, you know, I became a single mom, and over the course, in total, I've lost 100 and I'm around like 110 pounds. So I had started to thankfully, I had started that process of learning about protein, carbs and fats and my macros well before I had diabetes. So once I transferred into it, that piece of. Puzzle was cake work. Cake work. Listening to me cake that. That part of the puzzle was very easy to me. Yeah. Also,

Scott Benner 10:06
it's cake walk, is the saying. But wait, this is, this is uncovering like a great conversation. So hold your thought there. Okay, but I'll hold it for you. You don't need to hold it. And now let's go back to you as a kid. Your mom had type one. My

Amber 10:24
mom, yes, she was a type one. She was diagnosed at nine before they really knew much. They actually she was in the hospital, and they shot her up with sugar water and put her into a coma for

Scott Benner 10:37
fun. No, they, they, I

Amber 10:40
guess she was not responsive because her blood sugars were so high. And I guess they gave her sugar water, thinking it would kind of like revive her and wake her up, and they put her into a coma for a couple weeks. What

Scott Benner 10:50
year was that?

Amber 10:51
6069, 1970

Scott Benner 10:56
maybe she's unresponsive. She needs energy. Sugar is energy like that. Oh, wow, yeah,

Amber 11:02
absolutely, put her into a coma. Yep,

Scott Benner 11:04
no kidding. Oh yeah. I was like picturing, I was picturing one of those old 70s TV shows about the hospitals and the ladies had the paper hats on it, sort

Amber 11:15
of probably, yeah, she was actually the first diabetic patient at her hospital. Again, small town, they didn't know anything about it. So, yeah, she became a diabetic very young at nine. And I've actually uncovered more lately as to, you know, the doctors in what they were telling her to do throughout her life. My mom was very, very sick throughout her life. So there's a lot behind

Scott Benner 11:38
that. Yeah, I want to hear actually. Do you mind talking about that? Because I think I don't want to give it away too quickly, Amber, but I think this story has to do with your weight gain, eventual divorce, and where we are now. Do you want to? Do you want to find out how? Why? I think that Absolutely. Do you think that

Amber 11:56
I think my mom and her, you know, everyday dealing with type one diabetes has had a monstrous effect on my life. I've actually had to go through a lot of therapy in the recent years because of it.

Scott Benner 12:08
But before we start in the recent years, are you Canadian?

Amber 12:11
No,

Scott Benner 12:12
are you in Minnesota or up north?

Amber 12:15
Am I having Do I have an accent? I

Scott Benner 12:17
don't know you just That was a weird turn of phrase. That's all

Amber 12:20
Oh no, no, no. I'm Floridian, born and raised that I understand. Now,

Scott Benner 12:25
don't worry about it. You just didn't put the words in the right order. It's not your fault. I understand. Okay, all

Amber 12:32
right. It's my brain. See, you will uncover my brain as we go. It's literally just my brain. Welcome to the Andrew show.

Scott Benner 12:37
It's very interesting. I that's all I'm having. Such a nice time people like you generally, I imagine, yes,

Amber 12:43
they do. I'm an interesting person to be around, and it's just my brain. I don't know. It's nothing I do different. It's just how it works. I don't know. No, you're incredibly

Scott Benner 12:51
likable.

Amber 12:52
Oh, thank you.

Scott Benner 12:53
I think so. That's delightful, too, that you're not like, Oh, that's okay. No, no, don't say that about me. You're like, No, I think I am likable. That's fantastic.

Amber 13:02
I'm pretty decent. I don't have a lot of friends because I'm so busy, but the people who I do have around tend to, they tend to like me, my dad, oh, my dad doesn't tend to care for me that much, but everyone else does

Scott Benner 13:13
pretty decent, by the way, decent meaning about halfway good, and pretty meaning halfway good. Like, you're like, a quarter excellent, is what you're telling me, yeah. All right, so let's go back when you're born, which is some 34 years ago, which I could figure out if I wanted to. So let's see. It's 2024 Oh, 1990 89 that's the year I graduated from high school. Holy hell. All right, so you were born in 89 and, oh, that's gonna hit me hard for a second. Give me a second. So you're born in 89 at that point, your mom is, How old do you know, or how long had she had diabetes? Already?

Amber 13:53
She was, I believe she was around 20 when she had me. She was also the first diabetic woman to give birth in a hospital. It was a huge ordeal. She was told she would never be able to have kids. So I was, I was the miracle child to my family, which meant I got so much love growing up from my aunts and my grandparents. But yeah, she was the first diabetic to give birth in that in that little town Hospital, in

Scott Benner 14:19
that hospital, because it wasn't like in Florida or America. She

Amber 14:23
was the first, we're from a very small town, yeah? Like they were,

Scott Benner 14:27
like, one of them lived long enough to have a baby like that, right? Yeah. And when I do that voice, is that the part of Florida you're talking about?

Unknown Speaker 14:35
Do it again. I don't

Scott Benner 14:39
want to insult anybody. But is it a little, I think people have never been to Florida. Don't know, like, there's a part of Florida that's like, you know Disney and Orlando, and there's a part of Florida that feels almost like Texas got a beach, you know what? I mean? 100%

Amber 14:53
Yeah, it's still around. Not as much anymore. Unfortunately, it's all being built up. But absolutely okay.

Scott Benner 14:59
Also. I've been to Texas, and I've never heard one person speak like that. But that's not the point. I'm just going on what I saw on television when I was a child. By the way, in those old hospital shows, the doctors would smoke cigarettes when they stood around and talked, yes, yes, they did, fantastic. I miss that so much. Mom has the baby. The baby's you. You're a miracle, because she's got diabetes and she had a baby. So how old was she when she was diagnosed? Now she was nine, nine. Okay? And this is obviously, like, she's probably getting well in that time. Do you even know? Have you ever spoken to her about it in regards what kind of I know? I'm sorry I stopped in the middle of my thought, my God, no. I'm like, No. I'm like, my mom. I'm like, You feeling what you think? I mean, her insulin. Do you know what she started with? Was it beef and pork? Was it regular? Mph,

Amber 15:48
that part? I actually do not know. Okay, so,

Scott Benner 15:52
was she born to people who were like diabetes? We'll take this very seriously. Yeah,

Amber 15:58
for you know, it's interesting, for the year prior, she had been complaining that she had been having issues, and they kind of just blew it off, thinking that she, you know, she was calling from school saying she didn't feel good, and she was always nauseous and vomiting and shaky, and they just thought that she was trying to get attention. So once they found out, they obviously felt absolutely horrible. And then after that, it was, you know, game on. They were 100% on board.

Scott Benner 16:27
Okay, they work out to the best of that times ability that she has diabetes. But did you say she was a sick kid? Was it about the diabetes, or was it other stuff? This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, and this is Aaron.

Aaron 16:41
My name is Aaron Suchi Tori. I'm from Honolulu, Hawaii. I was first diagnosed with type one diabetes when I was about one and a half years old, and I'm 25 years old today. Who helps you keep your balloon in the air? Gone through this journey together with my mom, who's been type one diabetic for most of her life as well. What else have

Scott Benner 16:59
you found supportive.

Aaron 17:01
Having really great friends and support systems in school, I was very lucky. I had some great roommates, especially my freshman year. We talked for like three hours. I was explaining every little thing you hear this beep, it means this, there would be times where he would wake me up in the middle of the night to make sure I was okay.

Scott Benner 17:17
How did it feel when people knew how to use your Medtronic technology?

Aaron 17:20
Great to know that I had people that had my back. Medtronic

Scott Benner 17:24
diabetes is making the invisible visible through their blue balloon. Challenge. Life with diabetes is, of course, like doing everything in life while trying to keep a balloon in the air. The blue balloon is a powerful metaphor for the daily struggles that those living with diabetes go through. Medtronic invites you to join the challenge by taking a video of yourself balancing a balloon while doing something in your everyday life. Post your video on social media with the hashtag blue balloon challenge and follow at Medtronic diabetes on Instagram to see other blue balloon challenge videos.

Amber 17:55
It was about the diabetes. She had had it for a while before they diagnosed it. So obviously, with having the higher blood sugars all the time she was she was not feeling good.

Scott Benner 18:06
Do you know much about her care? Like, do you know how, like, what were her doctor's visits? Positive, generally speaking. Or, you know, by the time she was an adult, and they knew more about it was she just not doing well? Still, as

Amber 18:19
a child, I'm not sure. As an adult, I have learned more recently through speaking to my step dad and I'm, I'm honestly a little frustrated by it, because I feel like in these, you know, she passed away three she passed away right before I was diagnosed. Through the 2000s and especially 2000 10s, there's no reason she should have been getting the advice and the guidance that she was getting. It's a little heart heartbreaking like what? Whenever I was first diagnosed, I spoke to my step dad, and I was terrified of being diagnosed, because I watched, you know, everything my mom went through, which is something we can talk about. He said her ranges were always really good. She was always in range and never really had any issues. And then more recently, I said, Can you explain that, please? Oh, no. What it was was that I was, I was actually up in North Carolina not long ago on vacation with him, and he said, Well, you're at, you're at 99 and you're bolusing for your lunch. And I said, Yeah, why wouldn't I? And he said, Well, you know, your mom, the doctor, said you don't Bolus for your meal if you're under 150 and I said, Excuse me, yeah. And that's heartbreaking to me, yeah.

Scott Benner 19:26
And so the range, you know, it's funny. The other night, I was up in the middle of the night, Arden was getting up to go see the sunrise with her friends, which I was like, I would like to be in college and it'd be summer, because that sounds lovely, like, she's popping out of bed at 330 in the morning. She's like, I'm gonna go. And I'm like, Okay, well, it woke me up a little bit. And while I was trying to go back to sleep, I got online and I saw a person on in my group talking, and newer diagnosed person, you know, she's like, I don't know what's wrong with my kid. Has the, you know, kids got this horrible headache, and. And they use the phrase, her blood sugars aren't that something out of range or high or something. But you know, it turns out, once you read it, the kid's been between like 180 and 300 all day. And in that person's mind, this newly diagnosed kid is in range, yeah, because a doctor said to them, you don't want to be under this number. Whatever the lowest number is. You know, if a blood sugar spikes up even to 300 and it comes back down again, it's okay. So now you you give that person that feeling that the range is up to 300 and now her kids sitting around all day, you know, sick, horrible headaches, crazy, high blood sugar, and this person's looking and going, I don't understand. It's got to be something else. Like she was literally having conversations with people trying to figure out why little kids have headaches, but they weren't talking about the blood sugar correct and, and that's from the doctor, and this is what happens to your mom, yes, yeah, yeah. And so did you have the heart that explain that to your step dad, or do you not want him to feel like, oh my god, I stood and watched her do that forever and ever. No,

Amber 21:07
I did tell him that. I told him how upsetting and heartbreaking that was, you know, because I don't, I definitely don't feel like the doctors did her. They didn't do as good as they could have. You know, my mom suffered for a lot of years, and my mom always said to me, if you ever I feel like it's God's it's God's intervention. Honestly, it's so interesting, because my mom always said to me, if you develop type one diabetes like me, I will never be able to forgive myself. It will be so painful. And literally, months after she passed, I was diagnosed, but as much as I'm happy that my body waited for her to pass before, you know, doing its thing, I also wish that I had gotten it before, because I feel like I really could have helped her out a lot more. You know, I didn't really, even though she grew up, or I grew up with her having it, I never she tried to hide stuff from me. You know, obviously, she's my mom, but I wish I had known more to be able to help her more, because she's, you know, she might still be with us today.

Scott Benner 22:06
So you're saying that there's a part of you that thinks if I would have just gotten diabetes when I was 24 then I would have learned about this and been able to transfer to her, and she might have been okay then, oh, 100%

Amber 22:20
my mom was my absolute best friend, and I would have done anything, and if I would have known then what I know now, I feel like she could have still been alive to this day. 100%

Scott Benner 22:32
Yeah, well, I hope you talked about that with that therapist you mentioned earlier. Yes, I had good I don't want you walking around with that in your head, because you know why? It's one of those horrible things in life, you're probably right. Yes, yeah, it's not like a wish thing, where you're like, Oh, I just wish, if this would have happened, that teddy bears would turn pink and start walking around like, like, you're probably right. If you would have figured out that. Because you hear the podcast, people tell that story all the time. Yes, I didn't take care of myself, but then I wanted to get married, and you know, the person I wanted to get married to was like, I need you to take care of yourself. I love you. And they're like, Okay, I will. And then that happens, or a lot of times, adults have younger children who are diagnosed, and they realize that the blood sugars they're okay with for themselves they're not okay with for their kids, and then they take care of themselves too. And so that kind of would have been your story, just a little aged flipped, but, oh, I'm sorry, yeah, okay, let's not, let's not grind that into your head anymore. Yeah. How does she pass like? What? What ends up happening is, it's from the diabetes, obviously, but, but how so if you take insulin or so Fauci you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most, be ready with G VO, hypo pen. My daughter carries G VO, K hypo pen everywhere she goes, because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar in people with diabetes, ages two and above that, I trust low blood sugar, emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily, jivo kypo pen can be administered in two simple steps, even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you store GEVO kypo pen and how to use it, they need to know how to use GVO kypo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why G vo kypo Pen is in Arden's diabetes toolkit at G VOQ, glucagon.com/juicebox, G vo shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma, or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulin OMA, visit gvoke, glucagon.com/risk, for safety information. Diabetes comes with a lot of things to remember, so it's nice when someone takes something off of your plate. US med has done that for us. It's time for Arden supplies to be refreshed. We get an email rolls up and in your inbox says, Hi, Arden. This is your friendly reorder email from us. Med. You open up the email. It's a big button that says, Click here to reorder, and you're done. Finally, somebody taking away a responsibility instead of adding one us. Med has done that for us, an email arrives. We click on a link, and the next thing you know, your products are at the front door. That simple, us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, I never have to wonder if Arden has enough supplies. I click on one link, I open up a box, I put the stuff in the drawer, and we're done. Us. Med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGMS like the libre three and the Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide over 800 private insurers, and all you have to do to get started is called 888-721-1514, or go to my link, us, med.com/juicebox, using that number or my link helps to support the production of the Juicebox podcast.

Amber 26:14
Yes, yes. So my mom had her first pancreas kidney transplant at 33 which is crazy because it's a year younger than me, and she had already had her first, everything was okay for only about six months. After that, it failed. She was right back on insulin and, you know, so on and so forth and through the years, it just progressively got worse. You know, she ended up having a couple open heart surgeries. You know, toes amputated. She had this joke after she got her first toe amputated, we had a we had a nail salon that we would go into, and the first time she was able to go in there again, did she took off her sock, and the guy who normally does her toes was like, Oh my God, what happened? She's like, do I get a, do I get a one toe discount? Like, she'd joke with them,

Scott Benner 26:56
I seriously, you should take the price divided by 10 and then take off just a temp, and then let me have it. I

Amber 27:03
agree. I agree. Yeah. So she, you know, toes amputated at one point. She became paralyzed from the waist down, but just woke up one morning and was paralyzed from the waist down. And she was paralyzed for almost two years. She was in the hospital for the first seven months. They never could really figure out what was going on. And then one day, she was able to wiggle what toes she had left

Scott Benner 27:25
again. What could you keep in the sense of humor alive? Good for you.

Amber 27:28
My motto is, if I don't laugh, I'll cry

Scott Benner 27:33
and make light of it, it just comes back. It just came back. Yeah? One morning, and people were like, Okay, go home. You're all set now, yeah, yeah. It literally almost

Amber 27:42
two years. And she surprised us. She got up out of her wheelchair one day, and we were like, oh my god,

Scott Benner 27:49
like the righteous gemstones. She just stood up. She just stood up. Do you think anybody knows that show? It's on HBO. I really enjoy it. Wow. No kidding, your mom, did she say it's a miracle or anything like that?

Amber 28:04
No, she, I mean, she was, she was really, she was really happy, and she worked really hard once she was once she started getting the feeling back, she went to physical therapy and regained her strength and was able to start walking again. It was never quite the same, but she was able to get up, and it was a huge thing.

Scott Benner 28:19
Your mom was paralyzed in a chair for two years, and then one day during the price is right, she was like, I think I could get up

Amber 28:27
correct. It was probably Gray's Anatomy or something. That was one of her shows. But yeah, she just randomly wiggled her toe. She's like, Oh my god, yeah. They

Scott Benner 28:36
never and nobody bothers to figure out what happened. It's just okay now, no, they,

Amber 28:40
they said it was diabetes related, that all the nerves and everything her her that, listen, that woman is beyond the strongest person I've ever known in my life. She had, she, she probably should have passed a while before, but she, she had such a strong will to live because of me and my kids, that that woman just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. So, yeah, she started to walk again, and she did it.

Scott Benner 29:05
How old was she when she did pass 52 Wow, too young. No, way too young. So, yeah, so she had a transplant that didn't take probably because it was done in a swamp, and then that's just how I imagined it. By the way, in a trailer with a gator outside,

Amber 29:24
we moved to a bigger town by then. Oh, okay.

Scott Benner 29:26
Doctors like, do we have to wash this stuff first? Nah, just shove it in there. Oh my gosh. She gets a transplant at a very young age. It doesn't, it doesn't work for her. It's terrible. And then she's keeping high blood sugars that she thinks are great because they're in range, right? Yep. And it reminds me, too, of a of a conversation I just had to get involved in on Facebook the other day where somebody was talking about how they like to keep their kids blood sugar higher because they feel better when they're higher. And I was like, Oh God, you obviously haven't found the podcast yet. And. So like, you know, I gave them some stuff to listen to. She lives her whole life like that. This is her end. And so what is the impact of that? Growing up like you said, she tried to hide things from you, but obviously, you're smart person. You see what's going on. Like, how do you think that impacted you seeing your mom like that? You

Amber 30:18
know, first I will say my parents did the best they could, right, like we're dealing with, you know, a serious illness. My mom was very sick. My stepdad was, you know, the breadwinner. It was me and two brothers. And, you know, it was a lot, you know, so they did the best they could. But, you know, when I was in high school and wanted to live like the high school life, and there was a lot I got to do, but there was a lot I didn't, because that's when mom, you know, at the time, she was doing at home dialysis. And you know, if I wanted to go out on the weekends with my friends, it was, well, what if something happens to your mom and she dies? You would never forgive yourself, you know. And you know, looking back, that's all, it's a it's a horrible thing to put on a kid like that, you know. But like I said, they did the best they could. They were scared something was going to happen to mom and she wasn't going to make it. And I was to make it, and I was out with my friends. They were thinking that they were helping me, because I would never forgive myself if I was hanging out with friends. And my mom passed away, yeah,

Scott Benner 31:10
and you're at school all week, and so this weekend is the time you can actually stay with her, correct? But

Amber 31:16
me being 14, 1516, you know, years old, I want to, I want to hang with my friends and, you know, so it was a, it was a battle in the home, and it created, that had been said to me a couple times, to where it actually created a fear in me that I was going to lose my mom. So then I created this, you know, I had this huge fear of my mom just passing away. And that really carried on to me, because as the years went by, my mom obviously only got sicker, so I created this huge, like, dependency on my mom. My mom and I were best friends. I did move away to a different town that was a couple hours away, but, you know, I was on the phone with her like all day, every day, because I became so afraid that something was going to happen to her, that I never wanted anything to be left on set, or I never wanted us to not make memories, you know. So, yeah, that definitely carried on to my adult years and into my relationships as a dependency problem. We're still working on it.

Scott Benner 32:11
I'm getting to it like so, yeah, right. So you have enough of a high school life that you're able to find a boy to ruin your life, right? You're able to pick one out that can definitely ruin everything for you. No, yeah, you're able to find him That's great. Yeah, you know the one thing before we get away from your mom, move into your kind of adult life that baffles me, and I'm not asking you like you have the answer to it. But when someone has diabetes and they have so many complications and so many things are going wrong for them, I don't understand how nobody addresses we're not we're not using enough insulin, or this wouldn't be happening, right? You know

Amber 32:54
what the doctors would say? Because my mom also, I mean, gosh, it just ravaged her body, right? She had a couple open heart surgeries, you know, they the doctor said, basically, it was, she was a huge puzzle, and it was, it got to the point where her poor body was just so worn out and just damaged that it was, whatever is the emergency at the moment. Because towards, you know, the last couple years, it was, mom was in the hospital three times a year, and then it became monthly, and then it became weekly. Yeah,

Scott Benner 33:22
no, at the end, sure, but in the crux of her life, her her emergency is she doesn't use enough insulin at the right times and like, and no one does, no one say that to her. Can she just not figure it out? And they're not helping. Do she have that? Like, I have the sugars? This is my lot in life, like this is just how I got the bad diabetes. Is she talking like that? I honestly

Amber 33:46
don't have the answer for that. I really wish I did, and I, you know, I would, I would, I've, I've honestly thought about reaching. She had one doctor for many years, and I've a billion times thought about reaching out to him and just setting up a meeting as me being the patient and going, Hey, dude, what the hell you know,

Scott Benner 34:03
like, a gotcha thing. He's like, so what are you here for? And you're like, you killed my mom, like, that kind of thing. Oh, that'd be fun. Bring a camera. I've really considered it, yeah, because, by the way, when you get arrested, uh, the headlines gonna be Florida, Florida woman, Shanghai's doctor in like, Yeah, and so, and there'll be great video of you ranting and raving as they drag you out the front doors of the place. Go for it, yeah. Okay, all right. So I think we understand her, her situation, and anybody who's known somebody older with diabetes like this is not uncommon. What happened to your mom is just not uncommon. Okay, so then we have to get to the part because a disconnected thought that you're very good at managing your nutrition, but you had, how much weight have you lost? Did you say All in all, 110 pounds. Okay, so first of all, wow, jeez. Good job. You know what I mean. Can I get some context for people? Are you? How tall are you? I am five, three. Okay, wow, yeah, okay, yeah, you're so tall. I mean, am I making a leap here? Your bad upbringing leads you to hooking up with a guy who eventually you realize you shouldn't be with. You got very unhappy, gained a bunch of weight and left him. Eventually, that happened.

Amber 35:16
Oh, 100% okay, well, when I met him, I was very tiny, but he is, excuse me, if I can, if I'm able to, he's half Cuban, half Mexican, and his family cooked the best food ever. Like, okay, oh my god. Suddenly I was having, like, fried steak every day, and rice and beans. And he was like, yeah. Like, he liked his girls a little bit bigger, and he thought I was really skinny. Anyways, so, like, you know, the food started piling in, and I was like, yeah, all for it.

Scott Benner 35:45
Were they fattening you up? Like, a Thanksgiving turkey? Do you think I

Amber 35:50
without getting too far into it? Yes. Like,

Scott Benner 35:54
if we could just get some meat on this, this Caucasian girl, we can let ourselves marry her. Yeah, I

Amber 35:59
was trying to, like, not make any I don't want to upset anybody. But yes, he liked his girls a little bit bigger, and I was really tiny, and they just fattened me up. And that was, it was great. The food was phenomenal. I don't regret that much of it. I regret some of it, but not

Scott Benner 36:13
all of it. And nice family time. And you enjoyed that part because your family was kind of chaotic, and maybe this was better, correct? I gotcha, yeah, yeah, okay, now I know how it happens. I've done this more than once, by the way. I didn't know he was Cuban, Mexican when I asked the question. I just kind of saw where the whole thing, I mean, in fairness to me, I should probably get whatever the like, like Oscar equivalent is for a podcast, because about eight minutes into this, I quickly put together how most of your life probably went. And I was like, Oh, I can go backwards and pick through the reasonings why she ends up. Yeah, it's my only skill. For people listening. Do you think some people are like, God, damn, is that? What just happened? Is that what I've been listening to, Amber just has a trajectory that is common, that's all you know, and basic, well, not basic, but I think, I think the problem lies. The way I get through things is I reverse engineer them. So I look at where I am and to get out of where I am, I think about how I got there. I just, I do that with everything, yeah? And then once you learn how to do that, you recognize that you can move forward into time, decide where you want to be, and then tell the story that leads to that. And then you can do those things and actually end up there. That's pretty good. Yeah, no, I've been doing that for a while. Like, so you now, most people would say, like, you just, you imagine where you want to be or something like that. But, and you know, your, then your, your actions follow. I take it a little farther. I've heard so many stories and like, what was the story that led the person to this? What? What were the big pieces that got them there. And then you can kind of mimic that in your own life. And you mimic it by when you make decisions. You decide, you know, left or right, or you know, yes or no, and you know, do I do this? Do I eat this? Do I buy that? And what gets me to where I want to go? Not buying that gets me to where I want to go, you know, not eating that puts me where I want to be, like that kind of stuff. And I find it works incredibly well. But then you can use that skill to diagnose people's lives too. And people will call that generalizing, but anybody who's hearing this and thinks, oh, he's just generalizing. I mean, I did get Amber's thing, like, 100% right? So, yeah. So you call it what you want. I call it storytelling in reverse. Okay, so you meet this guy, you gain some weight, have a couple babies gain more weight, yes, yes. And then he leaves you. You leave him,

Amber 38:55
No, we moved. We moved to a different town, and then that's when everything changed, which honestly, probably saved my life. I was pretty unhappy at that point, and everything was very stagnant, and we moved to this new town, and I, you know, joined a CrossFit here, and gained a new community, and I actually joined an Olympic lifting team, which was, you know, comprised of mostly women. So then I had that, that women's support, and it completely changed my life, you know. And I just started eating better and getting in shape and feeling better about myself. What were you unhappy about? You know, him, and I met when I was 1920, years old. And through your 20s, it's a big time of growth, you know. And we just kind of, you know, grew apart, and he was very traditional in the sense of, you know, dinner needs to be on the table every single night at this time, when I walk through the door and you take care of the kids and you take care of the house, but what he didn't realize is that I also work a full time job. I also do this, and now I'm trying to work out to lose weight, and like, you can pull some of the weight in the house too. And that was the biggest issue. Is, you know, all the fights really started because that dinner was not on that table at six o'clock when he walked in the door, because I was at the gym, you know, after I'd gotten off work and picked up the kids, that

Scott Benner 40:10
man threw his life away for a warm meal, correct? Yeah, he didn't have to warm up.

Amber 40:16
How about that? And it sounds, it sounds like it's very simple, and like no way, but yes way, I promise you.

Scott Benner 40:21
And do you think also you trying to get into shape? He thought you were going to leave him and maybe he was mad at you working out.

Amber 40:28
Well, it's fun. No, it's funny, because once I started losing weight, he told me that I was going to look like a man and that he wanted me to stop because he liked me heavy, but I wasn't healthy. I wasn't healthy and I wasn't happy, and this was something I was doing for myself. And he didn't want that. He wanted his women thicker. And, you know,

Scott Benner 40:46
I have to tell you something. I'm gonna go down this road with you for a minute, because I'm fascinated by this. So I understand if somebody has a pro what's the word I want? Proclivity, yeah, preference. That would have been good, too, a body style, right? Like, I understand that. Like, you look at something you're like, that's attractive to me and that's less attractive to me, like, I get that like everybody has things they're attracted to. But I don't understand how you say to somebody, I love you, but only if you look like this. That always flips me out. I can't imagine she's gonna hear this one day, it's okay. I can't imagine what would happen to my wife, where I would stop loving her because of how she appeared. Like, that's interesting to me. Like, if she lost every you know, ounce of fat on her body, and she was super thin, and I was like, I don't really love this. I don't think I'd have that thought even, like, I've never changed how I felt about my wife as she's aged. It's so weird to me to have such a desire around that specific thing that you'd blow your life up over it. It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Amber 41:52
I think that it's not. It sounds superficial. And I feel like, if you have that really deep love, that it shouldn't there. You know, there's going to be times where you look at your partner and you're like, that's not as attractive. Like my boyfriend, he's growing out of mullet. I know you're going to love that because I'm Florida, of small town, and now I'm talking about a mullet. He's going out of mullet. His last hair cut that he got, his hair was a little bit shorter on the top, and I'm not the biggest fan of it, but I'm not going to stop loving him. Or, you know, he's lost some weight because he's doing a certain type of training. I don't love him any less. I think that's insane. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:23
it really does sound insane to me, but I think a lot of people feel that way. You know what I mean? Like you're how you look is part of what I think about you. I

Amber 42:32
think that these days, with the social media, I will preach that until I'm in my grave. The social media, it has such a big impact. And I think the problem is, is that we're looking at people all day online, and we're comparing and it's easy to distract yourself in that way, to where you're suddenly any little change in your partner, or at any time, you could just be like, That's not as attractive. Because what I'm seeing online is, I think it's done something to people's brains.

Scott Benner 42:58
I'm telling you that whole part of your story that's to me, the this is the the family putting weight on you on purpose, and it being so important to him that he was willing to be like, I'm not interested in this. If dinner is not available and you're not chubby, you know what I mean? I guess we call it thick, right? And thick. Like, I'm, like, is it more polite to say thick? I don't know. Like, so, like, I don't get that, like, I just, it's, I think that's the craziest part of your story so far. Really, yeah, to me, to me, it really is, like, it's just, I don't know. I really, I don't know how to explain that. I guess I like thick women too, but I can't imagine that would

Amber 43:37
I just don't be a deal breaker, especially if you're in love with someone and love someone, it's crazy. I

Scott Benner 43:42
love you, and we have children, but not if you lose 40 pounds. If you were to lose 40 pounds, I don't see how I could love you or these kids anymore. Want to stay here, especially if there's not going to be hot beans when I get home,

Amber 43:52
correct? Yeah, put it in the pot. We're good. But you know that's and honestly, you know all of that was, you know, the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm very happy. You know, I have beautiful children, and, you know, we still co parent very well, but us splitting up, I honestly felt like my life was over when I was with him towards the end. I just I wasn't happy, and so it was the best thing that happened to both of us, and we both live happy, separate lives now. So it's fantastic. It worked out great. Is

Scott Benner 44:19
he with a big girl,

Amber 44:22
she's probably, yeah, a little bit. She goes for the bigger women. Yeah,

Scott Benner 44:28
I'm okay with that. I'm asking. I don't want you to be in a situation where he, like, went and met a girl it was like, five, 410, pounds. He's like, actually, I really love this thin girl, like, like, because that would be hurtful. Do you know what I mean? Yeah,

Amber 44:41
it wouldn't bother me either way at this point, maybe a couple years ago, but not anymore.

Scott Benner 44:46
I need the context. I'm so sorry. I know when you talk about weight, sometimes it makes people upset, but this is context. I don't mean you. I mean the people listening. You're cool, I can tell. But contextually for the story, I think it's important before you meet mama, feed. Me, you're five, three, and you weigh, how much it was, about 115 pounds. Okay? And then once you get married, what weight are you married at 220, get out of here, really? You you doubled your body weight.

Amber 45:14
I gained 60 pounds the first year we were together, fried

Scott Benner 45:18
steak, huh? I just deep fry steak. And that's what happens. I put what I rice and beans and steak and

Amber 45:24
plantains. It was really good food. And So

Scott Benner 45:27
walk me through that a little bit like, because I'm gonna guess right in the beginning, you get jiggle your thighs and hips, maybe your boobs get a little bigger, or something like, they get a little round belly and everything. It's cute and all like, like, that whole thing. And you're you're liking it for a while, or are you immediately, like, what is happening to me? At first,

Amber 45:45
I was like, this is this is a little much. And then I kind of just forgot about it. The thing was, was that I was so consumed in my relationship, and so just like, 100% in there with him, that I kind of forgot about myself and I wasn't looking at myself.

Scott Benner 46:03
You turned into like a doll that he enjoyed, and you knew he liked the way billion

Amber 46:07
percent. I always used to say, I feel invisible. I feel like I'm not even here. And it's sad, but it's the truth. So, yeah, I didn't even notice all the weight I was gaining because I wasn't paying attention, right?

Scott Benner 46:17
So now, in fairness, is that his fault, or is it a thing that felt good to you because you you're loved and, like, there's, you're getting all this acceptance and everything. Yeah, it

Amber 46:29
felt good to be loved. And yeah,

Scott Benner 46:31
100% okay, all right, wow. You shocked me by the doubling of the weight, though, that's, that's, like, an accomplishment, like, meaning you can't, like, you can't do that by mistake. You know what? I mean,

Amber 46:45
I loved the I'm telling you, it was such good

Scott Benner 46:49
food. It really was the food. It just got you, like, you didn't get the body part, you didn't like it was cool that he liked it, but you were, you just really enjoyed the eating.

Amber 46:58
Yeah, oh, I couldn't stop. I had, I had zero self control. No kidding,

Scott Benner 47:02
and okay, and is that? But that's back now, because when you listen my opinion, you guys didn't just get divorced because of the dinner thing, like you were already unhappy. Like this goes all the way back to the first minute you met him like you you would run your course. I think that's the bravest thing that people will take out of this is that you, you got out of this pretty quickly, you know what I mean, and most people would have hung longer. But why is that? What about your personality? Let you go? You know what? I don't care. Like I'm not doing this anymore.

Amber 47:35
That's interesting. I it's it's funny because I, I allowed things to go on for so long. And then one day, I just woke up and I said, Hey, this sucks. You know, I've wait not wasted. You know, no time is wasted, but I've spent majority of my 20s very unhappy. And I, you know, I just, I kept saying to myself, I only have one life. I only have one life. He's not the one going in the grave when I die. I am I'm too young for this. I'm miserable. This is crazy, you know? And I kept telling myself, until one day I woke up and it was like, it was like, my like, how people do affirmations, my like, daily affirmations, where Amber stopped living like this, stop. This is crazy. And then one day I just woke up and I said, Hey, Amber, you're right. This is crazy. Let's get out of here. You're

Scott Benner 48:24
able to make that decision to leave because he's more concerned with his needs and how you physically look than he is with your happiness or your health, correct,

Amber 48:34
right? Yeah, he started to make it easier and easier, you know?

Scott Benner 48:38
Yeah, I understand. It was that cultural on his part. Do you think in some ways it was Yes,

Amber 48:43
yep, okay, you're

Scott Benner 48:45
not a person. That's

Amber 48:45
a good word. Yeah, I was trying to figure it out. But yeah, yeah, you're not a

Scott Benner 48:49
person. You're You're the ladies butt jiggles the way I want it to who brings me dinner? Correct? Yeah, yep. And you can I? Can I ask an uncomfortable question? Go ahead. I can't believe this is what I think is an uncomfortable question after all the rest of it. But really, I should have asked you that before every question I've asked you for the last 20 minutes, but are you having sex with him right up till the end,

Amber 49:12
probably until about six months before? But even then, it was like once, like we would, I remember one time we went, like, four or five months, like, and that's, and that's what was so upsetting, was that through my 20s, I'm literally having sex once, this once every six months. Like, it's, I was like, This is crazy.

Scott Benner 49:31
Like, so whose decision is that to only do with that infrequently? His, yeah,

Amber 49:37
his, he, uh, yeah. I mean, I could, I could go deep into that, him telling me that I was, they got to the point where he told me I was too fat, but then when I lose weight, I was, he didn't want me to lose weight, but I, you know, I couldn't do this because I was too fat, and I couldn't do this because it wasn't attractive, and, you know, it was non stop no matter what it was, some sort of comment, you know. So even it just, it just couldn't happen. Holy Christ,

Scott Benner 50:01
it was a lot. That's fickle. Yes, yeah, I hate double your body weight for me. Oh, too far. What? Yeah, don't lose weight. You look masculine. What? Like? That's how it went, Yeah,

Amber 50:12
even to this day. You know, we've been separated five years now, and I remember last year he made a comics, I've lost all this weight, and he told me how small my butt was. And I was like, Hey, this isn't your ass. Walk away. It's not your ass. Dude.

Scott Benner 50:26
Can I call this episode not your ass? That's fantastic. Well, how long you've been apart when he he felt comfortable commenting that your ass got smaller,

Amber 50:36
that was at four years. But it's been, you know, all through he's made comments just because he feels like he can.

Scott Benner 50:43
And you take that because you're co parenting, yeah,

Amber 50:46
I mean, it's not, it's not too often to where it's too big, given an issue. And then, you know, if he tells me a comment about myself, I tell him there's no reason his boobs should be bigger than mine. So I just kind of get him back and walk on he's very insecure about that. So that's I hit him where it hurts on that. I gotta

Scott Benner 51:01
be honest with you, if I told a lady everything about me for a certain amount of time, I'd be very nice to her for the rest of the time, because I'd be like, she definitely knows how to make me upset. Yeah. Well, that's fascinating. Like, I don't, geez, and you're characterizing this as we co parent, well together.

Amber 51:16
Well, that's, you know, for the most part, we co parent. Well, once in a while, he'll make a comment, and I just kind of, I'm a very passive kind of person. We, as far as the kids go, we do fantastic. You know, it's not, it's not near what it you know, we do. We do good. There's just that once in a while comment where I just kind of have to dig back into them, and then we go on with our life, you know,

Scott Benner 51:36
how are the kids doing with, like, their body structure?

Amber 51:39
What do you mean? I

Scott Benner 51:40
mean, are you feeding them differently than he would have, or is is he? Are the kids going from like, some like, really well controlled, thoughtful nutrition, to like, fried steak? Are they? Are they able to, like, How's their weight? I guess I'm asking, yes,

Amber 51:53
their weight is good. He doesn't even cook. So you know, my son, he just turned eight, he gets upset and says stuff to me often, because 90, I would say, 98% of the meals going into our bodies when they're with me, I cook. I home. Cook everything, right? But the dad doesn't cook. He takes them out to eat. So I get the comments once in a while. Well, how come Dad always takes me out to eat, and you never do and I want to go here and I say, because I feed you healthier, and I've had conversations with him because, you know, now you're going with my mom being a type one diabetic. I'm a type one diabetic. I have many, many autoimmune diseases in my family, and food is very important when it comes to that kind of stuff. So I've had conversations trying to get him to feed them, right? And it just, it falls short every time, and I just do the best I can. Isn't

Scott Benner 52:44
it weird too, that all of this turmoil in two people's lives around food, and he's not concerned with putting that on the kids I know. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you would think you'd step back and go, you know, I'm unhealthy, you know, my desires put all that weight on her and and it caused all this problem. Like, does he? Does he know that's why you're divorced? That's a good question. Or does he just think you got like, Cranky one day and left him think, you know what I mean? Like, poor women, women have, like, listen, everybody gets it from one way or another, but the way women get it is just terrible. Does he just think she got bitchy and I'm not married anymore? Does she realize this whole, like, this story we've laid out? Does he know all this happened?

Amber 53:30
I've had conversations with him, and even when we were together, like I used to, you know, I'm really, really big on open communication, and let's, like, work through things. And, you know, through the years, I would say, hey, like this is where we're at. You know, what can I do to help this situation? You know, from my end, here's what you can do. And I always tried to talk things through. But his, his core belief was that we are together, and that's it, you know. And to where my belief is. As the years go by, people change, they grow, and you your relationship is something you always have to nurture, and that's something I tried to do while with him. So yes, after, even afterwards, you know, we would have conversations of trying to navigate through a relationship, of where it went wrong, and it always came out as, you know, I just up and left because I couldn't do it anymore, and it was like, Dude, I cried to you for two years. Hey, we need to fix this. We need therapy. We need this. You know, let's, let's try something. And it was no so, you know, from his end, it's just, I up and left one day. But that's, it's not even close to the truth, but so interesting.

Scott Benner 54:31
That's, you're so nice to share all this. Thank you. And it's, it's very, very interesting. And I do mean nice, like, because you think you're the only, you don't think you're the only one with this story. Do you know you don't mean, like the manipulation based on your weight. I think young kids would call that gas lighting, but I dislike that word, so I won't be using it all the words these days, too many words. But I mean he, he pushed you in a direction and then said, you know, then the romantic love part. Goes away one way or the other, and it's, Oh, you're too heavy now. Or, like, you know, I mean, because that that's not, by the way, that wasn't the case. Like, how, like, what was your heaviest weight? 220,

Amber 55:09
last time I went on the scale? Okay, so

Scott Benner 55:11
you doubled up, and that was your highest weight? Yeah, yeah. So how could he say because that was because, if that happened in the first year of your relationship, how could he say to you, then you're too heavy now, like, I'm the same heavy I was prior, correct? Like, so go. I'm gonna have to do an episode with Eric about it. There's an actual thing that happens, like, when romantic love happens, it's like a brain chemistry thing, like a hormonal response. Like, there's a whole like, psychological process that happens in there, and then eventually it like it actually does burn away, like, like it changes. So that part changes for him, and then he blames you, like, I don't feel this way about you anymore. It must be because you're something it's because you don't bring me dinner, or it's because you look differently than I wanted you to. Man, I gotta tell you what. I have never been in control of a situation off where I could tell somebody how to look it sounds like it must be just a powerless situation, like, I just like, seriously, like, and you were so young, and your life wasn't great growing up and you Yeah, and you took it and you would never take that again. Now, is that right? No, no, no, yeah, you learned a hell of a lesson

Amber 56:20
I did. I did learn a lot, yeah, so, Jesus.

Scott Benner 56:24
Okay, all right, so I forgot you have diabetes. And then, so, like, a couple of so then you get, you get COVID. Before COVID, the thing, you're a trendsetter. And then you get type one. And how does that present?

Amber 56:38
Yeah, I started. So my mom passed away in August, and then, you know, obviously I'm extremely depressed in that time, I will tell you. But okay, in that time, I was actually in another I was in a bad relationship, but I was just in the beginning. I was, I was in the beginning of a bad relationship. I was only like four or five, six months in. My mom passes away, then my aunt, who is like my second mother, has a heart attack and passes away a couple months later. So I am absolutely struggling. I'm working like 70 hours a week. I'm trying to deal with their deaths. I have, you know, a bad relationship that I'm in, that COVID kind of put us in together, and we were struggling, and then I was just getting sicker and sicker and sicker, but I was blaming it on I couldn't understand what was going on. You know, obviously the clear signs I was drinking a ton of water. I had to have freezing cold water with me at all times, and chewing on ice, and I just nauseous all the time, and I was lethargic, but I thought it was because I was working 70 hours a week, and I was super depressed. And, you know, I finally went into the doctor and I said, Hey, I can't so they took my sugar I was at about six, I was around 600 and they said, go ahead and go to the hospital. And they put me in ICU, and then I was in there for a week, and they did all the testing, the C peptides and all that, and then they diagnosed me as a type one about that.

Scott Benner 58:04
Jeez. Wow, that was quick. I don't want to go backwards, because I felt like we were done with this. But when you picked up the second bad relationship, there were the same things happening, no, just different, different bad things.

Amber 58:17
Yeah, yeah, he was, he was in recovery, and I didn't know that at the time. Can I say the word he was a in recovery for heroin. Okay? I had no idea. And then when COVID happened, I met him right when COVID happened, and, like, a month later, everything shut down. So then he started, like, hanging out my house every day. And eventually it just turned into, well, you're here. You might as well move in. And I didn't find out until 456, months in, he finally had told me, and then I started finding things. He was drinking really heavy, and, you know, doing like, I don't know if you ever heard of like, kratom and all that kind of stuff. So he started using different things again. And then it got really bad, and it took me a while to be able to get out of it.

Scott Benner 58:57
Wait a minute, because you moved in, he had you because you were in no he moved into my house. Oh, my God, never What are you doing? Listen to me. Girl. I know everyone. Hold on a second. Do we need to do a first of all, kratom, I didn't know, a tropical evergreen tree in the coffee family, native to Southeast Asia, is indigenous to Cambodia, been used as our herbal medicine. Like I can get high with that. Wait, you

Amber 59:22
can, you can? It has heroin like effects, and it's and it's legal. Oh,

Scott Benner 59:27
okay, all right, hold on a second. Okay, listen. All right. Here's my message to the women out there. First of all, if you hear the word kratom run, okay, yes, and and everything else, heroin. I just want you to be heavier. I need you to look like this. You know, will you play, will you play PlayStation with me for 12 hours? I don't care. Like, listen, I don't want to out a whole, a whole group of people. Boys are we're dangerous, okay? Like, that's the first thing. Like, and they, Oh, my God. Like. Your girls have got to be careful. Okay? Like, yeah, it's not good. Okay? It used to just be. The boys were just driven by sex. At least you could tell the ones who just wanted to be with you for sex. Now, there's so much happening. Like, it's fascinating. He doesn't leave his house. He doesn't do this. He can't go outside. He's got, you know, he's he gets uncomfortable around like, I don't know what to do. You go into the middle of the country to try to find like, a corn fed boy who's not scared of anything and he's doing meth. Correct? Correct. I mean, what are you looking at? What's the secret tell the girls? Have you met a nice boy yet?

Amber 1:00:36
I have. I've been in a relationship for a year now. He is a godsend. Describe

Scott Benner 1:00:42
him just with adjectives. Now forget him from it. Just describe him with adjectives. Is he quiet? No, no,

Amber 1:00:49
he is goofy, respectful. I always get this wrong, chival shift, chivalrous,

Scott Benner 1:00:55
chivalrous, yeah, it's that yeah with a visual chivalrous, say it, go, let it roll out. Yeah,

Amber 1:01:04
kind considerate. I could, I could. Probably, does

Scott Benner 1:01:09
he drink? Probably, is he a drinker? No, no. Is he get high all the time? No. Smoke weed once in a while. Uh, he used to, nope, not, but not now. Okay, I see, is he what they call mature? Yes, this is the word you're looking for girls when you're out there thinking of giving your flower away, what you're looking for is a mature person. Otherwise, do not start making babies with dopey guys. Okay? Like, because they're not going to be mature enough to be good fathers and husbands and stuff like that. You got to let them get listen. You can be with them while they're goofy and everything, but like, they got to be mature before you make a baby. That's all. These are my these are my bits of advice. I don't know how to explain it, especially 1817, 1819, 20 into the mid guys are just trying to get laid. Like, correct, yeah, yeah. Please, be careful. Be careful. Don't make a baby with dopey boys, please. Yeah, this is all and if you've already made a baby with a dopey boy, you got to fix him. And it's not that hard. Even we're very malleable. What your life's been a Is it better now?

Amber 1:02:20
It is now, yeah, I went, I went through a lot, and I've gone through a lot in my life. And I'm proud to say that, you know, my life is pretty ordinary now. It's really leveled out. I'm in a phenomenal relationship, you know, I have both my kids here with me, and have a great job. And, you know, I label it as living a mild life, and I'm okay with it. I

Scott Benner 1:02:40
love it. When you were younger. Do you think you were trying to live an exciting life

Amber 1:02:43
when I was a teenager, I was definitely one of the wild ones. But I think I was rebelling from being held down a lot. And, you know,

Scott Benner 1:02:51
you said something earlier about like, living that high school life, and I thought that's a thing I did not care for, that I was not a thing I was looking for when I was younger.

Amber 1:02:59
Oh yeah, I did it. You know, for the most part, I had a pretty, you know, good high school experience. And you know, my daughter, she's turning 15 next month, and she's right on in there, wanting to live that high school experience. And so it's, you know, it's up to me to really try and guide her, yeah, so we're trying. I just went school after.

Scott Benner 1:03:16
I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I wasn't looking to hang around have an experience with anybody. Use the word mild, yes, I have to tell you, I think that might be the key. Seriously, like mature boys, mature boys and a normal life, and not to look at it as a boring thing, yes, right? Yes, yes, yeah, because you're surrounded by people you love, and you're working for them, and they're working for you, and that you love them they like people. Don't know this, but I asked you to switch rooms before we recorded, and you walked into a room and just kind of surprised your son. He looked up at you, and he was like, he told you he loves you, like, it's like, the first thing he said to you when you went walked into the room, yeah. What market you want? That's my point. You don't need crate. Is it kratom with a K? You don't, yes. You don't need kratom. If, if an eight year old boy looks at you and the first thought in his mind is, I love you, mom. Like, there, that's good. Like, what do people think life is?

Amber 1:04:17
Yeah, you know, to go back to the point that I made earlier. You know with social media is that everyone thinks these people live these such lavish lives, and then they want to aspire to do that. But if you really slow down and count all the small things that add up into a nice, calm, loving life, you want people around you that love you and you love them unconditionally. You know you want to, you know, have yourself a decent job so that you can have you don't need this lavish home, this huge, you know, I live in a small, little house, but we're happy. It's cozy. And it's the small things. I have a loving boyfriend, my cat. I'm literally cat lady. They won't leave me alone. Get you a loving animal. And it's the small things. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:00
I'm telling you, I watched, you know who Mr. Beast is?

Amber 1:05:03
Oh, my son. My son keeps talking about, okay,

Scott Benner 1:05:07
well, listen, this, this, he must only be like, 26 years old, right? Okay, he starts, he starts a YouTube channel when he's a kid. I think 13. I think I've watched a documentary about him. He builds it to this massive thing, right? And he learns along the way, he doesn't seem to be driven by the money. So if he made money on his video, he'd put the money he made on the video into the next video. And he started getting more and more popular to the point where, like, his videos are like, these 20 minute productions that look like, you know, they were put on by Paramount Pictures at this point. And, you know, any and it's fun stuff, but it makes a bunch of money. And then he branched out and started doing like he has, like a channel where he does philanthropic things. Well, a week or two ago, his latest philanthropic video popped up in front of me, and he basically just went to three different countries and built 100 houses in each one of the countries. Oh, my goodness. And these houses are by American standards. They're not much bigger than something that a wealthy white person would keep their lawn mower in, okay, but like, but it's still, you know, 25 by 25 and, you know, has a pitched roof and heating and water and like, all this stuff, right? So he's going to these places where people are living under tarps in some situations, right? And he puts up these solid homes that are raised up off the ground, have water, electricity, you know, with a, with a like a, what's that called panel? Why can't I think of simple words, solar panel, Jesus Christ, a solar panel, right? He takes the people away and brings them back a couple days later, because these houses don't take long for the crews to put up. And they come they they're told they win, like a trip or something, and when they come back, there's a brand new house on their property. And these people's responses, I almost cried through a whole goddamn video, like because it felt they had a look on their face that said you'd have to give an American kid $900 million to make them look like that, right? And, and one of the kids was like, Is this bed for me? That's all she said. And I was like, Oh. Like, I was like, Oh, my God. Look, she's over. She's over. Like, the father was like, Thank you. The mother's like, I can cook here. Like, you know, like, it all, just like, and then at the end, he heard that this, this one guy lost his transportation, so we got him a like a motorcycle, like a dirt bike, and the guy, like a grown man, hugged him, like he saved a parent. And he goes, You don't know how this changes my life. And so the Mr. Beast guy goes, Wait, this motorcycle is gonna he doesn't know. He's like, 26 he goes, he's like, this is gonna change your life. And he wouldn't bought a motorcycle for everybody in the town. Oh my goodness, right? And I'm like, Oh my God. Like these people, they have so little. They understand what you're trying to explain to people who feel like there's so much to have, that everything they don't have is a failure. Like, I'm not driving a Lamborghini, like the guy on YouTube. I'm a failure. I don't have this chain. I'm a failure on these shoes. I'm a failure. I didn't go to this college. I'm a failure. I don't make I mean, do you know how much money people want to make coming out of college. Now, kids come out of college, they expect to be making $150,000 a year. Like, and when they and when it doesn't go that way, they're like, I haven't taken this job. Like, wait, what? $20 means nothing to people at this point. I'm still freaked out by that. Like, I, I know that. Like, like, I get that you walk into a convenience store and a soda is three bucks and a sandwich is $10 and $20 just seems like a sandwich and a soda, but, yeah, it's a lot of money. It's hard to make $20 you know, you know, yeah, it's

Amber 1:08:54
scary, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:08:55
I heard somebody recently say, I don't know if I want to get that. It's like, a they raised the price by $20,000 and I was like, Well, no, you obviously don't want that thing anymore. Like, like, What are you talking about? And they're like, Well, yeah, when I when I first looked at it, it was this much and announced $20,000 more. I'm like, Could you afford it the first time? And they're like, no, but, but, but. And I'm like, there's a button here. Like, what's the butt? Exactly like you couldn't afford it. Now it's 20 grand more. Now you're still thinking of a way to try to do it, like you can't afford that, and why? Why would you want to put yourself in that bad situation? And I don't know, I think you're right. I think, as crazy as it sounds, because I'm old, it started when we started telling people how much athletes made. That was a big mistake. In the 80s, yes, that guy makes a million. Because back then it was a million dollars. My God, that makes a guy makes a million dollars a year. And then you're like, and then people started being like, he doesn't deserve a million dollars a year. And then some people said, Well, yes, he does. He brings in ticket sales. He does. Deserve a piece of that. And then that whole conversation starts happening, except people get confused that they are living that life, and you're not living that life like you don't get a piece of the pie when you go to work, you get a salary. And you know, maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong, but you're not changing it. And then all of a sudden, you're like, this job sucks. I'm not going to be wealthy one day. Yeah, yeah, either. Most everybody like, interesting, yeah. And you see that, you see how it's hurting people. Oh, 100%

Amber 1:10:33
you know. And I, and it's scary for our kids that we're raising and being around this kind of mindset. And, you know, I try to, you know, with my kids, it's making sure that they understand that you don't need everything in the world to be happy. You need, you know, you need to be with your loved ones. And you know, it's the small stuff that counts, you know. So I try and work on that with them, because I don't want them to grow up and be those kind of kids that always feel like a failure because they're not right out of college making $150,000 a year, you know, yeah, right?

Scott Benner 1:11:01
Or like, have these crazy hobbies or things that like everything, everything looks like a YouTube video. Like every moment of your life needs to look like a YouTube video. And I don't mean for other people even. I mean for you to think it's valuable, yeah, that's sad. Okay, all right. Well, what are we going to do? Should we all just jump in the river?

Amber 1:11:23
Should we just give out in the Florida River? Yes, you want to get bit by a gator and

Scott Benner 1:11:27
then surrounded by a boat instructor that will eventually swallow me days later?

Amber 1:11:32
Yeah, go into the Everglades. That can certainly happen. Oh

Scott Benner 1:11:34
my God, I don't understand why you people like I don't understand why anybody lives there. But okay, although I've seen videos, and people look very happy. So it's pretty hot. It's pretty I can't it's so it's summer right now, 2024 in case you're anybody's listening to this later. And I know it's become unfashionable to say, like, I think there's global warming, but it's, like, really hot. Like, yes,

Amber 1:11:59
every year it gets hotter. And I say it wasn't as hot last year as it is this year. I feel like I say that every year. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:12:05
I don't know that. Listen, I can't tell you if it's cyclical or anything. I don't know the details about it, but I don't think we should be arguing that it's hot because it's like, what's it like? Over 100 degrees in the in the upper Northwest last this week. And that's not normal, right?

Amber 1:12:21
Now. We have a What time is it? It's 10 o'clock right now, and we have a it feels like 95 and it's 10 o'clock in the morning. We haven't even hit one o'clock yet. Yeah, it's nine. It feels like 95 out here. I'm like, what

Scott Benner 1:12:34
my son went to play basketball last night. And I was like, you have enough to drink? He's like, 24 like, and he's living here again for a little bit while. He's teaching himself some stuff, because I'm glad he works out, and he uses basketball to work out and everything. I'm like, But yo, you got enough, like, liquid with you? And he's like, Yeah, I'm good. And he like, showed me, he really did. But he was leaving the house at like, six o'clock at night. It was still in the mid it was in the mid 90s, and the humidity was 50% and he got home, I know you're laughing because you're in Florida, the humidity is 100% but, but he got home and he's drenched, and he's like, Listen. He's like, I gotta get in the shower. He's like, but I said, How come you played tonight? He goes, because the humidity is supposed to be 75% tomorrow. He's like, this was like, my one chance to work out this week, like, running. He's like, because it's going to get worse and worse this week. And I'm like, oh my god, yeah. Anyway, I don't know how we got down this road. You, this is great. You gave a great interview. You're fantastic.

Amber 1:13:30
Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:13:31
I really like, Yeah, I like you a lot. Yeah, that's why I was upset when you said you were born the year I graduated. I was like, I was like, I could, I could, really, I could get rid of my wife and get a lovely girl with two Cuban, Mexican, Caucasian children. We could have a nice life together down in the swamp. Well, yeah. Plus, although I could, I could, let me say this, this is no disrespect to anybody, but if I moved to Florida, I could keep my chameleon outside most of the year you could, yeah, you could. That's attractive idea to me. You could. But seriously, like, I not flirting with you because some creepy person is going to be like, Oh, at the end, he flirted with her. I wasn't flirting with her. I was trying to point out that she's, you're really lovely.

Amber 1:14:18
Thank you. I

Scott Benner 1:14:19
appreciate it. No, no, you're enjoyable to talk to, and you're smart, and you see the world. And you took control for yourself. You made it through a bad thing, and you came out the other side a couple of times. You could easily be running around trying to figure out what Kratom is for yourself, but you're not. And what a ridiculous word, by the way. Yeah,

Amber 1:14:39
I know. I use, I use working out as my therapy. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:43
good for you. Yeah, really, fantastic. Well, I don't know. I just want to thank you and ask if there's anything you that I didn't ask you that I should have.

Amber 1:14:52
No, I this was wonderful. I was super nervous to come on here today, so I appreciate you having me and making me comfortable. I feel like we had a fantastic conversation.

Scott Benner 1:14:59
Oh. Excellent. That's my goal. Also, I feel bad because if you were already nervous as soon as you got on, I was like, Oh, do you not have a headset? And you're like, wait, I'm sorry. And I'm like, wait, don't start. It's okay. Hold on. I

Amber 1:15:10
was going into full panic.

Scott Benner 1:15:11
I know you were. I'm like, no, calm down. Like I was like, I said, stop. Do two things for me. First of all, chill out. This happens a lot. We're gonna work it out. I don't want you to worry about it. I can hear when people start, like, scampering around the room, like slow down. It's okay, by the way, for everyone else who's listening, and I'm assuming Amber doesn't know this too, when you sign up to be on the podcast, there's a paragraph you should read it. It tells you you need a headset with a microphone.

Amber 1:15:40
Yes, there is, and I did read it technically back when I booked this and I was the last couple days, I had actually been looking for that paragraph, and I couldn't find it. So I was like, I feel like it said I needed these headphones, but I couldn't find it. Can

Scott Benner 1:15:53
I ask you one last question before I let you go, sure your physical appearance is completely different than it was before now, right? Yes, absolutely. How does it make you feel? Are you happier about the health aspects, about the strength, about the vitality part? Do you care about how you look like? What's the real human feeling about having lost weight?

Amber 1:16:16
What I will say about losing weight is that a lot of you know, especially women, feel like, when they lose weight, that they'll feel better about yourselves, and to an extent you will. But the thing that doesn't lose weight and the still, the thing that still needs work, that people don't understand, is your brain is still the same. You may like the way you look, but you still are going to need to do the inner work, because you could be a skinny, in shape person. Whatever was bothering you before mentally is still going to be there. I love my body. I am in the best I'm 34 I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. My muscles are ridiculous because of, you know, losing weight and everything, and working out all the time and eating healthy, my blood sugars are much better, which obviously also equates to less stress. So all around in that aspect, I'm healthy and happy, but your brain is still something you will have to work on extra, you know, as well as actually working out. If that makes sense, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:11
and you are at this point, you're pointing your internal turmoil at working out instead of food. Is that right? Correct? Okay, absolutely.

Amber 1:17:19
Yeah, it takes a while to build a healthy relationship with food, because we, we use food for emotion. We were raised on that birthday cake on your birthdays and celebrations, and food, food for parties. And, yeah, you know, we're raised on that, so you have to really make that disconnect, and that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:38
I haven't, so I asked you because I do a diary. I don't know if you've heard it or not, but like, I'm using a GLP, and I've lost like, 47 pounds the last like year and a half, right? Thank you. And I make a diary every time I shoot the GLP, I sit down and talk for a couple of minutes before I shoot it, and it's just like, stream of consciousness about what happened that week, trying to lose weight, or, like, something I learned, or whatever. Really don't want to use the word journey, but something I use I've learned, like, during the journey, I got this very passionate kind email from a person who basically told me I can't talk about my weight loss like this, because there are some people who have eating disorders and, and I'm like, Look, I don't want you to feel bad, and, and, but I mean, if I just tried to put myself, I tried to remove myself for a second, and the first thing I thought was if I had an eating disorder when I listened to a podcast that said, GLP, weight loss diary, like, I feel like, I feel like I would be like, that's probably not good for me to listen to now, but, but okay, like, you know, I think I understood the person's perspective, but I wish they understood mine, which is, I'm literally just telling you how I feel correct if I parse every word I spoke about so that I made sure that no one eating disorder to any other, you know, impact that somebody's had in their life, if I parse every one of My words so that I don't make anyone potentially upset. What you're gonna get is, Hey, welcome to the Juicebox podcast. A couple of ads, I'm gonna say some banal crap about diabetes for five minutes, and the podcast is gonna be over it, and you never hear Amber's story correct, because I didn't say anything to you today that you were like, oh my god, I can't believe he said that. Correct. Like, as a matter of fact, the way I categorized you, you most of the time, were like, yeah, that is exactly what's happening, right, right? I get that that could be difficult for someone to listen to, but it doesn't make it a thing. You can't say. It's almost like, I almost think of podcasting like comedy on some level, like you can't go to a comedy club and ask a guy not to make an abortion joke, because that's gonna happen, right? Like, you can't stand up in the middle and say, I've had an abortion. This isn't funny. Well, no, to you, it is definitely not funny. I get that, right? But you can't quell comedy because it's important, you know, like it's important socially. And. If you, if you try to make it so that no one's ever offended by it, you're not gonna have comedy anymore. And I think the same thing about these conversations, like no one's gonna sit down on on, you know, Nightline or 2020 and talk to Amber about what happened to her. But in the course of this hour 20 minutes, we heard that her mom was diagnosed with type one diabetes before management was any good, and doctors watched her kill herself her whole life and never helped her. As a matter of fact, she thought she was doing okay for most of the time. If you listen to the to her stepfather's like retelling of it, they didn't think they were doing anything specifically wrong that had a significant impact on Amber, who then threw herself into another situation that then had a significant impact on her 10 years of her life, right? You got to hear a story about about a man basically putting weight on a woman so that she was more like physically attractive to him, and then got her to a weight where he said, You're too fat for me, like, Holy hell. Like, that's crazy, okay? And then you have babies with that person, and then you have to pull yourself out of that situation. You have to repair your health, you have to figure out how to take care of your kids. You're not going to hear this on 2020 because they're going to be busy saying things very nicely so that nobody gets upset. And you want these conversations, you should want these now. Is someone gonna listen to this and be like, This was very triggering to me. I'm gonna guess, right? But sure, I can't make a podcast that everybody's gonna be okay with because there's 1000 of them out there. You should go listen to them. They're very boring, and nobody listens to them like we went over the real things that happen in your life. It's not my fault that the guy did that to you. I just asked the questions that got it out there. You know what I mean? Correct? Yeah, I

Amber 1:21:50
I agree. Thank you. I

Scott Benner 1:21:52
need somebody to stick up for me once in a while, because, yeah, no, you're fine. I

Amber 1:21:55
think that if you don't like, you know what you're hearing, which no one's going to like everything that they hear. It's just as simple as hitting the off button. It's that simple. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:22:03
don't understand it. I listen to things all the time I don't like, and I get halfway through and I go, this sucks, and I turn it off. Yeah, just think I suck and turn it off. But if you don't, then listen and you're gonna get, like, an honest conversation with Amber, and you're gonna hear me ask questions. Where sometimes I'm like, I don't really understand what's happening here, or I have a really strong reaction to this, or whatever. You know anyway, trust me, I said Jesus Christ at one point to something. You said, I lost 25 listeners. They're like, I didn't know he's gonna take the Lord's name in vain today. Like, you know, like, and keep that in mind that I'm not unaware that by saying what I think I'm gonna lose somebody. I lose somebody probably every 10 minutes. I gain a person, but I probably lose a person too. I could speak in a way that would keep everybody here, but all I would be doing is keeping you all in the middle of a boring, uninteresting conversation that doesn't really move your understanding anywhere. I mean, seriously, what I heard from you today, I'm grateful to have heard it never occurred to me that I could have looked at a woman, told her I loved her and said, but if you're if you weigh more like, it never occurred to me to say to her like it would have never like. And now I'm realizing there's probably people out there that like, look, I want you to get breast implants, or you should, you should do this or lose weight, or, you know, if you really want to be attractive, you should be doing this like I find that really, I was stunned by that, you know, yeah, so anyway, I really appreciate you sharing all this. That's all I wanted to say. Thank

Amber 1:23:35
you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's my pleasure.

Scott Benner 1:23:37
Hold on one second. Okay, you

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#1361 After Dark: Stand Up Mixer

Natalie overcame addiction and diabetes struggles to now lead a healthy, stable life.

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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, welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

On today's episode, I'll be speaking with Natalie in this after dark. She's 40 years old now, but she was diagnosed with type one diabetes in her teens. At this moment, she's recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, and this is her story. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com when you place your first order for ag one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink. Ag one.com/juice box. If you are the caregiver of someone with type one diabetes or have type one yourself, please go to T 1d exchange.org/juice, box and complete the survey. This should take you about 10 minutes, and will really help type one diabetes research. You can help right from your house at T 1d exchange.org/juicebox, exchange.org/juice, box.

Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox, today's podcast is sponsored by touched by type one. Check them out on Facebook, Instagram and at touched by type one.org. If you're looking for an organization who's helping people with type one diabetes, you're looking for touch by type one. Hi. My

Natalie 1:57
name is Natalie. I am a type one diabetes, 40 years old, and I am also a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I guess my story kind of starts back with my mother, who was, I mean, I grew I was born and raised the Phoenix area of Arizona. They'll live here, born and raised in the same household. My dad still actually lives in very stable upbringing. In that sense, when it comes to my diet, diesel, it starts with my mom. She was a type one diabetic, and didn't find out she was a diabetic until she was eight months pregnant with me, and she lost her eyesight, so I immediately was delivered as a C section, and I was also almost 10 pounds that about eight months of pregnancy, my diabetes journey really started from the time I was born. Even though I wasn't technically born with it, I grew up around, you know, eating back in the 80s. You know, you eat the the Sweet and Low, the crystal lights, the diet sodas, everything was a diabetic diet for a whole entire family. So by the time it came around for me to become a diabetic, it really wasn't that much of a change. Can

Scott Benner 3:14
you tell me a little bit about your mom? Like, lost her eyesight for good?

Natalie 3:19
No, no, no. Once her, once her blood sugars got back under control, she gained her eyesight back. Okay, okay,

Scott Benner 3:25
that's what I kind of thought you were getting at, but I wasn't 100%

Natalie 3:29
Yeah, no, she, she got her eyesight back. Um, a little, a little more history with my mom is that she's also an alcoholic, so I grew up with her being in and out of recovery a lot as well, which eventually down the line, which led to her passing from her her alcoholism, which affected, obviously, her diabetes and so, like on her death certificate, complications of diabetes is why she died, but it was a direct reflection of her not taking care of herself.

Scott Benner 3:54
I'm so sorry. I can I ask a question like, do you have more context? Like, so she had type one. It wasn't gestational. I

Natalie 4:03
think it started off as gestational, okay, but she was diagnosed as type one. However, she also never, I think she may have gone to an endocrinologist, from my memory, maybe once for the whole time. I don't think it was much of a thing, or she was just so, so in control most of my life. I remember my mom being in such great control of, you know, giving yourself insulin. She'd have us give her insulin so we knew how to, like, give her shots, and we tested our blood sugars and her blood sugars, and she was super strict about diet and exercise. So she really did take care of herself for most of my life

Scott Benner 4:41
going? Would you consider her like a functioning alcoholic, or was she like a fall down drunk?

Natalie 4:47
I would say she she was more functioning until my parents got divorced. Okay? When my parents got divorced, I would think I was 16, 1516, I was around high. School time, and when my parents got divorced, my my mom completely different person. She's the one who moved out. My dad finished raising me, and so she moved out, and it was just downhill from that. It was just like one extreme to the other. She got into the drugs it was. She was homeless for some time. Every now and then she gets sober again, you know, a slew of bad men constantly, it kind of turned into my sister. My older sister really took the role of being her parent. Unfortunately, she had that burden on her. So me, my mom became a strain for about five years. You know, I was just angry. I was getting through high school. I was with my dad. Was just being my dad for even now, it's mostly just me and my dad.

Scott Benner 5:46
So how old was she when she was pregnant with you? You know, he was 30. Oh, okay, and you're the youngest.

Natalie 5:54
I have the youngest. Yeah, I have a sister that's four years older than me. Okay. And then, how

Scott Benner 5:59
old were you when you were diagnosed?

Natalie 6:00
So here's a funny story, or the weird, the weird part, I don't have an exact like, Hey, this is what happened. You know, I was in DK, you know there was, there's no, like, big event that came with it. It was my mom saw the signs. And I think I was around 11, and growing up, I was a huge dancer. I danced almost every single day dance studios. I was a cheerleader. I was extremely active. And when I was around 11, my mom started, I guess, noticing the signs and the constant being thirsty, the yeast infections, the peeing all the time, and the doctors kind of pushed it off. And I remember going there, and they're like, oh, we'd rather just watch her for a little bit. And then once I got into my teenage years, I got into drugs and partying, and I just, I, of course, I neglected myself, and so I never actually got an an official diagnosis until I was almost 18, okay, and then I didn't take care of myself and actually give myself insulin until I became pregnant, and that's when I decided I should live for something. And I was at 19,

Scott Benner 7:13
about a year later. Hey, did your when you were growing up? Was your mom using in the house? Or is that a thing that happened after she left, or was it happening? And that's why she left

Natalie 7:23
the alcohol, the alcoholism in the house. Like I've never, I never knew my mom to do drugs, except for maybe when I was really, really little. She used to have special cigarettes, which I now know it was weed, but I never saw her like, really do that. It was mostly just the alcohol. It was very dysfunctional behind closed doors, for sure, my mom was a raging alcoholic. It was being woken up in the middle of the night with my mom on top of my dad, with a nice tons of fights. It was running to the bedroom, you know, and hiding from everybody to serve, going crazy trying to break up fights. There was a lot of that that I think I have chosen to probably block out, or I was too young to really understand what was going on at the time, my sister has some crazy stories that she can tell you, but for me, I remember my childhood being mostly good. And I don't know if that's like a defense thing, a mental thing. I don't know what that it is, but most of the memories were good, but I do remember that when mom was bad, she was really bad, and she she was crazy.

Scott Benner 8:33
Does she have any mental illness that you're aware of?

Natalie 8:36
Definitely depression, probably some anxiety thrown in there. Nothing like bipolar or anything that required, I don't know her, to be necessarily, put in a hospital or anything. But as since she's passed, I have found out a lot of serving history, like family history, which has been interesting to find out on her side, on her side, yeah, my mom's an army brat, and so, you know, she grew up all over the place, but my my grandmother is from Australia, and so they lived in Australia. My mom was very young, and just some of the stuff like, I mean, forgive me, grandma, but she was a whole and she has, like, like, random kids places. The reason why she married my grandpa, I guess alcohol, alcoholism runs deep with my grandma, and she was a raging alcoholic as well. Oh, okay, so it runs deep on my mom's side.

Scott Benner 9:34
Are you an alcoholic? No,

Natalie 9:35
I am. I mean, I'm not. I'm I'm recovering alcoholic. Okay, so I was gonna say there's parts of my life where alcoholism was definitely the main focus, you know? I mean, obviously it landed me in jail, got a DUI, but mess was my big thing. I never really did the both. It was either one or the other, either I was off the chain with alcohol or it was. I loved doing that math was my favorite until it got too real.

Scott Benner 10:04
What age did you start with? Well, I guess, what did you what drug did you try first?

Natalie 10:08
Actually, the very first thing I ever tried was acid. Oh yeah, that was the very first thing I ever did. And I think I was 15. I was in ninth grade, so I was around 15. How does that happen? I know I think it was at a party. It was, like, one of my very first parties, okay, that I ever went to, and so I just remember trying it and it was fun, and I never did it again, like, ever again. Like, it was cool, it was fun, like, whatever, like, it was scary to look into me, or, I think being my best friend. Best friend last so much, we literally feed our pants, full experience whatever, no interest in touching it again during that time, though, that my ninth grade year must have been around. That must have been women, parents got divorced, because that's when I really got out of control. I would drink alcohol while I was sitting in class, I would have vodka in my walk model, and I would drink him. I eventually did get caught once, because I took all over the floor inside my school. So I got, you know, suspended for that, and I got kicked off a cheerleading so I'm pretty sure that's the memory that people have of me as the girl or the cheerleader who's her up all over the hallway in ninth grade.

Unknown Speaker 11:24
Geez.

Scott Benner 11:25
You remember this is good? Or you remember like younger years is good? I

Natalie 11:30
remember my younger years as good, you know, I remember my parents being really in love with each other. They would dance together, you know, they would kiss like we did everything together. You know, we took lots of family trips. They were always very supportive. Everybody was always the whole family was always there together to support each other. We'd always have like we were Girl Scouts, and I'm almost a troop leader, but nobody knew what was happening behind closed doors when everybody left

Scott Benner 11:57
those cookies are like crack. So maybe that was, maybe that was her.

Natalie 12:01
Maybe that was really the start of it. Well,

Scott Benner 12:04
okay, do you think looking back now with hindsight, like was the laughing and dancing and kissing like mom and dad were drunk in the living room all the time? Oh,

Natalie 12:13
absolutely. Okay, absolutely, yeah. And when we have these big bonfires in the backyard with the family members, of course there were tons of alcohol, right? Tons of alcohol.

Scott Benner 12:23
Did you feel supported emotionally? Did you like if you needed help with homework or a life problem? Did you feel like they were there for you for

Natalie 12:32
the most part? My mom, my mother, absolutely okay. She was also a huge enabler. Never, ever questioned my parents love for me, I don't think when it came to, let's say issues or big things that happened, we were kind of the family that swept it under the rug. Like, okay, this happened, let's not talk about it later. Like, just get through it, and we just don't talk about it. Like, you're grounded for a week and that's it. We just don't talk

Scott Benner 12:56
about it. Yeah, do you know who initiated their divorce? My

Natalie 13:00
mom would threaten divorce a lot, but my dad finally pulled straw on

Scott Benner 13:03
it. He's like, hey, you know what? Why don't you actually go, yeah? He's like,

Natalie 13:07
Yeah, I'm been doing this for 20 years, like I'm done. Did your

Scott Benner 13:11
dad clean himself up? Or would you call him addicted? Now,

Natalie 13:16
you know, I really, I feel my dad is a functioning alcoholic, like extremely functioning, like my dad is. He drinks a lot, but you won't see him drunk, but you also won't see him without a drink,

Scott Benner 13:32
maybe, like a 12 pack a day kind of thing. Well,

Natalie 13:35
he's a vodka drinker. But yes, okay, yes, he will. He's a bot pi draker, as he's gotten older and his body's hurting, I, for some reason, I feel I have absolutely no proof of this. I feel like there might be pain pills involved. Oh, geez. But my dad will, he's he has pride. He will never admit anything.

Scott Benner 13:56
Did you grow up in poverty? Did you guys have money? Where was your What was it like? Financially?

Natalie 14:02
I would say we were middle class, okay. However, also growing up, my dad, come like my grandparents, or my grandpa was an aerospace engineer, and he used to be vice president of TRW, which is now Boeing, I believe so. My dad grew up very wealthy in the Pacific politics in California, his godmother was vivid and Vance from, and she's Ethel from, I Love Lucy, really. Oh, he grew up, yeah, yeah. He grew up kind of like the a list or lifestyle. We had everything that we needed, and probably most of what we wanted. Looking back on what I also found out is like the reason that we had the house was because our grandparents bought it. You know, the reason why my parents had the cars they did was because my grandparents bought it. So you think your parents grew up poorly. My dad did not, absolutely no, my mom. I mean, my mom was an Army brat, so and there was. Five kids in her family. So, I mean, I don't know how that was. She's never said anything that she lived early or wealthy, never, she didn't talk about the childhood much, actually, yeah,

Scott Benner 15:09
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Natalie 17:18
No, I fit into that category. I feel like I felt they would, oh, my God.

Scott Benner 17:22
It feels like they were talking to you and then just wrote down what happened to you and made the list. These are risk factors for childhood development, right? So they're traumatic events or circumstances that could lead to, you know, their risk factors, let's say for you not turning out the way you would hope this is the list chronic stress, so ongoing stresses, whether they're family issues or financial stability, academic pressure, anything like that, that's, you know, anxiety, depression based. I'm going to count growing up with drunks as a stressful abuse or neglect. Were you physically, emotionally or sexually abused? No, you don't think emotional abuse being the child of alcoholics? Probably, yeah, okay, yeah. Probably the next one is parental substance abuse. Growing up with parents who abuse drugs or alcohol, we've got that one so we have stress. We're going to give you parents of substance abuse. Maybe we'll skip over abuse and neglect. But you know, because you get the other one, any domestic violence, you said, yes, your mom would hold a knife on your dad. Yep, losses, poverty, you didn't have lack of parental involvement, like sufficient attention, guidance and support, but like the kind you would want to give a child, not just like they were

Natalie 18:39
there, being there, yeah, they were present. I mean, their physical bodies were present, okay,

Scott Benner 18:45
lack of parental involvement. We got inconsistencies and discipline. And you said there, yes, right? Yes, absolutely. Any mental health issues with your parents.

Natalie 18:56
I know my dad struggled with depression as well as my mom that. I mean, that's all I told about.

Scott Benner 19:03
Well, divorce or separation, you have that one, and then the last one is exposure to crime or violence,

Natalie 19:10
yeah, I guess so, yeah. I mean, if you think about like, when it comes to like, crimes, my parents were, like, the type that would go still, street signs,

Scott Benner 19:19
wait as adults.

Natalie 19:21
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So we lived in this area that wasn't built up yet. I mean, now it's huge in the east valley here, but like, they would put these little I remember specifically in this farmland area I think they were going to be building and they have these street signs of what the street names were going to be. And I remember in we had like, a 1972 station wagon. I don't know why I remember that so well, okay, but I remember being in the back of that station wagon, and my parents driving up next to this field and stealing all these street signs, and then we had them all lined up in the backyard, on the porch. I think my dad still has a couple of them hanging up there, actually. 5050, well,

Scott Benner 20:00
modern mental health doctors believe that you had, and this is me making up a term. It's not from a list, no fucking chance. Yeah.

Natalie 20:12
I know absolutely, absolutely. Isn't

Scott Benner 20:15
it interesting is that the things that happen in your adult life, which we're going to talk about, are completely predictable by these things,

Natalie 20:21
yeah? And it's, it's crazy that it's able to be

Scott Benner 20:25
predicted too. Yeah, no, no. I mean, isn't Isn't it odd to hear somebody read a list to you, and you go, Oh, yeah, that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Natalie 20:33
So what is this? Where do I call it? What was this thing called? Oh, if you want to look

Scott Benner 20:36
into it more, it's called the it's called aces. It's adverse childhood experiences, or sometimes people call it risk factors for childhood development, but the term ACES is it should get you there on a Google search so you start, okay, Jesus. Now, do you have a good sense of humor about this? Natalie?

Natalie 20:53
Oh, hell, yeah. Okay. Okay, good. Me. I mean, you should hear the sense of humor me and my my daughter have about everything, even the stuff that she's been through that I put her through,

Scott Benner 21:02
I've put her well, we'll get to that. So, yeah, 15 you go to a party and you're like, you know what? I could start slow with a half a beer, or, why don't we try acids? But did that, Christ, I know was that the first half hour you were there and is, I mean, can you look back now? Were you trying to escape, like, how you felt? Do you think you were just, like, getting involved in the family business? Like, what was going on there?

Natalie 21:27
I honestly, I feel it was kind of like I am hanging out with, like, the popular people at school. And I, I remember being just really excited that I was a part of that group.

Scott Benner 21:37
Maybe it was what they're doing that I'm in. Like, yes, exactly. Okay,

Natalie 21:42
exactly. All right,

Scott Benner 21:43
let me just weed. Probably yes, right?

Natalie 21:46
I've maybe been like, I a total of 10

Scott Benner 21:51
times, if that my whole life. Interesting cocaine,

Natalie 21:54
I've never liked it. You didn't like a couple times.

Scott Benner 21:58
Cocaine, a couple times. How about heroin? Never, never. I don't even like pain pills. Gotcha, but meth, yes, please.

Natalie 22:08
Oh yeah, okay, that's the winner. How old? First time, first time I was 17. Wow. My sister introduced me to

Scott Benner 22:17
it. Your sister was like, hey, you know what you would love math.

Natalie 22:23
So my sister had her, you know, my sister had a worst upbringing, or she remembers the real upbringing that I choose to forget. And she started very young, getting in trouble. She, she, you know, I was a golden child. If there was a golden child between us, I was a golden child. So she was the bad one. She started doing method like 15, and she's four years older than me, so when I was 17, she was already moved out of the house and stuff, okay? And I always kept my distance from her, because, I mean, I was in school and, you know, I was doing semi Okay, and somewhat of where I was going in life compared to her, right? But once my heart got broken by my heart my high school sweetheart, everything changed for me. Okay, everything. And I went to go see my sister, and that was it. So you go to your sister

Scott Benner 23:11
for some sisterly advice. And her advice was, let's do math. Yeah, wow, basically, geez, yeah.

Natalie 23:19
And I remember doing it for the very first time. And I'm like, like, smoking this bowl. And I'm like, I remember thinking, like, What the hell is this? Because, you know, like, when, when you drink, like you feel it like you your eyesight feels it like your whole body, like you could feel it. But like with meth, I was like, Okay, what is this? She's like, you haven't shut up for like, 30 minutes. This is the effects. This is this, is it? I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So I could be more outgoing. I was a little bit shy, Tim at person until you got to know me. Yeah, I was very shy. Actually, that's

Scott Benner 23:51
some positive PR for meth, by the way, be more outgoing. Have your teeth fall out. Do you have your teeth? I do. Congratulations. You know, I've

Natalie 24:01
also been blessed throughout my childhood of despite my criminal background and my history, I've always landed, not always, but most of the time. I've landed great jobs with big corporations that have good health care, really, so I've been able to keep my teeth like right now I work.

Scott Benner 24:19
My son's having trouble getting a job. Do you think I should tell him that on meth, you had no trouble getting hired? How do you think you'll well,

Natalie 24:28
okay, here's the thing. I didn't work when I was on very well, okay, did a little bit, but most of my adulthood have, I've been in recovery. I say it's been an on and off thing, um, mostly in recovery most of my adulthood. So

Scott Benner 24:43
how long did the seriously, how long did the math using go on for and at what point do you try to, like, get cleaned up? So from

Natalie 24:49
the time like 17, stayed on, it pretty consistent. I never got in trouble anything. It was just, if it was around, it was around. And you. My sister's boyfriend was the drug dealer, and she was with him for like, 15 years.

Unknown Speaker 25:04
He's got a good job.

Natalie 25:07
Yeah, it worked for a minute, right until it didn't. So it was always free to me. When I got pregnant is when, like, life started, like, flipping the switch, and during my I didn't really explain. Explain this for other people. It makes sense to other people. I was 19 when I got pregnant. I had sex with, you know, my daughter's wonderful dad. I say that very sarcastically. I mean, he's doing well now, but you know, at the time, not a good choice. I got pregnant after having sex with him one time, that same night that we had sex, which was Christmas morning, we got rated by the Feds for him because I picked a winner,

Scott Benner 25:46
jeez. So this wasn't the first time. Was this first time you had sex with him? Yeah?

Natalie 25:52
Christmas morning, the one and only time we had sex. And then the feds came and rated us for him. Merry

Scott Benner 25:57
Christmas. Here's a baby. Yeah? Get dressed. Yeah. And I because Uncle Sam, I ignored

Natalie 26:03
it too. I ignored that pregnancy for almost five months.

Scott Benner 26:06
You knew you were pregnant. You tried to pretend you weren't. Well, here's the thing.

Natalie 26:10
Apparently, you know, you have to read the directions when you take a pregnancy test, you know, so you're supposed to wait until you have a missed period. But when you're high all the time, you don't know what, how long it's been since you had a period. So I took two pregnancy tests, and it says I wasn't pregnant. So I was like, okay, like, I'm not pregnant. And then when I started, couldn't, couldn't put my pants on anymore, I finally was like, Okay, I need to go see a doctor, and I was pregnant. Really?

Scott Benner 26:36
Wow. Yeah. So I was, were you doing meth that time? Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, tell me yes,

Natalie 26:41
I was, I was totally getting high the whole time until I was about five months. Did

Scott Benner 26:46
that have any effects on the baby? Glad to ask her. I

Natalie 26:48
mean, she came out fine. She came out completely wonderful, beautiful, seven pounds other than that. I mean, does she

Scott Benner 26:56
know this? Like this, something she's aware of? Yes. Explain to me the day you said to your daughter, your daughter, right? Yeah, yeah, hey, honey, I have to tell you something. I used meth for the first five months of your pregnancy. So I don't

Natalie 27:11
really know how this topics started. I pretty I used to bring her, or even now she'll come with me every now and then to, you know, like a a meetings and NA meetings, you know, and topics would get brought up. I don't know if remember that conversation actually having with her, or if it was my even my sister drugs during her first pregnancy. And I'm, I don't remember how the conversation started with, we mean her. I was like, you know that I was high during the first part of my pregnancy with you. I remember saying that and us having a conversation. I don't remember how the topic got brought up in the first place.

Scott Benner 27:53
Okay, how many kids do you have? Just one one, it's the one. Just this lucky, this lucky baby that came out after Christmas, by the way, was that your Christmas present, like, did you get a bracelet too, or something? It's terrible. Jesus, my God, all right, hold on. It's

Natalie 28:14
not like we were in love. You know, I feel, in a way, I feel very fortunate because, like her dad, he's actually been on the news telling his story. He's kind of a cool dude to talk to, but he's been in and out of prison, you know, since he was 20. And he's 10 years older than me when I met him, you know, I was about 19, and he had just gotten out of doing 10 years in prison, and so I knew he was on the run, and then when he defense came and rated us, he did, like, another six years, got out for like, maybe a couple months, went back. He's been gone. He was gone consistently until she was about 14 or 15. So I told, in a way, very blessed that, like, he wasn't around, he didn't break my heart. He knew from day one. I never said I was going to be with moms. Like, dude, I'm done. Bye, yeah. Like, we've had an, like, a friendship relationship. And, you know, because of our daughter,

Scott Benner 29:10
listen, you weren't a virgin on this day, correct? Oh no, no. Oh no, God no. Did you hear the story about my grandmother?

Natalie 29:18
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 29:20
What I meant was, is that what I was trying to get to was a lot of your existence, just like, go somewhere, get high, have sex, yes, okay, and yeah, I got you. How are you involved in these many things that I know for myself, I'd go, I have to leave. Like, I don't want to be here. Like, if I went to a party when I was 15 and somebody was doing as they'd be like, Oh, I made a mistake, and then I would have went home. But what draws you in, over and over again? Oh, yeah, what doesn't stop you?

Natalie 29:51
I think maybe it's which is super controversial for a lot of people, of being able to stop I think my addiction kicked in. You know what I mean? There, there comes a. Point where you like to, I don't know if there's any medical terminology, but it's like, it flips a switch in your brain and it becomes the obsession. You know, it's not like, especially with math. It's not a physical obsession. It is a mental obsession. It's like that. What is it the dopamine or the serotonin that get kicked in? And it's just like, you have to have more. I can't even explain not,

Scott Benner 30:23
like, the way people like, talk about heroin, for example, like, it's not, like, a physical you think it's not a physical addiction for you? No,

Natalie 30:30
I mean, it would be physical, as in, you need more to stay awake and to, like, move and stuff, but you don't get physically ill. Offered, you know, like, the worst that's gonna happen when you come off of meth is you're gonna sleep, you might have a crazy outburst because you're so emotional, you're gonna cry and you're gonna eat a ton. Okay,

Scott Benner 30:48
well, chatgpt believes that it is physically addictive. It says someone uses meth it triggers the release of large amounts of dopamine in the brain, which creates intense feelings of pleasure and euphoria. Over time, the brain's chemistry can change, leading to tolerance, needing more of the drug to get the same effect. Yes, yeah, yes, that's your experience with it. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Wow. How old were you when you're diagnosed with type one?

Natalie 31:15
I was about 17, around 17, almost 18. I couldn't remember. I didn't start taking care of myself until I was pregnant, though, okay, yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 31:22
sorry. I couldn't remember at all. I was like, I was dizzy by the whole thing, are you taking care of your diabetes at all during that time? You have to be taking basal insulin at least, right?

Natalie 31:32
I would every now and then when I remembered, okay, it was like, and fun story is that I actually one of my best, like, using buddies was diabetic, and she was a type one diabetes since she was, like, nine years old, and so, like, when I'd see her take her in, I was like, No, I should probably check my blood sugar and see what mine's at as we're eating a pack of Skittles and drinking, you know, a Code Red Mountain too, because that's what we love to do. What

Scott Benner 31:56
a great idea. I should take my insulin. So, I mean, were you going to the doctor?

Natalie 32:00
No, no, no. So I got kicked off of my parents health insurance when I was out of school, because, you know, that's the way it used to be, yeah, and so, like, I was on state assistance. I made sure I stayed on government, like health care for so many years, like, intentionally made sure I didn't make enough money to make sure that my diabetes was taken care of. Yeah,

Scott Benner 32:22
so many years, so sad. I mean, it just is. Well, not just the whole thing is, you get diagnosed in your 17 there's no one there to God, there's no one there to be a parent, you know what I mean, and and to learn about this thing for you and try to help you navigate it. You're high now, so you're not even paying attention to it. They don't. I mean, you're a meth they got to know you're using meth, right?

Natalie 32:45
I was sure they knew. I mean, not once did anybody ever bring it up to me. But I'm sure

Scott Benner 32:51
that no one ever looked Natalie, you okay? You look high.

Natalie 32:56
Yeah, yeah. No, never, never. And you know, I was also never a person that got extra skinny or lost a bunch of weight, if anything, I was like, at the weight, I probably should have been, according to doctors, I didn't like pick my face. I didn't, you know, I have my teeth. I didn't fit the description of a tweaker at all. Oh, Jesus,

Scott Benner 33:16
this. It's so much to think about. You know what I mean? Like, there's so many people who are supposed to be supporting each other, but they're also lost in their own problem. That how could they possibly, absolutely,

Natalie 33:26
yeah, absolutely. And during that early time, my mom was actually in recovery, and she'd keep her distance, um, she'd let me come to her. Of course, I would go to her when, you know, like, she said, Yeah, Mom, I need money. Mom, I need this. Mom, I need that. And then when it was like, Mom, I'm pregnant. Like, if it wasn't for my mom, my daughter totally would have, and should have been taken away from me, for sure, for sure,

Scott Benner 33:49
because you would have done such a poor job, or because she was able, okay, yeah,

Natalie 33:55
to be completely transparent with it. If I wasn't so far along, I would have had an abortion, for sure. I never wanted to be a mom ever.

Scott Benner 34:05
It's because you found out at five months you couldn't do it, correct, yeah, all right, you would have had an abortion, but you didn't know for five months. You're so high you didn't know for five months, right? Right? Okay, exactly, all right. And then you find out you don't know what to do, so you go to your mom, yeah, what does she do for

Natalie 34:26
you? She hugged me, and she's like, You don't have to do this alone. I'll do it with you. I remember that, and we cried. She immediately went and found out the part, because at the time, she was running a halfway house, a recovery house for women. She put her whole life like on hold for me. She went and got us our own place that we stayed in for a few years together. You know, she helped me raise my daughter in the beginning, for

Scott Benner 34:50
sure, what was that like? Was she any good at that? Yeah,

Natalie 34:53
my mom. So another crazy part about my mom is she

Scott Benner 34:56
clean by then? Yes, yes. How does she. Like,

Natalie 35:00
when my mom, when she's like, when she's great, she's great, like, she is like, this person that you like, walk into a room and people are in awe of her because her aura was so good. But like, when she's bad, everyone is just like, Get Get away from me. Like, it's just crazy the night and day. Okay, now she also all my growing up, and from the time like I was born until the time I was 11, my mom was an in home daycare provider, and she had a sorry, hold

Unknown Speaker 35:29
on a second.

Natalie 35:30
I know, I know, I know he had a wait list, because people in the neighborhood wanted her to be like, watch their kids. She used to have a total of sometimes 16 kids at our home during the day. Is

Scott Benner 35:44
there any chance this was a front for a drug dealing thing?

Natalie 35:49
They dropped the kids off? Genius, yeah, maybe pick it up. Pick

Scott Benner 35:53
it up drugs when they drop off the kids.

Natalie 35:57
The new next series should start on that one.

Scott Benner 36:01
Jesus, hey. So you know this is screwed up, right? Oh, absolutely okay. All right, you completely were okay, so, all right, you have your daughter. When do you get locked up? What happens there?

Natalie 36:13
I have my daughter. She is about, I think it was around 2000 I don't remember the years, but my daughter was young. I eventually had gotten clean because I had gotten in trouble. I got my first felony. So I went to rehab and I stayed clean. I don't even want to say I was in recovery, so I just stayed abstinent for about five years. What was

Scott Benner 36:35
the felony? Well, I

Natalie 36:36
had that just means of transportation, and then I had that's with a credit card, forgery with a red instrument and identity theft.

Scott Benner 36:45
But forgery with a, what a written instrument,

Natalie 36:48
okay? Because I signed using one of the digital things,

Scott Benner 36:53
okay, oh, after you stole the credit card. Oh, yeah, yeah, we

Natalie 36:56
went to Macy's whose card just

Scott Benner 36:59
a person's No, okay, yeah, yeah, I got it. I have to ask you, what did you buy at Macy's?

Natalie 37:05
My God, a mixer, like, what? You know, those stand up mixers that I had no idea what to do with, but I knew the dope man would find it valuable. You know what? I mean,

Scott Benner 37:23
you bought the mixer to sell the mixer, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. It just sounds so ridiculous. You're like, you know, I just thought I'd get into making cookies. Scott, like I was all charged up on meth, and I had this credit card, and I was like, I got, we should try baking, yeah? But you

Natalie 37:39
were, I mean, that sounds normal, actually, yeah, like you're describing

Scott Benner 37:44
Thursday. It's so crazy. It's so it is crazy, and it's sad and happening to way more people than somebody would want to believe. Yeah, what leads you to get

Natalie 37:53
clean? I had was put on probation. Then my probation officer was like, Hey, this is your choice. You are not missing clean anymore or at all, or you're diluting, you know, like all these issues, you're either going to show up to this rehab or you're going to jail. Like, these are your choices. Okay? And so I went, and I showed up at that rehab, and at the time, I was actually have been with somebody who we use drugs with, and he had gotten clean on his own, and he was like, literally just waiting for my time to come, for me to get clean. And so he was already in recovery, doing well, and as soon as I got clean, we immediately got back together. We stayed together for a long time, and actually was engaged to him at one point,

Scott Benner 38:36
but you did go to jail. Is that correct at one point? I did that comes after this felony. Oh, after you got clean. Sorry, yes, yes.

Natalie 38:45
So I got clean. I never saw any jail time for that. Those charges, right? Because it was, like my first offense, you know, the relation, yeah, finished. That completed. After my fiance and I broke up, I went on the Benner of drinking alcohol. That's when I was like at my worst, and probably the most like alcoholic me I've ever been. My favorite thing to do was drink alcohol, drive a car, listen to music, and I used to do all those things together when I didn't have my daughter around me. So I got a DUI, and in Arizona at that time, not sure how they are now, but the laws were hard, super hard, and that's where 10 city came into place. It was my first DUI by first and only DUI offense. And I blue like a point one, five, but my blood came back at point 255, of course, they went with a higher charge. So I had a Super Extreme DUI. They let me do work with work release, which was crazy. So I did work release for 15 days, and then after work release, I was on house arrest for 45 days, and I had a breathalyzer in my house. So every time I'd come near like the house or entering back. Into the house, I have to go blow into this machine. And when I was on that house arrest is when I picked up drugs again, because I couldn't drink, couldn't drink. You know, the next option would be drugs during

Scott Benner 40:11
all this. There's no point your brain just, there's no point. I understand addiction and the idea there, but I'm just, there's no point where you just, like, think, like, this isn't going well, like my life is not going well. Or do you think it is?

Unknown Speaker 40:26
No,

Natalie 40:27
I absolutely know it's not going well,

Scott Benner 40:29
okay, but you can't stop long enough to like, did you have the opportunity for a change? Were you without opportunity as well?

Natalie 40:36
You know my aunt Missouri, like after so I left my fiance, I had gotten my own place. Of course, I ended up losing that place because the DUI and then and at that exact same time, like, literally, like two weeks after I got that DUI, I got laid off from my job. That was around 2008 I remember it was like the the recession type era, and I went to go live with my aunt, my daughter and I went to go live with my aunt, who also have both her and my uncle both have, like, long term, like, 20 plus years of sobriety. Okay? So I was like, perfect. This is where I need to go. But it didn't help. It didn't work. You know, I all I did was waste my time. I'm getting high during that time Jesus

Scott Benner 41:20
Christ. Oh, God heights, the horrifying okay, how do you end up in jail the next eventually, then

Natalie 41:26
eventually, because of the guy I was dating. I don't even, I'm not even sure stuff started getting too real. We took off in Texas because, of course, that was supposed to be a new change, and if I just get out of Arizona, I'll be fine. No,

Scott Benner 41:40
the problem is, it's Arizona, not me, yeah, of course, yeah, it's not me, right? If I can get out of here, I'll be okay, yes, okay, exactly. So

Natalie 41:49
my daughter's dad's family lives in Texas, and they said, hey, we'll put you on a train and you come move out here. So within seven days, I packed my daughter, my current boyfriend, and myself and we moved out to this little, tiny town with like, a population of like 5000 people in Texas. Awful experience. When I came back from Texas, I had a warrant out for my arrest for not paying my fines. Okay? I think it was like a bench board or something. That's what got me placed in jail.

Scott Benner 42:22
What went wrong that this is going to we're going to relocate, and everything is going to be great plan. Where did

Natalie 42:27
that go wrong? I immediately put us into another dysfunctional family. His whole family is also alcoholic, and his sister was so messed up on pills, like it was just like Jesus, you know, just me taking a step, and nothing changed. It just happened to be with a new family. Natalie,

Scott Benner 42:44
do you listen to the podcast? I do I sound like, square to you when I'm talking or do, like, how do I come on? Like, I'm being, being, like, really serious. Now, I'm not making this about me. I'm just trying to understand, like, I'm hearing your life, and I'm like, What in the hell is happening? Like, when you hear mine, what do you think? Normal, happy,

Natalie 43:04
stable.

Scott Benner 43:04
Is it like, I wish I had that like, because I get notes from people sometimes who are like, Arden, so lucky to have a dad who blah, blah, and a mom who and I, and I think all the time, like, how is that lucky? Isn't that the minimum I should expect from my parents? Oh, absolutely. But in most people's lives, it's lucky, you know what? I mean,

Natalie 43:25
yeah, unfortunately, yeah, no, I get what you're saying. You know I mean,

Scott Benner 43:29
no, listen to your list for a second. Your grandmother, your mom, your dad, your sister, the guy you met who rolled over on you and got you pregnant. Yeah, his dad, your sister, everybody you walk into the guy over here, the guy over here, like, you never once bump into somebody who's like, oh my god, Natalie, you're you're so lovely. You should be in the spelling bee with me. And you go, Oh my god, the spelling bee, that'd be wonderful. Nothing like that ever happens to you. Which indicates that you're so surrounded by it. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Jesus Christ,

Natalie 44:02
I'm a firm believer. Of, like, no, also, like, the laws of attraction, we attract people like us, you know, like, quote, unquote, like, normal people don't hang out with drug addicts. Well, yeah,

Scott Benner 44:13
I mean, there's, there's a fair statement for you, like, like, like, you

Natalie 44:18
know what I mean, like, I'm not going to be appealing to like, like, if me and you were to cross paths on the street, even having a conversation that's probably not ever going to go any further than that conversation, because we just have two different lifestyles. I

Scott Benner 44:30
could think you're lovely, have a great time talking to you, but you think there's some level where I'm going to I would go. It seems like maybe trouble. And no thank you. But would you see me and think, like, oh my god, stable. Like, how do I make this happen? Or do you think, no, I gotta go find a drug addict, because that's how I fit. See what I'm saying.

Natalie 44:47
The search was always to find somebody better and more stable than me. For

Scott Benner 44:51
sure, literally, just couldn't identify anybody and get and bring them into your life, into your sphere. Yeah.

Natalie 44:57
I mean, who would want, who would want to deal with this hot. Mess. You know what? I mean, nobody wants I mean, I'm sure you want to be captain save a hoe. They'd be like, that's a mess. Sorry.

Scott Benner 45:09
You know what's funny is, later I will get like, somebody will like, someone's gonna write a note that say I was like, insensitive to you, or I don't understand blah, blah, blah. They'll skip right over the part where you said Captain save a hoe talking about yourself, by the way, they'll just be like, no one will bring that up when they're yelling at me for doing this wrong. Later. I love what my job it's ridiculous. Holy Okay, Jesus Christ. Texas doesn't work. I have a hard time keeping up with this. Texas doesn't work. You know, you head back home, you get home to find out there's a warrant for you, and they and they arrest you, correct. How did they find you, though, like, how do they know you're back?

Natalie 45:45
I was at a bus stop.

Scott Benner 45:47
Oh, go ahead

Natalie 45:48
that that boyfriend that came to Texas with me. I was at a bus stop, and I think we were yelling at each other, and a cop happened to see it. Is everybody, okay? Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:59
let me see some ID. And then they he calls the guy, and the guy goes, Yo, you got one? Yeah, basically, you there with your baby or your daughter? No,

Natalie 46:09
the whole situation, I didn't bring my daughter, necessarily, through all my drug use, because it goes on and off, on and off, on and off from the time my daughter, when we got back to Texas, of course, I had to be like, Dad, I need help get me, you know, save me. And his stipulation was, either you live here or your daughter lives here, you're both not living here. It's a It's weird. My dad, my dad's weird. That's a whole nother thing, trust me.

Scott Benner 46:37
Hey, Natalie, you're all give yourself some credit. You're all weird. Don't worry about it. I'm weird too, but in a different way. But go ahead,

Natalie 46:49
my sister had taken my daughter, well, I went to my dad's okay. So which my daughter probably has a terrific story for you and her her growing up, because that's so cool

Scott Benner 47:01
when you put her with the lady who gave you meth for the first time for a while. Yes,

Natalie 47:05
yes. See my sister when we got in trouble for, you know that mixer that I bought at Macy's, my sister went to prison for that. Get out of here, he didn't get her life together. Yeah, I think she did two years and when she got out of prison, she's completely changed her life like she didn't. I mean, she's had her hiccups here and there, but she's her life.

Scott Benner 47:26
She completely changed her life, except for that six months where she muelled And like, oh God, exactly.

Natalie 47:33
Let's say she she went, can't even explain it, because her situation was bad. They saw because she got into an abusive relationship, I'm sorry. But other other than that, like, as far as the drugs and stuff like that, she cleaned her life up from that part that was just like the dysfunction that happens behind closed doors, or was, until she got out of that. But at the time, I did,

Scott Benner 47:54
all right, so they pick you up at the by the way, I've never even been to a bit this is going to sound very like, I don't actually, is this bougie? I don't know if I've ever been to a bus stop.

Natalie 48:03
You know, I felt the same way. I felt the same way. I never even so at that time, I'm what, 26 and when I got back from Texas, that was the first time I ever had to ride a bus too. I didn't even know what to do, okay? I was like, what? Like, I had asked. I was like, Where do I put this money? Like, you don't put money in here. You need to go across the street and buy a bus ticket. I'm like, oh, okay, even

Scott Benner 48:27
the arguing in public Natalie, like, it wouldn't occur to me to do that. And if I started it, like, if I was with somebody and we were getting loud, somebody would be like, Hey, let's, you know we're in public. Like, let's stop. Like, I know that for sure. It's, it's just really interesting. So okay, what kind of jail do you do? Normal? That's a normal.

Natalie 48:45
Oh yeah, that's how normal people would respond.

Scott Benner 48:49
We're in public. We probably shouldn't be screaming at each other. I live my life under very basic rules, like, I don't do anything that would draw the cops attention. That's my rule. Like, don't, get arrested. I don't want to get arrested. I don't like the I very simple ideas about how to live a happy life. That's at the top of my list, honestly, yeah, yeah, yeah. My brother one time. He's great now, but he was like, a really, like, troubled little kid, like, and my parents were divorced, and, like, I get why, right? And I used to tell him, like, because I was young, I was like, Look, just don't do anything that. If a cop knew about it, they'd be upset about like, that's how I that when I was when I was 13. That's how I talked to my little brother, because it was, like, the clearest thing I could think of to help him. But how long do you go to jail for, though?

Unknown Speaker 49:36
So

Natalie 49:37
I ended up, when I went in to jail, they gave me no time served, meaning my house arrest didn't count, and the 15 days of work release and account so I did three months you

Scott Benner 49:49
owed the whole three months. Okay? And are you taking care of your diabetes at that point better?

Natalie 49:55
You know, I would. I would at least give me myself the long acting. And then I gave myself short acting based on if I if I do what I was going to eat. Well, I think I maybe protect my blood sugar once every few days, right? So for people

Scott Benner 50:09
who's who take, you know, care of the of their health, you know, their diabetes health, can you describe them? How much of a week did you think about diabetes? Like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to show that like, you know what I mean, zero, not at all. No, okay. Like, not at all. The idea that you'd be hurting your health. Ever pop into your head? No, no. But

Natalie 50:37
you also have to think at this time, I was on state assistance. I saw only a primary care doctor, and I, of course, was given only the cheapest insulin. And they okay, they would do my a, 1c never wanted to be like, okay, so you're at 11. You should probably bring that down a little bit.

Scott Benner 50:56
Did you have any understanding of what any of that meant, or what the repercussions were?

Natalie 51:00
I mean, I knew a little bit just like based on like, what my mom has said, I never knew like based on like experience, because my mom didn't have any complications until, like, her last year of death, when she lost her legs. I mean, that her legs, yeah, middle of COVID.

Scott Benner 51:20
How old was she when she passed? Uh,

Natalie 51:21
she was 67

Scott Benner 51:23
okay. Are you okay? Like, now, I

Natalie 51:28
am. I'm good. Now, you know, like, I've been on Omnipod now since I saw my first very endocrinologist at 35 really, 35 Yeah, 35 years old.

Unknown Speaker 51:41
So you know,

Scott Benner 51:42
you're the first person I've ever spoken to who I asked how old they were when they were diagnosed. You're like, I'm not 100% sure. Yeah,

Natalie 51:50
I don't there was no, I've never been hospitalized for my diabetes, like, what so ever. I didn't even know pumps were, like, a thing that, like, helped. I thought you had to buy them out of pocket. I didn't even know until my doctor was like, Hey, let's get you on a pump. I'm like, I can do that. They're like, Yeah, your insurance will cover it. I was like, Oh, I have that kind of insurance. I didn't even know

Scott Benner 52:12
I got fancy lady insurance. I

Natalie 52:14
know, I know my work gives me free something, but I didn't know it was like, this much free.

Scott Benner 52:18
Okay, so Natalie, let's stop for a second. When's the last time you were high at what age 37 All right, three years ago, and in the last three years, you've been taking very good care of yourself.

Natalie 52:31
Yes, yes, I've lost 65 pounds. My a 1c is 6.2 which is the lowest it's ever been for me. Wow, that's great. Yeah, I also just got married a month ago. Congratulations. Like Life is good for me. Now,

Scott Benner 52:49
it took a while. Is it fair to say we have a lot of life left, but is it fair to say that once you had clarity away from drugs and drinking that you were it was easier to take care of yourself?

Natalie 52:59
Oh, yeah, for sure, I still don't, Hey, God, I hate to say this. I hate being defined. Saying, Oh, I'm diabetic. Like, I I really don't like, just like, I don't like saying I'm an addict, you know, I feel like it puts a label on me. And I feel kind of just like, hey, I have this thing that, like, I can share my experience with you, and hopefully it'll help somebody else out. I try not to let even my diabetes run my life, but it does. It absolutely does now, because I care now, and since, you know, watching my mom die, it kind of put like this thing, like, just clicked in my head and it was like, Okay, so let's say the magic number for me, let's just say, in my family history is living 30 or how old was she? She was 17 years or longer than that. I don't even know how to do math. 2727 years. Yeah, 27 years of her having diabetes. What if I only have 27 years to live with diabetes? Like, I'm already out of, like, almost 20 of those. Like, I only got a few years left, and that's what clicked it off for me. I was like, I cannot do to my daughter what my mother did to me. I can't do it. You

Scott Benner 54:07
never once thought I'm using meth. What if I don't have a lot of time left? People with the who use meth don't live very long. Like it was this, like, you get clarity from the drugs, clarity from drinking. Saw your mom pass away and still said to yourself, I might not have a lot of time left. I don't want my daughter to feel the way I feel right now.

Natalie 54:29
Wow, yeah, geez, people, I had gone to COVID and I was pissed off, and it didn't kill me, really. And that's when I got clean. Yeah, I woke up one day and I literally, like, I literally took the bag of drugs that we had just gotten that we couldn't do because we were so freaking sick. I jumped down this toilet and I was like, I was done. It's like, I'm done. People

Scott Benner 54:47
say COVID was bad, but it stopped you from doing

Natalie 54:53
Yeah, yeah. I was pissed. I tried it a couple times. Just couldn't

Scott Benner 54:56
you literally woke up and you thought, Jesus Christ, am I still alive? Yeah,

Natalie 55:00
yes,

Scott Benner 55:00
I guess I ought to pull this together then, yeah, damn. That's ridiculous. Like, I don't mean ridiculous. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, I

Natalie 55:09
like, that's what it took. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 55:11
ridiculous. That that's what happened where you're like, okay, I'm good. Now I'll stop. Yeah, Jesus, huh? Walking down the street, I passed 50 people. How many of them are doing meth that I'm not aware of it? Oh,

Natalie 55:24
I don't know. I mean, in a way, probably a lot of people think about all the people that abuse Adderall. It's very similar. You can live a double life with it. You really could, like, the when I was doing meth in my 30s, like, most recently, before I got clean, like nobody would have known that's a double life. I kept my corporate job. I actually I had a side business doing Turo. I mean, I would flip cars. I'm buying and selling like I

Scott Benner 55:50
got two streams income over here, Scott. I got one that pays the bills and one pays for the menu. Yeah. Well, to pay for that, yeah,

Natalie 55:56
exactly. How

Scott Benner 55:58
old your daughter now? She's

Natalie 55:58
going to be 21 in a couple weeks. All

Scott Benner 56:01
right, has she used, is she an alcoholic, anything like that, or does she, like, run the complete opposite direction? To you? So far from what

Natalie 56:09
I know of, she ran the complete opposite direction. However, I see a lot of the same behaviors where that switch could flip on her. Like, it could totally click in at any time for her, but I've never had to deal with her. Like, what does that answer? Anything that like, I've never, she's never, like, been in trouble for it. Well, she's always kept a job, she was in school, like she was a decent person, a human being, so far,

Scott Benner 56:38
if I described so, look, this is, this is, this is the less fun part of my job. You're very much like you described your mom, like, great when our great problem, when I'm a problem. And if we, if I get your daughter over here and I read that aces list to her, how many of those things do you think she's going to say, Yeah, I grew up with that stuff. Absolutely,

Natalie 56:57
at 100% all of them, however, the little flip with that is is that while my sister had my daughter when nobody knew there was all that physical abuse going on in that household, that's what most of her childhood is going to be like. The only reason like my daughter C when I let my my sister take care of my daughter because I thought she was going to be in a better situation, my daughter was told that me and her dad didn't want her. I was told that she didn't want to come home and live with me. So when I found out that there was actual physical abuse, or just abuse in general, going on in that house, she didn't have a choice anymore, and I wiped her off and she came to live with me. She didn't have a choice. So

Scott Benner 57:38
your sister decided to tell you one thing while telling your daughter another thing, because she thought that your daughter was better off with her, and that was making you think that your daughter didn't want to be with you, but then you found out that there was abuse between your sister and her spouse, and then you use that to extract your daughter,

Natalie 57:59
correct? Yeah. So my my daughter, has probably been more witnessed to the kind of views that you see on, like, lifetime TV, right? You know, like the men abusing the wife and the children, than I ever did growing up. You know what I mean? I witnessed the views happening, which was my mom was, like, drunk and crazy and wild, you know. And it was totally different kind of abuse, like this ban was the kind of abuse that and he's a band that didn't drink or do drugs like he's just a mad, angry person type abuse. Did

Scott Benner 58:28
he abuse your daughter like hit her little bit, little bits have

Natalie 58:32
come out of some of the things he's done. As time goes on, she's gotten more open about what's gotten on in that household. I don't think he physically abused her. He almost had a couple times Okay, and my sister would jump in. If

Scott Benner 58:47
you were your daughter, what would you want from you? I was my daughter. What would you want from you? Like, yeah,

Natalie 58:55
stay the way I am now. Okay? I would hope so. Anyways,

Scott Benner 59:02
you think you can do that?

Natalie 59:03
I do think I can do that. You know, there's, of course, there's no 100% guarantees. But I also think, given the tools of, you know, like a a sponsorship therapy, you know, keeping a job, you know, doing things like with my fitness, you know, I decided to become a personal trainer on the side. You know, like, constantly improving myself is only going to keep me, like, doing better. Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:28
Do you have any other autoimmune issues? Do you have Hashimotos or anything like that? I do. I do. I thought you did? Your mom have it too? You want to

Natalie 59:37
get into medical history? Oh my gosh, my mom. Yeah, she has the diabetes. She just had an under active thyroid. My dad actually had thyroid cancer when he was 15, and had his thyroid review. And my sister had Hashimotos, and then she also got thyroid cancer, and then she also has a heart condition. And

Scott Benner 59:55
Ms, you guys manage the thyroid well. I mean. Know, I mean, you do the blood work every six months and stuff like that.

Natalie 1:00:05
I do. I do. I feel like, I mean, if you really want to get into, like, the healthcare part of it, I really think that there could be more done. I do watch what I eat, because I do notice that, like, what I eat, not just the diabetes. I get inflamed, and I learned recently about flare ups and Hashimotos. Like, I didn't even know that was a thing,

Scott Benner 1:00:23
like your TSH, maybe spikes goes up higher and, yeah, yeah.

Natalie 1:00:29
They're like, Oh, you're having a flare up. I'm like, what does that mean? What is this? I didn't even know. Do

Scott Benner 1:00:35
you keep your TSH, is there a number you keep it at? Or do they just tell you it's in range?

Natalie 1:00:40
They just tell me it's in range. I don't actually know what my my numbers are. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:00:44
we would like to see it under two. But the reason I bring it up is because the inflammation from the autoimmune in general, right? And then a thyroid, you know, anxiety, other I mean, you can look through everything that kind of comes with with Hashimotos when it's unregulated, some of the things you described could be related to that. I mean, people who have autoimmune issues are now finding, like, a lot of value with GLP medications, right? But GLP medications at the same time are also being talked about, about reducing people's other addictions. And you just kind of, like, start wondering about, like, what's all in the soup? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I would start by making sure your thyroid, like, I'm trying to think of ways to give yourself, like, long term success so you can be the person you want to be, and your daughter gets the mom she, you know, deserves, and all that stuff. Like, like, I would talk to your doctor and say, Look, I want to know what my TSH is, and if it's under like two 2.1 or if it's over two 2.1 I'd like to maybe ramp up my medication a little bit to bring it under, to see if I have any alleviation of symptoms. I have more mental clarity, energy, like all these little things that impact people, you know, yeah, Jeez, what made you want to come on the podcast? Well, first

Natalie 1:02:00
it was, hey, that's cool. And then, like, I listened to other people's story, I was like, Yeah, I can relate, like, all those after dark ones I'm totally obsessed with, because those are my people. I get them also. I think a real part of me saying this person who I have become is also about sharing my story, okay, you know, and the way I felt I could relate to other people, hopefully somebody else can relate to me. And there's so many people on that Facebook group, I mean, it'll just reach out more friendships, yeah, and I think that's actually how it started at this because somebody had made a comment about having to go to jail and being diabetic. I was like, Hey, let me tell you what it was. Blah, was like. They made sure I stayed alive. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:02:45
I was gonna say, were you actually taking care of yourself? And, like, what was that three months like with diabetes? So when

Natalie 1:02:51
I was in tent city, it was because everybody got taken into, like, the doctor, the healthcare area twice a day, once in the morning, once at night. So that's when I would go so they would test my blood sugar, they gave me the long acting insulin once a day, and then they would give me the short acting based on what my blood sugar is. But before they would test your blood sugar once, then they made you drink a liter of water, wait 15 minutes, and then they test you again, and then they would no steer insulin based on that. Yeah, they can't be alive also, yeah, they kept us alive. Yeah, yeah. And it was, like the middle of summer in Arizona, and it was just warm. I mean, that was the least of

Scott Benner 1:03:33
you wait the condos you're in on air conditioned. What's going on? So

Natalie 1:03:38
10 city is literally army tent. Yeah, you sleep outside. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
Tell people about it, please. Yeah.

Natalie 1:03:44
So, I mean, they've taken it down now, which I guess is good, I don't know, but you literally, it's like a dirt, rock area, and there's, think there might have been, like eight tents in this chain link fence that I was in, and then under each tent. And you know that they're the big army tents that roll up on the sides and everything. Yeah, there's one big, giant fan that pushes air through one side to the other. And I think there was, honestly, there might have been 12 months. I could be wrong on a number per tent. Yeah, there, I want to say there's about 12. There might have been less than that for 10, and it was considered like, people who went to 10, I had to fight with a sergeant to get out to tent city, because you get less time. You'll get, like, two for ones, just for being out there. And you get to work,

Scott Benner 1:04:31
if you're willing to be incarcerated in the tent, it shortens your time because it's correct. It extra sucks, yes,

Natalie 1:04:38
and because you get put to work. You know, you go you go to food for inside the jail. You could be put on the chain gang. You get to work with the animals. But I wasn't allowed to do any of that stuff because of my diabetes. So I gotta rake rocks. Like, literally, I just raked rocks. I literally took a rake, walked up and down. Was this. Usually punishment, like, if you had your shirt on top, you had to break the rocks. But that's what I did to keep myself busy. I just break the rocks. That

Scott Benner 1:05:07
was your day. That was my day. What goes through your head? What do you think about with all that free time? How good I

Natalie 1:05:13
felt, these clean, really clarity. I could go I could go to sleep and sleep. Well, I could take a nap whenever I wanted it with, well, I mean, it was hot, but, I mean, you sleep. I had so much anxiety when I had to go home, because I knew it would just start up again. I knew it

Scott Benner 1:05:30
what would start up again by using okay, even though I knew it so you were, you were better off raking rocks in tent city than you were going to be when you got home. Yeah,

Natalie 1:05:41
it was kind of like Girl Scout camp, like, it's not, like, it sounds stupid, but, I mean, you got a lot of people in there that were, like, it was a lot of DUI. So, you know, you had your nurses, you had teachers, you had your moms. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't like hardcore criminals, if you know what. I mean, it was people who made mistakes and that have lives on the outside. Well, you could hear about other people's lives. You get, I don't know, you met some cool people. Of course there, there were some that were, I don't know, you could tell which ones were the tweakers, but I don't fit in with those, because I had this like, I didn't fit in with what they looked like or even how they acted. So it wasn't a tweaker, like, person, even though I did it so interesting, I know it is weird.

Scott Benner 1:06:25
Is the thought I have anxiety because I know I'm going to go home and do drugs again, or are you planning on doing them? Like, are you standing there going, Oh my God, I feel great, but I know, and I leave here, this is what I'm going to do. Like, did it feel like a decision you were making or a thing that was going to happen to you.

Natalie 1:06:41
I didn't get out. Of course, I didn't get out thinking, Oh, I can't wait to go, you trust I'm just going to go, you drugs, call everybody that I used to hang out with. I think it was just more of like that depression, of knowing I was like, stuck and I didn't know how to get out of it. You know, at that time, in my early 20s or mid 20s, I didn't know how to keep a job at all, like my anxiety was so off the charts. I didn't even know how to talk to people, like, if people used to come up and talk to me like I would cry, like I used to not even be able to get gas in my car without somebody being with because I was so scared all the time. And that definitely stems from my childhood, for sure, why? So I don't know. I was just always so scared, like, even in school, if a teacher would call on me, like it would take everything in me to not shake and cry, because I just didn't want to talk. It was crazy.

Scott Benner 1:07:33
So I think the idea is, if you grow up around alcoholism, there's this feeling that something's always about to, like, happen, and you kind of can't tell when it's going to happen.

Natalie 1:07:46
Yeah, you're like, in this constant fight or flight mode, yeah, yeah. I remember going to sleep as a child that was like that,

Scott Benner 1:07:54
just waiting for the other shoe to drop, like, when? When's this gonna happen? Like, and then how do so, if I stay quiet, maybe it won't happen. Or if I'm quiet, maybe they won't see me when it's happening.

Natalie 1:08:05
So I think it's more of like they won't see me. Okay, so

Scott Benner 1:08:09
once those people go back crazy, if I'm not on the radar, maybe I get through this unscath, yes, right, exactly. And that sticks with you as an

Natalie 1:08:18
adult, for sure. Even now I'm like, okay, like, I don't know, just like everybody around me and like, what I do, it'd be like, Okay, I'm just going to get a little bit further in my seat. Just stay here, do my time, go home, as long as nobody knows what I'm doing. We're good. Like, no news is good news.

Scott Benner 1:08:35
How does it work at work, though, when you're at like, a corporate job, like, you don't have those feelings there. I

Natalie 1:08:41
don't anymore. I've really, I've been promoted three times already, like, since this job, like, what I am doing is being seen and I'm being heard. And kind of crazy, how much I've come out of my skin. But I also think that, like, how much, like, I have grown like, even talking to you this would, I would have never even been willing to do this years ago, but with me, like I lived in the halfway house on an Well, actually, mostly on for about four years. I stayed there because it was comfortable. And in that return, I had to get a job, and I had to learn how to like function in life, and that's what made me all of a sudden grow up. I didn't become an adult until my late 20s. I still feel like I'm probably, maybe like, 3031, I'm probably at the same, like, you know, like, financially, I'm probably the same as somebody in the early 30s. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:09:28
I was just looking here while you were talking growing up with alcoholic parents. Have significant, lasting effects on child's development. Some ways are you can have emotional and physical effects, like increased anxiety or stress, depression, low self esteem. We didn't talk about your self esteem. Is it something that's been better over recently, or has it always been okay?

Natalie 1:09:48
I'm sure I've always had really low self esteem. I kind of feel especially younger, younger I definitely did. And since I've been an adult, like, since I've been to jail, like, when it comes to my physical appearance. When I went to jail, if you want to feel good about yourself, go take a shower with 50 other women. You realize that everybody has beautiful bodies, like in their own way. Or you're like, holy crap, my body looks great compared to her. And I know that's that's awful to say, but like,

Scott Benner 1:10:16
it's true, jail showers made you feel good about yourself.

Natalie 1:10:19
Absolutely. I was like, wow, I don't have any stretch marks. I've had a kid. Did you know what I mean? Like, oh, I got a little pooch. Like, you know what I mean? When you prepare yourself, I'm like, Okay, I'm not doing

Scott Benner 1:10:33
nobody cares either, right? Exactly,

Natalie 1:10:35
yeah. But when you think about self esteem, sometimes, like, when it comes to like, even, like, with me applying for jobs, and these corporate jobs that I've worked for, and I work for the big international company, it's like, do you tell them about your past? Because it's going to come up in a in a background check. Like, how honest Do you want to be? Or how honest do you need? So far, I've been completely honest, have

Scott Benner 1:10:59
you really? And how's that gone? Because meth is a thing I would think would just turn people right off.

Natalie 1:11:04
Most people have been very supportive, like, Wow. I would never guess that is crazy. I want to hear a story. You know, I'm not always willing to tell them a story unless they actually ask something specific. I do know my current boss right now comes from law enforcement, and so for her to immediately flip the switch of always, which I I knew about the conversation I had with her, she was very judgy of people with criminal backgrounds, right? For knowing me has completely changed,

Scott Benner 1:11:38
you know, so having these conversations has helped me a lot too. Yeah, that's why I'm always sort of just looking for, like, how did that happen? Or like, you didn't ever think this way or that? Like, why not? I wonder. Like, not like, why didn't you? But like, I wonder why you didn't. And, you know, like, yeah, it's just, it's a different way of thinking about it. By the way, behavioral and social effects difficulty with relationships. Children of Alcoholics struggle distrust, and they find it challenging to form healthy, stable relationships. You, of course, are at an increased risk of substance abuse. Yourself having behavioral issues, having academic struggles, which I think happened, didn't really have an opportunity to happen to you because you were doing well right up until you weren't at school. But you know, there's your point. Once it happens, you're in trouble, physical health neglect, developmental delays, chronic stress and poor living conditions can lead to delays in physical and emotional development. Long term, some children of alcoholics may develop a strong drive to over achieve or to be perfect and attempt to gain approval or avoid the chaos associated with their parents. Addiction. Many children of alcoholics caretaker role, feeling responsible for their parents well being, which can eventually lend lead to burnout and resentment. That's not going to end up it sounds like that might happen to your sister, actually? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But increased resilience, despite the challenges, some children develop strong coping mechanisms and resilience that may they may become highly independent, resourceful and empathetic, though these traits often come at a cost of their own emotional well being. Sound like you? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. About that, well, don't make a baby if you're drinking a lot,

Natalie 1:13:12
because no more babies. For me, I'm

Scott Benner 1:13:14
talking to everybody else. You're 25 right now, and you're like, I just drink through the weekend. Now's not the time to start a family. Maybe because 40 years from now, whoever I am, 40 years from now, is going to be talking to your kid going tell me what your mom did. And, you know, very avoidable. Natalie, lately, I've been really overwhelmed with how avoidable so many of the stories I hear are, whether it's health and, you know, just having a doctor who understood a little better or took five more minutes, or you know that, or if it's, you know, a parent who, you know, doesn't make a baby when impregnated during an FBI raid. Because we can all just make these very avoidable decisions, like how much differently other people's lives turn out. It sucks that when you're 19, you don't have the ability to know your 21 year old daughter. Because if you were 19 on Christmas morning and you felt that love that you have for your kid right now, and this guy was like, hey, you know what we should do? You'd be like, hey, you know what? Get a condom buddy, because I don't want to disappoint this little girl that I love so much. I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but in my mind, like lately, I've just been I just, I keep hearing stories and thinking just if you just would have zigged when you zagged, or if somebody would have given you a chance, or, you know, a parent would have done a halfway decent job for you. Yeah, you know, you wouldn't hear all these stories anyway. You're bumming me. The out is what I'm saying. No, I'm really, I've been sincerely, a gum I'm really happy that you, that you chose to share the story as much as you think. Like, my story is I went to jail, you know what I mean, like, and I had diabetes. Like, I don't think that's the story at all. I think the story is that. You're, you know, two probably well meaning, lovely alcoholic, 20 year olds, you know, had you 40 years ago? Yeah, that's just kind of how I see it. But anyway, yeah, absolutely. How was this for you? Any good? It was cool. I liked it. Did you good? I'm glad. How do I do because I'm always afraid that I'm gonna, like, straddle the line on the wrong side when I'm trying to have these conversations.

Natalie 1:15:25
No, you gotta, you gotta ask the the tough, the tough questions. Thank

Scott Benner 1:15:29
you. I appreciate that. Like, the fact,

Natalie 1:15:31
the fact that you're like, uh, like, why? Like, you realize it just doesn't seem normal,

Scott Benner 1:15:38
you know, like, it's funny. Like,

Natalie 1:15:39
you do realize this, right? Yeah, you're

Scott Benner 1:15:42
hearing what you're saying, aren't you? Like, I God, I can't think of the one is recently it went up. You maybe, you know, because I think you listen to these. I stopped in the middle and I said, Hey, PSA, don't let a guy who lives in a van get you pregnant. Like, I was like, I was like, I don't know. I didn't realize that needed to be said, okay, but punch him in the face and roll Yeah? And I wonder if you realize, or people who find themselves in the situation you've been in over the years, if you knew that like 50 people like me heard your story, it's where it feels like nobody cares about each other, right? Like people who end up growing up in your situation say nobody cares, nobody understands, and people who aren't in your situation are like, You ought to, like, take some personal responsibility and get out of this, not understanding. I mean, it's why I read the ACES list. It's not personal under it's not, I mean, it's not you not taking control. Somebody dug a hole 20 feet deep and then put a trap door in the bottom of it, then dropped a baby in it. That baby was you, and said, Hey, see if you can climb out of this hole. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The people I'm gonna give you to help are a lady who pulls knives on people, drinks a lot, does drugs, a guy who's doing better than her but isn't doing that much better than her. Don't worry, though, one day, her sister will help her by giving her meth, like this baby's not getting out of this hole. Yeah, you know what I mean? And those are the people like You're like the worst episode of Dora, the Explorer, like your monkeys high. You know what I mean? It's a backpack that's drunk and a monkey on meth trying to help you get through the jungle. And you're like, and they're like, oh, no, no, we ain't getting you out of here. You nailed it. So you're in this you're a baby in a terrible situation. And by the way, the people who raised you very well could have been babies in terrible situations at one point. Yeah, someone's got to stand up and push the guy in the van off of them, like work. And I'm not saying it's up to women to make good like, you know, it's up to guys to make good decisions. Like, people just need to make better decisions in pivotal moments. And then all these very unavoidable things don't happen, absolutely. But it's not what happens Natalie and then in the end, it becomes, you know, it's every four years time to run for president, and so we all spend two and a half years talking about the things leading up to the Jesus. It feels like somebody's always running for president, but people have these conversations in their real lives, and somehow always boil it down to, well, they should take personal responsibility. Well, yeah, they should. But what are you going to do? Like the baby's in the bottom of the hole and you're yelling down to it, take personal responsibility. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. I don't know what to do. What if we just said nobody could have a baby for like, five years? Do you think that would give everybody time to reset or something? I don't know.

Natalie 1:18:38
You know, I really feel like the newer generation is having babies less and less.

Scott Benner 1:18:42
Yeah, but that's not good either. We're gonna run out of people,

Natalie 1:18:46
because the ones that are having babies are the ones that shouldn't be having babies,

Scott Benner 1:18:50
even if you say like, you ever noticed this? But this is gonna sound very generalized, and if you're a person with a lot of kids, I'm not talking just please try not to get upset. You ever noticed that people who are like all like, wow, they really do seem to have it together. And they really are doing well. Those people have one or two kids, and then, like, the guy who's got, like, a sign on their front yard that says something very strange that you drive by every day and go, like, I hope that guy doesn't shoot me. Like, he seems to have seven people, like children, and you're just like, how are we even gonna, like, rebalance this? Like, I just need a couple of common sense people to make some babies. I don't know. It's just very strange. I don't know how any of this gets fixed for you personally or for like, because now your daughter's 21 the real hope here is that your daughter waits to have a baby until she's sorted through all of her crap. Yes, that's pretty much all we that's what we should all be doing, not just people who are your kid, but my kids should do the same thing. Everybody. Just get through your before you bring someone else into your mess. You don't mean exactly super simple. Yes. Yes, but I don't know. It's hard to do. It just really, I don't know, you go to a party and my guy's a pretty girl. Next thing you know, you're like, we could probably have a baby, and you're too young to know what's wrong with you still. You know what I mean? Took you to 37 to figure out what you needed to fix. Yeah, I had problems I didn't know about my it took my wife being like, hey, that stuff's not okay. And I'm like, Oh my God, she's right, but I actually had to listen to her and then, like, work over and over again at trying to, like, level that stuff out. And then she had do the same and and we still had kids too early, so my kids are going to have problems that were avoidable if we would have waited longer. But I don't know. I don't know the answer to any of this. I'm just talking, but, yeah, sucks. You know what I mean? Like, I just feel, I feel better. It

Natalie 1:20:48
also, it kind of probably sucks. Also, being your position, hearing all these things about other people, and you're constantly, like, with the what the like, all the time. You know, I'm

Scott Benner 1:20:59
also tired today. I'd

Natalie 1:21:00
be able to do it. I just feel like, yeah, it's like, it is what it is, you know, what? What can I do? I just make it better, you know, try to help the next one. You know, let's I had a very

Scott Benner 1:21:11
long weekend, and it's funny, because I think if I told you what I did this weekend, you'd be like, if I got that much effort out of my parents spread out over 10 years, I would have been okay. Arden came home from college end of her sophomore year, and took her a while, and then she's like, I don't want to go back there. Here are my reasons, and some of her reasons were very, very poor direction from staff at the school. I am gonna, at some point tell the story of like, something that a teacher said to her that will absolutely anybody who's paid for five minutes worth of college, it will just lure you. Oh, and she's like, I I'm gonna change directions. You know, took her a while to, like, get up the courage to even tell us that. Then she told us, but so she's starting up at a new college next month or next week. Excuse me, but we had until next Monday to get her stuff out of her her place 700 miles from here. Oh, on Friday after Arden got sick last week. So our last week was we came home from vacation. Arden got very sick. My father in law passed away. We went to his funeral. Three days later, we had to get into a car and drive 700 miles to go pick up her stuff, but she was still sick. Oh, so she and I drove that time. She drove in one car because we needed both cars to bring it back. I drove in another one. We left our house at six o'clock on Friday, drove until like two in the morning, got a hotel room, slept, got up at eight o'clock, drove eight and a half more hours, got there, had dinner, went to sleep, got up at 5am packed her car up, and drove back home. Oh my Yeah. So I've driven 1400 miles in the last 48 hours or so, wow. And I'm I'm tired. And then on the way home last night, there was this horrible rainstorm on the East Coast. And so for about three hours last night, I was white knuckle driving, not able to see five feet in front of me. Oh, gosh. Now on top of that, knowing the knowledge of like, every decision I made my daughter was behind me in a car, like, counting on me not to run into something or hit something, yeah, and so it was horrible. I mean, I'm not kidding like I've been alive a long time. It's the worst, worst weather I've ever driven in my life. And we got home, decompressed, fell asleep, I woke up. When I woke up, my son was like, Don't forget, you have to take me. I'm like, Oh my God. Like, I so I'm like, getting dressed, I take him to this thing, I get home, and then I ate two eggs, and now I'm talking to you, dang. I feel like I'm doing a bad job today. I don't know if I am, but I don't feel as clear as I want to be to have this conversation with you. Well, do you at least get a rest after this? Arden has a doctor's appointment she has to be at in three hours that I'm taking her to. Oh, in between there, I have nothing to do,

Natalie 1:24:02
go take a nap. But

Scott Benner 1:24:04
am I wrong? Like, if we got into a time machine and went back and you said, Mom, Dad, I need you to drive with me 1400 miles, round trip in two days to help me with something. Do you think your parents would be like, Yeah, let's go at this stage. Absolutely no. How about back then, back then 20 years ago, maybe, maybe, like, if

Natalie 1:24:25
I wasn't, like, an attitude, like, I think so, okay, yeah, only because there's, there's been a couple times where my parents had driven, taken a few trips to go save my sister in a different state, type thing, you know, like, or try and change her situation around. When she wasn't doing well, they put a lot of effort in my sister. Yeah, I think they just kind of backed off with me being like, we can't save her. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:24:48
it's interesting, though, isn't it, to watch people who are so steeped in a problem that even though they want to and I would believe that, I would believe that your parents love you and care about you, and why. Want to do something good for you, when you don't know what that means, and you're put into that situation, then the help you give is often it's help on that level. It's not the kind of help. It's actually going to get you out of a thing, correct? Do you think that you actually needed the legal trouble to break free of all this? Absolutely? Yeah, everyone, 100%

Natalie 1:25:20
absolutely being even though I was at a very limited capacity on being a good mother, as soon as I became a mother, it changed everything to me, like she is the blessing I didn't know I needed in my life. You know, a lot of the expenses that her life. You know, unfortunately for her, she's had to deal with a lot of trauma and pain that she didn't deserve, but she saved my life. She gave me a reason to want to be better and to do better. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:25:50
it's got to be something. I mean, it's part of the human condition. It just has to be, because the amount of people who will tell me all the time like, you know, I didn't really take good care of my diabetes until I had a baby, or wanted to have a baby, or met this girl, and I knew like I wanted to be married and have a family, and so I had to do this thing. Like everyone, every adult who struggled through their teens, early 20s, with their diabetes, who no longer does, has some version of that story. I mean, not everyone, a lot of them, you know what? I mean, like some version of, uh, I couldn't do it for me, but I was able to do it for somebody else. Yeah, that's that story, and that is what happened to you with but with drugs instead. Yeah, diabetes, absolutely. And then your diabetes care came along after you were clear and you felt better. Yeah, got it all right, yep. Well, I appreciate you doing this with me and for laying that out like that, because I believe more people than we would want to think are in your situation.

Natalie 1:26:53
Yeah, unfortunate, yeah, but yeah. Well, thanks for having me, though. Are

Scott Benner 1:26:57
you kidding me? Thanks for having me. You don't send a note about Tent City and jail and meth. I think a guy

Natalie 1:27:05
already get more into the tent city thing. I know a lot of people are really excited to hear about that. I mean, kind of hard to talk about. Also, you know what? I mean, it's like what you see like on TV and what you hear about and read about, that's how it was. Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 1:27:20
listen, I don't think anybody listening doesn't hear 10 city and can't fill in the blanks. You know what? I mean? Yeah, I mean, you're arrested for something. It's not nothing. I'm not saying it's nothing, but you know, it's not it's more socially acceptable. Well, you didn't commit a crime with a grand gun, you didn't hurt anybody, like, that kind of stuff, like, right? So you're gonna go to jail, and rightfully so. That's fine outside in Arizona in a

Natalie 1:27:43
tent with a fan. Yeah, that's the part that's crazy about it. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 1:27:47
it's insane, right? And, and you said you lost weight. Did you lose weight there?

Natalie 1:27:51
What the 65 pounds? Yeah, no, I lost, I lost that when I decided to get so then the last three years, that

Scott Benner 1:27:58
was the sober that being sober helped you with that. Yeah? Okay, yeah. Geez, you're in a good relationship now I am good for you. Excellent. Look at you. Yeah, you know I thought I was gonna say goodbye, but I wanted to reiterate, as crazy as this has all been, and God bless you, it's been crazy this story. You're only 40, you know what I mean? Yeah, I know you're only four. I know you're laughing because you're like, I know I've lived like, 17 lives, but like, but you're only 40. Your daughter is only 21 there's a real world. I mean, it's been three years. You've been clean. There's a real world where five or 10 years from now, this all just seems like a distant memory.

Natalie 1:28:35
It already does seem like a distance memory, like, I have a hard time believing a lot of the stuff that I did and I went through, like, Was that really me? Like, but I can't forget it. I don't want to, I don't want to forget how horrible I felt, the depression that came with it, the sadness, the loss of hope. That's the part I

don't want to forget. Yeah, you felt, hope, you know, but like, it's like, I I stole cars. Like,

who does that? No, I mean people. I mean, that's kind of cool at the same time, like I stole cars, like I got a mixer. I mean, you

Scott Benner 1:29:15
can see it's so crazy that you can see it from both perspectives. You're like, who would steal a person's car? This is horrible. And how cool is it that I stole a car

Natalie 1:29:24
exactly. I mean, who's gonna do that?

Unknown Speaker 1:29:26
I mean,

Scott Benner 1:29:27
I take your point while you're saying I was, like, you have now you have a foot in both sides. But like, yeah, how interesting. It'll be really interesting to see how you talk about it 10 more years from now. You know what I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you'll keep changing, if you'll be able to stay, like one foot on both sides of understanding of this, or if, as time passes and you are, quote, unquote normal for longer living a normal life, if you won't look back more harshly on it as time goes by. Oh, yeah, okay. Probably. Okay, interesting. All right, Natalie, I'm just say thank you, because I feel like I could talk to you forever, and it's not fair to anybody, because, you know, it's getting long. Thank you very, very much for doing this. Would you hold on for one second for me? Yeah, thanks.

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#1322 After Dark: Borderline

"Phoebe", a 50-year-old mother of five, discusses her family's experiences with type 1 diabetes and her husband's mental health issues.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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
Welcome back, my friends, to the diabetes show that never ends.

We're back today with an after dark episode. Gonna be speaking with a person we're calling Phoebe. She is 50 years old, has five children, two of them have type one diabetes. Her 12 year old daughter was diagnosed at six, her other daughter at eight. We're going to talk about diabetes, some problems she's having within her family structure, and so much more. Nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. If you're newly diagnosed, check out the bold beginnings series. Find it at juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu in the feature tab of the private Facebook group, or go into the audio app you're listening in right now and search for juicebox podcast. Bold beginnings, juicebox is one word. Juicebox podcast, bold beginnings. This series is perfect for newly diagnosed people. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order@cozyearth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40 percent@cozyearth.com you OmniPod.

Your kids mean everything to you, and you do anything for them, especially if they're at risk. So when it comes to type one diabetes screen, it like you mean it, because if even just one person in your family has type one, your child is up to 15 times more likely to get it, but just one blood test can help you spot it early, so don't wait. Talk to your doctor about screening tap now or visit screenfortypeone.com to get more info and screen it like you mean it. This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juicebox okay, I call you Phoebes. Or do you like Phoebe better?

Unknown Speaker 2:14
I like Phoebe's better.

Scott Benner 2:16
All right, Phoebe's, let's do it. You are just about 50 years old. You have two kids with type one diabetes. Let's get their ages rough, ages like teens, younger. Where are they at?

"Pheobe" 2:27
Of the diabetic children? Yeah, all of them. Now

Scott Benner 2:31
worry about those other kids. Let's talk about the kids with diabetes. Oh,

Speaker 1 2:35
the oldest one is 12, a girl since 2018

Scott Benner 2:40
2018, so diagnosed around nine years old. And what? No,

Speaker 1 2:43
no, six, 2018 she was diagnosed, wait,

Scott Benner 2:49
oh, my god, I forgot what year it was. Excuse me, that's 2024 pretty embarrassing. I was like, Oh, my time is slipping away. I'm sorry, at six years old, and then the other,

Speaker 1 2:59
the other is now eight, and she was diagnosed 2021 at age five, right? Right, before she turned five, right? I believe. And

Scott Benner 3:09
you have other children. Are they older or younger, or mixed?

Speaker 1 3:13
They are older. We have three teenagers, and our oldest, she's 19. She is diagnosed in with celiac in 2020 right before the covid shutdown, right within about two weeks of the covid shutdowns,

Scott Benner 3:27
what about other autoimmune in your family? Anything else besides the celiac?

Speaker 1 3:31
Well, we did not figure this out until our first diagnosis. I have a cousin with type one. I have two cousins was Hashimotos, and then on my husband's side, they didn't even know there's type one. And his mom didn't know that her dad had type one, and her sister has type one. She's still living but they were both diagnosed in their late like 30s and 40s. No kidding.

Scott Benner 3:57
Well, that's quite a pile, actually.

Speaker 1 4:01
It is yeah, and we I knew I had a cousin that had type one diabetes, but no one explained to me that our kids were at risk for it as just clueless. No idea took you by surprise. Yes, her diagnosis did. It was summer, very hot, humid, summer, and she just seemed sleepy and she didn't want to play so much, which was unusual. And we had just done a well visit about six weeks before, you know, everything showed fine at the well visit, and they actually said she needs to lose a few pounds. They told me, you know, she's six years old, and after a few weeks, I thought, wow, she's starting to lose some weight. That was easy. Yeah, he looks thinner. And then I was starting to put it together. I even made a Facebook post about our kids, because our son that's two years older than her, he was always hungry, wanting to eat, and I was kind of joking in the post, because. You got hungry and thirsty, because she's always thirsty. She's thirsty all the time. And it still did not click, until one evening, she drank a whole bottle of water. It was a 16 ounce bottle of water, and she looked at me and she said, Mom, I'm still thirsty. And then it was before bedtime, but you know how you start. I went on one of my mom groups. I said, I've got a kid, she's kind of tired, she's been thirsty, and everyone said, you have to get her to the emergency room right now. It's type one diabetes, and I we've got five kids, so I don't like to go into the hospital unless I have to. So my husband had chronic migraines, so we spent a lot of time in emergency rooms for all of that. So I hate, absolutely hate, but you have to be dying for me to take you to the hospital. So the pediatrician, I had a late afternoon appointment, and I packed up the car thinking we're going to go the beach after this appointment, because it's not going to be anything. I'm just being paranoid. So we see the pediatrician, they did a finger stick, and we knew nothing about diabetes. And the nurse that came in, she's, she said, it's 500 like, oh, okay,

Scott Benner 6:11
I didn't know what that meant. I gotta go. We're going to the beach, see, yeah,

Speaker 1 6:15
yes. And she said, Let me do another one. Like, okay. And she did another one, and in the five hundreds, and it, you know, it still did not occur to me. I had no idea what was going on. So the pediatrician, he comes in, he said, Are you here today? Because you thought maybe your daughter could have type one diabetes? And I said, Well, I don't think she really has it, but I just thought we better be safe and rule it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:38
these people on Facebook told me. And I was like, Oh, whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 6:42
Like, they're just overly concerned, because we would never have this in our family. And he looks at me, he said, You need to get her in the car right now, and you're going to the hospital, and you're not going to stop and you're not going to let her fall asleep in the car. And I said, Well, we were going to go to the beach and get something to eat. He says, No, you're not going to the beach, you're not stopping for food, you're going directly to the emergency room. I'm calling you get her there as soon as possible. So that's when I started to freak out. Because yeah, people me, my kid had diabetes, and my oldest kid, she had went in with me and her daughter for the appointment. Others, they're waiting out in the car, you know, for us to go to the beach, and I come in the car, all crying, and, you know, don't let her fall asleep. And she didn't have any idea what was going on. My oldest daughter did. She knew she was very calm. She's very level. She's not like me. She was very calm. But we got to the hospital, and this little girl of ours, she always hated needles. She was afraid of needles and everything. Up until that day we got her in the hospital, she did not cry at all, not for any of the IVs, the finger sticks, the shots, nothing. She just took it. It was amazing. She I think she knew she had been sick, because later I've talked to her about it, and she said she remembers laying on the floor being tingly and not feeling well, but she didn't know how to tell she. She didn't know what it was, yeah,

Scott Benner 8:17
how to communicate all that, right? Wow. She's probably just happy to feel better. Needles, needles or not, from the very beginning, your kids mean everything to you. That means you do anything for them, especially if they're at risk. So when it comes to type one diabetes screen, it like you mean it now up to 90% of type one diagnosis have no family history, but if you have a family history, you are up to 15 times more likely to develop type one. Screen it like you mean it, because type one diabetes can develop at any age, and once you get results, you can get prepared for your child's future. So screen it like you mean it type one starts long before there are symptoms, but one blood test could help you spot it early, before they need insulin, and could lower the risk of serious complications like diabetic ketoacidosis or DKA. Talk to your doctor about how to screen for type one diabetes, because the more you know, the more you can do. So don't wait, tap now or visit screened for type one.com to learn more. Again, that's screened for type one.com and screen it like you mean it the contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The juicebox podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger. And Meyer, you could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now, I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the juicebox podcast link will help to support the show,

Speaker 1 10:45
yeah, because someone is actually telling her what is going on. But she did get very sick by the time they were going to put her in the ICU, because she started vomiting, and they gave her the anti nausea medication, and she was vomiting for a long time, but that we've, you know, we got under control eventually. But where we live, there is, is not an endocrinologist at the hospital. Hasn't been since the we've had to go the hospital for some other things. So we did not have see an endocrinologist at all for hospital stay. Yeah, they sent us a diabetes educator and a nurse practitioner to get us set up for our training.

Scott Benner 11:29
How long after this diagnosis, does the next one happen? Well,

Speaker 1 11:33
that was August 24 2018 and then 2020 in late February. Our oldest was diagnosed with celiac

Scott Benner 11:45
about a year and a half later. And then, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 11:51
September of 2021 was the other type one. Wow. So it's within three years, three years all that happened, yes, and then the second one, because I was on high alert with the first one. We got five kids. I just knew, in my mind, I can't explain, I knew that she was going to get diabetes. I don't it sounds crazy, but I just knew she was going to get it. We did the trial net the two oldest, they did not want to do the trial net tests? Or yeah, the two oldest did not. The third oldest, he did it. He tested negative for trial net. Our youngest that was diagnosed in 2021 I think she tested for only two of the auto antibodies. But we switched. We went from our area. We traveled two hours away for all of our endocrinology now, they do a really good job where we're at now that was the first time we did not see an endocrinologist until two years after diagnosis. If that tells you anything about the area we live in,

Scott Benner 12:56
who were you seeing? Just the general practitioner. Yes, it

Speaker 1 13:00
was not a doctor, it was a nurse practitioner, nurse practitioner and a diabetes educator. Yes, and we had the first diagnosis. I didn't know they were a very bad fit for our family, because they put us on such a restricted diet for this child, who we now know also has Oppositional Defiant Disorder, so to put them on such a restricted diet, you know, five carbs or less for any snack, we had a huge Food Battle for probably three years of hers taking food without insulin. You know, I'd go out in the yard, there'd be wrappers everywhere, and then I'd go to the appointment. And her numbers were always her. ANC was always like, 7.6 and under. But they would pull up her chart, and he would say, what did she eat here? Why did she eat that I got so stressed out over the micromanaging us, and they would shame me. It was a personality conflict between me and the person, nurse practitioner, for some reason, she just didn't care for me. So anyway, we switched, and then we saw an endocrinologist for the first time, and he does a lot of research and a lot of medical studies. So when I went to him, I brought the trial, net study results, and he said, This child has a like, I think, of 80% chance of getting type one diabetes. She's going to have it in three years. And I think that was in like 2020 back to the youngest. I would do random finger sticks on her after because we took her out of the pool one day, and she was so angry and grumpy, I did a finger stick, and she was, I think, 44 and I thought, well, she's been playing in the pool, swimming, and then, you know, a few months later, she was out at church, and she had a pee accident. She was five at the time. She had never had that happen before, so I did a finger stick, and she was in the 200 So we kind of knew,

Scott Benner 15:02
yeah, just take her to your endo at that point, or to did you call?

Speaker 1 15:06
I call them, and I just let them know that we were watching for it, and they were okay with that. And we got five kids. Life is very busy. That's one good thing. I don't get to sit and worry too much about certain things, because it's just crazy.

Scott Benner 15:22
Too busy going, Yeah, well, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about management. So the first one has it for a couple years prior to the next one. How are you managing? Pumping needles? Do you have a CGM? What? What are you doing there?

Speaker 1 15:36
I think we did three months with only finger six. They did not put us on a Dexcom right away, so we she's diagnosed in August, and I think it was right around Thanksgiving, we got the Dexcom for her, and then I wanted to move to the insulin pump, because she's the one that takes food without insulin. And I wanted her on an insulin pump. I wanted the tea slim, because we tried different phones, people gave us phones and then the receiver, and it was always getting lost all the time. So I wanted the tea slim pump so it'd be connected to her. We could not lose that pump. And our provider, that's why we switched providers, actually, is she kept saying, No, you cannot have it until you get this child's diabetes under control, because she could see, you know, we were giving corrections during the day. I think we were doing they wanted what they wanted, only six boluses a day for her. So that means why that's just the way she wanted. The lady wanted it done was you've got too many boluses. I think we're around like eight to 12, because she would take food or not boluses, because they had me enter in every time I gave her an injection that was before the pump. I'm sorry. So they, they'd have me enter in on the receiver every time I gave her insulin. And they said, This is too much. You need to stop once you get down to six boluses a day you can get the insulin pump. So I finally left the practice because I just felt you would do better on an insulin pump. Okay,

Scott Benner 17:11
man, you kind of had to go find the the guidance that you were looking for.

Speaker 1 17:16
Yes, yeah, yes. And they never where I'm at. They've never shamed us or scolded us one time. They've been really good. Because the endocrinologist, he also has type one. He's on the same insulin pump, you know, in like, you know, I'll be in the appointment with him, and they'll say, Aren't you high right now? And he's like, Oh yes, I'm 200 and it's just very nice to have, you know, to be able to see he's an endocrinologist. He does research, and he does get high. He said he gets kind of stressed out during the day sometimes. And so it's, I think it's relatable for our kids to see he has the pump on him. Got it? Okay?

Scott Benner 17:54
I have two questions here. How do you find the podcast?

Speaker 1 17:57
I found it very quickly. Actually, I think I was still in the hospital, because for our first diagnosis, we homeschool our kids, and I was in a very large homeschooling group, and they were kind of following my story. That's where I got the information to go to the hospital. Yeah, and then someone, I don't know who it was that someone I knew, they told me about your podcast. Nice.

Scott Benner 18:19
Did it help you? And if so, how like, did you find it more of like a community support information like mix

Speaker 1 18:28
both. I'm a I'm a researcher, information person, any health issue we have going on. I've got a little ADHD brain. I, you know, the hyper focus on new things. So I was at that time with all the kids I have. I used to read all the time, but it's hard. I don't have the time to read. So I do listen to podcasts, so that fit perfectly. Gotcha to listen. And I listen. Mostly. I listen to the educational ones, and here and there I'll listen to the stories of people, but usually I like the parenting ones with the therapist. Oh, you like Erica, yes, yes, right? With our situation we're in. I love therapists and psychologists right now, so I'll listen to those and the parenting ones, and then I the Pro Tip series. I've listened to a lot of those. And the beginnings every listen to some of those on bolusing and that type of thing. It's

Scott Benner 19:26
been valuable for you. Yes, very

Speaker 1 19:28
I've, I've learned way more that way than any of our appointments we go to. And when we go with the two of them, we're there for two hours every three months. You know, between all the educators and everything, I think that has been the most helpful for me. Gotcha?

Scott Benner 19:44
Okay, great. It's just nice to know how it helps. Okay, let's pick through your the stuff that you sent me. You basically listed four ideas about things you might want to cover while we're talking caretaking for the caretaker, when there are multiple to caretake, that's. So tell me what you meant by that.

Speaker 1 20:01
Well, I know for health issues, we started out when we were first married and having kids, my husband has chronic migraines, so it kind of puts you in a single parenting mode of taking care of that person and then running the household.

Scott Benner 20:17
Tell me for a second, like, use a month as an example, a full 30 days. What do chronic migraines look like? Chronic

Speaker 1 20:24
migraine is, if you have more than 14 migraines a month, if you're taking aspirin or pain reliever for headache more than two days a week, you should see a neurologist, is basically the guideline. But if it's 14 or more that's considered chronic migraine. And

Scott Benner 20:43
these are crippling, I imagine, but How so, like, what? What's the impact on him? For

Speaker 1 20:48
him, they are not everyone is crippling, but we have done well before 2018 they did not have this specific medication. It's the CGRP antibody. It's a shot once a month shot. So before 2018 we were going to the emergency room at least once a month for his migraines, and it's crippling that he would get extreme vomiting, nausea, dehydration, so they would put him on a cocktail what

Scott Benner 21:22
is just an anti nausea and like other things?

Speaker 1 21:26
Yeah, yeah, it's reglan Benadryl and toradol, some type of it's a narcotic cocktail.

Scott Benner 21:35
So he's not really valuable during these episodes as a character,

Speaker 1 21:38
yeah? No. And usually back then, he would be sick for days, and I would just get to a point when he started saying he wanted to die, I would pack him up and go to the hospital. And you know, when we're waiting in the waiting room, a lot of times he would be in his underwear, he couldn't get his shoes on, or, you know, he would be laying on the floor in the waiting room. So it was not like for him, it's not like you got a headache and you're, you know, the commercials they show the lady with their she looks all pretty, and her hand is on her head.

Scott Benner 22:08
Do you have migraines? Like, this pretty woman, like, yeah, it doesn't look like that. No Phoebe.

Speaker 1 22:14
No people. I'd bring him in and everyone would look horrified, and they move out of his way because,

Scott Benner 22:19
yeah, because they thought, they thought you were bringing a crackhead in there. That's why, yes,

Speaker 1 22:23
they had no idea. But my two boys also got them as children and their abdominal migraines, where they would just vomit for a couple of days and then they'd be fine. So we had a lot going on back then. The boys have grown out of it. My husband, I think it was about two weeks before our first diabetes diagnosis, he started taking this shot, the AMO VIG shot, okay, and that has helped a lot, so they're a lot less violent. I think since then, we've only been to the hospital once or twice for a migraine. I see that's

Scott Benner 22:58
crazy. That's it. And how long has he been living like

Speaker 1 23:02
that, but since I met him in 1998 so when I first met him and we were dating, I and went to see my parents, and his dad called me one day. He said, We just wanted to let you know that has a migraine. And I'm like, Okay, I just thought it was a bad headache, and they said we called the ambulance to take him to the hospital. So I had no idea when we first met what all that entailed. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:31
wow, and you still married him. Look at you. I

Speaker 1 23:35
know. Well, you know, back then I'm a eternal optimist and happy, positive person. I just figured you could work through anything. If you work hard enough, you can work through everything. And I, as you get older, you realize that that's not always the case. You're like,

Scott Benner 23:51
you're like, back then, I had optimism. Scott, what? What do you have today?

Speaker 1 23:56
Oh, I'm a little bit of a cynic. Now,

Scott Benner 23:59
just because things have been hard.

Speaker 1 24:03
Yes, we have had very hard road to home. I guess you could stay Yes, because that was like the end of the world. We thought the migraines as I stay at home with our children. We've moved all over the United States for his job. So I think from 2004 to 2012 we've had maybe nine different homes that we've lived in with all these kids moving around. Yeah, we've been in the same place since 2012

Scott Benner 24:33
How does he make out working? When, when the migraines come?

Speaker 1 24:38
Well, his job, where he works, is very good. It's a very odd schedule. It's not nine to five. Their clients come in around the clock, so he might be working weekends, nights or days. So since it kind of checkerboards the time, because most of the migraines are early morning, where the worst ones are like, you know, he'll wake up with it. But. With him sometimes going in later in the day, it helped him. You'd give him time to recover. And he's worked the same job since 2007 different locations, and there's a high need for what his work is. So I think that helps.

Scott Benner 25:14
And obviously you don't get a migraine while you're having sex, because you have five kids. So I assume that's his damn part.

Speaker 1 25:21
Although I have said after he does get them, there is such a thing as there are migraines triggered after sexual activity. So there is some people who get it afterwards, but he does not see any correlation. Oh, good, because

Scott Benner 25:35
that would be scary, because if you're like, you know what I mean, like, so then this part's gonna happen, and then I'm getting an addict. That's not usually how I usually how I like to think about this part. You know what

Speaker 1 25:44
I mean? Yes, and I just thought we were ordinary people, but people probably think we do a lot of that. Since we have five children, I just think we're very fertile. One of us is very fertile. I

Scott Benner 25:56
see I say you've had sex five times in the last 10 years, and every time you got a baby, I got

Speaker 1 26:01
you, yeah, that sounds right. You

Scott Benner 26:05
said one of the kids has odd what is that? Is it one of the kids with type one? Or no?

Speaker 1 26:10
Yes, the first one with type one, we did not know what it was, because before we found out about the diabetes, she'd get real angry, particularly with me, like kissing and just kind of off the wall. Did you say? Kissing? Kissing. Yes, you kiss me. Kiss.

Scott Benner 26:31
Oh my god, I left her at a grocery store. Okay, all right. So hold on, hey, honey, one of them hisses at me. We got four others. What do you think you just want to go to buckies and leave this one in the beef jerky section and get out of here. No, seriously hissing. Like, like, make me understand. Like, there's a an inconvenience, there's an argument. Like, how does what leads to that?

Speaker 1 26:53
Yes, I'd say stop doing that. And the response would be his scene, if she had hit, you know, so she was, she was just, I always called her a fireball from a toddler age, because she would get up on the table and when, you know, she'd hit her brother in the head with a troquey ball, she hit me in the head with a Trojan ball. She was just, she was very sweet. But she's also just off the chain sometimes. And then I was ready to talk to our pediatrician about a behavior issue, and my husband has always been very anti therapy, and he said, No, don't do it. They'll take her away or something. So that well, visit before her type one diagnosis. I didn't bring it up. And then we got the diabetes diagnosis, and I thought, Well, maybe it's her blood sugar. Maybe her blood sugar has been right causing her to behave that way for a long time, but we've kind of since then. We figured out it does not matter what her blood sugar is, and we've since then, we have done so much therapy. So for her, they say oppositional defiance disorder, odd ago, agoraphobia, selective mutism, is another one that she is dealing with anxiety, so

Scott Benner 28:09
hold on one second, odd, irritable moods, argumentative, defiant behavior, aggression, vindictiveness. That all sounds like that. Okay, and then what were the other two things? I'm sorry, selective

Speaker 1 28:20
mutism. What is that? Because when we are out in public, she does not talk to people. She hardly talks to anybody. She speaks to our neighbor, friends. You know people she's known for a long time, but if I take her out somewhere, she will just sit by my side, not speaking to anybody who are responding to most people unless she knows who

Scott Benner 28:47
they are, and that's an anxiety disorder.

Speaker 1 28:49
Yes, well, we're still, we're Yeah, we're still picking through it. We are waiting for her to have a psychological evaluation. A behavioral pediatrician told us these things, but there's a 14 month waiting list for a psychological exam for a child right now. Jesus,

Scott Benner 29:07
how many kids speak parcel tongue. I didn't realize all this. I don't know if I'm joking or not joking, but like, the hissing is like, must have scared the living crap out of you, right? It

Speaker 1 29:16
did. We had a lot of and after her diagnosis, I mean, I think she has a lot of anger. She does not know how to communicate her feelings. Is the same thing her dad. I think she's on track with her dad. He cannot communicate his emotions very well either. But sometimes she would say she wanted to kill me. She wanted to kill herself. This after the diabetes diagnosis, and it was we had a I had a very difficult time because I was the one dealing with her all the time. Sure, I'm the I Am the diabetes manager for both of them. I do 99% of it. Are

Scott Benner 29:50
you okay? What do you do for yourself?

Unknown Speaker 29:58
Oh, um, the. Give me a second.

Scott Benner 30:00
No, you're fine. Take your time.

Speaker 1 30:05
I will say, I appears to be okay, you know, because we were pretty active in the community. A lot of people know we're a family, because not many people have five kids anymore. So we were involved in a church I started running a few years ago. I go to the gym, do therapy. Now, I got a dog a couple years ago, a golden retriever. I walk her every day. I have a friend in the neighborhood. They have a golden retriever too. They have a play date almost every day. So I do get out. I do things. I'm not gonna lie. We are in a very difficult place. It's not just her situation. What my husband is dealing with is a very kind of dark to me, mental health disorder I did not know existed until two, almost two years ago.

Scott Benner 30:53
I'm sorry your husband has something going on that you have not mentioned so far. Yes, are you willing? Yes, you want to skip it, or you want to say it,

Speaker 1 31:01
I'll say it. That's why I am on here, because I don't Well younger people probably know, because my 19 year old says everyone younger than me knows mental health, but us older people don't know anything about it. So he way back, he would kind of get angry over what I thought were small things, and we just thought he had a bad temper, or he was very organized and didn't like things out of place, because I'm kind of ADHD. I tend to lose things, forget things. So we saw that early in our marriage, some but it would kind of blow over pretty quickly, and it was far and few between, right? Probably when our oldest was about 10, they started to have a little bit of a power struggle, struggle that she did not seem respectful to him, and he was have a hard time with her, because she should just be obedient all the time. And the fifth child, she was actually a surprise. We were not planning on having a fifth child, and after she was born, she was a baby. He just casually mentioned to me one day that he was thinking of killing himself, and that really freaked me out. I talked to a friend of mine that was a nurse practitioner, and she said, Well, do you want to inpatient him? And I said no, because he's very anti therapy, mental health treatment. So we did not, I didn't do anything. We just kind of wrote it out. And then it happened another time where he I saw him leave the house with a some things in hand, and he just acted strangely, but nothing happened from that. And then he started, if he'd get upset, he would just leave, like, drive off, and I would try to beg him to come back. You know, I need you home. We'll do better, that kind of thing. I'll be a better wife, better mom. Just come back home because I state I've been home, not working since 2004 he's our sole source of income. And then it started. More and more he would talk about he's been thinking of leaving, just leaving the family. And

Scott Benner 33:11
you said he left the house with stuff in hand, like, You mean, like, like a gun or something that hurt himself with or,

Speaker 1 33:17
yes, okay, yes. I didn't know what it was his work bag, and it was not usually he, if he's going, he was wearing shorts and sandals. He had hurt his back. We were waiting for him to have a back surgery. At that time, I followed him out to the car, and you know, he he's not a very emotional, like crying type, and he's like, I'm sorry. I love you. Tell the kids, I love them, then you drove off. And I and I knew in my heart, I knew he wasn't going to do anything that day, and he did not. But you know it was, it was concerning, but I didn't know what it was. And I think it was 2022 like that summer, I started seeing a therapist for me, because I just felt like I was doing everything wrong, like I wasn't a good enough wife, I wasn't a good enough mom. And someone recommended I read the book stop walking on eggshells. And when I read that book, the first part, there's my talks about borderline personality order disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. And there's nine traits that someone will have for I think it's border, borderline and narcissistic personality order. And I cried through that whole list because I picked out at least five or six for him. And then the book says, Don't tell them that they have it, because it's such a difficult thing for them to deal with. They don't know how to deal with emotions. Basically, it's a big fear of abandonment. So when he was saying he was going to leave, you know he feels he's worried that we're going to leave him so he's going to leave us before we can leave him. If that makes sense, that's where a lot of that abandonment is. Thing comes from, I did not tell him, but you're supposed to stop caretaking. I'm a big caretaker. I will make you nice meals and do everything for you and set up all your doctor appointments and completely make you feel good and well taken care of. But that is what I needed to stop doing. That's what. You can't do it all. They have to do things for themselves and their own mental health. So I, I don't know what made it come to a head, but one night he he woke me up. We have firearms in our house, and he had loaded a weapon in our bedroom, and was, you know, ready to, you know, take his life. So I said, Well, I think you have this. I read about this, and, you know, he kind of calmed down because he's was saying that he just cannot get all these things out of his head that he's thinking, yeah. And so I said, I think you've got this. I read the list to him, and he said this, yes, this does sound kind of right. And this is about, almost. It'll be two years in October. So we went through the list, and I was thinking in my mind that remember earlier I said, if you work hard enough, you can get through everything. I figured that he now he knew this little bit that he would just be like me and pick it up and run with it, but he didn't, he want, doesn't want therapy and all of that stuff. So that's kind of where we have been almost two years, of him going in this circle again, of not this stuff happens over and over again, and I'm doing more for myself without

Scott Benner 36:35
getting help. It's not going to end obviously, no. And

Speaker 1 36:38
if you if you were to read up on it, it's not a medication thing. Bipolar Disorder, my understanding, is more of a chemical imbalance, and they can give medication the personality disorders. It's your personality that needs to change. So what they want is it's something called dialectical behavior therapy, DBT therapy. And if you were to aggressively go at it, you would be at a therapy, doing therapy twice a week, taking DBT classes and always working on this. I think it's a two year course of once to twice a week therapy classes for two years. He knows this exists. Yeah, he told I've talked to them since then, we visited a couple different therapists for this. You want someone that is older, you know, that's been in practice for a long time, does the DBT therapy? And he's had a couple tell him. They just tell him he has the traits. They'll call it a spectrum. And I think the narcissistic personality disorder, they don't think they like to tell people they have that.

Scott Benner 37:47
So you think that the that therapy would help him, but he doesn't. He's not willing to do it.

Speaker 1 37:53
It can help him. I mean, you can go to therapy, but you have to put work into it, you know,

Scott Benner 37:58
yeah. I mean, I'm assuming he goes and does what he needs to do. You think it would help him, but he's not interested. In doing it. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 38:04
Yes, he's gone a handful of times since we figured it out, and we've had a lot of things go down in our house since that one night I told you about have to draw a line in the sand, as we have to do this therapy, you know, for us to stay together. So he, he did have one appointment a couple weeks ago, and then he said he couldn't get in until the middle of June, but he only scheduled two more appointments. You know, he would really need to be getting, you know, let's fill up her calendar the year, yeah, and knock it all out. So I don't know if I'm not really sure that. And when I set up to be on the podcast, I picked the farthest date possible, which is now, because I was hoping I'd have more of a better idea what direction we're going, but nothing I don't know. No, it is a little more definitive, because we're at the kind of the point whether we have to figure out if we're going to stay together. Stay together or not, because it's strongly affecting our all of our children, sure, not just the diabetic children, because they see things and hear things that they should not be seeing and hearing, but because I am a root Christian homeschool family, you know, we're supposed to be all

Scott Benner 39:18
good, not going the way you expected.

Speaker 1 39:20
No, it is not at all how I expected. I'm actually looking into perhaps working full time in the fall and putting my children all in public school, but the ones that are still in school

Scott Benner 39:32
because you're trying to become more self sufficient, because you think this can't go on. Yeah,

Speaker 1 39:38
yes, yes. And sadly, I mean, our home environment is not pleasant with all this going on. My two older boys said that they actually I thought I just last night, I talked to them about maybe going to public school, and they seem okay with it. The one said, I'd rather be there than at home all the time. And I mean, we do. Things. He works with both my my oldest son is 17, so he has a job, a part time job, and they have friends, and they have activities, but he just, you know, he's ready. I think he wants to try something different. And the the older boys are fine. My eight and 12 year old are not. But we're working on that?

Scott Benner 40:21
No, of course. I mean, it's obviously encompassing and difficult and a lot to consider, but I think you're thinking about it correctly, about separating the kids from it

Unknown Speaker 40:31
honestly.

Scott Benner 40:32
You know what? I mean? Like, it's just, it's, I mean, it's too much to to go through as a kid, and the repercussions from that are going to be. Have you heard of the aces, the 10 aces of trauma? I have not okay, so they're going to come up in a NEP in a series about resilience with Erica that's going to come out pretty soon, but, but basically, there's these 10 childhood experiences that have the potential to change like the course of your life, right? And they are physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, mental illness. And what that means is a household member with a mental illness that impacts their ability to provide proper care for the child. This has a profound impact on the child. The experience could be depression, a household member attempting suicide, or other mental illness. The seventh thing on the list is substance abuse. So alcohol or drinking in the household,

Speaker 1 41:30
we don't have that. That's the one thing we got going for us,

Scott Benner 41:34
imprisonment. Somebody in the household has been incarcerated, witnessing abuse, and then, has somebody witnessed abuse?

Speaker 1 41:43
We don't have any physical abuse, but it, from what I have read, we've got emotional, verbal, financial and spiritual. I know I don't think you are a Christian, but you know, if I'm told I'm not being a biblical wife for certain things.

Scott Benner 42:01
Oh, you, you get shamed through religion, yeah,

Speaker 1 42:05
yes, and I am a Christian. I Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I know that, but that does not mean I need to be perfect in all things. Because, you know, things will happen. You know, he said he's, you know, pulls the attic door down, we can hear it, and gets his bags and throws him down. I'm packing up, I'm leaving. They'll hear that in my little one, the teenagers, they can I know they care, but they act like they don't care, like he's just trying to get attention. But my eight year old, she will cry her little heart out because her daddy is

Scott Benner 42:39
well. So my bigger point here is not that that's not horrifying. I'm sorry, the 10 thing on the list is losing a parent to separation, divorce or death. But you know, how many of these Did you? Can you count on your fingers when I read physical abuse,

Speaker 1 42:52
not physical we've got a verbal, emotional, mental health disorder, attempted suicide. We've had several times. I did have to call the authorities in December The kids also, I'm leaving the house for that, but he was not arrested, and the separation, that is a big topic in our family right now that we're trying to I'm trying to decide which way to go, because, like I said, I've been at home with the children. I have a college degree, but when you don't work for 18 or 19 years, that does not mean very much. Yes,

Scott Benner 43:24
listen, Phoebe, if it makes you feel any better, I I have a fairly successful business, and a lot of people listen to my podcast. I don't think I could get a job. So, like, I think I if I went out the working world, they'd be like, you're a what now? And I'd be like, yeah, no, I've been a podcaster and a stay at home dad. They'd like, yeah, no. Thank you. Listen. The reason I bring up the ACE is because these adverse childhood experiences are indicators for problems your kids are going to have in the future. But it's not a set in stone thing, and so while I have never once advocated for the disillusion of somebody's like family, I do think that if you remove your kids from that situation, that gives them a better chance to not find themselves in that situation as adults. And then it makes me wonder, of that list that I read to you, do you think, how many of those things do you think your husband grew

Speaker 1 44:13
up with? He had both parents growing up? So I don't really unders. I don't know, but I think there is parts of it. I think the difference is, I think his mom just went in and line and kept him happy, and that kept the home better for the kids. I think that it was, it was there, the same, the mental.

Scott Benner 44:34
Think the father in law has it too, and the mother in law just put her head down and made it all go away as best you could.

Speaker 1 44:41
Yes, codependency, because that's what I would do. I would just try to keep the peace. I don't like conflict, so I just tried to appease him. And then at some point there was like a switch, you know, because he he called, he was out driving around, and he says, I'm gonna take this job in another state and start over. And I. Okay, because I was at home and our all of our kids were little, and I wanted to be home with our babies, I would beg for him to come back. And then I one day, I'm like, why am i This is so humiliating. I should not have to I'm not that bad of a person that I need to beg my husband. Well,

Scott Benner 45:15
first of all, let's say this. You're not a bad person at all like so it's probably hard, from your perspective to see it, but you're describing like a show in 17 different directions, and not a thing that you or anybody else should have to deal with and listen respect to the fact that he has obvious issues, and we'd like to see him get helped, if it's not possible for him to be helped, and hope for a resolution, then you have to ask yourself, like, Well, how long do I let my kids sit around this fire burning at their feet when he's not trying to put it out and you can't, maybe you can't blame him for that, which is fine. Like, maybe it's, maybe he's so far down, you know, a direction that it's not something he can break free on his own. Like, also, no, there's, you know, no disrespect about that. If you have a mental illness, you're probably not the best one to help yourself out of it. But no, at some point, like you're not, you're not describing anything joyful, you're not describing anything fulfilling. You know, it's a one way relationship. It basically feels like you've described, there's this guy that lives in my house, and he puts money in a pile. And so here's all the things he does when we just try to ignore him the best we can, because there's money coming. Is that right at this point? I'm sorry,

Speaker 1 46:40
it is. And he, I think he can tell somehow he is able to keep working. And I did. I mean, we, I'm not gonna, I mean, we had a very enjoy. Obviously, he was not like this when I married. Of course, you know, we had a lot of good times. We've lived in a lot of neat places, and I think my understanding is with a disorder, especially as the kids get older, you know, they feel like they you know, for me, I could keep, kind of keep the peace by doing things the way he liked it. But you have more kids, they start getting older, they talk back a little, they get their own mindset, and they don't agree with everything he does. And then we have a kid, one kid was type one diabetes, and then all of a sudden, my attention is pretty much off of him, you know, because I'm trying to figure out diabetes, yeah, and manage this. And then then 18 months later, there's celiac okay? We have to learn how to do all the gluten free right stuff, and we're doing diabetes. It just took all the attention off of

Scott Benner 47:38
him. Oh, no, yeah, you were basically your job was to throw the dragon meat so it didn't burn everybody. And then you got distracted with other more important things, and now suddenly you can really see what happens to him if you're not placating his and basically petting him and telling him to stay calm. Yes, yeah. No, no, listen, this is obviously difficult, but I mean, so tell me something like, Do you have a plan?

Speaker 1 48:05
I'm working on, on a plan, and it's kind of, it's not funny, but it is. You know, we lived here long enough I've known I've gotten to know enough ladies, and that's another reason why I wanted to talk about this, because there are so many people I know, three or four personal friends, that I've had a long time living very similar situations, and I had no idea until about two years ago. I just, I don't tell everybody. A lot of people know what I am dealing with now our church knows I've talked to them. My neighbors know I've got safe places to go, like three different houses in the neighborhood to go to, and my kids know where to go. I'm working with a domestic abuse advocate right now. Yeah, that kind of pushes me to do more than what I would want to do. At my church, I have some friends that are law enforcement. He's former US Marshal and SWAT team, so he you know, so I have people I can talk to. And the thing I'm really battling is with myself, because I know I'm going to have to make a decision, and I've kind of kicked the can down the road because I don't want to make the decision. I don't, I understand he's not going to be the one who can think clearly and do it. So I, you know, right, if it comes that we need to separate, it'll be me having to make the call, and I will look like the bad person to the children and everybody. Well, you

Scott Benner 49:38
know, listen, that sounds like it might be inevitable, because your luck is terrible. Like, I mean, honestly, like, as you described this whole life, people, here's something people don't know you went to your church to find quiet to record, because you like, my house is going to be too loud. And then I and then then a smoke. Detector and like, a fire alarm went off while you were there. Like, does it must? You must be like, God, nothing goes right for me. Like, like, that's exactly what I thought when that went off. I'm like, this poor lady. I mean, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 50:15
No, that. That is my life in a nutshell. And I look, I left my keys inside. I hope I'll be able to find them. Yes, no, my life. People that hear my life, they just, yeah,

Scott Benner 50:27
no. It's that old adage. It feels like, it feels like, if I wrote this as a movie, people would be like, Oh, it's too over the top. I can't believe all this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 50:36
You know it is. We have dealt with a lot. Yes, they got me locked out of the building, but smoke detector went off. But I'll just hang out by my car. I'll go back later and get my car keys. You're gonna be able to get in. Are you sure? Yes, they have a they have a doorbell. I was gonna

Scott Benner 50:54
say, we've just ringed the bell like Jesus opens the door or something like that. Is that how it works? There's our guy that works there. I guess maybe. Secretary, yes, Secretary, I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. You don't mean to what.

Unknown Speaker 51:11
I don't cause trouble.

Scott Benner 51:13
Please. First of all, don't apologize to me. You didn't do anything wrong, to be perfectly honest with you, I think it's I think it's good. I think it puts a an exclamation point on your story. Honestly, like just everything at this moment seems hard. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 51:30
Yes, everything, everything is hard. So and I will, I The other thing, I want to encourage people, because I did not have any friends in our neighborhood until covid He hit because we started walking. The kids were older. I started walking. I started running and meeting people. And for a while, there were actually a group of people that would come in our front yard every afternoon we put out the chairs, and there'd be a bunch of people sitting in our neighbors coming to talk to us, because there's nothing to do during covid, right? So I met a friend in our neighborhood that was like, 18 years older than me, married, has a dog. The kids like playing with his dog, and just by talking to, I hate to use the word normal people, but emotionally healthy people, it really showed what was going on in my life. And I don't if that hadn't happened, I don't know if I would have seen it. I think it would have taken me longer to see it, because I don't know how to describe it here. You know, just a healthy, emotional person that, you know, I didn't get upset over little things all the time. And,

Scott Benner 52:49
yeah, normal. The word, the word you're looking for, is normal. Like, like, I think it's possible you have been in this for so long, I don't think you recognize how strange it is no

Speaker 1 53:04
no, because my parents would come from across the country that we'd see them once a year, and they would buy things for the house, and my husband would get really upset and disrespected and make me return stuff. I you know, if they the only way they could get gifts for us was, you know, they come visit, and we'd go shopping while he was at work, and he might not notice that they bought the kids a bunch of underwear and shoes and things. Yeah, it's because I'd have to kind of keep it on the down low that someone's buying stuff for for us. I'm

Scott Benner 53:34
gonna say something that I can't be sure of. But if you pack those kids up right now and left, and I don't know what your situation is, financially or, like, I know there's a lot to consider, right? But you've, you've also, you know, you've just, you've talked about a lot of disorder in the house. There's firearms, there people threatening to kill themselves, you know, these power moves on you about, I'm leaving, like, that's just to keep you in line. You know what? I mean, that stuff and like all this is going on, and I can't be certain of this. There's a large part of me that thinks that if you broke free of this and got yourself reestablished somewhere else and got some time away from it, that a year or two from now, you'd look back on this story and think, I can't believe I didn't see this completely for what it was like, because this is horrifying, and you're laughing through it like, and I know probably laughing to not cry, but like, but I genuinely don't know that you know how bad this is. Now

Speaker 1 54:35
the description, because I I read, I listen to a lot of podcasts and things. And the description is, like, you are, you know, you put the frog in the cold water and you slowly heat it up, and you don't even know. You don't

Scott Benner 54:47
know you're boiling alive, yeah, you have no idea right now. Like, like, there's your description makes me feel like a SWAT team should drop in that house and extricate you. Like, like, I'm not, I'm not even joking. I'm worried what happens. If you tell him you're leaving, or if you ask him to leave, yes,

Speaker 1 55:03
I just had that conversation with a friend last night, because this is all it's been kind of coming, yeah, to a head What? What he does now is he just stays away as much as possible and come to him after we are sleeping, and I wanted to talk, we're gonna say, you know, you need. We're actually meeting with our church pastor tomorrow. My husband called him to talk about this. I don't know what he wants to accomplish, but it's kind of coming to a head right now. And my friend, she said, Well, you need. Where were you gonna go? And I was gonna go the ponds across our road, you know. And she's like, No, no, you need to go somewhere public. And I was trying to set up a meeting with him, and he says, No, I'm not doing that. I'm just gonna come home after you guys are asleep tonight. Yeah.

Scott Benner 55:53
I mean, listen, you might need, you might need a cop, a priest and three other like armed guards, to have this conversation. Let me ask you a question. What does better look like to you? Like? What has to happen for you to stay with him and be happy and fulfilled

Speaker 1 56:14
like you said? I don't even know. It's possible what my plan was, or what my hope was when we figured it out was he would do all this treatment. I we've had a in the last month. He I've finally gotten to go to a psychiatrist, and they wanted medication for the depression. He was not doing that. I wanted regular therapy sessions. He's not doing that. He has an appointment in June 15. I don't know if they're going to put it all in the books, but I don't think he can do it. So I would just need to see that he is being proactive in the all this wild stuff to simmer down, because we just, we had a horrible weekend, just, just all kinds of things going on, but I don't think we can get packed in. Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:01
none of that's going to change. Like, your life is like, living you're living inside of a tornado, inside of a hailstorm, and so, like, like, the oh, this weekend was tough. Or that's always going to be like that. And I'm not even telling you, like your kids have some issues too. You might move away and be like, This is not good. It's just better and more possible for you to focus on what's happening. Listen, you're 50. How long have you been married?

Speaker 1 57:28
We just had our 23rd wedding anniversary,

Scott Benner 57:31
a couple. So you got married. You were what, 27 when you got married?

Speaker 1 57:36
Yes, we met. I think I was 23 when we met just right out of college. Okay,

Scott Benner 57:43
that's my point. How many serious adult relationships did you have before this person?

Unknown Speaker 57:47
The very this

Scott Benner 57:48
was the very first one. You do not even know how you're supposed to be treated.

Speaker 1 57:53
No, I cannot even fathom what a good I mean, my parents were together. My dad is just he's our friends. Everyone just loves him. He's so good to my mom, and that's what blows me away, is how I even got,

Scott Benner 58:08
yeah, well, that ship sailed, but like, but listen, I'm just going to tell you that if, if I did one of the things that you listed, my wife would beat me up, bounce the head, throw me right out the front door and lock the door. If I did all of them, she'd shoot me and then tell the judge what I did and go, I thought it was okay. Seriously, like there's no world where you should be treated like this. No, and

Speaker 1 58:30
it doesn't start. All this radical stuff was not going on early. Early on, it was, hey, you lost the remote control. I need it right now. You know,

Scott Benner 58:43
he's right. His thing's gotten worse, and it's ramped up, but it's always been there to some degree or a level, right? Like you've like, when you stop and look back, like, has there ever been a time where if you did something quote, unquote wrong, you weren't told you weren't being a good Christian? Or some, I'm sorry to say this, but some like that, some controlling decision, like, I'll make a power move, I'll leave. You're begging him, like, like, really think about how he's treating you. You're the one begging him not to go. Well, you know what I mean? Yes,

Speaker 1 59:13
good, right? Yes, I, I will say, you know, I had, you know, pretty low confidence. I had not been in a relationship before. So and then, when you have a bunch of small children, you know, babies at home, not, you know, not working, it is scary to think you know he's going to leave. I've got all you know, these four. It didn't get like that until we had four at home, and I think we had just had, is after the last one. So we had five kids within 11 years time. So we had five kids, 11 years old and under, yeah, with me seeing no real way for me to support them. And that's the other thing. You know, he. You will sometimes say, if you leave, I will quit my job, you know, so you won't have the, you know, even there's the fear you might not even have child support.

Scott Benner 1:00:11
I don't know how to say this, like, like, politely, so let me just talk right around it. I mean, are you wealthy?

Speaker 1 1:00:18
No, we're not wealthy. We've got five kids, you know, high medical needs. We're middle class, okay, maybe lower ish, middle class. You

Scott Benner 1:00:27
don't have to tell me this, but you told me so much else, I can't imagine. You'll say, No, well, how much the money is he bringing in a year?

Speaker 1 1:00:33
Probably about 160 about 100,000 about 150 150 $160,000

Scott Benner 1:00:40
okay, well, listen, if you get divorced, he gets to keep some of it too. So you're looking at like existing off of, you know, I'm gonna guess, about $80,000 you and those five kids. And, you know, you can get a job, certainly, and take some of that money. And you might have to you might have to lean on social services of some kind to help make the rest of it up, but I think that gives your kids the best possible chance at a reasonable adult life. Because I hate to say this if you be like and I'm sure you can pull yourself around and have some happiness in your life, but I think your main focus has got to be on trying to save the kids from this happening to them, like, I don't, I mean, because you're not fixing this relationship, like, it's not like he didn't make a conscious decision to act like this. This is, I mean, this has crossed wires in his head. You know what? I mean, yes, like, and you're not gonna, you're not gonna rewire that today. And even if he pulls himself together, it could take him a decade or more to help to get that together, and by then, you're gonna have five kids who look more like Him or you, meaning either they're gonna come off like he does, or they're gonna be getting taken advantage of like you do. You're only gonna create one or two different kinds of people in this relationship right now. It's going to be people who get taken advantage of and are told they're not any good like, you have maybe a half a dozen times in the last hour referred to yourself as not a good person. Somehow, like, I don't, I can't even understand that. And so, like, think about your daughter. Do you want your daughter to be with a guy that treats her like this? No, no, but she's seeing you treated like this, and she's gonna think that's what's normal, yes,

Speaker 1 1:02:26
yeah, and I, I had therapy last week, and she it's a secular organization, and she told me at the end, she said, I prayed before seeing you, she said, before I asked her a question, and she said, You need to think about your kids. Your first job right now is to protect your children. Yeah, I agree. So this morning, we live right there's a elementary school right in our neighborhood. My youngest, she's going into third grade. So this morning, I did apply for three different jobs to work in the school system that, you know, it has benefits. Summer's off, school breaks off, and then I'm gonna, I don't know if I can say the company names, but I'm also gonna apply for, you know, Dexcom and tandem diabetes to see if I can do it, customer support work. I know a lot of them work from home, because you call them and you can hear kids and animals in the back, and you can

Scott Benner 1:03:25
hear the prices right while they're telling you about your stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. Listen, those are great ideas you have to and I listen, I shudder to give somebody advice, like I really people are probably laughing, but I don't, I don't want you to do something that I think is right. I've only known you for an hour, but I mean, from what you've described, I don't see the downside of you extricating yourself and your kids from this situation. Like, I mean, you, it's not like you've once said, Listen, I have a deep, like, love affair with this man, and it's breaking my heart that this is how he is, like you're saying, like, you know, we're already talking about getting separated, like, you know, like it's not even that, like you're just, from my perspective, you are so beaten down I don't even think you know where you are supposed to be, and I Don't. And I wonder if getting away from it, like, I mean, it's not going to be easy. I don't want to, like joke with you and say, oh, you know, just getting away is going to fix it. That's going to be a step. And there's probably going to be a moment in the first six months afterwards where you feel completely alone and you think, I did the wrong thing. I got to go back. I need help. But those are the moments when you have to realize he is not actually helping you with anything except for money, and this, then the state you live in can compel him to do that. So you know what? I mean,

Speaker 1 1:04:50
it's a lot of here. Well, I know it's not enough to support the the two families. So that is my step ahead. I've I'm starting to save a little. Money. I've got my advocate I'm working with. I'm I'm the type of person I need some type of plan. So that's why I'm applying for some jobs. You know, we've got summer talking about getting the kids in school. So if you look at the domestic abuse side of it, the advocate I'm working with, and I'm in some support groups. There's a lot of people that live with this. Have no idea. No,

Scott Benner 1:05:25
that's the thing that's making me the saddest is I'm thinking, I'm having this conversation with you, and I'm like, Oh, my God, this is crazy. And a lot of people are probably like, this is Tuesday for me. So you know, like, I believe that there's people who are going to be able to help you get through it. They could also probably, I don't know if you have as a family, if you have savings, I they could probably talk to you about how to make sure that you know when you tell him you're leaving or he's getting out, that he can't go empty your accounts and things like that. Like there's ways to get ahead of that stuff too. Yes,

Speaker 1 1:05:56
yeah. Well, that's the part I'm working on. So it looks, it looks kind of small, but the people who know where I've started, they've said it in the last year, I've made huge progress. You know, it's kind of a small way to go. I'm

Scott Benner 1:06:12
very impressed. I'm very, very impressed with with how you're handling this. If you, if you want to know the truth, I can't, seriously, I can't imagine you didn't just like, like, he's like, I'm leaving. I would have been like, Oh yeah, you buddy, I'm leaving. How about I'll brace you to the car. How's that sound? But like you're not doing that. You're not you got your eye on your kids. You're making smart decisions. You're talking to people to make sure you're not making rash decisions. I'm very impressed with how you're handling this seriously. Well, I

Speaker 1 1:06:41
think you need to exhaust all of the avenues, and that is what I'm trying to do, because it is a thing. Feels like you've done it, by the way. Yes, well, we have the sense of, I'll be back here tomorrow with this appointment. I don't know what the purpose of it is, but we'll go through it, and then we'll go from there. I'm just not ready to take the jump yet, but I have people that are willing to help, and I'd like to stay here. We've lived here for 12 years. Our kids know this is their home. They work here. They've got friends here. Yeah, amazing neighborhood. So that's what I'm trying to work out, is if I there's a way we can stay. Also,

Scott Benner 1:07:22
have you considered, what would any of the kids say? I'm staying with dad? Well,

Speaker 1 1:07:27
that is my concern, because the two youngest are the ones with type one diabetes, and he lavishes attention on them, taking them out to eat and buying them things and doing fun things, because he'll say mom and the teenagers, they don't like me and stuff like that, so they are very attached to him, and that is part of the

Scott Benner 1:07:49
oh, he's doing to them. What he's did to you?

Speaker 1 1:07:53
Yeah, he's good. He's very good to the those two girls, and he's

Scott Benner 1:07:56
grooming them, yeah, to be his fans, yes.

Speaker 1 1:07:59
But they also have the diabetes, which he does not manage, and that was kind of the tipping point we had a few weeks ago. They I was I just left home a few minutes ago, and our 12 year old, her infusion set fell off, and I was driving out of the neighborhood, and he's called, and I said, Can you do it? I will come back if you cannot do it, because he does, you know, if the alarms are going off in the night and he's awake, he'll wake me up to go do this stuff. So he says, Yes, I can do it. But then they got in an argument. She didn't like her attitude or something. She called me. The other kids got into it that they're two teenagers at home, they started arguing with him because they didn't like how he was treating the 12 year old. I got the two teenagers to leave and come to me. She wanted to stay with him because she loves daddy, and then she calls me, and she's never put an infusion set on all by herself. She's 12. You're going to start teaching her this year to do it right? I had to FaceTime her how to put it on, because he would not put it on for her. He was so upset. And while I'm putting that set on her, she's on FaceTime, and I can hear him in the background talking about how he's leaving. He's done, he's packing. He's leaving

Scott Benner 1:09:14
because of her attitude around an infusion set change.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:19
Yes, I think she was rough.

Scott Benner 1:09:23
Let me jump in here. I'm sorry. This is indelicate for people listening, and I am not I am not unfeeling for people with mental health disorders, but he's out of his mind, and you have to get away from him.

Speaker 1 1:09:35
That's what I'm thinking. This isn't her first time doing this by herself, and I don't know if she'll remember it, but this is what she has in the background. Is her dad talking about leaving her over something that started over the set.

Scott Benner 1:09:48
Oh yeah, this is, this is the beginning of a of a backslide for her that you won't even recognize till she's in her 30s. Like I'm saying, like the small things that happen to us day by day. Take forever to build up and turn into a good thing or a bad thing, and you'll never know what they were when you look back on them, but they are, for certain, the reason you get where you're going. And so, you know, you just buy 1000 paper cuts. Yeah, exactly. And so, like, maybe this won't be the thing, but all she's gonna have the memory of my dad was unstable, or how about my diabetes is the reason he left? Are you kidding me? You know what I mean. And see people do see stuff like that all the time. Yes,

Speaker 1 1:10:30
I know it happens, but that was the big mental shift for me. And he knows that he knew that he knew he messed up big time for me to hear that and that we've just been extra crazy the last few weeks because he I treat him completely different. He says, You look at me like I'm a cashier at Walmart, and I like I'm friendlier with a cashier at Walmart. Yeah, that

Scott Benner 1:10:53
guy's never yelled at me. But Okay, listen my father. My father left when I was, like, 13, and he told my mom, he put this on her. He told my mom, I'm leaving because I can't take the kids. And then he specifically highlighted me, because I was less willing to to just take his shit and, like, bow my head, right? And so I grew up. I had to, like, I had to get through that, like, at 13 years old, like, Oh, my dad, like, abandoned our family, and it was my fault, you know. And I know it's not. And I even knew then it wasn't. But it didn't mean that him just saying it out loud, didn't hang it on me for 20 years to figure out, you know what I mean. So you

Unknown Speaker 1:11:39
still have it inside a little. Of course, you heard that.

Scott Benner 1:11:42
Yeah, of course, I still have and listen, I've been able to, like, fight through most of this crap. But it's, I can't tell you, it doesn't impact you. We're planning right now, I'm planning to announce, I think next week, that I'm gonna put on a cruise that goes out of Texas, for people who listen to the podcast, right? And we're genuinely not sure, like, by the time this goes up, maybe we'll have a little better of an idea, but we're generally not sure how many people are actually going to want to do this. And there's a business side of it. I have to basically fill 200 state rooms for this thing to just break even, right? And then there has to be even more if I want to be able to afford to bring speakers along, or I'm otherwise, it's just going to be me speaking. It's going to be more of a vacation, right? And so I'm talking to the person who's setting this up, and she's like, Oh, we you'll get that many people. And I'm like, I don't know if I will you, but I don't, but I'm telling you, Phoebe, I don't know that. Like, I can't everyone around me is like, oh my god, this is going to be really popular. I have a friend of mine who used to work at JDRF and some other places. She's like, you're this will be bigger than something the JDRF puts on. And I'm like, I don't think 10 people are going to do it. No, you'll fill it up. Listen, the line I'm trying to draw here is, why do I feel that way, in the face of everything that would seem to say the opposite. And I think it's because of little things that happened to me over the years growing up that leave me incapable of actually feeling about myself, even being able to see myself the way I actually am, or my surroundings the way they actually are. And I I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, like, if you have any way to safely get out of this, I hope you take that opportunity.

Speaker 1 1:13:29
Well, that's what we're working on. That's why I said we did the farthest. Thought I'd have a better resolution, resolution, but we're getting, I think we're getting close to it. I just need to get some details. I've worked out you're doing great.

Scott Benner 1:13:42
Listen, I'm gonna let you go. This is a lot to talk about. You must be exhausted emotionally from having this conversation. Let me just throw this in here at the end for all you ladies, if you were my daughters, I would tell you the same thing I told my daughter. Every boy who's talking to you wants to have sex with you. You have to know that when it starts. And then look at every one of their thoughts from that angle, is this a loving thing to say? I thought it was when I sent my daughter off to college, I said you're going to meet some lovely people, some really kind people, nice people, but in general, you have to wonder what people's motivations are, and you really need to know them before you start giving yourself over to them, emotionally or sexually or in any other way that you give of yourself to a person, because for every great person there is out in the world, there's one who isn't they all look the same at first, you know. So you really have to like you just, I'm sorry, I know it's 20 some years ago for you, but like, there were probably signs in there where you could have been like, Why do you say that? Or how come I'm being treated this way, or like that kind of or if you had more self confidence, maybe you would have been like, I'm not going to let him talk to me like that. And again, those 1000 paper cuts, right? And now look at where it leads all these years. Later. And like you said, this happens the way more people than you think. Also it happens in reverse. There are plenty of guys who are lovely, who are out there, yes, you know, married to horror, horrifying women who are treating them poorly, too. This is not a a male, you know, specific

Speaker 1 1:15:15
trait. No, I know men loving. It's the same thing. Yeah, no, 100%

Scott Benner 1:15:21
Anyway, take care of yourselves. Do your research before you give away your Hulu. And good luck to you, Phoebe. I love that we called you Phoebe. That was like, I love that name. That's good name, yes.

Speaker 1 1:15:31
And maybe someday I'll have an update for you so I will let you know. Oh, I

Scott Benner 1:15:36
would love that you you keep me in mind for a couple of years down the road, I think people would like to know what happened, you know, and what you were able to figure out. Because I have a lot of confidence that you're going to figure this out. Do

Speaker 1 1:15:47
you? Yes, I think so. It will just be a pain, very painful thing, but we'll figure it out. Oh, it's

Scott Benner 1:15:54
going to be horrifying. I don't want to lie to you. There'll be a retrospect moment where you'll be far enough away from this horrifying part to look back on both of the horrifying parts and go. It was worth going through that to get away from that. You know what? I mean? Yeah, I think there's a, there's a Somewhere over the rainbow for you. It just might take you a little longer to get there than you hope. Yes, sir. Yeah, good for you. Okay, all right, I'm gonna let you go. Hold on one second for me. Okay?

Did you know if just one person in your family has type one diabetes, you're up to 15 times more likely to get it too. So screen it like you mean it one blood test can spot type one diabetes early, tap now talk to a doctor or visit screened for type one.com for more info. A huge thanks to the contour next gen blood glucose meter for sponsoring this episode of The juicebox podcast. Learn more and get started today at contour, next.com/juicebox if you're living with type one diabetes, the after dark collection from the juicebox podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about, from drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction and so much more. Go to juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark there, you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. Okay, well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Uh, why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram. Tiktok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please do not know about the private group. You have to join the private group as of this recording, it has 51,000 members in it. They're active, talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say, hi, hey. What's up everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrongway recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

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