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we are back another ex- homeschoolers club with your host Jacob good today I'm
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chatting with my friend aloette uh some of you will know her as aloette Pettit I
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know that is no longer her last name and I'm blanking on what it is currently but
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um uh she I'm sure she will fill us all in but aloette and I have known each
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other I say this with everybody but we've known each other a long time um we
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both grew up in the ohigh valley um and things like that and we're going to get
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into her story and and just her homeschool experience but before we do that couple things um if you enjoy the
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show I want to hear from you I want to know what we can do better what uh you're liking people you want to hear on
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all of those good things so at the very top of the description the show notes whatever the links down below um there
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is going to be a uh a form to fill out it's six questions two of them are super
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easy your name and your email address and then it's just a bunch of questions
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about what we can do better where if we build an external Community outside of this
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where you want it to be Discord slack all of those wonderful wonderful social media places um that kind of thing I
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want to hear from you so if you don't mind take a second we'll wait okay and we're back okay aloette
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welcome to the podcast thank you for having me we got uh we've known each other like
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I said we've known each other for a long time um I feel like I I always try to
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think back to like how we met and I I just like I know we kind of we just ran in similar circles there was like theana
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group and there was just the ohigh valley Homeschool Group and all of those things and so I think at some point
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Calvary Chapel was up the street from my house and go there sometimes so I think
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we just kind of at some point our paths just they connected right Ami I know I I
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feel like that's how I feel about most of the people in like achieve and stuff
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is just I don't know when we met but we met and then it we just existed yeah and
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in each other's circles absolutely yeah no there's a those few people that I'm like I
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distinctly remember meeting you but then yeah there's exactly and then there's
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those few that I'm just like we just were friends we just ended up in the same Circle and somehow your parents
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knew my parents and we ended up taking classes together or what whatever it might be but anyway so tell us a little
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bit about your homeschool Journey fill us in like what was home life like were you homeschooled all the way through
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that kind of thing walk us through a little bit of that yeah so like you said aloette pedit now aloette Kim much
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easier last name now um growing up um I was homeschooled K through 12 whole way die hard since day one um I didn't
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do any side of any kind of outside schooling really um until College um well I took BC classes um during high
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school as well but it's still College um but started off with my mom just really
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wanting to homeschool and give it a try um both my parents were public schooled so it wasn't something that they had
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experience with um but they thought you know hey this will be kind of a fun thing to try out and I'm the first born
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so guinea pig yeah but they decided they wanted to do it my mom really loves the like
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curriculum the um guide the well-trained mind which is like a book on stuff and I
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don't know I it the uh importance alludes me but but um I know my mom really loves it
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and she swears by it so if we homeschool if me and my husband homeschool our daughter one day I'll probably look into
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it more um my mom um kind of headed that up obviously my dad was working um and so I you know started being homeschooled
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and that started the whole thing and now um you know my three younger sisters well two of them were homeschooled and
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then there's Eevee my sister who's right after me who's in special education um
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so she would she did go to public school but besides her the rest of us um we homeschooled and I think it worked out
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well I don't know I enjoyed it never regretted it I feel like you know homeschooling can go one of two ways for
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people and I'm positive about it for me yeah no that's that's good I I tell
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people that too I'm like I don't feel like I had there's things I would change
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but I think there's things I would change about you know every decision you make in life um so um well that's good
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that's good that it was a positive experience and you know one of the things to like you said you had a sister
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who was at special education I think it's interesting because I so many homeschool kids had siblings that were
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they needed some assistance whether it was just like a learning disability or uh like an actual disability or things
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like that and so I think it's interesting because we also grew up surrounded by those people or at least I
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did where now as an adult like I can kind of I I I feel almost like I can navigate being around somebody who's
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different quote unquote right like and I don't know and and handle it a little
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bit where some people I don't know I remember in college just specifically people not knowing how to handle
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somebody who is just slightly different than them they just kind of like so I I would imagine growing up in a house with
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someone who had some special needs like it it's made it probably a lot easier
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now as an adult to like I don't know see someone else out in the world and know
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just like how to interact with them right yeah absolutely and I think especially in terms of like my job like
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I'm a nurse you know you get patients a lot um who well not a lot but you get
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patients who are non-verbal um whether that's because of you know a genetic condition like my sisters um or if
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that's a medical condition they're in a coma or medically induced coma something
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like that and I think being able to especially interact with communicate with someone who's not able to verbally
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commun communicate is a definitely an acquired skill and having grown up around it it definitely helped out in
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that and um it's something that I'm thankful for especially with my line of work yeah no
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that's definitely and also homeschoolers in general I feel like aside from cognitive developmental learning
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disabilities we're all just kind of different so so learning how to interact
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with people who are different is are like bread and butter also because everybody's kind of you know maybe a
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little bit off in a good way yeah no I I I feel you I yeah I lean into the weird
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now I think but um okay so so homeschooled all the way through it's all you've ever
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known siblings kind of same deal homeschooled all the way through we're currently being homeschooled
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um what did like a typical day look like like were you always involved in some kind of Homeschool Group as well cuz I
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know that's that's kind of how we knew each other achieve group Solutions a
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little bit that kind of stuff but was that something you guys were always a part of or or did it build up over the
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years so starting off my mom actually made like she and a few friends started their own little tiny Homeschool Group
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it was like maybe four families and this is when I was really young like probably like kindergarten first grade
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second grade maybe like the beginning of it um and it was just a few of us families and it was fun I remember doing
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like show and tell and little you know like makeshift uh School field trips and things like that and I think it was good
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that we had that little group especially because I think most of us in that group
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were all all the kids were like the first born first homeschooled so it was kind of all these moms like working
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together to kind of figure out they're going to go about it yeah um and then at
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some point um we started going to achieve um and I think a big part of that was several of the families in that
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small group ended up moving across country so like my best friends as a kid and then one moved to Virginia one moved
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to Pennsylvania so it was just like all of a sudden all my little childhood friends were
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gone not all of them but you know some of the close ones and then I was thrust into the achieve group where there's
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like all these people everybody knows each other and I was like what um that was a hard I will say that was
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kind of a hard transition at first because I didn't know anyone and we started going to a new church at the
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same time started going to Calvary Chapel in Oakview and so I was kind of like having to make all these new
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friends all at once and I had some old friends who were going there um that I knew but like a lot of the group um that
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I was surrounded with was new friends that I made so like the Nelsons were new friends to me um jacine who's still my
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bestie is with a new friend to me at that time um Mandy Al Calla now Mandy gon it was one of my friends that I made
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during that time so a lot of people who later became like my close Circle were new when I was around like 8 n 10 and so
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it was kind of hard transition in terms of going from like this is the circle I know to this new Circle and everybody
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knows each other in this new Circle except for me but we're still all homeschooled we still all go to this
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achieve but I'm like the new kid in a chief but obviously you know over time I
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ALG in but yeah no I I feel that because even though I wasn't homeschooled all
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the way through I started in second grade which I was eight and so I similar to you I was like I went from I had my
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school group of friends that we were going to go through all the grades together and then we moved and it was
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like we moved 30 I mean venturo to ohigh so it was like 30 minutes away and yeah
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I didn't get to see those friends as much anymore if at all like um and and and yeah it was a brand new group and
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they all seemed to know each other so yeah breaking into that is like way harder it's really daunting as a child
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like you don't think about it that much but it is yeah it is and I mean thankfully it's still kind of that age
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where like I feel like parents have some influence over like oh hey your kid is the same age as my kid we should like do
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a play right like I think there's still some of that when you get to like high
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school level it's like weird if your mom calls your your your friend's mom right
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and be like uh I think we should have a play dat it's like Mom I'm 14 years old
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I can make my own decisions I know I think like in that sense I was lucky I was also pretty
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outgoing I've always been pretty outgoing as far as like making friends and so it was easier for me to be like
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hey you want to come over to my house but I do distinctly remember being like scared and feeling a little ostracized
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because I didn't know anyone and like like you said you're your kids so it's
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like it's flexible in terms that your parents can invite people over for you
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and it's not weird but at the same time kids don't always at that age know how
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how to like invite new people in like to make them feel welcome because you're
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still young you're still learning those like social like it's nice to invite the
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new person to do things and so I remember being kind of like I don't know anyone and it I feel
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like nobody likes me even and then like I slowly was like hey do you want to have a play dat do you want to come to
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my house and I know a big thing too was um Aaron Nelson and I ended up doing soccer um not on the same team because
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it was boys and girls leagues but in the same you know like the Ohio Rec Center yeah club and so our soccer games were
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like on the same days on the same field at my Monte Elementary and so afterwards
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we'd have like a play date we'd be like oh you want to come over to my house
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after our game and so that's kind of how I started getting like more mesed a and
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I became close to that so that was fun and I remember like early memories and stuff from starting to make new friends
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and it being a positive thing but definitely I remember the stress of it at first yeah yeah no it like you said I
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think once you kind of crack it a little bit like it only takes one person to really like kind of break it open where
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you're like okay now I'm in you know you get the stamp of approval here you go
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yeah welcome to the Calvary Chapel achieve Cool Kids Club exactly yeah no exactly no and well and I even remember
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I mean like I said I liveed down the street from Calvary Chapel so like I did go do stuff there going to VBS there I
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remember youth group every now and then like I was not a regular at those things
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but I would pop in every now and then and um and even old as an older kid I remember being like Oh okay this group
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has got it like you guys are locked in you guys are the group and then like I knew my friends like we were we were
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also kind of our own bubble of people inside The Homeschool community and like that's just the way it works right I
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think that's just kind of normal friendship kind of stuff but public school private school home school you
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all have your little bubbles click so yeah but hey I mean it breaks the myth that like H school kids don't have
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friends cuz here we are sitting going we we had friends friends yeah so okay so talk about let's talk a
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little bit about the transition out of home school so like it seems like you kind of had more of a traditional home
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school experience where like Mom and Dad were building the curriculum yeah um that kind of a
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thing were were your parents really conscious of like what comes after uh like high school and things like that
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because I think that's where a lot of people I think get bogged down is they
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their parents kind of are like the goal is like get through high school and then
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they're like on their own and they figure it out um and in conversations we've had before I feel like both of our
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parents kind of had more of this intention of like there's more to life past high school so we need to also prep
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our kid so talk a little bit about that so for me I I think like my parents really they always focused on academics
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so like that was a big um something of importance for them like a lot of my curriculum probably based on the well
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trained my thing that my mom read um was based in like classical um learning like I
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learned Latin and we did um logic and critical thinking courses stuff like that things that I feel like really did
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I think I think they were beneficial I think they helped prepare me for um further education and learning and being
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critical of what I'm learning and stuff um and my mom always put effort into our learning it
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was never something that like she slacked on or by any means um and going into uh High
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School specifically obviously as you're preparing to go into college um my parents gave me the option to go to a
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you know a private or public high school in town or stay homeschooled um and I applied to Villanova I did their high
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school placement test I shadowed a student and through all of that I realized very quickly that I was not
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going to enjoy going there um I know I mentioned when we talked before that the n friends who interviewed me were like
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do you have trouble making friends and I was like no not at all I was like I'm H
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school but I'm not like a shuted I'm not a like what I don't remember what they
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comment a Hermit right um and then when I ended up like shadowing the students and taking their placement test I scored
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above the grade level that I would have been entering in and through discussions
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with my parents and me they you know the school let us know they wouldn't let me
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skip classes that I had already taken um and so I was going to have to repeat a lot of courses which was something that
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I as a kid I was like I don't want to redo school I already did you know yeah
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and so I ended up opting to not go to Villanova and I didn't want to go to nof
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um so I ended up staying homeschooled and then my sophomore year of high school I started taking classes at
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ventur College um which just to get my gen EDS done you know have the college experience um I started off with taking
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um a couple classes with my friends so I took one with Aaron I took one with aurielle um and then after that I
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started doing them on my own um and I feel like honestly it wasn't as hard as
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I expected I kind of anticipated it to be a lot more difficult and I think where college classes can be more
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difficult for some people is that it's really independent right you're responsible for your learning more that
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so than maybe in high school where you have a teacher who's like okay make sure
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you turn in your assignments on time and and blah blah blah and I don't know I've
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never been to a public high or private high school what I assume is kind of the experience um is different in college
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you know it's a lot more independent sometimes you're responsible for learning material outside of the class
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um that you won't ever be taught inside of the course and I know for me that was
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something that was kind of easy to adjust to because during homeschooling in high school I was responsible for
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most of my teaching of myself you know I read my lessons I did my homework I doctored my own exam you know like just
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stuff that we take for granted in being um I think that's an important distinction because I didn't really
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think about this until I was in college was the fact that like when it came to school even at a
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young age like yeah my mom maybe would read the textbook with me or whatever but like once I was able to really read
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and comprehend things on my own it really came down to like okay here's the book you're going to do lesson one
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through four you know read them do the worksheets that kind of thing and then like come back to me and if you have
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questions you come talk to me and we'll discuss it we'll figure it out together
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right and she was also especially those younger age she was also kind of reading
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the textbook as well kind of in her own time yeah um but it set me up so that like by high school like you said I was
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like pretty independent it's like handy textbook like you know yeah my parents
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would maybe come up with the syllabus but like right if I wanted to get ahead or I got a little behind it was like on
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me to kind of make work you know and so College was an easy transition because the weirdest part
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about college for me was I didn't understand why we had to sit for an hour and a half in a lecture like I was like
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is this just all in the book like like let me just read the book you know and then I'll take the test um so it took a
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while to adjust to that concept but right I I don't know I don't know if you
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had a similar thought or not when we were in college or not I think I think for me cuz like my really my only
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experience with a class outside of College was Mrs yep's writing class and literature love those shout out to Mrs
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hiep but like going from having that be my only experience outside of college and then into college I was like this
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really isn't as bad as I thought it would be the exams weren't as hard um
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I'm lucky in that I test pretty well I don't know I feel like I can figure out
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like a teachers's like testing style pretty well after the first exam and then it makes it a lot easier for me
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which I don't know maybe that's my mom's critical thinking and logic courses that she
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put um I just remember being like okay if I pay attention in class personally this is like my
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learning style I was like if I pay attention in class like really focus I don't have to read the textbook and I
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don't really have to study that much it just kind of embeds itself in my brain
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yeah and so I figured out very quickly that I was like oh I don't really need
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to do much outside of go to the course and then complete my homework and then you know study a little for the exam in
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order for it to be do doable but I also recognize that that's not like everybody's learning style and so I
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think that when I was in college I was like dang like these exams for me are easy but I have classmates who I know
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are really smart and they're really struggling on these exams so there's
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like a disconnect between like truly evaluating someone's knowledge and the ways we do it in traditional education
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systems um and I think that's why homeschooling I don't know it worked for
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me was because it we could adjust it you know kind our needs and like you said you get to
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college and you're like why do I have to sit in a class if I could just read this
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you know like for you reading the textbook would be much more beneficial than having to sit there for hours yeah
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exactly I loved the classes that were like a lab class because I was like okay at least we get to do something do
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something yeah pass the time so and that's what I was used to like I mean I I'm trying to remember I know at one
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point in high school and I I want to say you were there for this but like we did
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science classes where we would do the labs like together there was a small group in Ohio that we get together I
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know I did one at the Peter's house I think that's what I'm thinking of yeah
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yeah yeah we I think it was Kim we did that year yeah so her house so it was cool because one we really only needed
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once we we just all did the science experiments together and so it was it was nice because it was like okay
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everyone went and read the textbooks on their own and we did our things at home we took our test and then we just get
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together once a week or every other week or whatever do a science experiment there's like six to eight of us easy in
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someone's backyard M you know and I I think that was one of the cool things about the ohigh group and was the
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fact that like we did things like that right where it's just like there would
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be classes where somebody's mom would teach the specific thing that maybe they
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were just much more talented in exactly like we had enough parents that they had
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like a wide variety of Specialties in terms of like hey I actually majored in something similar to this so here you go
00:21:22
I'll you the kids this year you know yeah and then there were a great research you brought up Mrs Yip Mrs Yip
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was I want to Mrs Yip was a homeschool mom at one point and then had just continued great question Mrs hiip if you
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are listening to this I would love to interview you um want hear from you you've gotten many shout outs on this
00:21:41
podcast um yeah uh and if she hasn't heard it if you are in contact with Mrs
00:21:46
Yip send her the show and be like hey um Jacob wants to talk to you um because she was a great she was she was uh uh
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like writing she was a writing class right so I she taught took English Lit or I don't know if it was English
00:22:00
literature but I took literature with her as well yeah but she was just really talented in like explaining how all of
00:22:07
that worked where like I mean I I joked with somebody that when I was in college
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I pasted like her all the worksheets that she gave us of like the bandw and the sentence openers and all that stuff
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was all on my wall so I had my desk and then my wall right here was just all Mrs
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yip's worksheets and I would just refer to them as I wrote papers and I mean hey
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I I never got below a B in my papers so I'm like had a one of my one of my English teachers in uh at my University
00:22:33
told me she sat me down when we were going over my final paper and she was like I would be really disappointed if
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you didn't at least consider getting a minor in English and I was like it's not
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going to happen but I'm glad he did that positively and I was like that's for
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you I like I wouldn't be here yeah she yeah she taught us so many of the secrets and things like that and
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that's and I love of reading too I think just that's something like she had you
00:23:02
know such great book recommendations and a variety of you know styles that I think like because we read the gier I'm
00:23:08
sure you probably read that too um and that really got me into like dystopian literature which was a fun thing for me
00:23:14
and like Junior High and high school um and we read you know tons of other stuff
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that during that class you know like the um number of the Stars which I think is
00:23:25
the one about the um was she Jewish or was the her frenchish anyways you know the Holocaust and then yeah um I think
00:23:32
walk down the moon was about indigenous people groups in America or based on one
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um and like a variety of texts that I think really helped me find my interest you
00:23:45
know which at the time was dystopian literature um and so I was really grateful that I'm still very grateful
00:23:52
for that yeah no I think again it just goes back to that was the cool thing about homeschool our experience
00:24:00
homeschooling is just that in addition to having our parents who were very much involved and very like I I think they
00:24:09
wanted the best for us but they also gave us a ton of resources outside of just themselves to learn from and that
00:24:16
made a huge difference I think in just the way that like it shaped us because we had outside influence aside from just
00:24:23
like my parents are the only ones giving me curriculum and education right um right and that's important I think for
00:24:30
kids absolutely so and and even then like I took classes with Mrs yep my mom and my grandma are both
00:24:36
um very proficient writers both of them have actually written novels my grandma published my mom is hesitant to publish
00:24:43
she should though but like I I'm like my my family my parents are both you know like very
00:24:51
knowledgeable about things but they were still not afraid to like Outsource my learning to people they felt would be
00:24:56
even better at it you know yeah my mom really excels in like educating us on stem topics which came in helpful for me
00:25:04
because I ended up going into nursing and uh my mom's major is in kinesiology
00:25:09
so she knows human anatomy very well we had human anatomy books in the house and
00:25:13
that was something that I read for fun growing up and um it kind of broadened our like you said parents who let us go
00:25:21
out and learned from other people who had Specialties and also I was thankful for the ones that my parents were good
00:25:27
at my dad knows a lot about programming and stuff which still is far above my head yeah but appreciate the effort yeah
00:25:37
exactly but at least you had kind of an understanding or just you yes it was there you know um that's that's
00:25:44
important and I think it's cool that yeah that you had parents who kind of like gave you the ability to also kind
00:25:53
of seek out what you were interested in so at what point did you settle on like okay I think I want to go to nursing or
00:25:59
at least want to go into like health of some kind I so it's really funny we actually there's a um a family we knew
00:26:06
the dad I think he was in film school I want to say and he decided to do a little documentary special thing for his
00:26:13
one of his classes I think I I don't really remember because this is when I was young on my sister Edie with um
00:26:19
Angelman syndrome and so during that he interviewed me and I was like maybe maybe seven at the time six seven and in
00:26:27
his little interview with child be he's asked me you know like what I want to be
00:26:30
when I grow up and I was like I want to be a doctor or a scientist so I can help
00:26:35
you know like find a cure for Angelman syndrome um and I want to be a mommy too and it was really cute I have that
00:26:42
little clip on my phone saved because it's really sweet but ever since I was
00:26:46
little I wanted to go into some kind of stem field relating to health care or biology you know um genetic you know
00:26:54
genetic something like that um so it wasn't like me settling on nursing wasn't really far-fetched
00:27:01
ever but I came to really decide on it when I was in high school actually I feel like I was like one of very few
00:27:07
people who in like the world ever who's like I'm gonna do this now and I know it
00:27:12
pretty early on and I actually did it um which I'm thankful for because I'm too
00:27:17
indecisive otherwise in every other area of my life to make a decision so thankfully that one thing came to
00:27:24
me but I pretty early on in high school I wanted to go into nursing um I just I was around it a lot with my sister um
00:27:33
being you know medically complex and so I had been you know to the hospital a bajillion times the ER you know like
00:27:42
Radiology we went to UCLA every year she just had her annual neurology appointment at UCLA like yesterday I
00:27:48
think um and so I grew up around a wide variety of healthcare professionals I got to see what they each did um and I
00:27:56
remember being really thankful for the nurses because they were always the ones that would stop kneel down to my level
00:28:04
and tell me that they were going to take good care of my sister that she was going to be okay you know like when
00:28:09
things were scary right um because my sister has epilepsy um the type of seizure she has can be fatal and so when
00:28:17
we were trying to figure out early on how best to control those with medications Etc um it was really the
00:28:25
nurses that I remember being there and providing me a sense of comfort in something that was really unknown and
00:28:31
terrifying for a young kid you know like you're you're not really you don't have
00:28:35
a grasp on mortality and like these really scary things that are happening and like it
00:28:42
was totally new to me as a kid and my family even and so to have someone be able to step in and say hey like she's
00:28:50
going to be okay we're going to take good care of her she's just going to
00:28:53
take a nap you know um for when she need to be sedated for procedures Etc um was really something that stuck with
00:29:01
me and so when I got to high school and I was like what do I want to do do I want to go to R school I was like not
00:29:07
really I was like you know I think I'd really like to be a nurse I'd like to be
00:29:10
that for other people not just children but yeah um be that sense of comfort and
00:29:17
um confident like Proficiency in taking care of people medically so that's kind
00:29:24
of what led me to do it and then I just followed the path academically um from there on out and
00:29:32
here I am today so yeah yeah so you are a nurse currently I know you are kind of
00:29:36
on leave or the last time we chatted you were kind of on leave because you recently had a baby
00:29:42
um girl so yeah so yeah tell tell us okay so you so you're married you you have a baby now how old is your baby
00:29:50
she's 10 months so we're closing in on year which is like I can't it's
00:29:55
horrifying I can't believe that it's already been year it feels like she was
00:29:57
born just yesterday so yeah but um yeah she 10 months I love her to death um and
00:30:06
I actually the job I think I don't I don't remember if I had mentioned it
00:30:11
last time we chatted um but I had applied for a full-time position um because I wanted to go back to work
00:30:16
full-time because you know things are expensive yeah and I would like to keep my nursing skills um so I had applied
00:30:25
for one and interviewed for it and I got the to so I'm going to be in a new position here shortly which I'm very
00:30:29
excited about um I'm actually thank you I'm actually going to be stepping away
00:30:34
from the bedside um bedside care and so I'm going to be going into our um clinical education department at our
00:30:40
hospital so I'll be doing um kind of like inservice management and um code drills and like further education or you
00:30:51
know like skills education for our nursing staff and other um ancillary staff at our hospital so I'll be doing
00:30:59
kind of like tutoring but that's awesome that's good though because it's
00:31:04
like I I mean one like if Co taught me anything it's the importance of the healthcare um professionals um
00:31:13
specifically like our nurse our nurses and our doctors um and um so yeah congrats I'm clapping over here for you
00:31:20
um because that's an amazing that's a hard job and it's an amazing job and um
00:31:25
and with your personality and with every everything I know about you and your life and things like that I I know you
00:31:31
are fantastic at your job so don't mess it up please um I'm excited I'm excited for it you
00:31:40
know I really enjoyed my tutoring job in college and as much as I miss tutoring chemistry it'll be nice to do um kind of
00:31:48
use my educational skills in a yeah new topic that I know even more about so good good and you brought up so you
00:31:57
brought up earlier that you were kind of like considering potentially like homeschooling your daughter now which I
00:32:02
think is cool because like I mean one like if you're going to kind of be teaching as a part of your job now
00:32:07
you're also kind of setting those skills in place but obviously your daughter's
00:32:10
not even one yet but are you like when it comes to The Homeschool world and like thinking about homeschooling her
00:32:18
like you know what I guess what's going through your brain when you're thinking
00:32:21
about that yeah I think for me I really benefited from homeschooling I think it worked great for me I was really appre
00:32:28
for the effort my parents put in I think my parents were um really well prepared
00:32:33
to homeschool which is something that I'd hope to be also you know I I'll
00:32:37
always say that homeschooling is not for everybody not it's not for every student
00:32:40
it's not for every parent um I don't think that everybody should homeschool
00:32:44
their children I don't think that every child would be most benefited by being
00:32:50
homeschooled um I think it worked out for me I'd love to give it a try with my
00:32:54
daughter um but you know we'll see maybe it doesn't work out for her maybe she'd
00:32:58
thrive in a public school environment or a private school environment so we'll
00:33:02
see but I going into it I really want to give the same attention and care to um like her educational foundations and
00:33:11
knowledge that my parents did because I'm feel like I really benefit from it
00:33:15
and then on top of it too you know I have time to think about it it would be lovely to stay at home with her I would
00:33:21
love to spend more time with my daughter and whatnot you know she's going to be
00:33:24
going to daycare um while I when I start my job in a few weeks here so I'm sad
00:33:30
about that I'm excited to have my like adult Independence again and talk to you
00:33:36
know someone who's over the age of a one-year-old um during the day but um I
00:33:43
you know I do grieve the fact that I won't get to see her for the hours that
00:33:47
I went at work because she's a ham love her to death um so it's something that I
00:33:53
think I would enjoy I would love teaching her I think I know her personality change a lot before she's
00:33:58
school age but right now she's very energetic and full of life and I think it would be she'd be a fun adventure to
00:34:05
do things with go on field trips with and so if if the opportunity presents itself if I'm able to you know find a
00:34:12
work schedule or not work or whatever works out in order to provide her with hes school education I would love to do
00:34:19
it yeah I'd love to find other families you know that are looking to do the same
00:34:23
thing I think that' be really fun and I know I I think it's I I come from a
00:34:28
positive experience with it so I would love to be able to also give her the opportunity for that but also the same
00:34:34
flexibility that my parents gave me and that I didn't have to stay homeschooled
00:34:37
if I didn't want to yeah so no I think that's you know life is phases that's
00:34:41
what I've learned it's it's just it's always these phases and I personally
00:34:47
this sound woohoo but I I kind of believe in manifestation I believe in like setting goals and expectations and
00:34:52
things like that also being flexible but you know putting it out into the universe that it's like I would love to
00:34:58
do this but I'm also open to the abil to the possibility okay maybe home school
00:35:02
isn't for her but I would love to give it a shot all those things yeah it the
00:35:06
universe listens and it comes back and it answers those things sometimes in really weird and strange ways and so
00:35:13
yeah I I hope the same I hope that you know you guys are able to figure it out and find time to do that and you know
00:35:19
but the regardless of that I know from our last conversation I mean the last time we chatted on the phone uh your
00:35:26
baby was also there and so was great it was like the three of us chatting um and
00:35:30
it was fantastic but uh I can tell you love your daughter so much it's so evident and I I think that is the core
00:35:38
of like and and you want what's best for her and that is what I've realized is
00:35:42
like the core of all of like a lot of The Homeschool people I've talked with
00:35:45
is like the parents who have loved their kids so much and what the best for them
00:35:49
their kids have just thrived in life and I recognize that maybe the best for her
00:35:53
won't be being homeschooled and that's why I'm I have to accept that you know
00:35:57
like was best for me was being homeschooled I loved it you know I think my mom I'd like to think my mom enjoyed
00:36:02
homeschooling me um shout out to my mother good question I mean Christmas is coming you can ask her you you know
00:36:09
Mommy yeah but um I mean she did it with my younger sibling so I mean if I was horrible she probably would have never
00:36:16
done it again so I'd like to think that that's proof enough um but you know it's
00:36:21
one of those things I love my daughter a lot and I would love to give her you know uh the blessing of the education I
00:36:26
feel I had um but if she doesn't feel that that's right for her then so be it
00:36:32
you know I want I just want her to be happy and um her to be able to pursue what she wants to pursue and in that
00:36:38
kind of on that different topic I don't think that um there totally in aide but
00:36:42
I don't think that everybody needs to go to college if it's not beneficial to
00:36:46
their career you know um so whatever she decides to pursue in her life I want to
00:36:51
support her um within reason obviously and don't do anything too crazy I'm like
00:36:56
maybe if get into any high-risk sports like football I don't I'm like the too
00:37:01
many head injuries I see too much in the hospital I'm like maybe don't do that no
00:37:06
skydiving but but anything else you know maybe craft with Mommy like yeah that's
00:37:13
pretty safe that's pretty safe yeah no it's safe she can work in like you know
00:37:17
stuffed animals you know creating stuffed animals it's a safe environment stff the things I S exactly Build The
00:37:23
Bear great career there you go they have good benefits I have no idea Yeah well yeah good question um I
00:37:32
do want to Pivot this is g to be a little bit of a hard pivot but I do want to talk about this because this is
00:37:36
something we chatted about last time I think it's important is that I know you
00:37:41
as just like one of the most happy go-lucky like Smiley bubbly people in my in my world and um but I know that
00:37:49
typically behind a lot of people who exude that kind of Happiness there tends to be other things they you know some
00:37:57
mental health struggles and things like that and that was something we chatted about before and you were open to
00:38:02
talking to our audience a little bit about that and so um I don't exactly know where to start with that or what my
00:38:08
question is there but I don't know I don't know give I guess I guess share with the listeners a
00:38:16
little bit about I guess the Dark Side of of aloette unfortunately like that's
00:38:23
kind of a awful way of putting that but no I mean I definitely felt like it um so what we talked about before is that
00:38:30
during especially high school but for much of my young life and I mean even now it's something I always struggle
00:38:35
with you know I've always um kind of dealt with mental health struggles and growing up it was something that we
00:38:42
didn't talk about in my family it was just like you know it wasn't didn't come
00:38:46
up nobody asked about it you know we had enough to deal with with my sister who's
00:38:50
disabled you know that like she's got real serious health issues right in my
00:38:55
little kid brain and so it wasn't something thing I thought like oh I'm I
00:38:59
didn't feel like I was sick because I saw my sister who had epilepsy and was
00:39:05
really disabled physically and cognitively and I viewed that as like a health issue but my thought process that
00:39:13
was like whack i' had no idea that anything was wrong and so from a very early age I started manifesting symptoms
00:39:20
of various things you know anxiety and potentially some obsessive compulsive traits um and so it was something that I
00:39:29
didn't really ever think of my parents didn't really like address it you know
00:39:32
when I was little I got really scared about my sister's health is when she'd
00:39:37
get sick she'd have a seizure you know fevers illness they would flare seizures
00:39:41
for her and so I would be really hyperfocused on those things and not getting sick and if my friend was sick I
00:39:49
was really anxious I'd carry this like anxiety um about it and it got to the
00:39:54
point where when I was pretty young I want to say maybe eight or so I would wash my hands so frequently that my
00:40:00
hands would like crack and bleed and it was just like really aggressive so I remember at I my family would have to
00:40:05
like wrap my hands in gauze and Vaseline just to keep my like skin from falling off um and that was
00:40:13
something that I dealt with when I was really little but it was something that we didn't really think much about
00:40:17
probably because my parents were you know preoccupied with real serious health issues with my sister and because
00:40:24
like kids don't like hand lotion so like you know it makes sense that maybe I'd
00:40:28
get dry hands because I don't use hand lotion you know I don't have Aqua on
00:40:32
standby and whatnot um but in reality that was a and maybe the only physical manifestation of a much deeper um
00:40:42
psychiatric problem and uh is something that now I look back on and I go wow that was like the first like some of the
00:40:49
first like moments where if anybody had really asked me about what I was thinking about during the day they would
00:40:54
have realized something was wrong um because I would have these moments where I'd be doing my home school at our
00:41:01
little desk with the candle of wisdom that my mom lit every morning and i' you
00:41:06
know every hour or so have to go out and count every single one of our pets and our family members make sure everybody
00:41:12
was okay and if I couldn't find someone it was like meltdown you know I was like
00:41:16
where I'd have to Loop the house and the backyard until I found everybody um and
00:41:22
that kind of that behavior and the handwashing and stuff um wasn't necessarily what I carried throughout my
00:41:28
whole life but in high school it manifested as like really severe anxiety um and major depression and then
00:41:35
eventually I resorted to um self harm and I was really struggling with suicidal ideation which was something
00:41:42
that you know being in a um specifically very Christian conservative homeschooling um Community was never
00:41:52
talked about like yeah totally avoided um and so I didn't know anyone never had
00:41:58
talked to anyone didn't have any friends who had ever talked about dealing with
00:42:01
mental health issues it was like me and this void of like outsideness of you know I know something's wrong now that
00:42:10
I'm a teenager like I know that this isn't normal right but I have no idea
00:42:15
what to do about it you know like I just this is how I feel you know I'm just I'm
00:42:18
depressed I don't want to be in existence it's you know I feel that there's no point in
00:42:24
reaching out either you know yeah well I think like you said we grew up in a very yeah Conservative Christian
00:42:31
upbringing church was big deal for for your family for my family yeah mental health was not talked about in church a
00:42:38
lot and I know like I've had anxiety for a long time as well and um you know F
00:42:46
firstly I want to acknowledge this that you know um I work with this therapist and she always talks about Big T versus
00:42:53
little te traumas and things in life and I think that we sometimes I know for me
00:43:00
growing up that hearing stories of people I would always compare my problems of what I was struggling with
00:43:06
to other people and say well they have like big tea trauma or troubles in their life and I have like little tea troubles
00:43:12
in my life and traumas and so mine are like insignificant and I can just kind of like push it down and move on from it
00:43:18
and and what she's been helping me realize is that the reality is like no like every trauma manifests
00:43:25
itself differently and ab things like that but they're all valid and they are
00:43:30
all trauma and troubles and things that need to be addressed and and like you said I think a lot of times they they go
00:43:38
a little bit overlooked because of other things that are happening in life right
00:43:41
um and the reason I wanted I I wanted you to share this and wanted to talk about this is because I think now a lot
00:43:48
of us we're in our 20s we're some of us in our 30s and we're starting to address
00:43:52
a lot more of these things and be much more open and recognize these things and help we need um to address these things
00:43:59
but it's important to know that like we're not alone in this and a lot of us
00:44:02
were going similar things and but what I was going to say about the church situation was that mental health was
00:44:10
never really talked about in church it was always just kind of like when you have problems like pray about it yep
00:44:16
pray about it you know read your Bible more it'll give you the instructions and
00:44:21
the reality is is that like sometimes you need a little bit more than that and that's where therapy can come and
00:44:26
helpful and medication can come in helpful and those kinds of things and so I guess when at what point did it get
00:44:36
so bad that you were like okay I need I need some help like and it it really hit
00:44:41
a wall I guess I think for me I know what she said like about Big T little tea my big te was my sister right her
00:44:48
issues were so big and so I just everything push it down deep inside Let's ignore it um but then it really
00:44:56
came to a head and High School um and probably during my sophomore year um was when I really started to decline like
00:45:02
healthwise like I I think we tend to view mental health as not a not as legitimate as physical ailments um
00:45:11
unfortunately especially in medicine even Healthcare Providers do that um and when you look at someone who maybe
00:45:19
has a you know fatal disease it we go oh they're declining if they're you know
00:45:27
approaching death right if they should be put on hospice Etc um and for me like in high school was I was really
00:45:34
declining like I was in terms of my disease that I was battling you know being major depression suicidal ideation
00:45:43
um I was declining I was approaching my death and that's the reality of it you
00:45:47
know I was seriously unwell um I was you know hardly sleeping really hyperfixated
00:45:55
on how I was everything that was wrong in my friends and my family's life and
00:46:01
my own life like I would never be happy you know and these were things I couldn't control I just that was how I
00:46:07
felt and it just felt like that was what consumed my being um and very few of my
00:46:13
friends really knew how bad it was um and even you know some of the ones that I did tell it was really uncomfortable
00:46:20
for them to hear and so they were not as maybe supportive as they could have been
00:46:24
but I understand it's because it's not talked about you know when it's
00:46:27
something you you don't even know how to respond to how do you know how to comfort someone if it's the first time
00:46:32
you're ever hearing of someone thinking such dark things you know um so it got
00:46:35
to a point where I had a mentor who I had um confided in about my issues um just that the mentor had watched me
00:46:44
decline um and was like came to me and was like you know what I need think you need to talk to your parents about
00:46:50
getting some professional help um and I was really obstinate about it I was really against it I didn't want to tell
00:46:58
my parents because my parents had actually found out about me self Haring like you know within the past year
00:47:03
before that and it was like my parents had felt really guilty about it like it was their fault even though it wasn't it
00:47:08
wasn't anything in particular that my parents had done I was just mentally ill
00:47:11
you know um and essentially nothing had been done about it it was just my parents felt really guilty and I all my
00:47:20
Shavers got taken away I couldn't shave my armpits anymore which was not great
00:47:23
for a teenage girl and so was like this whole thing where the last time I had talked to my
00:47:29
parents it hadn't done anything and it just made me more self-conscious because
00:47:33
I was like oh my gosh I can't shave my armpits which was like life ending at
00:47:37
the time yeah um and so it was this whole thing but eventually they were my mentor was like hey you need to talk to
00:47:45
your parents about this um and if you don't I will talk to them and so I was
00:47:49
like can I write a letter to them and you take it to them and sit with them while I open it and so I can not be
00:47:55
there I can go over to a friend's house or something thing you know and so that's ended up that's what I ended up
00:48:00
doing I wrote a letter to my parents saying that you know I was still struggling um you know I was still self
00:48:05
Haring and that I think I needed professional help and so um the end result of that was I ended up going to
00:48:12
um a licensed therapist and receiving cognitive behavioral therapy and that's
00:48:18
um really when my life turned around and that was in 2014 um and I you know at first was
00:48:27
really kind of the classic teenager like yeah whatever okay you know like this isn't going to really help me and little
00:48:34
by little my shell of skepticism um cracked and I was able to really be able to focus my um thoughts on other things and
00:48:46
you know there's a whole lot to cognitive behavioral therapy that I won't get into um but it's my our Focus
00:48:51
for my treatment was on thought rewiring thought remapping um depending on who you're talking to they'll word it
00:48:58
differently um but being able to come to face the thoughts that I was having and
00:49:04
walk away from them instead of being controlled by them and so it was something that was really helpful for me
00:49:09
and I did therapy for seven years um off and on um mainly because I moved to college and found a new therapist and I
00:49:19
got really lucky in that the two therapists that I was with for those seven years um were exactly who I needed
00:49:25
in those moments my first therapist was like a grandfatherly figure you know someone who was just like warm and
00:49:31
inviting um and then my second therapist that I had during college um was like a
00:49:36
younger woman who felt really relatable to me in the moment and that was something that I really needed because
00:49:43
in college I struggled more with my anxieties and like social anxiety and making friends and feeling really closed
00:49:48
off because I was so academically minded and not focusing on my social needs too
00:49:53
you know we're humans we need we need people um so having someone who was like
00:49:58
younger and More in tune with those feelings and in her own way was really helpful because I felt like um she was
00:50:05
able to give practical advice and listen to me in a way that was felt more like I
00:50:10
was being understood so those two therapists I had I was really thankful for um because they were really uh
00:50:17
lifechanging their care was life-changing for me in a way that I you know wouldn't have ever found in reading
00:50:24
Bible passages or prayer yeah and I think that's something that maybe people
00:50:28
think is scandalous to say I don't know um but there is a place for you know
00:50:34
like prayer and reading scripture if that's you know your conviction and there's a place at which I think you
00:50:42
know if you believe in this that God can use other people and their gifts and their skills to provide help right we
00:50:50
don't go to the Bible when someone's having a heart attack you know like we
00:50:54
go to the emergency room and so I think with mental health also that's really
00:50:58
important to be able to recognize that it's a clinical issue there's you know
00:51:02
you have a health problem and you can pray about it absolutely you know if that's your your way of um feeling
00:51:11
comfort and your your belief system um but at the end of the day for some people not everybody obviously mental
00:51:19
health varies greatly in what is needed um but for some people myself included um cognitive behavioral therapy medic
00:51:26
are necessary to be able to function and it's something I'm very thankful for you
00:51:31
know I worked in the health field now so I see how this is something that me and my
00:51:38
sister were just talking about how thin the line is between like me and some of my patients who are hospitalized for
00:51:44
like mental health issues like we're really not so different and the difference is that I was able to receive
00:51:51
care I was lucky enough that I had access to care and um access to providers who were really helpful for me
00:51:56
and this person didn't you know for whatever reason and so I'm very thankful
00:52:01
that my parents were open to helping me receive um therapy and now I'm on Zoloft
00:52:08
because postpartum anxiety is real unfortunately and uh honestly feel better than I ever have which is great
00:52:16
you know it's something where I look back and I go wow that was a really like can you never mind it was a really
00:52:27
crappy I'm censoring myself time in my life um and I am so thankful for the resources I had available and the point
00:52:37
where I am now because looking back it was really hard to struggle so silently and not be able to reach out and like
00:52:43
even when I started therapy I know I mentioned this when we talked about it before but when I started therapy like
00:52:48
people being like Oh can you hang out oh no I have a doctor's appointment today
00:52:51
and having to say that every week at the same time I know it's probably supicious
00:52:56
to some people um but I couldn't I felt like I couldn't be honest even about
00:53:02
receiving the care that I needed yeah and without it I wouldn't be here so yeah no and and I I told you the last
00:53:10
time we chatted I was like I'm so thankful that you did because I'm glad
00:53:12
that you're still here and I I mean that's a tremendous story and so and
00:53:18
that's why I wanted you to share it because I think it it's powerful first
00:53:21
of all um and the fact to know you were in one place in a very dark place and now you're in a much better place and
00:53:27
even though you still struggle you get the help you need you to work on it you have people in your life that also like
00:53:33
understand what's going on with you and support you in that and that's important
00:53:37
you have a partner who you know is is with you he's amazing yeah he sounds amazing and things like that and I think
00:53:44
to your point of like it is very hard when we were in high school especially to talk about anything like that where
00:53:51
it's like it does feel this weird shameful thing and I don't know descri
00:53:57
it yeah it it's it's hard because I like I don't even know like it's not to go too much down like the
00:54:06
Purity culture rabbit hole but like there's so many things about like religion and and Christianity
00:54:11
specifically that there this like shame built into like you should be ashamed to
00:54:15
feel this way or you should be ashamed to question these things um at at the time of recording this I just put out my
00:54:21
episode where I talk about deconstructing my faith things like that and it was like there was a lot of Shame
00:54:26
and there a lot of fear around being vocal about things because yes absolutely I think
00:54:31
we hope I hope that church is getting better about this of of being like it's
00:54:37
okay to question things it's okay to like be hurting it's okay to all these
00:54:41
things like it's I I think I I don't know I grew up with an understanding
00:54:46
that it's like oh well when you believe like everything's just good all the time
00:54:48
like God is good and God does good things to you right so I just kind of was like when stuff sucked it was like I
00:54:55
I don't feel like I should feel this way because I'm a Christian and things
00:54:58
should be good what's wrong with me that caused this to happen right and then and you see people around you and
00:55:06
they're kind of they're acting like everything's good too so you're like oh
00:55:09
well I'm the odd man out right and right but the more we can be vocal about it
00:55:13
and say no I'm over here I'm struggling with this it's like I've realized now
00:55:17
talking to so many homeschoolers I'm like oh my gosh like we were all sitting
00:55:19
there being like Oh my gosh I'm drowning in this despair of like whatever it is
00:55:23
right and I'm like so many of us can relate to those things in different ways
00:55:29
um and yeah and I think also for parents listening I think it's important to share with your kids that things like
00:55:39
this are real and and people have suicidal ideations people struggle with depression with anxiety with all these
00:55:45
different things and so also teaching your kids how to like it's okay to ask
00:55:49
questions about it it's okay to at the beginning I feel like almost be kind of weirded out by when when your
00:55:56
tells you those kind of things but learn how to help them with it right and be there
00:56:01
for them and I think that was even ask yes like how can I help you how can I best be for there for you I think the
00:56:08
friends I had that didn't know how to react the few that I told like if they
00:56:11
had just been like how can I be there for you that would have that hearing that alone would have been really
00:56:18
meaningful because I know like you said like there I felt alone in my mental health struggles but I know I wasn't I
00:56:26
know there was probably a lot of us who felt maybe the exact same way that I did
00:56:29
or was struggling with similar things but it was that silence that like self-inflicted
00:56:35
almost isolation that really Fosters almost a like worsening of it too right right I'm like the more vocal we are
00:56:46
about these struggles about having mental health issues like I'm mentally ill that's the reality like I I'm no
00:56:53
longer ashamed of it it's not something I worry about I'm very open about it it
00:56:56
like I don't have any problems telling people that I take so off because the reality is like my
00:57:02
husband he takes blood pressure medication is he ashamed of that no because it's hereditary he can't control
00:57:07
it right no matter how much he takes care of himself he's going to be on blood pressure medication if he tells
00:57:11
people that like oh that sucks I'm sorry but they're not going to judge him for
00:57:14
it right so why should I feel bad about my condition that I'm treating with a
00:57:19
medication that no matter how much I do I'm still going to have you know an anxiety disorder and all this crap right
00:57:25
so yeah it's important to me that people talk about it more and like you said
00:57:29
being open with kids I want for my daughter um I want her to grow up never feeling ashamed of feeling those things
00:57:38
you know we know now uh in current literature that mental health issues typically run in families psychiatric
00:57:44
disorders run in families I know there's a likelihood that she'll probably deal
00:57:48
with some of the things that I'm dealing with or that you know my people in my
00:57:52
family have dealt with and uh it's something that I feel like has opened up a lot um you know my mom also deals with
00:57:58
anxiety we've grown closer over being able to talk about that together and being able to empathize with each other
00:58:04
um my siblings as well you know we empathize with each other better because we're more open about those things and
00:58:11
it's something that's really important to me I don't want anybody specifically that I care about
00:58:16
that I'm close with because I can do something about it um to feel like they
00:58:20
can't talk about those things because I've been there it sucks you know and
00:58:25
there's that pressure in Christianity modern Christianity to you know be perfect be happy you know
00:58:33
the joy of the Lord right and when you are unable to feel that it feels like maybe I'm not Christian enough maybe I
00:58:40
don't love God enough maybe I'm you know like broken in some way or maybe I'm not
00:58:46
really saved you know a lot of people have anxiety about um salvation and such and so that becomes this like
00:58:53
overarching anxiety of I have anxiety and now I have anxiety about my sa salvation too um and then nobody talks
00:58:59
about it and like you said being critical of things asking questions those are things that um I don't know I
00:59:05
I really struggle with in the modern Church like they talk about oh the bans and how the bans like questioned and
00:59:13
researched and read stuff and were were skeptical about things but they were good biblical Scholars and so we have
00:59:21
this image that's taught us in church about oh the brands were good biblical
00:59:25
Scholars they they learned a lot and were very interested in learning the truth about
00:59:30
Jesus in the Bible right um but then if we do that in real life or if we have struggles it's
00:59:40
like yeah I think I I really think it comes down to and I think this is just I I think this is bigger than just a
00:59:47
Christianity problem but I think people struggle with I think they have there's
00:59:51
a fear in people especially right now a fear that educ leads to people leaving the church that
00:59:59
people and I hate to say it I know I get Flack on this every time I say this but
01:00:03
like things like religion have a sense of control to them um want to control people and so to a degree and so
01:00:13
understanding that the reason that they get scared when you start to ask questions is because they start to lose
01:00:17
a little bit of that control right and that's it's just the reality of it like
01:00:23
it really is um and but it's okay it's okay to like loosen up a little bit and
01:00:28
let people ask questions and let people seek out answers and things like that um
01:00:33
because it can help them significantly and yeah absolutely again I mean weal we we said it before I'll say it again it's
01:00:39
like the more we talk about things like this the more it enters in and hopefully
01:00:44
people hear it and they it resonates with them and they go oh maybe I struggle with that too something I've
01:00:48
learned about recently is generational trauma yeah it's a whole can of worms
01:00:52
I'm not an expert in this but like do your own research people but generational trauma is that trauma that
01:00:56
was like inflicted on your great-grandparents and it gets passed down passed down passed down and
01:01:00
manifests itself in different ways throughout the generations and it can be things like cancer it can be things like
01:01:05
ailments it can be mental health struggles it can be all kinds of different things absolutely it's very
01:01:10
interesting I'm learning a lot more about it recently um I highly encourage people to go do do some research on it
01:01:16
because it's just a fascinating um thing and like you said I'm glad that you have
01:01:21
the ability now to talk to your parents about things that like your mom like you
01:01:24
said your mom struggles with things anxiety and that's important to understand is like Mom and Dad also
01:01:29
struggle with these things and we can talk about it humanizing them it humanizes them um because yeah I think
01:01:36
we also grew up with parents I mean I love my parents and I always viewed them as human but at the same time there's a
01:01:41
difference between now they are more than my parents they are like also friends and people I have a lot more
01:01:47
open dialogue with about right right right awkward conversations about all kinds of things um so uh which is
01:01:55
important think you know have those awkward conversations with your parents and sit in the awkwardness and let it be
01:02:00
okay um sometimes I think I think especially in Christian culture we suffer from the like almost like
01:02:07
santificar Claus ification of our parents like they're they're very much
01:02:12
when we're little you know like oh my parents are perfect and they love Jesus
01:02:16
and you know and when you're homeschooled you're around them all the time so like everything your parents do
01:02:22
is just like a romanticized and so when you grow up and you struggle or your parents hurt your feelings and you're
01:02:28
like Santa no you know that's a great way to put it I've never I've never
01:02:34
heard it put that way before that's a great I'm gonna steal that I don't know how my mom would feel
01:02:41
about being compared to a um plump old man but um if you will um the the reality is is like said you
01:02:51
know like we're we're more I'm more friends with my family my parents now I
01:02:55
feel like I'm close closer now with my parents than I was ever growing up especially because I internalized so
01:03:00
much my own issue in order to relieve them of the burden of my issues on top of my sister's medical complexity um and
01:03:10
so I'm grateful now that I can talk about it and not worry and not feel embarrassed or not feel like I'm like
01:03:16
saying a dirty word when I'm like oh yeah I start you know up to my medicine
01:03:20
or you know right did this or that you know because it's something where I feel
01:03:27
like and what I'm really thankful for um is that my parents have really become um
01:03:33
very supportive of that they I feel like their understanding of mental illness and mental Wellness um has increased
01:03:40
just along with mine um and that you know through my struggles and me receiving care I feel like maybe they've
01:03:48
also been more open to the idea of it themselves um and so I don't know not that my struggling I feel like needed to
01:03:58
happen or do I wish it happened no but at the same time I think it's beneficial
01:04:03
you know there's something to be said about if I'm going to have to have gone
01:04:07
through this really tough trial I'm thankful that we came out the other side
01:04:12
with some positives you know I'm really close with my mom and my dad now yeah
01:04:16
and I'd like to think that maybe other people in my life have benefited from me
01:04:20
being honest about my you know mental struggles and feeling like maybe if they went through something hard they could
01:04:26
come to me about it because I'm not going to judge them for it so yeah well and hopefully too that firstborns
01:04:32
sometimes get the short end of the stick um I'm also a firstborn kid um but I I
01:04:37
think that sometimes sometimes it's nice to be the firstborn because maybe our parents missed some
01:04:45
things but with our younger siblings they're able to say okay I need to be checking in with them to make sure like
01:04:50
they're good or they have the things that they need um and so I don't know
01:04:55
I'm thankful for that sometimes that's not the say all are doing but it's just
01:04:59
you know I think parents learn from the first kid and they're able to implement
01:05:02
with the second third fourth ETA with homeschooled sometimes down to the 12th kid um and hopefully by then they've got
01:05:08
it really dialed in um but and my youngest sister you know she's the youngest of four right so there's three
01:05:16
of us before her we're all girls so it's the same thing over and over again
01:05:20
pretty much with the exception of obviously E's um Advanced Medical needs but um my youngest sister we always joke
01:05:27
that she's like the final form like of us like between me and my other sisters
01:05:31
um because she's like so confident like wait if you asked her like do you worry
01:05:36
about what other people think about you and she's like not really like and I'm
01:05:39
like I could never imagine feeling that way but she's so confident in herself I
01:05:44
just facetimed her like yesterday and or she sent me a video or something and she
01:05:48
was wearing a shirt that said like it was like her PJs and it said like baddy Vibes and I was like yes Badd Vibes like
01:05:58
I would never in a million years like be so confident about myself but she was like she's like I'm a queen and I know
01:06:04
it and I love that for her because it's something that you know like I feel like
01:06:07
through each of us like siblings we slowly got more comfortable with ourselves and now she's like so
01:06:15
confident and she's an incredible friend to those around her she's like everybody
01:06:19
calls her their best friend so she's got like five friends who are like yeah I's
01:06:24
my best friend and she's like thank guys like and yeah I just I'm thankful that
01:06:30
you know as the oldest sibling even though I may have been the guinea pig I can see the benefit of now my younger
01:06:37
sisters like having come through the other side and turning out maybe a little better
01:06:42
than I did yeah yeah it's it's a good feeling take some ownership in that you
01:06:48
know feel proud of pro feel proud of that welcome yeah I feel like we turned out okay though
01:06:56
you know we're okay we're okay yeah we're not to not to Mom Dad you didn't
01:07:01
screw us up too badly okay we live on our own some have kids we've got jobs everything's okay we we made it
01:07:09
through sorry this has been oh my gosh this has been amazing and I feel like we could just go and go and go I mean the
01:07:15
last time we chatted I think we chatted two hours um but um this has been amazing I hope at some point you come
01:07:22
back and we can talk more about other things as well but but I want I always I want to leave on this are there any in
01:07:29
in reminiscing and talking about stuff are there any funny cringey hilarious just happy homeschool moments that
01:07:36
you're like okay I got to tell the people about this maybe it was a unique to your experience maybe it wasn't it
01:07:41
could be something we've already talked about on the show I I don't know but is
01:07:43
there anything that's like popped in your brain where you're like oh my gosh
01:07:45
I gotta like gotta say this so okay this is not specifically involving other people but I know I mentioned it earlier
01:07:52
in this episode and I don't know if I told you this when we chatted last but my mom always lit the candle of
01:07:57
wisdom every day before we did our school and um you know it was fine whatever we didn't know at the time that
01:08:05
I was going to have problems with flames but what happened was one day in my math
01:08:09
book I had the Saxon Math book okay and the younger grade ones flipped open like
01:08:13
this like vertical not like this they flipped like this right and I had flipped over my math book to work on the
01:08:19
next page um and it caught fire oh no and so my math book literally caught on fire and thankfully you know crisis
01:08:27
averted bounded it out it was fine you know but now there was this big old burnt hole in my math book um and when I
01:08:33
tell would tell people that they'd be like oh yeah sure it accidentally caught
01:08:37
on fire and I was like no really my mom's candle of wisdom was right there and I didn't know and I flipped it over
01:08:43
and and they were like yeah sure you caught your mouth I'm like it was a page
01:08:46
I already did so it didn't help me anyways like it was already filled out um but that was the beginning of a long
01:08:53
line of me catching things on fire uh caught my hair on fire caught my pants on fire caught myself on fire a number
01:09:00
of times so me and Flames don't really mix um and if I could give anyone a suggestion it would be that if you
01:09:06
homeschool your kids please do not have a real candle of wisdom get a fake flame
01:09:12
please yeah and we also grew up in Southern California where Fire's a problem it's a very it's a very
01:09:18
dangerous thing um this okay so the candle of wisdom I got to ask this is this like we also oh is very like hippie
01:09:26
dippy we got witches we've got crystals we got all kinds of things like that are
01:09:29
we talking like C wisdom candle that's bought that's like specifically crafted
01:09:34
for wisdom or are we just talking about like it's just a generic candle that
01:09:36
she's like this is the candle of wisdom I think it was literally just to like
01:09:40
get me like look it it's school time we're lighting the candle wisdom it was
01:09:45
just like TL's dog like ringing the bell it's time for school um I'm pretty sure
01:09:49
it was it though but you know it's oh high so I got some incense in the room
01:09:54
right now you know I don't live in Ohio anymore but it's still deep within me
01:09:59
yeah I yeah no I I feel yeah I'm like I still got some I got my Essential Oils
01:10:04
somewhere around here to H schooled not homeschooled enough so all this has been
01:10:08
amazing um like I said I hope you come back uh for a part two at some point or or something um but thank you yes and
01:10:17
this has been amazing I hope audience I hope you've got gotten something from
01:10:21
this uh whether it's funny story or hopefully a desire to be vocal about when we're struggling with things um be
01:10:29
true to who you are you know and it's okay if you need help yes please do and
01:10:35
I'm still here even if we haven't talked in a long time yeah yeah that's exactly
01:10:40
and that's what I like to live on every episode is just you know if you've got a
01:10:44
story you want to share reach out to me it's easy right shoot me an email send
01:10:48
me a DM exhs [email protected] or ex exhs Club on all the socials and stuff like that shoot me a message just say hey
01:10:56
what's up you know we can talk about an episode we can talk about your story
01:11:00
maybe we'll have you on the podcast if you don't want to be on the podcast
01:11:02
that's okay I still want to get to know you if you have watched this and you go
01:11:06
oh my gosh this made me think of this person text them today okay text them shoot them a text shoot them a video
01:11:12
call I don't get do something reach out to them say hey what's up how are you um
01:11:17
that is how so many people have gotten on the show that's how I reconnected with so many of you guys is either you
01:11:22
have reached out to me or I've reached out to you and it's been amazing I've
01:11:26
reconnected with people I never thought I would ever talk to ever again in my life okay um and we've had amazing
01:11:32
conversations and so again just do it it's okay people if people are busy they
01:11:37
won't respond okay that's that's the biggest thing that has always held me
01:11:41
back from texting people is they go they don't have time for me if they have time
01:11:44
for you they will respond if they don't have time they'll get to it eventually
01:11:47
okay so keep that in mind so this has been the exom schoolers Club I hope you tune in next week we'll be back uh with
01:11:55
another great conversation I don't know who it's going to be yet um but we'll
01:11:59
find out okay peace out [Music] [Music]