Pilot: Raven and Razi's Introduction

Listen in as we introduce ourselves as the Cycle Breakers Anonymous. Get the back story of our names, and a sneak peek into the topics we will cover in upcoming episodes. 

Disclaimer: We are not mental health professionals and are not promoting or giving advice. Please seek help if needed. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome to Cycle Breakers Anonymous, the podcast where healing gets honest.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

We are Raven and Rosie, the two sisters navigating life after trauma while learning how to break cycles instead of repeating them.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Each week, we talk about the messy, uncomfortable, funny, exhausting, and empowering parts of rebuilding our lives.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And we're figuring out who we are while survival mode is no longer our full-time job. This is a space for real conversations, real growth, and real people trying to do better for themselves and the next generation.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Some episodes may include discussions of trauma, abuse, addiction, or other triggering topics. So please take care of yourself while listening. You are not alone here. Welcome to the chat. Hang in there with us. We're gonna tell you a little bit about our story. Today is more gonna be like who are we, why are we doing this, what is the purpose for this podcast, and then we're gonna get into a little bit of our stories. So I'll start by explaining a little bit of who we are. We are sisters in real life, but we chose to do this podcast anonymously for a variety of reasons. Um, but a little bit of history behind our names. First, I'm Rosie. That comes from Rosie Clarice, which actually is my author name. I have a few published books of poetry um that I've been working on that tells my story. So this isn't my first time telling my story, but this is the first time in this format that I've told this story. And the name Rosie Clarice, I chose because it talks about bringing secrets to light. Um, and so that's really the reason I chose this name. Um, and the reason that I'm doing this is because I want to bring some of our maybe darker secrets and the way we've managed it to light. How about you, Raven?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Um, yeah, mine's Raven, Raven Verity, and Raven comes from the spiritual belief that ravens represent transformation, intelligence, and problem-solving skills. And I feel like I've had to do a lot of all three um as life has moved forward from a traumatic childhood to where I am now. Um, the last name, Verity, is obviously it just means authenticity and truth. And right now I'm trying my best to become my most authentic and honest self. And um I have not personally expressed or talked about um my side of trauma very much, especially not in this kind of a format, but I'm looking forward to experiencing that with all of you.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I think we kind of started this up because we have spent a lot of time, and I'll back up to say that um my sister has just recently came back into my life full force, um, and I'm loving it, but we've had a lot of couch talks about like our past and healing from it. Um, and I think these couch talks kind of kept transforming, and I was like, man, this would be a great topic for a podcast because I think there are so many other people out there who could probably relate to what we've been doing. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So that brings me to my first question. Um I I don't necessarily want to go in and say, like, oh, here is our whole backstory, because I feel like that's gonna unveil itself throughout all of the episodes, but I really want to hone in on the words survival mode. I think we've spent a lot of time in our history in survival mode, and I just kind of want to talk about like where does that come from? Um, and what does that look like? So for you, Raven, where do you think survival mode comes from? What do you think is the foundation of that feeling?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Um, I think when you grow up in a household that is oppressive and threatening and um as toxic of an environment that we had, you adapt and you become a version of yourself that is stronger and more resilient, and you develop these habits and ways of behaving to kind of get through the environment as safely and um successfully as possible.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I do think, like I totally agree with that definition. I do think growing up, um safety was a big deal because we constantly felt like we were not safe, nothing was safe, public, not safe, uh friends, not safe. Like we we weren't allowed to have friends. Um home, also not safe.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

So and it was so easy to slip up. It was so easy to slip up. It was such a fragile environment.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah. Um so when we were younger, where do you feel like you felt the most safe?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

I felt the most safe alone, to be honest, because I feel like there was not much uh support or real love in our home. So if I was alone, especially in my room with my books, that's when I felt safe. I could kind of escape into those and I was good. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

I I I do think that books were a huge release for you and kind of an escape, a way for you to kind of get away from everything. Um, I was not an avid reader when I was younger, but I do agree that alone was where I wanted to be. Alone with music, you know, just leave me alone. But at the same time, I think sometimes alone was scary.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Um I think I think spending a lot of that time alone, you would hear it was like being hyper-aware all the time, even when you're alone. Listening for that cough in the morning to let you know that mom's awake, or listening to the footsteps to decide who is coming down the hall. How heavy are they coming down the hall? Are they mad? You know? So I guess alone technically wasn't like super safe, but it was the safest.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yes. So I I think um it's important to note that like growing up, we didn't have a definition of abuse because to our parents what they were doing was parenting in an old-fashioned type of way, right? And like there were no belt beatings, there were no like major things that happened that you and I, when we were little, would say, Oh, that's that's abuse. So I'm curious to know from your perspective. Uh what was your wake-up moment? When did you realize that this is not healthy? This is not normal, this is because to us this was normal, right? Like what was the moment that made you go, oh wait, this isn't how it should be?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

I think experiencing family through other people's perspective is what really woke me up, um, especially honestly, pretty recently within the last few years, seeing how other people's adult parents treat them as adults and hearing all the stories of how they were treated when they were younger, especially in conflict, it was eye-opening to the say the least.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

I think for me it was like other people in my life. Like I didn't have friends, true friends, until I was an adult. And one of my closest friends um at one point talked about her upbringing, but then also talked about the things she was doing to be different. And I think that helped me realize like, okay, the things I was experiencing were very similar to what she experienced when she was younger, and that that's not normal, and that it's okay to say, whoa, stop. No, I'm not doing those same things. Um so I think it took other people telling me um that's not normal for me to realize that.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, talking to um people that I'm close to about my history and growing up upbringing, even religiously, all of it, I get a lot of shocked expressions from those people, and that was jarring.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, I agree. Um some of the things that we dealt with when we were little, I think come out every once in a while, like naturally. It's like, you know, people become their parents.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And I think one of the other moments where I woke up was like, and I have three kids of my own. When I was frustrated with a behavior of theirs, my instinct was to just handle it completely inappropriately, get angry, yell, be big, things like that. And I realized that like I was harming my children, even if I wasn't like physically touching them, like being mean, hitting, whatever. I was harming them emotionally by just yelling. And so I needed to figure out healthier ways to to cope with my own anger because I was doing what we had been taught.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Right. And I remember as a a young girl in our house, um, I remember being very angry, very vicious, monstrous in a lot of ways, and I had learned that toxic behavior from the adults around me. I had learned to fight back. That was my way of surviving was to fight. And I I was also a bully. I was a bully when we were kids. I took that out on you and Rodzi. And um I was not a good sister. I was not a good friend. I was not trying to be. I was trying to hurt anything that was smaller or weaker than me. And I think at the time that was me seeking my own form of power in a way. And now that I'm older, I'm realizing obviously that big and strong means something totally different than what it meant then.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I think one of the other things that make it difficult to talk about the past is that there are so many people, especially in our parents' generation and older, who um just like I said earlier, like what we thought was abuse or was not abuse was a very thwarted way of thinking. And so a lot of people would just say, like, oh, you weren't abused, like, you didn't get hit with the belt. My my grandpappy hit me with the belt. You know what I mean? Like, um, the the way people define abuse doesn't usually involve mental health.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

I want to put something out there though. We were hit. Yes, we were hit, we weren't hit with a belt or a switch or anything crazy, but we were absolutely hit.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Absolutely. There was there was physical violence, like we were dragged to our room by our hair, we were uh definitely hit. There were times that we were both of us had been pumped in the mouth to where we were bleeding. Like and these are little kids that we're talking about. Like we're talking about very, very young versions of ourself, and and these things should never have happened. So one of the very first poems I ever wrote was literally titled The Belt. And um, if it's okay with you, I'd like to just share it really quickly. Yes, please. So it's called The Belt, and it goes like this. Old man said, You're lucky. You had it easy, at least you didn't get the belt. You're right, old man. I'm lucky, I didn't get the belt. I was blessed with a loving family. They hugged me with fire in their eyes and kissed my lips with fingertips hard enough to make me bleed. When it was time to say goodnight, they dragged me to my room by my hair and tucked me in with nightmares. In the morning, I awoke to the sweet song of combing chunks of broken strands from my scalp. But you're right, old man, I'm lucky. At least I didn't get the belt. And I wrote that because um so I am I was divorced from my first husband. But I wrote that because I realized that cycles were starting to repeat themselves. And one of the the triggering moments that made me say, No, I'm done, it's over, was when he had reached for one of my daughter's hair. Oh. And it instantly brought me back to literally being dragged to my room by my hair and going like, uh, this is not okay. I am not putting my children through the same thing that I was put through. Um, and so that ended that marriage. How did you Oh okay, yeah, I gotcha, I gotcha. Yeah. So I think I think one of the most important things, messages that I want to put out there is that abuse doesn't mean one cut and dry thing. It means a lot of things. Like there's mental abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, so many different kinds of abuse out there, and I want to recognize them all because none of them are okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

I also want to recognize that not all of our childhood was bad. I mean, we have a lot of really good memories, I think, that were also kind of mixed in with all of this. Like, um, I think for me, one of my favorites was being in the garage while dad was working on different things and listening to music and um bringing different tools and learning about some different things in the garage. And then with mom, especially when she was learning polymer clay, I think I had a lot of fun doing like some some of the crafty type stuff with mom.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, I mean I definitely remember mom as a funny person, humorous. She could always make the room laugh. Um, and that but that was the good days. And I also think in some ways I almost idolized my our our dad.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Oh yes, definitely. I put him on a pedestal like crazy.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah, I feel like for the longest time he was my hero, and in some ways still is. Like he's the guy who could fix anything, he's the guy who could do anything, and there were times where I almost felt like I could talk more with him than with mom. Um so I do have great memories, and and honestly, outside looking in, a lot of people probably looked at us as if we were just your normal kid, whatever, because we handled stuff well. Um, we got to play in some sports occasionally when we were really little.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah, I also I really enjoyed the camps that we went to through church. I think this summer and the winter camps were a lot of fun. We had some really nice opportunities to experience things like that. And honestly, those camps were great because we actually got to socialize with some people. We got to learn how to be normal people, have normal conversations. And I mean, I really, I really thought that was a great time. And then aside from the camps, um, I think that having our dad on a pedestal, he was like a neighborhood hero. He would go around and help people with stuff, people could count on him. There were so many people in the neighborhood that I felt like really needed some assistance, especially with like lawn work or fixing things.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Dad was a big scary dude. Like he was still is. He was the protector. Yeah. If there were crazies on our street, he would be the first one to throw them out, like even physically sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

So I mean, so he would He stood up against a woman who was wielding a pitchfork. And yes, we say woman, but like this woman was huge and she was huge, she was huge, and she was nuts, and she was off her medicine.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

So I guess all this to say, like, I don't want to come on here and just bash people, right? Like, this that's not what this is about. But this is about trying to recognize what we went through, also recognizing the good and how that can confuse you into not knowing what a healthy relationship is. Um, and so that brings me to one of my last questions for you. Um, just super quick in a nutshell, what was healing like for you, or what is it like? Is it still a journey that you're on? Um, tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

I am absolutely still on that journey. Healing honestly started with being hurt and feeling abandoned, and then that morphed into like a rage, and I disconnected from everyone and everything, and just focused on myself and what I had going on. And that rage hung on for a long time, and now I think I'm coming around to a point where I am ready to, you know, re-enter the family, but with firm boundaries, and I'm I'm still working on it.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, um I think healing is a process that's gonna continue forever for both of us. I do think that my process maybe boosted off a little bit quicker than yours, but we also um for for those of you listening in, that we could not be more different, Raven and I. Like we could not be more different. We handle things very differently, and I always saw myself as like the fixer of the family, so I wore a lot of that responsibility on my shoulders growing up. Um, but now I feel like I still am able to maintain a relationship with our parents, even though it doesn't look like a traditional relationship, and I know I'm not gonna get everything out of it that I want. But um there are still like every time I come back from their house, I have to decompress and continue that healing process because I have to remember that they they aren't going to change because they don't I don't think that they fully understand that there's change that needs to happen.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah, I don't think that they believe that they're wrong. I believe that they think that they're doing something in a very old-fashioned way. I mean, they've said so themselves and they don't realize how toxic it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

And you know, we only we only have a few minutes left here, but I also want to say that like I I think the way that we grew up bled into our relationships after that, like our intimate relationships, our friendships. Absolutely, our relationship with each other, even. Um, and I think that's something that I would like to explore in future episodes with you. Um, there's definitely not enough time in one episode to cover all the things that we want to cover. Um but just what can listeners expect from these conversations.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

I think that they can expect to learn a lot about us and hopefully they'll see a bit of themselves in what we're talking about. And um, I think it would be great if it even helps some people along their journeys, but they can definitely expect us to talk about past, present, and future of everything that we've been through. And I mean, I think there's a lot of good information that we'll be bringing to the table, and I think that there will be a lot of fun that we bring to the table.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

You also brought up a workbook to me recently. I have not been asked to sponsor it in any way, but I've noticed so many amazing things in it. So for people out there who may be relating at this moment um and thinking, oh, I grew up with some interesting parents as well. Um, what is the name of that workbook that you've been going through?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

The workbook is called Breaking the Cycle of Abusive Parents, and it was put together by Hollis Thorne. It has been absolutely game-changing. It's opened my eyes to a lot of things, and it's even given me a lot of like um tactics and ways to kind of move through life while you're on your healing journey.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Another workbook that um we've also been looking at a little bit is talking about self-love, also. So uh we've been reaching out, finding some resources and and doing things kind of on our own, doing this journey on our own. Um, and hopefully this podcast will help you to know that you don't have to do this journey by yourself either.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Um This is also a disclaimer, I thought I should put it out there. We're not professionals, we're not like um therapists or psychologists or anything. This is just a personal experience type thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

So Yeah, I totally agree. Um, do not rely on this podcast for all of your professional help. In fact, if you believe that you need some help, please reach out to a therapist, please reach out to your local professional. Um because really we're here just to share our stories, just to kind of let you in on, you know, our past and how we've dealt with it, but we're not giving any type of um professional advice here. Alright, well, our time is running out. So with that being said, um I would love it if you would join us again next week for another episode of Cycle Breakers Anonymous where we are going to dive into relationships in general, um, how ours have evolved over time. We're gonna talk about some personal relationships, family relationships, intimate relationships. Um, it'll probably be a lot more structured than this first one was, but this was more of an introduction. Um, thank you for joining us, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Before we go, we want to leave you with this reminder. Not everyone grows up with parents or family members who celebrate their victories, milestones, and moments of growth. If that's been your experience, we see you.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

So whether you landed a new job, finished a book, made it through a hard week, set a healthy boundary, or simply got out of bed today when it felt impossible. We want to celebrate with you. Share your wins with us, big or small, they matter. You don't have to carry your accomplishments alone. Until next time, keep breaking cycles, keep choosing growth, and remember, you deserve to be celebrated.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Another chapter comes to a close.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Cycle breakers anonymous.