Lindsay Jewell Part 2 What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Stronger
by Ari Schonbrun
Lindsay Jewell Part 2 What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger
Summary:
Lindsay Jewell has faced many bricks in her life. Yet, she shares her journey with us. Her bravery in sharing her story is truly remarkable. Reminding us that no matter how many bricks life throws at us, we can overcome them. Part 2 is her struggle of trying to be a mom, dealing with her childhood trauma, and battling her addiction. Every step forward that she took, she was hit with a brick that set her back. Yet, she reminds us that keep trying even when life is tough. We hope her story helps people facing these issues or know someone who is.
Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Iris Sherman. I’m your host. We have with us today. Lindsey, Joel, Lindsey, if you as you may remember, if you if you came into the if you listened to last, the last episode, Lindsey was telling us our story and incredible, incredible story, the courage that she had in order to come out and tell the story. We’ve gotten the first part, this is going to be part two. So I want to welcome Lindsay, welcome back to the show. Again, how you doing right now? Good. Good. I’m glad to hear it. I’m glad to hear it. I know it’s been tough. But my again, my hat’s off to you for, you know, doing doing what you’re doing. And you know, there are people out there. Certainly drug addicts and people that have had been abused, etc. And they need to know that, you know, they can get clean and they can stay clean, just as you did. But let’s go back to, to those troubled years. You were in college. I think last time we spoke last time we spoke. Let’s pick it up from there.
Lindsay: Yes. And actually, let me go back because I missed an event and so sorry, because there is a ton of events in my life that have happened. So as I’m talking I’m like, okay, so when I was 18 and I just got out of high school. Right before I started college, I’d worked my first kind of business job at the blockbuster Corporation when they were still around. And
Ari: blockbuster blockbuster. That’s the movies the video the the VC the VHS. VHS tapes. Yeah. I remember blockbuster. Yeah. Okay, so
Lindsay: located in Texas, so. So that was my first like business little, you know, I was working like a temp, like a temp job. But I was all excited because I got to dress up in you know, business casual clothes and stuff and felt grown up and went to they had their little annual Christmas party and I went with a co worker. And you know, there was drinking there. Of course, we weren’t supposed to drink but we did you know, somebody got us alcohol. And next thing, you know, two people approached me. And this you know, I was in a very pretty velvet I’ll never forget velvet red dress, like I felt absolutely like a Cinderella. And this person that came up to me said if I wanted to, like leave the party with him and his him and his wife. And they had coke, coke, right, I had been sober I hadn’t used and it just always seem to find me and I just seem to not be able to resist it. So to make matters short, I was highly taken advantage of right. My mother took me to a hospital to get a sexual assault kit done. And I don’t know if it was just during the time this was I believe about 2000 2001 Maybe I’m trying to think of the year but so I did a these really invasive sexual assault kits that you get done at hospitals and the cops came back in I told him what happened and told them to drugs told him alcohol, you know, all this stuff. And they said because there was drugs and alcohol involved that they don’t have they can’t file a case. And so pretty much those words told me that I was a sloth I was just all of these horrible things. So that is the day I went home and took a straight blade, straight blade to my wrist and I still bear the scars with me every day of my life. And that was that’s that’s humiliating that’s probably why a lot of women don’t even go towards that option. It was absolutely humiliating.
Ari: So when when you when you slit your wrists, okay, like what was going on? Did you Did your parents find you did you tell them that you just slit your wrists are like oh, you know, like how can we how come you’re not dead?
Lindsay: Oh, And well, because at this point cutting, I mean, it was the addiction of cutting like I had I explained that.
Ari: All right, we don’t have to go into it. Yeah, yeah,
Lindsay: keep going. I just I kind of pretty deep and my mom mended them, okay. It it’s just it’s bad when you start getting used to not just me but my parents getting used to this behavior and getting used to this stuff where it’s just another day for anybody and it’s not normal for other people but it becomes normal to your life, you know. So that happened, definitely quit blockbuster. Because that was a
Ari: shocker shocker there. Yeah.
Lindsay: Yeah. Um, and went off and started my college and stuff. So finally, I got into my dream college, which was University of northern Texas in Denton. And and, you know, at this point, had really thought I’d kind of found what I wanted to do with my life, I actually wanted to be a drug and alcohol counselor, if that’s not crazy enough. And I actually, if it wasn’t that it was between that and being a parole or probation officer, because I really wanted to help people. Instead, I went to human resources management don’t know why, okay, but actually know, the reason I didn’t become a drug and alcohol counselor is because I didn’t think I had my stuff under control. And I couldn’t give advice to other people if I was lying to them. And so that deterred me away from that. And that is because I met husband, number one, who was my next door neighbor. And he wasn’t in college or anything, but found out quickly that he was a coke Do you see out my life? Like, I mean, I was, once again when I got into college, I was sober. I mean, we went out to the bars and stuff. That’s what we did, you know, but I wasn’t touching drugs. Nor did anybody need to know that I had been, you know, once drug addict. And, you know, it was just so crazy right next door to me, right next door was not just, you know, someone that could find it was someone that had it. And so, you know, we ended up having a relationship. And I honestly really thought at that time, like, I loved him. And you know, it was constant fighting, it was constant. I mean, ADD drugs. On top of that, it’s just constant chaos. All my relationships have been constant fighting and making up and all unhealthy. And so yeah, definitely dabbled back into the drugs like full speed, because there was an unlimited supply of them. And I stopped taking my birth control pills and got pregnant. Not intentionally. It’s just when, usually people are on prescribed medications, and they start doing drugs, they start the they neglect other things in life. So they start taking medications. So I got pregnant. And you know, I was scared to death, I was scared to death because I was scared to ever have kids, because of what somebody did to me. And I couldn’t imagine raising kids in a world that I’ve seen. And I even remember my mother saying, like, she didn’t like, she didn’t like, the guy at all right? Shouldn’t and she had every reason to, but I remember her asking me Do you want to have this baby and I said, I couldn’t have an abortion, because I would always sit there and think my kid would be this many years old, and I couldn’t do it. It was my responsibility. And so quickly got married to this guy more to the fact if any, if this meant he’s Italian, kind of he came from a very Italian kind of family. And it was kind of something that we felt like we should do is get married. We have a child on the way you know, and that just and I really thought I guess a baby. And a lot of women I think, understand this, think that this baby can change people. It’ll change things for you. It’ll make everything better for you. And you know, my it doesn’t Yes, that is true. It does not but it for some reason sounds I don’t know what why it does that in the mind. Um, you learn, especially, you know, my, my first has been, you know, he preached about what a great father he’s going to be. And he did stop selling drugs he did, he got a job. And you know, so I held on to that hope and saw that things could change, right. But, you know, I had my daughter by emergency C section that was scary enough, you know, at the hospital. I was sitting there alone in the hospital room because my husband at the time decided to go out gambling while his wife had just given birth by emergency C section. So that hurt, I hear. And
Ari: so that to that, that I assumed that was part of the reason why you divorced about a year later.
Lindsay Yeah, and I feel I don’t I didn’t know at the time. But you know, when two people get together, we, you come from two different lifestyles, so your parenting styles and your values and morals are two different things that you might not see at the time. And I think he wanted a wife that was more of a stay at home mom that cooked and cleaned. And that wasn’t me. Right? And he had he’s very controlling, and like would tell me I couldn’t wear certain shirts to to school. And I was like, oh my god, it’s like almost a turtleneck. So I filed for divorce. And difficult decision because at this point, I definitely would say it was codependent, very codependent. You know, and he went back to Texas. And oh, my god, within two weeks, within two weeks, he was back with his ex girlfriend, I was like, You gotta be kidding me. Like it was. And he really, he doesn’t till this day really have anything to do with our daughter. And but he went and started another family took care of all these other kids, you know, he doesn’t pay child support, he doesn’t do anything. But he takes care of a whole nother family. And that’s hurtful in itself. Because it makes me it made me feel rejected, or it made me feel replaceable. Very quickly. You know, and so, after that divorce, I think at the end of that year, I ran into who became husband number two. And I think at this point, I’m trying not to mourn. You know, like, I’m trying to bypass the grief stages by jumping into another relationship or trying to find another band aid that will quickly get rid of the feelings of, you know, hurt and grief. And I met husband number two, he was a soldier. He was a soldier who joined right when, before 911 happened. So he had been on a couple of deployments. And I thought I had done better than the last guy because this one had a job. He had a car like he had a legit job. You know, my parents seemed to like him. I mean, he was the war hero. And he did have a lot of trauma. Also, this is where I realized that there are trauma bonds that we make with people. Sure. You know, when I heard his sad story, not only deployments, but his mother was murdered, died in his arms. You know, I feel compassion for those things as a human being, I feel sorry, I feel sad because it’s, it’s it’s sick, how we can fall in love with somebody based on pain and suffering, like I know how you feel and I can comfort you through your pain. You know, and so, I know when I met him, he quickly got deployed for a short deployment and then had to come back for his mother’s like murder trial because his stepfather murdered his mother. And I quickly got pregnant with my my second child, which is my, my son. And now this time, let’s see. My second husband had injured his back in the military and they started dishing out a lot of pain pills. He was also a drinker. I’m also obviously you know, this this I’m not going to label myself just an addict. I was an ex at you know, recovering and going back. So we got addicted to these pain pills. My second husband got out of the military got medically discharged from the military and fell into a heap of depression. And I had to kind of just try to keep the family together. It was very difficult. At this time, sorry, in 2006, I had graduated college with my bachelor’s degree. I’m
Ari: quite, I would have to say quite an accomplishment. If you’ve been going through it, it’s a tremendous accomplishment. Again, my hat’s off to you.
Lindsay: Yes. Thank you, I am proud of that. I still am very proud of that. And it was being a single mother for the moment, you know, with my daughter that really, maybe finished my degree. And so So my second husband gets out of the military and like I said, falls into a depression. And now at this time, I had just got a job at Boeing. And I was so frickin I just a static because my father works for Boeing. Okay. And, and so I felt so important not to mention, the pay was actually finally what the college pay said it was supposed to pay and stuff. And I felt so grown up, I was working at missile defense, like, I just felt so awesome. But because of my choices in these relationships with unhealthy people, and the fighting and the toxicity, me and my second husband got into an argument about something I can’t even remember because it’s been so long ago, he up and took our infant son and started heading to New York. He He’s originally from upstate New York, but just started, I was at work. And he next thing you know, is on the road with our son heading to New York, and I fell apart, I fell apart, it was almost like kidnapping. It was just so I went right back into my coping mechanism with that. Went back into my cocaine addiction. And then I lost my job at Boeing. Not to say that they found out about that. They knew something was going on, I started becoming very unreliable and stuff. So I lost that job. And my father really beat me up for that one, which was very hard to overcome for a long time. I felt like a complete failure. And you know, so, at this time, I think I got on unemployment, I was trying to make ends meet. My father, my parents decided not to like my second husband. So they kicked us out of the home that my father had actually bought for us. You know, my God, I went through so many resources trying to get our rent paid for this new place we lived in and couldn’t find work because this is after 911. And it really 911 really did affect jobs. It affected everything. We all know that. And I could not find another job. And then it dawned on me the military’s always hiring.
Ari: That’s true.
Lindsay: So join the army. I did. I was 28 years old. When I joined the cutoff. The cutoff age at that point was 42, I believe. And like I said, I remember my second husband telling me I’ll never make it through basic I’ll never do this. And but I did. I joined I joined because honestly, I had a family and needed frickin money you know, um, so I did clean up the the addictions, I cleaned up, I prep for the military prep, my sit ups, push ups, everything you know, and went in and joined on a three year contract. And just so wanted to learn strength, because I was so in my opinion, such a weak person. And I wanted to learn that I could be strong. The army did teach me that army did. But what happens with my next great event. My unit was deployed to Iraq. I joined the military in 2010. Right and in 2011, our unit was deployed to Iraq and they send us to NTC the National Training Center in California to do our training right and I was cleared all the way, our standard readiness procedure, they clear you with all these tests to make sure you’re good to go for deployment and was cleared. Except it was put on a hold at the end, first stop, because I stopped taking the antidepressant, right. The lieutenant told me that when we get back from NTC, she’ll clear me. So anyway, so as I’m NTC out in California doing our training, my brother calls me. And he says, Do you remember? I’ll just, I’ll just give you his generic name. But Bill and I said, this was the molester. Right. He said, so he was released from prison. Right? I could not believe this. Because I am in my third, I think I just turned like 30, right. Skype and released from prison. And he said that the DEA is the district attorneys wanted to contact us. When does leave me a message because he got out of prison, right? Worked went to work for a youth camp. Because he found God, maybe he did, maybe he did at the moment. And then he lost him. But he went and then molested a bunch of other kids again. So um, what sucks is by this time, we have the internet, obviously. And I could just type in his name. And I read all of the articles and Oh, my God was like really traumatized. I mean, he literally, I believe, worked for like some kind of ministry, like some guy believed that he found his faith and could be reformed, read, redeemed, reformed, whatever. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I guess. But so this guy, the molester was at hotels with these little children. All boys, one convenient girl, I was like, What is it with this guy? And it just Oh, my God, you know, they were gonna have three testify, because obviously, this was his second time, not second time doing this was second whole time doing this. People don’t know that sex offenders laws changed in the early 90s. Now it’s life sentences, because they kind of realized that this poison just doesn’t ever read itself. And I do you remember at the trial from this man, when I was a child that he did say that he was molested? And I think that’s where it helps some of my forgiveness for him. But he decided to poison again, you know, with whatever happened to him? And but yeah, so he lost a bunch of other boys and one convenient girl again. And they gave him a life sentence. They gave him a life sentence. What killed me is picturing. Well, reading the case is about us, even though they can’t say our names and stuff, right? Saying that we’re adults, now just reading that and then thinking of these little kids that are going to grow up, their innocence is gone. And they’re going to experience the worst hell. You know, sorry. Okay.
Lindsay: It just killed me to know that these, I don’t remember how many kids it was, you know, maybe under 10 of them. But all of these little kids were going to go on this path that I knew so familiar, that I was so familiar with. And it’s a path of turmoil. It’s a path of sadness, loss of identity. And it just broke my heart because there are so many events in my life, right? That and I was just talking to my friend about this. There’s so many lives in my events in my life that I could have changed, maybe write. But there’s one event in my life that I had no control over. And that was the molestation there’s, if you want to talk about destiny, I guess that was my destiny. There is nothing I could have done to prevent that. The addiction, I use the resentment from that man to feel the addiction, right. And the addiction led me to bad places and bad people. Right? And those were my choices that I made. But that one event, I can never go back in time, no matter how much I do in my brain. I can never there’s nothing I could have done about that one. You know. So you This is after reading the articles and stuff. It really traumatized me. Oh my gosh. And I thought for some reason that I had been through so much therapy and all this stuff that I was cured, cured. And I wasn’t. So I was stationed in El Paso, Texas. Yes, yes. Okay,
Ari: Lindsay, once again, we’re out of time. And I think we can both use a break right now. I know it’s been very traumatic for you. It’s starting to get to me too. So we’ll pick this up at the next episode. Okay, let me just tell people, thank you so much. You’ve been listening to whispers in bricks. My name is Barry Sherman, I’m your host. Remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, like you’re wasting time in your career, your business your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success, satisfaction, and significance that you desire, then it’s time for you to book a call with me at www dot call with ari.com. Check out my whispers and bricks Coaching Academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams mind.
