Navigating the Intersection of Trauma, Identity, and Resilience

When I, Micah Bravery, sat down to confront the specters of my past, I knew that opening up about the raw and often silent struggles of surviving trauma would resonate with many. In this episode, I reveal my personal battles with molestation, the complexities of growing up biracial and gay, and how these experiences shaped my understanding of relationships and touch. My journey carries a backdrop of socioeconomic challenges, such as accessing dental care, and the survival mechanisms instilled in me since childhood. As we mark a milestone of one million downloads, I am reminded of the power in our shared stories and the truth that needs to be voiced from lived experiences.

One thing that needs to be made very clear; I HAD AMAZING PARENTS.... still do

Family is both a sanctuary and a crucible, where support and challenges coexist. Reflecting on my family's role in my healing process, I acknowledge the nurturing yet resource-limited environment that fortified my resilience. From the turmoil of discovering my identity and confronting discrimination, to the steadfast belief my mother held through my teenage years battling illness, this episode peels back the layers of my life's narrative. "Love Beyond the Battle," my testament in written form, weaves a tale of love's endurance amidst the ravages of cancer, offering a beacon of hope to others walking similar paths.

Turning the lens on societal issues, we address the urgent need for mental health support among black men, underscored by the recent loss of a crucial therapy service. Our community-driven efforts to revive it speak to the profound pressure and judgment faced by those grappling with the unseen scars of trauma. Storytelling emerges as a cathartic medium in this healing journey, as I recount my own experiences with molestation, human trafficking, and a relentless fight against cancer. This episode is an affirmation of the mantra that guides us: Count the cost and make the change. With heartfelt gratitude, I thank you for joining me on this transformative voyage, aimed at fostering resilience and empowerment for all.


#HealingJourney #SurvivorStories #TraumaRecovery #FindYourLight #ShareYourStory #BreakTheSilence #Empowerment #UnityInHealing #PathToRecovery #SilentBattles #PersonalSorrow #HopefulPursuit #SexualAssaultSurvivor #AbuseSurvivor #TransformPain #CommunitySupport #UnderstandingChange #VoiceMatters #EmpowerUnite #NavigateToLight #Resilience #CostOfTrauma #MakeTheChange #TraumaIsExpensivePodcast #FukkenFeelings #YourStoryMatters #TheseFukkenFeelingsPodcast #permissiontoheal #mentalhealthawareness 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello there, brave souls, welcome to Trauma is Expensive, with your host, micah Bravery. Here we don't just talk about trauma, we count the cost and we make the change. With every episode, we dive deep into the heart of trauma, its implications and the resilient transformations it can ignite, through conversations, insights, real stories and unflinching honesty. This podcast is here to empower every survivor to turn their pain into progress. So let's take a journey together as we understand, confront and finally heal. Welcome to wwwtraumaisexpensivecom, your platform for change. Now let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:50

What is up, my fellow humans?

Speaker 2: 0:53

like any other episode for this episode, I kinda got a lot to say this time right, but hey, what else is new? I'ma get my chance to talk. I haven't been podcasted lately, but I hope you guys had a great weekend and that this week will be fantastic and wonderful for all of you all out there. I hope that you make it through all of the things that you don't tell people and I hope that, if you haven't learned how to survive, that you at least learned how to endure, and there are two completely different things. Some traumas you'll never survive, trust me, I know, but I learned to endure through them and I know that there are many people who would agree that this is a wrong message, but this is a real message and I just want you to know from a person who's going through it and has gone through it, not from somebody who's been taught about it. I'm talking about someone who actually, physically, has gone through some of the worst things a person can go through. Sometimes enduring is all you can do, figuring out how to endure through it, and it's retarded that we have to think that way. I feel like I'll never be in a relationship ever and I'll probably never get married and I'm probably going to be one of those people that's going to be single. Because of my trauma and through the years of molestation I go through, I just don't like people touching me, like there's some roll up on me and touch me. Now, of course, it's hard to live life without anybody touching you. You got to go to a barbershop, which people know from me. That's a struggle, but then you have friends and at work everybody loves hugging me and it's cool because I know that some people need a hug and sometimes shit, when you work and you with your co-workers, you get from them some of the things you don't get at home. So sometimes I need a hug too. But how do you need a hug when you don't like being hugged or you don't like being touched, right? So I'm learning to endure through all of the physical trauma I went through and okay, this is just going to lead into a really, really quick conversation I wanted to have with you guys because my voice is being heard out there and I'm so excited to see that. You know, we just hit the one million download mark on Apple Podcasts, which is pretty, pretty cool and it's like wow, people are actually listening.

Speaker 2: 3:15

So one thing that happens to people who go through trauma is that they always want to look at the parents. And in this situation, in my situation, you can't I had the greatest parents ever, so my parents did not know I was going through the sexual molestation I was going through and through the torment and through a lot of other physical things that I was going through, because we grew up as a mixed racial family in America and we grew up in the hood and we always grew up in black communities and we were always the poorest in the white trash and I needed to go back to my country and what I'm trying to say is that my parents had more like they had so many other things to worry about. You know, it's pretty funny, but me and actually I don't even want to say it because it's probably going to make me sound like a horrible person but me and Crystal always talk, and Crystal has really great teeth and we always talk about how she has Medicaid teeth, because I have horrible teeth and I have horrible teeth. Number one just her right of terror reasons. Number two my family grew. We grew up where my father worked and my mom worked and but we didn't make any. We didn't make enough money where we can have insurance, but we didn't have medical insurance. So you know, we wasn't getting no dental insurance. And then my parents made too much money to qualify for any kind of public assistance or medical assistance or whatever kind of assistance out there, so we didn't get Medicaid and those kind of things too. And so I always feel like, hey, we should have, because we was poor as hell and we probably ate potatoes every day, which are fond memories. See, these are actually a fond memory like my parents used to buy, like this 50 pound bag of potatoes and we used to have compositions about who would, who could, cut the skinniest potato. I mean, we were trying nothing like you know those cans of, like those potato sticks, like we was legit making those at home and turning them into conversations. So I had a great support system.

Speaker 2: 5:19

The issue was the dementors and that's what I call them, because, like in Harry Potter, they suck the soul out of me. But the dementors of my life threatens my family, threatens their livelihood. So it was, it wasn't a situation. Sometimes I do get mad because I feel like they should have known. Right, you are my parents, you should know something's going on with me.

Speaker 2: 5:41

But then that's hard to say too, when you're a biracial, feminine gay boy growing up in the hood, because you go through a lot of bullying, a lot of name calling I was a sissy, a faggot, a queer. Sometimes I don't even know what it was, but you know, I went through a lot of things. I always have this saying that you know, I wasn't, I'm not gay because I was molested, I was molested because I was gay. So because, yes, people have even told me that I was gay because I was molested right, and these are people outside of my family once again because I had a really, really good support system. I didn't have bad parents, it was just they weren't in the situation to know what was truly going on with me. Number one, I wouldn't tell them and number two, I kind of had the cover up. You know just being bullied. You know being bullied every single day. So, on top of being molested, I'm being bullied.

Speaker 2: 6:39

And it makes sense, right, it will make sense why I retreat to my room. It makes sense why I became a loner. You know those things make sense. So, you know, sometimes I used to, I used to be really mad at my parents because I'm like how could you not know. You know how could you not see that I am hurt so much, like my humanity is gone, and sometimes I felt like a dog, right. But as you get older you start to realize that it's not possible. It's not possible to see. I mean so many things that I miss now.

Speaker 2: 7:11

Now I am my mom's caretaker and she lives with me. So I parents divorced and my brother and I always laugh because he got custody of my father and I got custody of my mother, right. Unfortunately, my father passed away a few years ago with COVID. Rest in peace, and, as you guys know, I really don't mourn his death because I still feel like he's here with me and I still feel his slight remarks and the slick comments. And one thing my father never did was treat me like a gay, his gay son. You know. Now, did my family have jokes? Yes, that is what we do. We joke, you know.

Speaker 2: 7:42

I remember I first told my mom I wanted to get a tattoo. She said what you want to get? A teddy bear. Yeah, my mama played me, but it's cool because I end up getting like a butterfly. So I did what she knew. She knew I was going to do anyway, but I had a really really great, great, great support system. So I just didn't.

Speaker 2: 8:03

You know, I didn't have a voice. So that's where that's what messed up like our dynamics of my family. I guess, as far as me being protected or feeling protected, feeling safe, I didn't have a voice. My voice had been taken years earlier. If you listen to past episodes, I tell people my first memory is of being molested. So that's as far as my memory goes. It's kind of hard to remember when I lost my voice, you know, but I knew I didn't have one and I knew I needed to protect my family.

Speaker 2: 8:33

My mom was the super of the building we lived in. So that means that she had a collect grant, which means that everybody had access to her. You know, if something was broken or a sink or just anything, you know my mom was one who dealt with this. So it was like my mentors, of course, had easily easy access to my mom. So it wasn't until probably 10 years ago that my family discovered that I went through the molestation I went through. And then it wasn't anybody in my immediate family, but I had some cousins who have done some crazy things to me also.

Speaker 2: 9:10

But my family life, like my family was good, like we didn't have a lot, but we knew that we was loved, we knew we had each other. It was my mom's biggest thing. She wanted us to all know, like all you have is each other. And it's crazy because we all kind of went our separate ways. My brother, uh, why ain't no getting on names, but each one of us went our separate ways? No, I went through trying to discover who I was as a gay male in America who I felt at the time was racist because, uh, you know, not racist, but I wasn't white, I wasn't black. So I went through a lot of ignorance when it came to my to who I was and where I fit in as far as demographics. And it's just crazy. That's another conversation to write.

Speaker 2: 10:01

I know I'm mixing too many conversations, but the main part of this episode is that in explaining my trauma and in healing, you know, sometimes I think the cost is that people think I had bad parents and I did not. My father, you know it's kind of crazy. My mom always tells people that she knew I was gay when I was in her stomach and we always joke like, oh, because I had a feminine kick. You know, I used to be like you know, but so she always prepared my dad and my siblings for me being gay, which is cool, uh, but I did her to go prepare the rest of the world, right, because this world is cruel as a motherfucker.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Now, um, once I finally came into accepting myself, I really didn't go through a lot of like bashing and bullying and those kind of things. You know, it was kind of opposite. I always heard, oh, you know, yeah, mike is cool, mike is cool to be gay. Oh, no, you ain't got to worry about him, he's cool to be gay. You know, it was like I heard that for a whole life and I'm like, damn, how, how or not other gay people cool, you know, but anyway, those things are fathers from my mind. Um, so, yeah, so I had really really great parents. I mean, they always made sure we got something for Christmas, you know, easter, it always. You know, we didn't have a lot of money, but we were always celebrated. We always had a cake for our birthday, which is, people knows, you know, people who know me and, um, people who I celebrate with. No, they're going to get a cake. If no other reason, it's for me. Okay, I'm going to get on somebody's birthday is just something my mom always saw us.

Speaker 2: 11:34

So, just as I live out my journey in front of you guys and as I tell my stories, um, I tell them because they're important, because I was silenced for a long time and I lost a lot of my innocence, which is probably why I'm a big kid now, right, um, but I did. I lost so much innocence. I lost, you know, the ability to be a sneakerhead and you know the ability to know music and I used to love the singing, I used to have a really, really great voice and now I can't even carry a tune and because of that I don't listen to music. So, um, sometimes I just don't understand, like, how people know these songs. Like, how do you live the rest of your life? But you could sing every song on the radio, like I don't have the mental capacity for that, right, but it go, I missed a lot out of life.

Speaker 2: 12:18

You know, I missed a lot out of life and sometimes I regret not telling my support system, because I had a loving support system. Now, I weighed in on their wellbeing, on their safety, you know. And then, finally, when we moved from our area and, um, we moved states, we actually took some of my tormentors with me and and it kind of started a whole nother thingy. But one day I was strong enough and I put it into it and it stopped and it was the last time that I said that anybody would ever take anything from me. And then I went there at weird teenage phase. I was 16 years old. Well, I actually went through a little horrible sickness when I was 16. So I had gay umbra syndrome we could talk about that conversation but I was paralyzed from the neck down. It was very, very traumatizing and I think it was.

Speaker 2: 13:22

I always talk about cancer. Cancer was the thing that taught me how to love, but I think that gay umbra syndrome was the thing that taught me how to live. One of the other main reasons is I was actually in a hospital and I was a child, I was 16. So I was in a children's hospital and I remember there was a drowning incident. You know I live really really close to the beach. There was a drowning incident and he was in the hospital with me also and he, like legit, was like maybe two or three doors down and he ended up passing away and I remember how hard I took it. That, wow. You know, it's the first time that I think I saw the cruelty of God, right, and I think we're going to leave that for a conversation for another day. But I think that's for the first time that I started to question God and whether he exists or not exist. But back to my parents. They had great parents and one thing so my mom is faithful, always been faithful. She prays, she believes in Jesus, she thanks Jesus. You know it's funny.

Speaker 2: 14:26

I wrote a book and, if you guys don't know, love Beyond the Battle. Anywhere books are sold, I always send people to Amazon because it's easy. You always Amazon shops. Why do you want Amazon? Just type in Michael Bravery or Love Beyond the Battle and pick up the book is really, really dope. It is my story on love and cancer, right? But of course I'm excited I wrote my first book. So I have like this bell on my phone that every time I saw the book the bell ring and me and my mom watch a lot of the same TV shows. So like when I get home, it is me and my mom, it be in my dog and we will watch the shows and we're catching up on each other's days and just talking about life or whatever. Mostly we watch TV shows Probably every doctor show and we get the same anxiety and the drives is crazy. But you know, we make it through.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Right now, watching the fosters, which kind of messed me up a little bit because I wanted to foster kids I really, really did. But after seeing that I'm like, oh my god, I don't know if I'm ready. Um, I will start with one, but what if the one had a sibling? I would want to get the sibling right and I don't know. I feel like I need to still be on my healing journey a little more. So I'm gonna put a little tap into the fosters.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Sometimes things are brought to you for a reason. Right, the show is incredible. But, wow, those people go through a lot and I'm like I don't know if I could love somebody past their pain that is so deep. I'm still trying to learn how to love me past my pain, right? So before I go out there and invite this child who feels like, or this teenager, because I want to foster teenagers, um, I don't know why I want to foster versus adopt, it's, you know. I guess it's like for permission. You know, if I've ever adopted somebody, it's because I will want them to want me to adopt them, okay. So I am very big into consent and I think that's why I choose fostering.

Speaker 2: 16:22

But I do want older kids and I know that's gonna come with a a sense of some kind of problem, right, some kind of trauma. It's gonna be torments. It's like you never know what you're gonna get and it's like, wow, am I capable of dealing with that? And at this time, right now, I don't think so. But of course, I'm going through cancer, getting off cancer or getting off chemo. Now we're trying to wait to see a memory mission. What's the next step? I gotta go get my little white blood cell pump put in. So it's like, you know, hey, it's a lot going on, right, but, um, you know I I'm not giving up on the idea. I just know that I'm not ready now. But you know, hey, I want to have my little bravery clan out here too. And, uh, you know like effect change the way that I can.

Speaker 2: 17:07

I never really cared about a legacy before, um, and I still don't really care about legacy. I don't want any biological kids and I won't have any. I will not bring any kids into this world my DNA. It's just not gonna happen. I kind of been through so much I refuse to pat there that there's a chance that I pass this on to anybody but I don't mind passing on love or knowledge or the things that I learned, or you know, the method to my coping systems that I have used to help build myself up out of, uh, depression and anxiety and just everything else.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Every other doctor want to label me right and and it's easy to do because I was loved and if I didn't feel nothing else and I didn't know nothing else, I knew that I was loved and that was one thing that my parents they gave me. They gave me love and my siblings, I mean, we were all really close and I knew that I was love. And I think that was the hardest thing because I felt like I was a monster. To you know, I was the monster in the family and it was like here are all these people who love me and they don't know the truth about me, they don't know what I've been through and I was scared of what they would think and then it happened too long, or if it happened for so long, and when I say that is that it happened so many years. That is like, did they think that I liked it? Well, they think I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: 18:28

Um, to be honest, there were times when my body reacted to it, you know. And then I had to remember that. You know, I am not my body. You know when those things happen, but I know that women I can't. I'm not speaking for women, but if I can imagine how I felt being aroused by being raped and I know that women have gone through this I I guess I can't imagine what they go through. You know, I feel like it just has to be so much worse. They're gonna be being sexist, right? No, I mean, I know what it did to me because, you know, for a long time, and they confused me. It's like, are you really gay or all? Or is it that these are the things that you remember? I told you this episode is gonna be complicated, right, but hey, we're talking about trauma, we're talking about expense, but we're also talking about healing, right? So this is a healing conversation for me.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Um, because I just wanted you guys to know I it's very important for you guys to know that I had dope parents. My mom is still around. She's still amazing. She has my best friend, my dad, passed away but, like I said, he's still with me too. Um, I had my mom when submitting them, but you know, right now I'm just trying to make them proud. I'm trying to do all the things that I didn't get to do before. You know, if you guys know and listen to these fucking feelings podcast, you know that I support veterans. My dad was a veteran and I feel like when you listen to the stories and you listen to his life, if he had mental health, mental health help, I think his life would have been a lot different as well. Now are we supposed to go back and wish our life different? You know, to me, we argue about that on another episode, right?

Speaker 2: 20:10

Um, I am having a really hard time with faith and with believing in God, and so I believe in a God. I think I believe in a God, right, but the God I believe in doesn't love me or can't love me. The way that people talk about God loving them because life has been tough, oh my God. I mean, some of my experiences have been horrible and that is my biggest struggle with God. And then I go and I think about other people that I've talked to people that have met on this podcast and everybody just seems to be so okay with life and destiny and those kind of things. But I really wish there were some things that I did not go through. I mean, I wish stills as they haunt me. I just I don't. Once again, I haven't survived it. I am enduring, I'm enduring and I'm trying to work my way through it, maybe around it, because it's just when people do some things, I think it's why now if, like, you know me up close and like we're friends, and you're hiding something or you're not telling me something, it's like it bothers me so much.

Speaker 2: 21:32

You know. Same thing in relationships. It's like don't keep secrets, you know. It's like how can I know how to react to a situation? How can I know what you need from me, if you don't talk to me? Right, and that's what I'm doing to you guys. I'm talking, I'm trying to say, hey, let's get these conversations out.

Speaker 2: 21:50

I also wanted to say something else, right? So we're in support. Sorry, I just want to make sure. I just want to read you guys this comment before I close this episode. You know I try to keep these episodes kind of pretty, pretty short, because usually it's just me rambling and every now and then we'll get a guess, but you know, for the most part it's just me rambling. But so my home girl? All right, let's go. So my home girl, lisa Sugarman right, she is on TikTok. Let's see if I can tell you what her profile is. It is at Lisa, underscore Sugarman, the way it is supposed to be spelled.

Speaker 2: 22:37

She made a video the other day in support of Okay, I'm sorry, I'm trying to get it. Okay, she made a video the other day in support of therapy for black men, their organization, and it's it's. You know, they're just for the betterment of anything dealing with mental health and just just a betterment of black men in general, and we're hearing that they have to close their doors. So, of course, I am going to do the same thing she did. She started GoFundMe for this organization. Really, really dope. I mean, go check them out. What's the website? Oh my God, I just have it on the town therapy for black menorg. It is the website. So go on the website, check them out. You can find the GoFundMe on my Instagram, facebook, even my link tree. It's a dope organization. But anyway, lisa made a very, very clear video. So I didn't post my own video, I used hers and explained everything I needed to explain right? Well, definitely, we're supporting this. We're supporting this. Everybody needs mental health.

Speaker 2: 23:53

I think sometimes, when it comes to people of color, especially black men, they are held to a different, a different standard, and you know it's not fair. It's um. I was on their website the other day and it was kind of cool to see people admitting like, hey, I had a sex addiction, or hey, I did this and I did that, and these are things coming from black men that you would normally hear, and it was so dope and I feel like that's why this organization is so incredible, so let's support. But a comment I got was she's not even black, so we can't even support each other anymore. Is that what this world is coming to? And then y'all want me to bring a baby into this world Dead. I'm good. Yeah, I need to get together. Yes, let's support each other. So if you don't like that, lisa Sugarman is out here and she is speaking up for therapyforblackmanorg and it bothers you. Then imagine she's black. Go on the GoFundMe and donate, because this is an incredible, incredible organization and they need our help. So I just wanted to add that in there.

Speaker 2: 25:00

But it was something a little disturbing, to be right. And I think that's what made me think about this parent's track, because I was like, hey, like who raised these people right? And I was like you know what I'm judging. And the same way I'm judging I'm pretty sure that there are other people out there judging my parents because they listen to my story and they see that, wow, he was molested for over 11, 12 years. You know he went through this, he went through that. You know he was trafficked like like oh my God, you know it's like where were his parents? What were they doing? They were doing the same thing you're doing trying to survive.

Speaker 2: 25:37

And I think that that's a reminder like let's check in with our people, let's check in with our kids, our friends, our family. You know like we're losing touch of each other. You know I get that respect needs to be earned, but compassion is free. Let's give that to each other. Let's check in, let's do the things that we need to do. Stop judging so much. You know what I'm saying now.

Speaker 2: 25:59

It's hard not to sometimes because you look at people. You're like what the fuck are you doing? But hey, if you want to know, ask what the fuck are you doing? My thing is like let's love each other, bro, like I had such great parents and I know you know it's hard to really say I regret not telling them because it could have put an end to my torment so much sooner. But what if it didn't? And what if some of my tormentors and it was a lot I was a pretty kid and you know other people's words, not mine, but being a pretty kid didn't get me nowhere. But attention I didn't want. And then I was a feminine, pretty kid and had green eyes, and there are some really sick people in this world and there still are.

Speaker 2: 26:49

And I'm not judging you, I'm just telling you if that's what you're out there looking for, please go get help, because it's not normal, okay, and it's a deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper trauma that you need to find another way to deal with, right? But yeah, I mean I went and I don't know. I just have so much to say, but I just wanted to make it clear as I go on in this podcast Trauma is Expensive, where we're talking about the cost of unresolved trauma. You know I'm going to continue to tell my story because I think it's important and I want people to understand that, hey, you never know what someone's going through.

Speaker 2: 27:32

You know, people look at me and I am not saying, look at me, I'm the finest person in America. Hell, no, I don't got no six pack. I know that's what I want. But when people look at me they don't see a person who is fighting cancer. But I am so because I am. Don't assume that I'm fine because I look fine, you know. But in the same respect, don't ask me how I'm doing if you don't care. You know, it's like you don't have to ask, but you can say hi or we could keep it moving. But don't make me feel like I have to explain why I don't look as sick as I am, because I'm struggling enough, you know, and I'm in my search for God, or for my God, because I believe that my God did not create me to be miserable. I mean, I've learned how to find peace. You know it's a lot of questions.

Speaker 2: 28:25

You know, sometimes I feel like I can see where God was in my life. I spend a lot of time just over the weekend watching a lot of different kind of spiritual, religious, kind of miracle type of movies, and I'm like you know, there's some things that have happened through when I'm still alive, and maybe that was God, but I still don't get it. I still don't get the concept. You know, I'm gonna look, though I was thinking about it the other day and I was like you know what, maybe I should look for a gay church. Number one I want to go to a gay church, or I'll even do it online, because it's just, I want to be around my people, I want to be encouraged by my people. You know it's funny. You know I was listening the other day and you know, I guess I was watching TV, watching the show, and I don't remember what it was. But I know that the two gay guys went to the church and they were like, and they were openly gay, and the pastor knew, and you know, but a woman questioned him and she said you know, you have gay people in your church and he said all centers are welcome. And I'm like that's not what I'm looking for.

Speaker 2: 29:31

I know that this is how I was beautifully made. I know this is how my creator made me. There is nothing that I can do. I have had sex with women. Okay, I've tried a lot. And do you know what has happened after every single time I physically get sick and I throw up? Do you know how painful that is for women to know that you're throwing up because you just finished having sex with them? So no, I'm not going to stay here and go out there and get some pussy, because it doesn't help, it hurts, and not just me, but the person who I am trying to discover myself with. I'm in my 40s. I know this is who I am. I know this is who I was born, as I know that my family love and accept me. I also know that, you know, because of it I've been through a lot of trauma, because the world doesn't understand it, and I'm going to explain it to you my way, because there is somebody in your family, there are friends, there are people out there that need you, man. My last, last thoughts of the day is just support.

Speaker 2: 30:34

So I kind of found out I was, I've been in remission almost four years it would have been four years on Valentine's Day and I found out in December that, hey, I'm back stage one cancer. You know we caught it early, but hey, let's treat it aggressively, because when I had it, you know, the first time I had a really really low percentage of living. I think it was like a 7% chance of living. It was stage four. It was really really bad. I went through some horrible times but you know, my doctors now have a really great team and they were like let's treat it aggressively, and I will.

Speaker 2: 31:13

And I was with it and I was like I'm going to let all the people I know and all the people I love and all the people I think love me that this is what I'm going through Because I have been here for everybody for the last so many years. I just need my tribe and my tribe Let me down. If I could think about how many times other than crystal okay, we'll be talking about other than crystal, but producer crystal and my co-worker is here who have become my new tribe. I have found a tribe amongst a group of older white women. It is so incredible. Right, beth is my baby, so I'm going to shut that out, but crystal checks in every day. I actually got a text her back now.

Speaker 2: 32:01

But a lot of people let me down because I said I've always been there for you. Here you are, knowing I have cancer and you ain't shit. And I reached out and I told my friend this, and, and, and my friends it was a few of them that kind of let me down and the answer I got from one of them is well, you look so fine and remember, looking fine and being fine are two completely different things that support people. Let's not assume things about people. And as I continue to go through this journey of podcasting and I'm going to continue to do it until you guys stop Listen in, but I feel like you're listening because you want to have moments of peace in your life. Right, life is never going to be perfect. I hate to say that because I feel like maybe sometimes it can, but you know, we're never always going to be up. We're going to have our down moments, but we should have more up moments than we do down, and I think all of that is determined by the state of your mental health. So, lessons today.

Speaker 2: 33:08

Number one my parents were fantastic. They are not the reason for a lot of my trauma. Now there are things that my parents did that did cause trauma, but it wasn't, you know, like their intent. They were never malicious about it. It's just the way things happen. Parents don't know everything, so they don't do everything and we as children are affected by it. Right, we know that. Cool, let's heal from that too. But I had amazing parents. They loved me, they made sure I knew I was loved, and I think it was this love that is the reason on why I never myself thought of committing suicide, because I knew that it would hurt them, because that's how loved I knew I was. But did I want to die? Yes, the pain I went through was horrible.

Speaker 2: 33:59

I still have nightmares today, but I'm healing and I'm able to share my story and I just want the same thing from you. You know, it's like there are people who are out there killing themselves because they don't have someone to listen, they don't have a safe place, they don't have a person, and we all should have our people. And if you're a person like me and you get caught up in life and you're just really busy and you have this really crazy schedule, don't forget to check in on your people, especially the people you love. Send a message, are you okay? Hey, I'm just thinking about you, like, let's continue to love and support each other in this crazy, crazy world. I'm going to continue to tell my truth. I'm going to continue to tell you guys that you should seek help and tell your truth. It is the most amazing thing. Talking has completely saved and changed my life and I want the same thing for you. If you're listening to this, if you're listening to this part of this message, know that you can find safety, you can find peace and you can find a method that will help you heal from your trauma If not all, some of it. And if you can't survive everything, then you can learn to endure some things, but it still is building blocks for a better life.

Speaker 2: 35:23

Check out these fucking feelings podcast. We have a brand new episode. Every Wednesday we have guests on and just everyday people been through some shit and knew they needed to dig their way out of it, found a method that worked for them and dug their way out of it. That is what we wish for you. I am your host, micah Bravery. Once again, if you made it to the end of this episode, I'm so glad that you listened at all. I know that I drive. You are crazy. I drive myself crazy. My mind moves a million miles an hour, right, but the message remains clear I love y'all, I want you all to love yourself and I want you to know that you're worth every great thing in this life. If you don't have it, go get it Legally. Peace, love and blessings.

Speaker 1: 36:12

And that brings us to the end of yet another insightful episode of Trauma is Expensive. I'm signing off on behalf of your host, Micah Bravery, reminding all you brave souls to continue counting the cost and making the change. Don't forget to visit wwwtraumatisexpensivecom, a dynamic space for understanding, healing and transformation, where we fuel the journey to turn pain into progress. Until we meet again, stay resilient, stay empowered and remember the mantra Count the cost and make the change. Thank you for being part of the conversation. We bid you farewell. Until next time.