Changing your Story: You don't have to be the story you were born into

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne and we go into part three of Denise Bards' Amazing Story with a quote that she mentions from Denzel Washington Failure is a part of success. If I'm going to fail, I'm going to fall forward. We all have ups and downs in this journey we call life and it's about perspective, denise states she changed her lens for a different way of thinking. It's not changing your perspective, necessarily, but changing what our focus is on, and I think that is an important message for all of us. I mean, let's listen as she continues her story of overcoming. There is not a person who cannot benefit from listening, and I get to share quite a bit myself. It only takes 30 seconds for someone to make a difference, positively or negatively. I even call out a teacher that made a huge difference in my life. Let's listen to part three of Denise Bards' interview.

Speaker 2: 1:01

So after I left Anchor House I went to live with an aunt and uncle. Mother didn't want me back, which was fine, because I didn't want to go back. So again it was about transitioning back to or reunification of family and I thought it was going to be okay, was kind of led to believe I can stay at my school Because again for me school was my safety, it's where my teacher was, it's my friend, it's where I was able to survive and have those coping things. But unfortunately that wasn't the case and there was clearly at that home a lot of it wasn't a happy marriage and that was clear, okay. So there was a lot of yelling and a lot of anger and I didn't know how to survive in their environment. I just knew how to survive in mine. So I convinced my mom to take me home for a weekend and I knew my plan was, when I got home I would run and that's what I did and I spent a day or over a day on the run. And then what is crappy is I went to one of the girls who had been in Anchor House with me. Her mom was a social worker. I don't know her story as to why she was in Anchor House, but she was and her mom supposedly was going to help me but in fact did not, and called the police on me and we yeah, we, they took me to the youth emergency center where that's where I was explaining that the fat man came in and said, way, got two choices you, okay, write down on the paper that made it all up, or you go into psychiatric ward. So obviously, after long process, I decided I just say, yeah, I made everything up. I did go home with my mother and I knew how to survive and because of everything I had been taught in Anchor House, like those those lessons of, you know, finding the positive, you know, those positive people, that's what kind of made me survive back. You know I had now these skills to be able to. I already had survival skills, but that gave me more of a boost of good things, right, so the boost in it stopped. I just learned, obviously had to get through a lot of it. For instance, one which people don't understand when I say this and I think, as youth or kids that grew up in an abusive environment, when we learn how to survive through something, it it's kind of like I don't know, it's not that sadness, I don't know how to explain that but for instance, my when my mom would hit me, I learned if I laughed that she would stop. So the harder she hit, the more I laughed, the harder I laughed and it would be done in a minute and she would tell me I'm crazy. But I learned that coping skill. Do you know what I mean? I learned how to get through that. But yeah, I mean it was still there. Obviously, abuse changes, you know, through the time, because you know you get older and certain things just don't fly anymore.

Speaker 1: 4:33

But it would be so much harder, I think, once you experienced a safe loving environment, to go back to that.

Speaker 2: 4:42

Oh my gosh, I you have no idea, I'm sure maybe you do. I God, it was so hard. I had you know I Would just cry a lot by myself. Obviously I, from my whole life I had been on the I Say at the hunt. I have been always looking for a mom, like it could have been a neighbor, it could be the teachers and it was. I was just needing that glimmer of hope. And so, coming out of anchor house it was so difficult because I didn't, you know, I was so hopeful going in that maybe this time I'd be rescued that coming out was difficult because I didn't have that environment. Like you said, there wasn't that caring. The only time I could get that that safety feeling, that feeling of being loved and cared about, was at school by those teachers. So for me it became the one place I knew I could go to and and have that you know, when I was younger, and even into my 20s especially, I was the same way.

Speaker 1: 5:58

I did not have a very lovable home and you know, my, my adopted mom Was not one of the best. It was a very it was a really rough environment to live in, very crazy, making a lot of abuse, and so I would always be looking for Somebody to really love me, and it was the same exact thing. I mean, I was adopted, so you know there was always that anyway. But then the home that I was placed in, especially after my dad died, it turned out to be a really horrific environment and so you know it would. I always longed for that mom. Yeah and I felt really Weird about it. And you know, it's kind of really great to hear, yeah, somebody else talk about that, because it it's not something that you really wanted to, in when you're in your 20s, say, well, you know, I'm kind of looking for a mom still.

Speaker 2: 7:01

Yes, yes, I said you know, yes, and, and there again, like I'm sitting here when you said that I'm like, oh my god, somebody gets it, somebody gets it. Yeah, because, yeah, yeah, when I was, you know, I guess when you're younger you're like, when I get to be this age, I'm not even gonna think about it, it won't even bother me, I won't do whatever. And it's so further from the truth and as much as I wanted a mom growing up and that loving environment and and you know, you, you think about it, you kind of play, playing your head what it would be like if this person, you know, would rescue you, and what that person would rescue you and you, you go through these, these pictures, and that's kind of how I, you know, got through a lot of stuff. Um, so crazy enough that I will share this that I would take Pictures out of magazines of, like, the soap opera stars back in 80s, in the 90s, and I would put them in my wallet and and just think you know what? No, these are my parents, that's not. You know what I mean, because it's just, you wanted that so badly. So as an adult, yeah, I still struggle with that. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it is something that I struggle with and when I had kids it was even harder, which was crazy. But even today I just wish I had that mom that I can call that I say, hey, you know, you just want to have like a talk with somebody over the phone with coffee. You know that place to be able to go home to. You know, I I have a loving marriage. I do and I I'm. You know, we're happy, we have a great home, I have kids, my life is great, right, that doesn't mean I don't have that hole when, if the world collapsed, where will I go If everything was swept under me? I don't have someone to go to, I don't have somewhere to go to, and I'll say that. But I also say that I do have Wonderful people in my life that were in my life growing up. I have a babysitter, that, that I talk to every day like we message with her daughter. We're about seven years apart and we're on messenger every day and I know without a doubt she would be like, nope, you're coming here. You know she would absolutely do that and she tried to help me when I was younger but she realized that my grandmother and my mother would push her away, so she saw that happening. So the best thing that she can do was to allow me to save the environment and a learning environment when I was at her house being babysat, you know. But, I'll go to these, even the teachers. I've reconnected with my CCD teacher back in, for you know, back in for when I was 14 that I go every Wednesday. I have a place to go to at her home. You know, I have my high school teacher and I know that Michelle would be like my shell. My old counselor should be like nope, you're coming here. I know that I have these places to go to. So when I say that, I don't mean to say oh, that's not good enough, oh, you're being picky, it's just not the same. It's not the same. You're not in their holiday photos, You're not invited to their holiday. You know different things. Like we don't have that. Do you know what I mean? Right, and as adults, like you said, as adult, and I'm glad that you shared that with me, because that I don't think anybody has ever shared that with me before, so thank you for doing that.

Speaker 1: 10:39

You know, I used to try to find teachers and it's really weird, like I don't know if it was like I was purposefully looking for a mom or per. You know it wasn't really, because you can't really just say, okay, I want you to be my mom, but I would, in high school and in my 20s, you know, I would scope out and, you know, try to find somebody, a woman, that I would connect with, so I could be close to them and have somebody that I could confide in and really trust and you know, I'm just going to say a math teacher on my end as well, and I was horrible at math too and must be the teachers. Yeah, it was. You know her name was Cheryl Conway and I'm Facebook friends with her now, but I mean, she got, she allowed me to talk with her and she actually came to my house and I think she had dinner with us or something. But you know, she made it a point to make a difference and you want to talk about that 30 seconds? I mean it was, it was more than 30 seconds, but I felt important, I felt heard, yeah, and you know, that's all it really takes and it doesn't take a lot of people, it just takes one or two people to really make a difference in your life, to make that different trajectory in your life, to say you know what you matter, you matter and that's all. Yes, because I also had a biological mom that, all the way, even until she died, didn't want me in her life because I was conceived in rape.

Speaker 2: 12:19

And she told me supposedly too, and I was told that my entire childhood too. You are nothing but a rapist child.

Speaker 1: 12:27

That's what I, that's the exact words that we're told. Yeah, yeah, we're nothing but a rape to me. The exact same thing. And so you want to talk about not having that worth. And then you know we talked about and I want to get to the poem that I shared with you. Oh, please, yes, yeah, I'll read that and then we can talk. I remember many a night when I would pray in the midst of fright, to a God I did not know or understand, who I wished would reach down with a gentle hand, wipe away my tears of desperation, rescue me from my world of isolation, from the four walls in which I dwelled, looking out the window from a world I knew well, wondering exactly what it would be like to be in one of those other bedrooms still lit by light. I would stare at them through the hazy mist, from my breath till their lights went out, as though it were a death, a death of a dream that gave me hope that, in the midst of chaos, would help me cope. Laying back down with a tear on my cheek, praying Father, I lay me down to sleep in hopes for a new family in which I seek. I know I don't know who they are, but I pray with much faith that they're not very far Now. You said when you read that that it was beautiful and sad, and I mean you said to me quote I still struggle with not having a mom, which you just talked about, or somewhere to go home to, and I know that when I was growing up, these were your words, that you said to me I thought once I got to the age I am now, I wouldn't think about it anymore, which you also said on this podcast. However, I think it is harder now, you said, because when I was younger, there was still hope that I would be rescued and have that family. Now that hope is gone and I now and now I work on embracing what I do have and remind myself how far I have come. So I mean, you obviously never found your forever home, your home, your forever mom, but did you ever come close? That was my question, which you have kind of answered. But you lived in quite a few homes like bounce back and forth.

Speaker 2: 14:42

I did bounce back and forth, did you?

Speaker 1: 14:45

ever live with a family or anybody other than your teachers, that really you were like, other than the group home. Wow, this feels like family.

Speaker 2: 14:57

No, no, I see that and I think that's why I think your poem hit me like I read that several times last night, after you know, and God if it isn't like we were in the same brain, because I remember to. Just, I used to put my headphones on and listened to my cassettes and I would either stare out the window, depending where I lived. And I'll even tell you, my memories go back to when I was four and I remember having that, those little records and listening to it, looking out the window, and every woman that went by I would be like like I would say and I'm telling you this where I've never told people, but I would say under my breath, hi mom, hi mom. And you know. So I've looked out the window, I've thought the same freaking thing and prayed, prayed, prayed, and I used to get mad. And when I say used to in my adult life, in my late teens and in my adult life and I struggle with that still today the biggest regret is I just wish I told someone. Now I don't know that that would have made a difference. I really don't. We don't know what could have happened, but that hope was still there If I just had the courage, and not just the courage but knowing, like. I learned in Anchor House that what was happening was at my fault and I wouldn't have been afraid. I think we tend to overthink and if you're like me, then you worry about what other people think and what other people say. And someone recently had said and I say recently, it was probably a year ago that you don't know that for sure, because what you're worried about is the thoughts that are in your head of what they are thinking about and the thoughts that are in your head of what they would say. But whatever it is, that could not be true, and I think about that because I was worried about telling someone and the only person that that ended up hurting me. Hurting is me, and I think that we do that a lot Is to not say something because we're worried about what other people do. So when I talk now, that is something that I cannot stress enough. If there were somebody listening that is in the same situation that we were in and I fluid you because it sounds like we have a lot in common, but that it isn't your fault. And there is someone and I had a bad experience, and I'll say it anyway because this was back in the 80s and I really do hope that the programs has changed a lot, although I know that it's probably there's still probably a lot of work to do. But I did have a teacher. It's a counselor. She was my seventh grade counselor who called social services to come and social services had been in and out of my house growing up, just so. I should say that Because in kinship care it is a foster home so we always constantly have somebody coming that would come to the school and they saw bruises. I mean they would ask me what's going on. Well, you're trained to say I got hurt this way, I got hurt that way, and you don't think anything of it because it's drilled that if you say something they're gonna take you away from me and you don't know you're gonna go to bad people. These were like cycle things. But I had a seventh grade counselor who called and I remember the guy coming to the door. My mother wasn't home, we were in this apartment and he said give this to your mom to call me. And I remember, like looking at that card, thinking first I'm terrified, then second, maybe I have a chance. And this was the year before I went to Anchor House, or even six months it could have been. And when he came, my grandmother came over and my mother was there and we lived in a one bedroom and they sat right outside the kitchen door so they can hear, and so, while he was talking to me, I said the appropriate words, but I wrote on a paper and I'll never forget this. I wrote on a piece of paper and said I'm scared, please help me. He left and I never saw him again and he saw the paper. Yeah, I handed it to him. He looked at him, he looked at me, and so those going back to the poem and how that relates, is that you were just there's gotta be somebody out there. There just has to be, there has to be somebody that wants us enough that they're willing to fight against these darkness, which was, you know, my mother and my grandmother. They're gonna fight against them for me because they want me.

Speaker 1: 19:56

And that's just proof how somebody can take 30 seconds of your life for the negative and not help.

Speaker 2: 20:05

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I never really thought about that. That is so true. I guess I don't focus on those negative moments.

Speaker 1: 20:11

See, thank God, see, because that's how you're wired.

Speaker 2: 20:15

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's that. Yeah, I won't forget your poem because I think that that just got. If I could write a poem, that probably would have been it. You know what I mean. That's like, that's definitely how it felt.

Speaker 1: 20:30

So what about the pain of these people and how they hurt you? I mean, do you think that that has subsided or do you think that that's still in there?

Speaker 2: 20:43

Um, so I think it's just something that I think it'll always be there, like I have a fear of certain people in my family. Um, without a doubt, I still have that fear, um, and and that's crazy to say as I'm 48 years old- Um, yeah, I had fears that lasted me that long. So yeah, yeah. And so I still have fears and I just try not to allow them to control me. There's this big thing everybody is always about oh, we have to forgive in order to heal. I don't believe that, um. I don't think that there's forgiveness in the things that happen to me at all, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to heal. For me, it just means no, I don't forgive you, but no, I will no longer give that power to you. I will no longer allow those thoughts to consume my head and truly, I mean, it's a work in progress, um, but I don't allow it to control me anymore. It's an unforgettable thing of what happened to me, and there are things that I could like detail, but I'm sure your listeners probably don't want to hear that. But, um, but that's okay, like I'm, it's okay that I don't free. It's okay I hate. I hated when people told me that because I thought I would never heal because I couldn't forgive. But it's okay that I don't, but it's my choice that I make that I won't allow them to, um, destroy what I have now, if that makes sense, right?

Speaker 1: 22:20

Yes, I want to talk about this really quick, because one of the things you said to me last night was people are meant to meet for a reason. Even the one, even the ones we wish we never had met. They were just meant as a lesson, and I can't tell you how many times I have thought about that since you said that. I mean, that made me think about. Oh, I've got a list of people that have hurt me and they did take me on a different course in life, right. But you know, I've tried to tell myself that I have learned along the way from each of them and I've grown and I've become the person I am because of them. But that was so profound to me, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:13

Yeah, I do. I believe that. Um, I I listen to a lot of motivational compilations. One of the things I do for myself every day is I get on the treadmill. I am not a runner. I do walk with a purpose. Um, but I found this year I started in January that I listen to, um, I go on YouTube and I hit the compilations of all the the motivational speakers and I listened to it while I walk.

Speaker 1: 23:41

Mm, hmm.

Speaker 2: 23:42

And, um, there is a speaker, less brown, and, um, what he says and this, this is, I think I shared this with you, um is that, uh, I don't call it a bad day, I call it a character building day. And so, when I think about that, and then the people that I met, I do believe that they were building my character. So, the choices that, um, I made, you know that that that weren't great choices, just like you said, you know it was building my character, whether I liked it or not. Um, it was, it's, it's never a bad day, it's just building your character, Wow. And so, um, I do think about that, because we do have that tendency to overthink, and especially overthink the, the choices that we made, Um, but the problem is we can't go back and change what we've already done. The only thing we can do is what did we learn from it? Now let's go another quote, um, from um Denzel Washington. When he gave a commencement speech, he said uh, failure is part of success. Um, if I'm going to fall, which is it? It fail, I'm going to fall forward. And so, um, I I think about that. Okay, Well, you know what? That situation was pretty shitty, but I'm going to fall forward from it, so what can I? learn and I'm going to get up and I'm going to go.

Speaker 1: 25:14

I love that. One of the things that you also talked about last night was you have a uh, you talk about having that different perspective, that you changed your lens, so can you talk more about that?

Speaker 2: 25:28

Yeah, I think it goes back to, um, what my daughter said to me, um, you know, two years ago, when I told her my story and, um, and she said you know, I'm so glad that all of these people, um, you know, raised you and it it does it. I mean, I can go back different things and tell you how, how that changing my lens stall, shifting my focus, is probably the best, but it put everything into perspective of, wow, I didn't have the mom I wanted, but I did have a collection of moms that collectively, all together, made that right mom right. But, you know, growing brat back to being younger and learning from Michelle at the group home Was to change the lens or shift the focus and find the things that I was ignoring. You know, I'm again. It's not about changing your perspective on things per se. It's more of Changing what you allow yourself to focus on okay.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Well, that's that is really important. That's a great lesson, because I have told myself over and over and I call it thought stopping, where, as soon as my brain is going in that direction, that it's not going to be good. It's going to cause me to, you know, have a negative, a more negative thought or go in a wrong direction. So I do, I just do this thought stopping and I make myself think in a different direction.

Speaker 2: 27:12

You know it's funny because I'll say shift, okay, I just go shift Sometimes. I heard this in a support group once where the girl and she was much younger than me and I like was like, oh, I don't belong here. And she said when I start to go back to a certain Situation and I get consumed by it, she said I'll find something close by and I'll tap it, like physically tap it. So it makes me like come back to where I'm at. So it's funny because I use the word shift. If I'm going that way, like you'll see, I'll shake my head and I'll tap my leg or something. I'll be like shift. And I'm sure people think I'm nuts when that happens. You know we do, we have to in order to Move on. You know we don't want to go backwards. So I think if we get ourselves into Staying in that negative thought, you know we have to work hard. I think our job is never going to end. I think we're always going to have to work hard, no matter how shitty that may sound. I think it's just what we have to do.

Speaker 1: 28:18

One of the other things you let you said last night was you know they broke me, or maybe what you mean is that they tried to break you, but you made this statement, overcoming adversity and changing the story you were born into to the success story that you wrote for yourself. Yes, I just think that that's one of the most beautiful things.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Thank you. Yes, absolutely no. I I know I say this over and over about anchor house, but these are the things that I learned from that is that when you have people who Believe in you, until you can believe in yourself. So you know, I had all these people believing in me and I couldn't see it until somebody you know, it clicked. I heard someone. I think you know we're not going to resonate with every single person, even though we might say the same thing as a speaker. I can say the same speech as another speaker, but that doesn't mean that somebody's going to connect with me. Even though we're saying the same message, we're just not connecting. And I think that once you have someone in your life that you connect with, then everything kind of falls in place. And so for me, it was having all these people who believed in me until I learned to believe in myself, and once I was able to do that. No, I'm not the story I was born into, because if I was the story I would was born into. Statistically, I should be a drug addict, I should be an alcoholic, I should be an abusive person, because the cycle would have continued and I should be dead, and so I didn't have to stay in that story once I found some. You know these people and I'll go back to they. Probably were there my whole life. I'll go back to the babysitter. And then there was a family friend who tried to rescue me when my mom had me on a fire escape as she was drugged out. All these people you know were probably there helping to change my story, but it was. Here's a good quote, if you want to. They say you look like your mother and your father when you're born, but you look like the decision you. You look like your decisions when you die. All these little things that came along Once I make my decisions. It was no longer that other person's story. Now it's my story because now I'm writing it. You can't write my story for me, I'll write it for myself, the ups and the downs, no matter what it is.

Speaker 1: 31:01

We're stopping part three there. There was so much meat in this episode and we only have one more left with Denise. Let's change the story that we were born into together and rewrite our story of success. We can all do this together. Thank you so much for listening to real talk, and remember anchor house in New Jersey, if you have a few bucks that you would like to donate. Next week is the last part of her story. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for it to come out. Let's continue this journey together and see you next week. You.