In this episode, I chat with Lindsay about the loss of her father and two older brothers, as well as sexual abuse by one of those brothers. Lindsay talks about her mom’s mental health problems, as well as an abusive relationship. All of these things have affected her throughout her life. She shares how she is able to cope with all of it.*

Lindsay grew up the youngest of 9 children. She starts with the most recent event in her life, which happens to be the death of her dad, and then works her way backwards. As she is telling the story of what happened to her dad, she mentions little things that have stuck with her – as I’m sure anyone that has experienced death can relate to.

Then she went back to being 16 when her dad told her that her oldest brother died. He was 22 years older than her, so she didn’t know him like her older siblings did. Lindsay said the way he died was a total shock because he had been dealing with some other very serious issues and his death was not related to any of those.

Fast forward 6 years when she was 22. She got the call from her dad that another of her brothers had died. He had struggled with drugs and alcohol. He had been stealing their moms meds and abusing them. Their mom has been on pills their entire life because she has struggled with mental health issues for a long time. “I knew he was going to take too many pills and think he could just wake up from it because he had seen our mom wake up from it a bajillion times.”

When the second brother died, Lindsay felt a weird sense of relief because she could finally talk about things that had happened to her as a child. Before, she felt she was unable to say anything because it didn’t affect just her. She had been sexually abused by the second brother who had been sexually abused by the first brother who had been sexually abused by a Scout leader. It was a very vicious cycle. Lindsay makes a ton of good points about sexual abuse in this portion of the episode. She shares great advice for parents and things that would have helped her to open up earlier on about it, had she felt that sense of trust with her parents.

Next, Lindsay tells about how all of these things affected her as she became a teenager and started getting boyfriends. It got to the point of her being worried that she would never be able to have a normal relationship with a man because she had all these feelings associated with things her brother had done to her. She began going to therapy to work through these things. She was in an abusive relationship with an older guy, but found it hard to get out because he understood her. Or so she thought. Luckily, she was able to end it and then met her husband who helped her to get rid of the previous guy.

When Lindsay met her husband, she talks about how hard it was to adjust to someone that treated her nicely and didn’t make her feel like she was crazy because of the relationship she had previously been in.

Listen to the full episode to hear all the details.

*Please note: this is the guest’s story. Their story is how they perceive it. It is not my judgement or responsibility to determine whether or not this story and the things said are true. Please be open minded when listening to/reading these stories.

LINKS TO THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
–Amadeus
-Lindsay’s book recommendation: Stiff
-Lindsay’s song recommendation: Night Shift and Yours and Mine by Lucy Dacus (listen on the Hard Knocks guest list on Spotify)
-My ending song recommendation: Memorized by Blake Stadnik (listen on the Hard Knocks – Jourdan’s picks playlist on Spotify)
–Michelle Rebecca’s episode

“You must tell yourself ‘no matter how hard it is or how hard it gets, I am going to make it.'”

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