Confederate soldiers grave marker outside my racist grandmother's cemetery
Personal, Podcast, Racism, Mental Health, Coronavirus, podcast, racism, Society

My Racist Grandmother…

How her Hatred and Racism Affected me

Yesterday, I felt my dead racist Grandmother was summoning me to visit her grave.

One of those gut following kind of things. I had never visited her grave all these years she’s been dead. She is buried not far from my house in a grave next to my Uncle.

When I was a kid she would tell me things like I was not allowed to swim with black people because it was “like bathing with them”. She viewed black Americans as animals.

She was horrible to everyone in general.

Her racism, along with other family members, is most likely the reason I have always been drawn to non-white cultures and ethnicities.

My Grandmother was physically beautiful. Classic 1950s movie star look with perfectly curled hair from rollers. Skin always shiny. Obsessed with her weight. She had a great sense of fashion. In fact, she owned a popular dress shop back in the day.

There was little beauty on the inside. Masculine and tough to the core.

During my 20 min drive I kept wondering why she wanted to be buried in this particular cemetery. And here it was. My answer.

Confederate grave marker
Confederate Grave Maker

She wanted to be buried with her hatred

She had so much hatred in her racist heart.

When she died years ago, she almost died alone with no family until I decided, with help of my friend, to be there with her. She died within minutes of me arriving.

Visiting her cemetery and seeing this marker caused many emotions to come flooding back. Emotions buried so deeply of her abuse to myself and others.

I am grateful I followed my gut. Why? Because I released all that buried anger, hurt, and confusion. I have been storing and repressing those emotions deep in my body and soul.

Now I can move on. Now I can help myself and others heal.

I am so happy to have so many beautiful people in my life with huge hearts.

It’s a reflection of you and a reflection of me.

podcast

episode 17: the assumption (Colorism, Pedestals of Race, and Solutions)

episode 17: the assumption

Summary of Episode 17

Today’s episode Christine has a deep conversation with her friend Sandra. They talk about the topic of Colorism, the ingrained assumption of “Light Good, Black Bad” from slavery and how the light skin privilege only went so far.

The times of slavery when light skin and dark skin people being separated.

Sandra discusses the Clark Doll Experiment where dolls of different shades are shown to black children asking questions if which doll was good, bad, or preferred.

Christine discusses her own family genealogy of owing slaves.

Sandra discusses her daughter dating white men, her daughter experiencing racism at an Asian dance club, and why it bothers Sandra that her daughter does not want to date black men.

Topic of a few African Americans being antiblack, the illusion of black people aren’t marginalized.

Diversity in the workplace, different experiences, and being short sighted.

Christine’s own previous assumptions of black people all being in the fight together.

Racism and divide between Africans and African-Americans, African men’s view of black men being lazy and African men’s assumption of African American women when dating.

A powerful conversation about black women’s feelings about black men dating white women, the “shortage of black men” on their level, and the feeling of betrayal.

Christine discusses why she predominantly dates African American males, her theme of not feeling protected in childhood, and how black represents protection to her.

The pedestals of race, placing attributes onto a group of people, finding worthiness in a partner instead of inside yourself.

The black man struggles with getting jobs, career advancement which affects being head of household. Black women getting a job over a black man because of the assumption of being threatening.

Solutions to the assumptions ingrained in the black experience which starts with healing yourself then networking together.

Resource: 

https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/clarkdoll.htm

Thank you for taking this deep and heavy journey with me!

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Assumptions are made and most assumptions are wrong.

Albert Einstein

Personal, Podcast, Racism, Mental Health, Coronavirus

The Balloons of Childhood Programming

What kind of balloon will you hand your child today? What balloon will you give your inner child?

The childhood programming balloons I was given were demeaning, abusive, manipulative,etc which created a constant environment of uncertainty and a foundation of lack of worth. 

My parents were married for just a few short years…

But continued to be verbally abusive to one another and constantly complaining to ME–a child–about what they hated about the other person. 

Everytime my father would say derogatory remarks about my mom and vice versa, I naturally perceived this to be about me. Each complaint they made was a direct reflection about who I was. 

Children think in concrete terms due to brain development. Children believe they are an extension of their parents. If one parent is trashing the other, the child takes it in deeply–to the core of their worth. 

I recently had a friend tell me I was cherished. I was stunned because I had never heard or witnessed my parents or any adult say this, especially not to me. I had to look up the word Cherish to really know what it meant. 

So today the Balloon I give to my child is how much I cherish her father. You are cherished 

Mr. Perez. 

Personal, Podcast, Racism, Mental Health, Coronavirus

episode 14: the dysregulation

Summary

In this episode I interview my therapist friend Sandy, LPC who blew my mind with her poetic Facebook posts about the effects of childhood trauma on the body, importance of self-protection (two little words saying N-O), and much more. I am excited to venture into an interview style podcast so I, along with others, can get the healing tools for our individual needs.  — This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/howcoronavirussavedmylife/support

Transcription

Personal, Podcast, Racism, Mental Health, Coronavirus

Welcome Back to Codependency…

Welcome back to day 2 of Codependency….

Now that we are UNconsciously in a trauma bond on the Island of Save and Rescue..

It’s time to kick it up a notch! We now enter Phase 2 of “Prove your Love for Me”. This phase consists of TESTS! Everyone likes a good test, right? Don’t worry the TESTS will start out as little pebbles then become boulders!! And once you have passed all my inner child’s tests then we do something called RAISE THE BAR.

Sigh…..well now you’ve passed all the unconscious tests, it quiet, no chaos…which guess what? Scares us because we’ve never known what it feels like to be safe.

So now what? I KNOW….we’ll become workaholics! Now why in the world would we do this? Oh that’s right…to AVOID the deep inner sadness and unworthiness we feel. Work provides us with rewards! Work is where we are near perfect! Plus all of our friends are there!! Woo hoo! It’s like a huge playground of FIGHT or FLIGHT. We’ll be so busy we won’t have time to think about all those uncomfortable feelings.

Fast forward 5 years later….my inner child and myself can’t figure out why we are so burned out and unhappy…..mmmmm.

And this concludes Codependency Theatre.

Join us tomorrow for a Special Thanksgiving Edition of “Why don’t we have sex anymore?” (Inner child shrugs)