Angie Martinez IRL - Tashera Simmons on DMX: How Strong Women Lose Themselves In Love

00:00:00
Speaker 1: What do you think about the term ride or die?

00:00:03
Speaker 2: Because we were fed that our generation was spent so hard like ride or die?

00:00:08
Speaker 1: Doesn't X have.

00:00:10
Speaker 3: Ride or die? And guess what I love to be that ride to die? Check. But I'll tell you that's that's that's that's over like I'm done. I'm done.

00:00:20
Speaker 1: Is ride or dying?

00:00:22
Speaker 4: Like?

00:00:22
Speaker 1: Is that overrated?

00:00:23
Speaker 3: That's the word I was looking for. To die is overrated?

00:00:31
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching, guys. Today's episode is brought to you by boost Mobile. My girl was in the room for it all the number one albums, sold out tours, the lows that the public never saw. She is the ex wife of hip hop icon d m X, and for the first time, she's telling me the full story hers her children's and she's telling the story in her new documentary X Versus Earl. The Simmons family speaks.

00:00:56
Speaker 4: Please welcome to share a Simon. When do you do you remember what we like?

00:01:10
Speaker 1: I try to remember, like meeting you for the first time, and I don't remember the exact first time, but I just remember I remember the early days of X gushing about you on the radio. He was very much my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, your love was so I don't know, just a big part of his life.

00:01:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. It was pure, I feel and unique, especially coming into an industry like this.

00:01:41
Speaker 1: Well, there's so many questions I have to you. But like so when I when I was like, yo, I really want to talk to her more. But we were at recently at Irv's funeral and you got you got up to speak, uh. And I had never seen you speak publicly like I seen you on the reality shows and things like that. But in that moment, I just had such a sense of your faith. You talked about being young with X and the two of you meeting her for the first time, and him doing everything he said he was going to do by by X and or earl.

00:02:15
Speaker 3: As you say, I know, I'm sorry, I can't you never call him X never y.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you really how your faith was just woven into everything that you spoke about. You really it was really a beautiful moment.

00:02:31
Speaker 3: Wow.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your words, I think the whole room it meant a lot to the whole room.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: And that was a very challenging time for me because I don't want to get emotional. But IRV was the beginning of a life changing moment. In me and Earl's life, and after dealing with so much fake uh X being signed with Columbia, you know, finally he was excited about his one single and being dropped and IRV coming, I felt to the rescue me. And X was in the hood. I MNA call him X. Yeah, we went the hood and IRV came, and he already had met you know X before that, and they were already just doing them some things. But I was always very skeptical about everybody because I was the one paying a lot of the bills. You know, X was bringing, you know, he had his side job and selling his mixtapes and doing constructions, just because I was like, I need help. We have a son.

00:03:35
Speaker 1: So he already had a son, and he wasn't he wasn't X yet.

00:03:39
Speaker 3: No, he was developing before we had our son. Went out to a few battles. One was with jay Z and another fifty yeah, and a couple others that kind of was out there. He told me it was about when we first met. He was telling me about Redman, and I was they were in jail together and there to sell and just about that whole situation. But so he'd been trying to do this for a while. When I first met him, I'm like, it's not paying the bills, Like those tapes that you're selling is not you know, covering everything. And he said, nah, I met somebody that believes in me. He's already up at a label and he's coming through and he gonna you know, he we he said, he coming through. I think I talked about this at the funeral where he came through with Jah and Mike Geronimo to the house they came to. I pulled up at a house we was living in most regardens and because it's the projects, and pulled up in the MPV and John and Mike Grono jumped out and they were really young looking then. Earth was big belly, you know, he was kind of real stocky then and I was like, and it kind of looked to beat up the van. So I was like, I was like a man and got him like, you know, this is this. These these dudes ain't real, Like they're not gonna take us nowhere. And it's like, you know, never judge a book by Its wasn't Jo Rule, it was Jeffrey and he was Jeffrey Atkins. And they was excited to meet another MC from Yonkers. They heard it that. I'm almost sure they heard about the name because X was everywhere battling different Burroughs. I mean, he put that work in to get where he was. You guys are how old? First of all, I just had Examer, so I had to have been about twenty two or twenty one, and me and IRV was like the same age. I think age might I mean he might have been one year older than he had other kids already, right, No, we just had Xavier at the time. It was our first child. We had just got that apartment, but it was an a basement apartment, so IRV was, I mean the funniest. He came in, and it was it was real, like you had to It was a basement apartment that we literally had to walk through the like look like a grimy steps and he was in slipping actually earl like we did that that video in that apartment slipping video, and it was shut down. We had about bought a house already. They shut the apartment down, but they opened it back up because x is axident, so they were like, oh, no problem. But when we when he walked through, like to open our door was like a little jug so like Earth would tell this story all the time. He was like, yo, like when X blew up, he was like from the dirty, grimy basement to the what the bends to this like that like you but it was but it was real, oh, because he saw it. But when you walked in our apartment, X was an artist, so he painted the apartment so nice, like with stripes like black and gray stripes. And there was a fan that was hanging off the off the pipes that that was all like air conditioning. It was crazy, but we were happy it was. It was dope, and we didn't we didn't know what to expect, like when Earth was saying, yo, like I'm telling you there's no talent like you from the streets. That's what we need. Like he would be telling next and he'll just be sitting in an apartment like just listen and then you know what I'm saying. And IRV was so hopeful and excited like he like he knew what was about to happen before we did. And he was like, Yo, this is all temporary, dog, this is all temporary. And I was like, you know, just sitting there like yeah, I've heard this before and We've already been let down before. So and then mind you he pulling up in an MPV. I'm like, the people that's gonna make it happen is the people with the big cars. And you know what I'm saying, because you weren't impressed.

00:07:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wasn't impressed.

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Speaker 3: And you know, Earl Earle believed IRV, but you know he was like, you could show me better than that you could tell me, and he's like, I am all.

00:07:42
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00:09:15
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so we met when we were eleven years old. We got together were seventeen, which was nineteen eighty eight, and then we got married ten years later in nineteen ninety eight. Wow. So the first ten years was a struggle, but we was happy. We were connected, We understood each other.

00:09:33
Speaker 1: What was the love? What was the connection? Like what now that you're older and you know about more things and you can kind of analyze that, what do you what do you think that that connection was.

00:09:43
Speaker 3: I wanted to be honest with you. I think it was a trauma bond because I was abandoned as a kid. He was abandoned in a sense, you know, put in a group home at seven. So when we first met, he thought I was from the other side because you know, I always worked and you know, dressed nice. So I was totally out of like what the type of women eat well, little girl, young girls that he would mess with. So he couldn't believe that I liked him. But when we started to talk more and tell our story, which was happened like the first night, to be honest with you, but here's a trauma bond.

00:10:17
Speaker 1: Trauma bond. So he had been abandoned, You had been abandoned.

00:10:20
Speaker 3: Yep, trying to figure it out.

00:10:23
Speaker 1: And then what does that look like for somebody who doesn't even know what trauma bond is? Because I think people still experiencing that. What is that you know now better? I know you've done a lot of work on yourself.

00:10:31
Speaker 3: And yeah, somebody that has been through intense hurt and pain as a child, that is very different from what everybody else is dealing with. Everyone around us had mothers and fathers or maybe a single but at least they had a parent, no money, no parents, no parents, scraps, scraps, looking for wraps for food to eat, working burger king because we're young, and I was working at Shopwright and burger King at the time. Earl was robbing, that was his thing, with his dog. But and I was told to stay away from him from the neighbor you know, the people in the neighborhood like, you know, he's no good, he's gonna take you know, he's dangerous. But when I met him, I didn't see that. I saw someone who was like me and we understood each other. And then on top of that, he was he was he believed in God, and I was a Muslim at the time, and I wasn't really seen because of the religion, women are always you know, separated from the men. And Earl saw me from the first day he saw me. He saw me before I saw myself.

00:12:00
Speaker 1: I saw you.

00:12:00
Speaker 3: How he saw my heart was pure. He saw that even though I've been through the same trauma that he had been through, I still had love and he didn't have that. He used to tell me, my heart can get real ugly because I used to say, you're so good, like why, like why people say what they say about you? You're so nice to me. And I would see the switch then, like, but his heart can't get ugly though, But I was so like, I don't know what I think God, And I think I know now that there's a gift that God has given me to always see the good in people, no matter how that might yet how dark they are. And that's to a fall. To be honest with you, I've kind of hit bumped, you know, got hurt a lot from that. But I don't want to allow people's, you know, actions to change who I am. But yeah, he's the first person who saw something in me that I didn't seeing myself, and he was able to identify that because it was something that he didn't have at the time. He was he was bitter, he was very bitter.

00:13:11
Speaker 1: He probably gave him hope because if he sees somebody who's been through what he's been through, and you're so bright and you're working two jobs and your spirit is like you said, yeah, he probably looked at you like good, like I don't know. Yeah, no, I just gave him hope.

00:13:28
Speaker 3: No, you're right, and he said that, but I just still didn't get it then, like he was just like, you're you're something good in my life. I mean, no exaggeration, like because he lived with his manager at the time in n Rochelle. I went and stayed with him, and it was like no sexual like I was back then such a different time, Like sex was not like I feel like girls just from my hair for my sons, they give it up faster. Like back then, it was like I'm a virgin and I'm trying to keep myself. Yeah, I'll come over and stay tonight. We could have fun like it was so eighties, Like.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: Yes, it was innocent.

00:14:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, And he wasn't even trying either. He just was like, I'll make you some French toast in the morning. I make real good French toasts and yo, seriously, and we like talked all night, and I like, like, he I know I fell in love with him that night, but I was afraid to even step in that space. But he said to me that night, and he talked about this. I don't know if you could find footage because he said in some of his interviews, but he said, you know you're gonna be my wife. And I said, listen, like you're really trying hard right now to get this pussy and I'm not getting. I was like, there's no way that he's gonna tell me I be his wife. And I only knew you for a week. But isn't it that saying about like a man knows what he wants when he when he first when he first meets the woman that he wants to marry.

00:14:54
Speaker 1: When did you start seeing When did you first start seeing signs that there was darkness there?

00:15:02
Speaker 3: Did it take a while or no, it didn't take long. But for some reason, that was my good girls like bad guys. I looked at it. Well, first when I first saw it was he uh, you know, he hurt people to get money, you know, like and when I say hurt people, I kill them. But you know he's robbing people about yeah, exactly things that he talked about. He put him asleep. I mean he used to show me how he used to do it. I was so exciting because back then, I think we had like four or five channels or just starting to get cable vision, so it was like and I didn't have it, So hearing his stories was like exciting. Like him and his friend used to set like like set people up, like like they'll have friends that with girls and bring guys from That was the thing back then, like if you're not from our hood or even our borough, like bring them in so we could rob them, like you know what I'm saying. So he would come back and be telling me the stories, and I'd be so excited and.

00:16:01
Speaker 1: Like, wow, you really did that. You're so cool, like you're strong.

00:16:05
Speaker 2: Class trauma bonding exactly.

00:16:09
Speaker 3: Like yeah, and I look back now, but that's what's slipping was inspired by because we broke up for a year because once I had Xavier, because mind you, this is all this was happening way before Xavier, and then when I had Xavier, I was like, wait, something turned on, A light turned on in me. But it didn't too much for him.

00:16:30
Speaker 1: What was the like the child? What happened to you? Like I changed about you?

00:16:38
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, to be tony answering. I talk about this in my book, is that I didn't want any kids because I was abandoned as a kid. I'm the oldest of the seven and I basically took care of them, So I told them I don't want any kids. So when I got pregnant, I tried to get rid of I tried everything. I went to roller coasters, hot baths, whenever they said that you could do, miscarry and it didn't work. And then when I finally had to tell Earl because I was getting too big, like not too big, but I was like starting to start in the show, I told him and he was so excited, like jumping for joy. And I was like, what are we going to do with a kid like you rob people like you don't even have a legit job. I was like, yeah, I have a job, but it's like we can't afford a kid, and he was like, no, I'm gonna make it happen. I'm telling you, And it kind of actually it did change him. I saw him wanting to be more responsible but it was just he said, it's just so easy though, to take It's so easy to these deeds suck ass niggas like he was just really like that kind of and I was like okay. But once I had Xavier, I experienced a love that I've never felt before as far as like having to live for someone else. Like before it was just all about me and Earl really, and I'm like, he grown, like, you know, I thought he was grown, Like I was only twenty something years old, but I felt very old.

00:18:00
Speaker 1: But you had lived a life, right, I had lived.

00:18:02
Speaker 3: A long, hard life, and then this baby came and I was just like wow, like he's so helpless. And then it kind of took me back to my childhood where I was abandoned and my parents didn't really you know, they they did them. I had defend for myself and my siblings, and I was like, I don't want this baby to have to go through that. I want to love and make a change with this baby. And it was the conversations me and him used to have, and he was like, we're going to do that, and I was like you gotta stop, Like you gotta stop, said because I don't want somebody to try to do that to you or to me now because I'm now we're getting up in age, not really like we're only like twenty two, you like.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: We're getting old.

00:18:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, we get it old, Like I'll be looking back now for like I've lived three lifetimes to be totally honest with you.

00:18:53
Speaker 1: Totally can.

00:18:55
Speaker 2: But wow.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was it was a big chance. So when did you, I don't know, when did you start thinking this, This might not be healthy, this relationship might not be healthy. Like when did you start to understand that?

00:19:12
Speaker 3: I started to understand that a year in with Xavier, So that was nineteen ninety three. Like again, I just wasn't that girl anymore because there was one time before I had Xavier where this guy was trying to talk to me. I used to work at a bank and he always flashed his money to try to get me to date him. I told Earl, and we set him up to put me honest with you, to judge you guys. I was over twenty.

00:19:43
Speaker 1: She was finding her way right of my way.

00:19:46
Speaker 3: I was, but you know, I felt like, you know, I'm sure a lot of people out there could relate to this. So that's why I'm just being so brutally honest about that. And you know, like I said, they put him asleep, they took his money. He woke up in a cab with no money. The dude and he went home and he said, you know, he didn't know what happened, and he worked with me, so what he got back the next day, he said, what happened? I said, I don't know. I jumped out the cab like some guys or whatever, like you know, and we laughed about it, me acting his best friend. And these are the things that that I was totally you know, broken, coming from you know, feeling like no one loves me, surviving surviving, I mean surviving, And once I had my son, I was just like, we gotta start growing up now, this is not cool. So in ninety three ninety four, I can't remember what year, because there was he slowed it down. He slowed it down, but then we broke up because he started like messing around with drugs, which I had no idea about. I was very clueless about like what drugs users look like or their actions. And he told me because he was disappearing for like two and three nights, and I thought he was cheating on me, and he said I have to talk to you one night and never forget. He had a hood on. He said meet me. He was called my phones on cell phones. He called out my house phone. He said, can you meet me Aunt Ludlow, which is a street in Anchors. He was sitting on the seat, took a cab a cheer I mean stoop and he's had to tell you something. I said, already know you're cheating, like you know, I found somebody else and he was like, I wish, not not he said I wish, but he was just like no, it's not really like that. He was like, you know, I've been using drugs. I was giving drugs when I was a little kid. I'm a woolie. An older man did this, you know, put it in my weed. I didn't know about it, had no idea, and I've been craving for it. And every time I get a little cash or I feel a little down because I'm not getting my head where I want to be, I just use and I go on a binge. And I had this whole notebook on like this is how we're gonna beat this drug. And I told him, what's the buddy of downfalls. You know, how can I help? And you know, I actually feel good about this saying this now because I gave my all, every step of every piece of that relationship to try to help. When it came to that drug, we started calling him crack It was crack up and I used to call him his second wife because I felt like the love like there well one thing I learned throughout our relationship and that's why sometimes I don't really call him X because I fell in love with Earle. I met Earle. Not many people know who Earl is. They think they do, but they have no idea. The more he started to grow, he's turned into DMX because that was the artist in him. That was the man who wanted to be heard. He knew that God gifted him with the talent he came up with his his rhymes and I mean like bars, I've went and seen him go in with the greats and go in and go out. Was late, wrote his joint left. It was a gift and he needed to be seen and and DMX came alive when IRV came in his life, when his career took off. But then X came. X was dark. X was always dormant.

00:23:46
Speaker 1: Access.

00:23:47
Speaker 3: He had access, he's had money and the women remember when I first met him, you know, I'm sure. I mean he was nobody wanted him. Just be totally too honest with you, not the he was wanted when he became famous and had money. And I'm just saying that because it's the honest of God truth. And X was ugly. X didn't like me. X protected he did not like me because X wanted everything and I was in a way. I can see when X came in to protect Earl because Earle was the soft hearted boy that was left in the group home that just wanted to be loved. That to Shia met.

00:24:39
Speaker 1: Did you probably reminded him of Earl?

00:24:41
Speaker 3: Yep? And he was like, you make him weak And I know that now. Back then it was crushing. But I would see him to come into these different personalities like I would literally see it like after a show, after a prayer, after he prayed, after show, he would say clear the room only for me and to share a and he would cry like never before, and then he would go all right, let everybody in. It was a little literally a transformation. And to be honest with me, I'm telling you this now, But back then, I used to be like, he's so extra, so extra, because I didn't understand about multiple personalities, about trauma and how you you if you don't deal with it, if you don't heal from it, you just create somebody else to to. You know what I'm saying to to I'm looking for the word I can't worry. I'm finding, but like to survive, to suppress, That's what I say, to suppress because I would get earl when he came home. It was it was, it was you know sometimes what does that do to you? I can't like. That's why I was going to ready to go. I was like, I look back now and I'm like, how was I able to keep my mind? How did how did I not create different personalities to deal with the different ones that he created, and he literally lived in them like live, He literally lived in them. And what it did to me, well, first of all, I gotta thank him, and he knew this before he passed away, is that he introduced me to Christ. Mm hmm. He brought me to Christ. I admired how he manifested his life, how everything that he had faith in literally took took took a like it took root, like it came to pass, and I was like, I want to do this. Oh that's why I was going before about being Muslim. He told me that if you believe in Jesus Christ and God, that you can be like you, like you can speak, you don't have to like hide, like you can be powerful too, like you can be like we're equal with God. There's no I'm powerful, more powerful than you. So because of what I've been through, I was like, wow, I want to know who I want to serve that God And it was God because had he not introduced me to God, it was God who came in my life. It was God. I know this now. It was the Holy Spirit that me and her I prayed together every day every morning. No, he prayed every morning. I was always afraid, I'll like, you do it better, so he'll jyo, just pray and then you're like you got to have to pray sometime to share. And it was not until our relationship blew up is where I was like, if you're really real, I need you to show you yourself because I served you. I'm talking to God now I've served you honestly, loyally, very loyal to you, and look what happened, Like, look like he drugs took over, Like how can you let like a powerful man like him be taken down like this? God? And I didn't just didn't understand. I was crying. I was upset, like because I was just like, I'm gonna fight for this marriage, but I don't even I mean, ex has totally taken over. I don't even know if Earl's even in there anymore. Like it was like the most scariest, darkest thing I've ever experienced before in my life. Wow, But God came, He came how become I think now it was all part of the plan, to be totally honest with you, because I feel like God stripped Earl out of my life because Earl was like my God. My world revolved around him, to be totally and I like, Earl was always, you know, quoting scriptures and reading the Bible, and I was sitting there like mm hmm. And once once God got him removed him out my life, It's like that's when God came in. And I remember a scripture saying that we serve a jealous God, and God obviously have a plan for my life and feel and I always say this. Well, people used to say that before, but now I know behind every great man is a powerful woman as well. And I was powerful in my own right. But I never wanted to be up in the front. I always wanted to be behind. But I wanted to be behind because I didn't know my worth. My worth was in my marriage. My worth was in Earl, in his happiness and what he wanted for me. Everything was about him. Everything was about him, not because I was obsessed or now this me, the me now knows it wasn't because I was weak. It was just because I went through trauma. I was abandoned as a kid. My mom left me when I was fourteen. My dad verbally abused me I was fourteen years old. Earl almost played every role that you can imagine from husband, boyfriend, best friend, god, I mean just protector. He was a very big protector, a financial he was never cheap, you know, even when he was robbing, you always brought something home.

00:30:08
Speaker 1: So when he you don't have many women's story like your story is. It's definitely unique and it's your own right. But and also it's because you're connected to this big figure, and so we got to know you through that. But like the quiet women who found somebody that trauma like trauma bond is is.

00:30:28
Speaker 3: So it's out here, is out here, heavy strong woman, grown.

00:30:32
Speaker 1: Men like yes, So what did you learn about that?

00:30:36
Speaker 5: Like?

00:30:36
Speaker 1: What could you tell me about that? Like the difference between what a trauma bond is and what what healthy love is. You probably had both. I mean, I know you loved.

00:30:48
Speaker 3: It, yeah, and you know, Okay, So I'm just you know the reason why I'm talking about a lot of the I shouldn't say negative. It's just part of the story, you know what I'm saying. And unfortunately, not unfortunately, I don't find what.

00:31:00
Speaker 1: You're telling me negative. I actually think the story you're telling is a beautiful one. Oh good, Okay, I don't think. I mean, I don't know how everybody else feels like that. But I just see two kids who were left for dead, kind of like to FM for themselves, and you found each other. And yes, he fell victim to to to vices and to addiction, and but I don't, I don't know. I don't I see I see the love there. I mean, I see it's unhealthy because you come from two unhealthy experiences. How could you possibly survive that together. How could you create how could two unhealthy situations create healthy love with no guidance, no therapy, no help, like give yourself a break. You know what I'm saying. I don't think what you're saying is negative. I think it's honest, and it's there's so much beauty in.

00:31:48
Speaker 3: That now you know, and you thank you for that, because I mean, I'm trying to hold back my tears. But that's part of why I'm doing a docramentary, a talking serious because I just feel like it's a lot untold. I feel like Earl died unhappy, unhappy, very unhappy, with a broken heart, misunderstood, and I was so broken from a lot of things that happened with us in the marriage. I stayed as long as I did because I knew him, and when I say him a new Earl, I wanted to save Earl. I saw the role that Earl was going down. It got very unhealthy for me in this aspect of you know then, you know, just starting to step out of our marriage and creating a bunch of different families that I know that. It's the first one of the first things he told me when I met him at seventeen was I come from a home with three different fathers. When I get married, I want to have only one home because I know what that felt like. It's chaos, and I want to be there, like I want to make sure that I create a solid foundation, so to see that not only he was ruining hisself, but now he's creating other families that's unstable and going through trauma. Because as we both know, as women, you know, it's it's hard to have, you know, to you know, for everybody, you have to put work. You have to be intentional and it's possible, obviously, and you have to heal. You have to heal, and he's never healed through all of this. I used to constantly tell him. I used to almost I lost myself in it. I mean I almost physically, mentally, spiritually died because I wanted so much for him. I felt like he deserved to be really happy and heal. What about you?

00:33:54
Speaker 1: What did you deserve?

00:33:55
Speaker 3: Well that's why when I go back to it was nothing but God, because had God not stripped me from that relationship, that marriage, I probably been in a looney tune home. Because I have a very powerful calling all my life. I know that now my voice and my courage. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid to tell people what I've been through, how I felt, how ugly it was, because I'm going to help someone to be to keep everything all bottled up and try to wear a mask like everything is good, it's not the move. And God has given me this courage that I had from day one with Earl. It's what he saw in me that I didn't see in myself. And I wasn't able to blossom and bloom until God stripped me from that marriage. And I've been going on this ten year healing journey of dying to everything that I thought the enemy told me I was, which was worthless, only good as a wife, a loser, basically unaccomplished, unsuccessful because I couldn't. It's just so crazy because at the end of the day.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: You put your value in being a wife that could save her husband. Is that? Is that what I'm hearing you saycond.

00:35:26
Speaker 3: Very much so, which is like when I looked I couldn't save him, I had to really focus on myself and it's something that I had not known how to do, because remember I had when I got when my mom left, I put on my attention. I turned into a mom overnight at fourteen, so it was all I've ever known to do. So Earl was another project for me, but I didn't realize that but a project to get away from Tashia. And not until that marriage went left is when I had to really look at myself in the mirror and say, you are more. I'll never forget it when we've really finally I realized we were really broken up. I had a calendar of just his schedule and my two kids. No, no four kids because I had four kids of a time, four three and a half because I just had my daughter, but like literally two year because the two of them were home. So I had a schedule of two kids on the calendar. After everything left, I was just like, what do I do? I went into a five year depression. I didn't even know. I literally was a zombie. I went to sleep, slept all day, the kids got off the bus, cooked went back. It was a cycle that I needed to break, but it took a while. And that's why I'm like, when I look at other people who have been through trauma and they say they're good after a year, Yeah, that's possible. I guess. But when you deal with real crushing trauma, now, mind you, I had to get over I still didn't get over the healing, my mom leaving. Then I jump into a relationship, another trauma bond, another two broken people coming together. Then we get rich. Now we don't need now that we're not wanting for anything. So how oh no not, let's forget about the yes men. No one's telling him no, No one is telling me no. They're actually starting to feed him the drugs to start to find out later on in life in a relationship where I had to say something to him about it. Now I'm just mind your business And I was like, who are you?

00:37:37
Speaker 1: Wow? So it is, but but.

00:37:40
Speaker 3: Again here I am angie.

00:37:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you say to a young girl? I mean you even have daughters, Like, what do you say to somebody who's in the beginning stage of that? Now, who's entering, who's in a relationship? And now you know, this generation has more verbage, there's more deformation. Yeah, because you're explaining this story, people have to understand that you probably didn't even know the term trauma bond back that, or it wasn't even a term a familiar term. People weren't doing therapy. There was no understanding about any of that. So you're in it. You don't even know what you're in and you're in it now. At least there's some verbiage that helps people understand. But what do you say to a young woman in that space right now who's in a trauma bond relationship? Like what if you learned? What would you do different? What should they know?

00:38:38
Speaker 3: What I would tell sad? Question is always hard for me because this my whole life molded me to where I am today where but like you said, the information wasn't there like right now, I've been in therapy for eight years, so that has literally changed my life. So with a with a young girl now, yo, when you see the red flags, when you first of all, you cannot fix nobody. I will tell any there is nothing that you can do for someone who has been broken, who's bitter, who doesn't have the right perspective for their self, there's no saving there's no saving them. They can save themselves, but you have to walk away you. I mean, you could create boundaries. There's something I'm just learning two years ago about boundaries. How can I that crazy? I'm fifty four years old boundaries had none. You have to. I mean, I I don't want to sound harsh, but what I know that, what I know that I know now, what I know that I know now, you gotta walk away. Unfortunately you can. You know, you can try to give them the best advice. I would say, point them to a therapist. This is what I tell everybody when I speak to people. When I go out and speak, they asked me how did I do it? I say God First. That's still not good enough of them. I say, because God is the one that's going to guide us and lead us to what we need to be. So that's why I say God first. If you're trying to help someone else, direct them to therapy. You can't be You're not built and equipped. And I don't mean that in an offensive way, but this is a mental and emotional and spiritual battle that you cannot handle. And I know that now. I could say that now because I realized that I was in spiritual warfare. There was so much darkness over X that I did not have a clue. I just thought that it was because when he've been through I made every excuse in the book, and at the end of the day, we only have one life, and God has given us all equipped us for a plan and a purpose for our life. It's uniquely made and I know that now. So you can't try to bamboozle yours, because I'm trying to find a word. You can't bamboozle yours for somebody else. It's just a I mean, I would even say that for a relative, a sibling. I mean, I'm sorry, a relative, a child. Like I'm learning now that mental illness is real, and I didn't understand. I didn't know that even existed. No one talked about it my generation, my dad's generation. I used to try to have conversations with him about my ex husband, and he would always give me very toxic answers.

00:41:39
Speaker 1: He thought I was.

00:41:40
Speaker 3: Speaking too much. Stop telling people about what's happening. Start doing this is the kind of the generation advice I was getting. And what it made me do is, you know, keep dealing, keep dealing. So I mean, I would just say not, do you know, try to save yourself before you try to save somebody else to a younger girl, Please try to save yourself first. If you even feel some kind of connection where you want to help somebody, that's been through so much trauma, then you need to just kind of look at yourself to be honest with that. You got something, some something's going on down inside you that you even feel connected to want to help that person. Yeah, you know what I mean, because it's like I get that. What about you said you learned learning about boundaries in the past couple of years. What does that look like?

00:42:28
Speaker 1: What have you learned? How are you implementing them?

00:42:31
Speaker 3: So people don't like boundaries, I'm learning. I'm learning that. I'm learning. I've never said no. Never. I thought that was the most worst thing to do. I don't know why that, Like, I don't know why I put myself through that because no is so good. It feels so good to say no, because if you don't want to do something, then no.

00:42:58
Speaker 1: Like why is that so long? Why for me? Why was it so hard?

00:43:04
Speaker 3: Why do you think because worth? It's my worth? And you know what I feel like because of I left my mom and not my dad. No was no when I say no, like, you're on your own, go survive. We can't help you. We got our own stuff that's going on. So I for some reason I put that together with if someone asked me for something, money, help, just just out there, like just stuff that people ask you. Can I come stay with you? Can I come live with you? I don't have money? Can you pay for my trip? Like just anything? I would feel like I'm letting them down if I said no, because of That's why it's.

00:43:51
Speaker 1: It's get weird, like you're like overcompensating for I don't know how you were disappointed. You didn't want to disappoint. You don't want to disappoint anybody else. Yeah, I get that.

00:44:02
Speaker 3: And that's why self healing is so important. Like you cannot because I literally let everything flow over into places that shouldn't have even been Yeah, like why like no, I don't like why am I a bad person because I said no? And people play on that?

00:44:20
Speaker 1: No?

00:44:21
Speaker 3: For sure, Yo, I'm like, I'm just two years now and I'm I'm at peace now.

00:44:28
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be You would be surprised how many women struggle with this all. It's not uncommon, Wow, saying no and having boundaries. No, it's not uncommon at all.

00:44:38
Speaker 3: Not uncommon. I feel like I've lost a few people and they weren't meant to be there. You start to really see who people are when you set your boundaries.

00:44:48
Speaker 1: You have an interesting friendship with Debbie.

00:44:51
Speaker 3: Yes, Debbie.

00:44:52
Speaker 1: So Debbie was irv's wife, you were ex's wife. I would imagine she had her own little trauma bond going on over there. I don't want to tell her story. She could tell her own story. But I mean we saw some of this story because they had that reality show at one point. But how much has friends that friendship kind of helped you find your way out. I mean, I don't know how close you are. Always got a sense that you were really close.

00:45:17
Speaker 3: No, no, no, Yeah, she's like one of my best friends. What I love about her is because we literally mirrored the same story. We we went, we walked through our trauma from our marriage together. Literally when X and job fell out, things got well. X and IRV never fell out. They always stayed close, but it made it weird, you know, Like and X was like I got I get it, like you know what I'm saying. But Debbie was like, we call each other up, literally, like we're not letting this affect our Like what the what the guys are doing is so dumb, Like we're not going to do this to our relationship. Like literally, that's a conversation we had and from then on we were just so close. We were still married, happily married at the time, and when things started to go left, it went left with her first with IRV, so she would start hanging with me and X all the time, where IRV would get mad at X and be like, yo, like what's going on?

00:46:14
Speaker 1: Like why?

00:46:16
Speaker 3: Like why?

00:46:16
Speaker 4: Why?

00:46:16
Speaker 1: Why is Dev with y'all? Like you know what I'm saying.

00:46:19
Speaker 3: Earl was like, cause I loved I loved deb but like I got nothing to do. What's going on with you? With Dev? It was so funny. But and then me and X fell out, which Debbie Debbie, and she'll probably tell you if you ever get a chance to speak to her, but she was devastated that me and X fell out because she said she's never seen like someone loved someone so much. And you know, I used to roll with X all the time. It wasn't like her biggest thing with IRV was like, you don't take me nowhere?

00:46:48
Speaker 1: Me and X.

00:46:48
Speaker 3: I would go everywhere with him. So she was like, there's no way he was cheating. It's no way he was doing this. There's no way he's doing I was like, no, yeah, he did found a way. Yea, yeah, he found a way and it is real juicy too. Let me tell you how he was doing it. But yeah, she's one of my best friends. We definitely went through a lot of trauma together. And the fact that you know, when Earth passed, you know, her and the kids asked me to speak. I was scared, to be honest with you. Really, you were beautiful. Thank you well just because I was just like, I was scared because I'm like, what, first I spoke at Earls, now I'm speaking at RBS. This is real creepy, Like you know what I'm saying. I'm like, what am I going to say to two great lives? And that meant a lot to me too, Like you know, I was just like, but I nailed this, so thank you.

00:47:40
Speaker 1: You were amazing. What about you know, there's like a fine line I think that women, especially when they're so when their marriage means like how you say you you found your worth kind of as wife? Right? I mean, where's the line between like given grace? You gave X so much grace, Earl so much grace. Where is the line between grace and then also self care? Because I also like to I don't know, I think I give people a lot of grace. Sometimes people say too much yourst me. I see that you are, but what have you learned about that? Because you are, you know, you believe in God, you are a godly woman. That does usually mean you give people grace, You try to see them through how God would see them, right, but also then you have to see yourself the way God sees you also too, So how do you kind of separate that? Like when grace, like giving giving him grace probably kept you in that relationship for way longer than you needed to be right, Yeah, it did, So I'm just saying, how do you navigate that? How do you think? Does that make sense? It's the question as Nah, it does?

00:49:01
Speaker 3: And you know what, I feel like it was life it was. It was a life or death situation, like a spiritual life a death situation. I started when I say that is because when you give the grace to a fault where you start to realize that your heart doesn't feel right, like my heart and my spirit started to feel like I want to say, I want to give a better word than off.

00:49:31
Speaker 4: You know what.

00:49:33
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you. It's a word that I've been working on. It's called d debreeding, debreeding, So it's a it's a it's a it's a real medical thing that they do with people with diabetes. And it's a metaphor that I learned in my therap with my therapists where I'm gonna make sure that I say it right. So what they do is when people have diabetes, every time they go back, like when they have a sore, every time they go back to the doctor, they have to cut and it bleeds every time. And this is a mentor of minds who suffered from this. They said that They asked, why, when I thought that it's starting to get better and heal, you cut it again. And he said, because I'm constantly cutting and letting it bleed, and I know it hurts, but when we get to the core, you will be healed. And I use that metaphor for myself what you just now said about the grace, because even though I'm giving grace, I'm bleeding. The person's cutting me, but I'm finding something positive to keep on going. And then but as I kept cutting, getting cut and keep getting hurt during the process, it came to a point where I said, no, no more. There's a soft hurting spot here that I have to pay attention to, and I can't allow them to hurt me anymore. They don't deserve my grace any more. And it's not until I got to that hurting. I mean, I bled out every time I gave Earl grace or anybody who hurt me for that matter. It wasn't only once. Every time I did it, I was hurting. I went home, I beat myself up or whenever, if I'm driving home, like the last week before I saw him, he was his heart was always with me, and I could really say that it was mine with him, no, because I knew I was finally at the place where I was just like, you're toxic. You have not changed one bit, and you continue to try to hurt me, But this way it wasn't. It was a different kind of hurt. You know. He was mad that the kind of outfit that I had on, like I was still his wife, and it hurt me because I'm just like, I could see that you still love me, but you've hurt me so bad. How can you not comprehend that? And I went home and I cried the whole way home, and I said to God. I said, God, why don't this Why do I still allow this man to make me feel this way? And I give him grace. I should have cussed him out, but I didn't. I just said, Yo, worry about whoever you went right now and how they dress? Why you worry about what I got on right now? And he was so angry that he left the party. It was we were celebrating God daughter. He left because I don't know what kind of reaction he was wanted to get from me, but it was a little embarrassing. You know, everybody's paying attention to us because they know that we're not together, but we're at this bar and here we're kicking it, we're talking, and you know, it was also the same time when he told me my vessel is tired, but my name is gonna live on. And it was a week later that it happened, so literally, so it was like a lot happened in that moment.

00:53:28
Speaker 1: So you're dealing with this all the way up until for his whole life, his whole life, even when we're broken up. So the divorce didn't free you from this, No trauma bond did not. As much as I tried to run away it's still how long were you divorced before he.

00:53:48
Speaker 3: We divorced twenty sixteen nineteen. That five years after our divorce. And it was a struggle, like I mean, we didn't see each other all the time, became every Thanksgiving, never missed a Thanksgiving. Did that annoy me absolutely every time? But we have kids and it was hard for me to date and move on. I mean and every time he every two days before Thanksgiving? So who's going to be at your house a Thanksgiving? The last year, the last Thanksgiving that he spent I said, Earl, I'm not dating anybody, and no one's going to be.

00:54:23
Speaker 1: At the house.

00:54:25
Speaker 3: Oh oh okay, okay, I'm just saying, you know, I don't have to hurt nobody, Like why would you want to hurt somebody that I'm dating? And you don moved on a thousand times?

00:54:33
Speaker 5: Like what the like?

00:54:34
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, it's like.

00:54:37
Speaker 4: What about you?

00:54:40
Speaker 1: Have you been able to move on?

00:54:42
Speaker 3: So I have. I've tried to date. So this is okay. So because this story, I feel like we have to do a part too, right because it's like because it's so much, but I did, like I tried to move on, like In the six years after our divorce, I dated a couple of guys. Tried to make sure it was outside of the industry. One was a therapist. It's psychi interesting exactly, and it was really nice, but he had a drinking problem exactly. So when you say, would you say another girl? The good thing is see I had maybe had to travel bond with Earl, but when I saw that drinking habit, I ran. I was like, oh, we ain't about to do this exactly. And he was a really nice guy, but it wasn't for me. Then I dated another guy. He was a construction worker, and he was the most kindest man I've met in my in my in my dating, you know, because there was a few guys that maybe just talked on the phone. But he was so kind and I started to see how wounded I was in that he aggravated my soul because he was kind to me, Like I literally turned into Earl. I feel like, why are you so happy today? Meanwhile, that's how I used to be Like. Earl used to say that to me, why are you so happy today? And I like, because I woke up today? And I started to be like that with that guy, and he said to me. He said, I noticed that you're like starting to be very mean to me, and it's always when I'm trying to be kind, Are you okay? And that really hurt me. It really hurt me. And I said, you know what, I think it's sometimes it's time for me to start taking time for myself. I don't think this dating thing is to move for me. I am broken. I'm a broken woman. And I tried to act like I was healed, I'm happy, I moved on, and no, I was really broken. And that was ten years ago.

00:56:38
Speaker 1: Wow, you got to give yourself a break though, because you don't unravel all of that life quickly. It took you all those years to build that life.

00:56:49
Speaker 3: It took me ten years to get to where I'm at the now.

00:56:52
Speaker 1: Where do you feel like you are now?

00:56:54
Speaker 3: I think I'm in the best place I've ever been. The ex versus Earle is I didn't want to talk about earle I tried everything to not go the route that I am now when it comes to like being public. But I'm noticing that it is my story. So even though I talk about it like it's kind of present, it really isn't. Like now I'm in a place where first of all, I had to raise four broken kids. They were very broken because Earle was very present in their lives and then he wasn't. I had to try to help them and help myself at the same time. So here we go again, from Earle to now my children. But it was it was so much more rewarding because I knew that it was important for me to put out some human beings in this world that were not broken, like myself and their dad. How do you do that? You help children who are broken? Yeah, when I tell you it was the best. Lost myself. I lost myself, but I found myself at the same time in my children. And how I did that was I had to shut off the world in a sense, lock in, don't go out dating dead, and really take the time for each individual to find out who are you? Why are you hurting? This is what happened with mommy and daddy. This is what happens if you are not whole and heal. And I don't want you to be like this. I don't want you to repeat this generational curse that me and your dad did because I was abandoned, my mom was abandoned, my father was abandoned.

00:58:54
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:58:55
Speaker 3: I found that out as I did my research and healing. Earl was abandoned his mother and his father in a sense, his father definitely abandoned him his mother because you know, put him in a group home. Then his mother was abandoned. I don't know about his dad, but these are generational curses. And I was like, it's time to stop now. So I would talk to them. One with my daughter was one, one of my sons was four, another one was seven, and then there was a fourteen year old. And I literally talked to them like me and you were talking. I just there's no right, there's no guide for being a parent. So I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna go for it because when I was left alone and at fourteen and nobody told me, nobody told me nothing, So I'm gonna take the risk. And they it worked. They I mean, it's the best. They are the best. They are the reflection of what I've been through, what I overcame that God is really real. That's another thing I instilled God. I said, I know it looks crazy right now. And I don't know if you got a chance to look at the last episode, because just so you know, these are like very short clips because there's so much more to come. But I do feel like I'm gone. I'm done. I am not that woman that I used to be. Whatever that happened before, whatever Earl did before, I was over it before he passed. But when he passed opened up a whole nother wound that I didn't even know was there. Yeah, and I'm.

01:00:32
Speaker 1: Sure you worry about too, because he is your children's father and you do still like have.

01:00:38
Speaker 3: Love like I do.

01:00:41
Speaker 1: So it's like a fine line between protecting him and honoring him and what he could have been and talking about him honestly and his struggles, but then also giving yourself the freedom to tell your full, truthful story. Yep, it's like, I'm sure that's complicated.

01:00:58
Speaker 3: Well, the good thing is I was honest from the beginning. They've watched me really struggle and survive. I mean it was really bad. We basically were like homeless in a home that me and Earl bought with love but couldn't afford to pay a lot of the bills. And it was just by the grace of God, I mean, because you know, Earl was totally taken over by the dark side the person. I don't care what anyone says. I know that the man that I fell in love with, the man that I met, the young boy that I met when we were seventeen years old, but never abandoned his family. And I say that to say because the devil's real and I hate to be sounding all like woh, but it's the truth. I always say. The greatest trick that he ever did was make people believe he didn't. And why I say that is because Earle taught me who Damon was, and I was like, he called him Damon, but I was just like, he doesn't exist, He's not real. And then I seen him get taken over by him. So my children know that. I told them that you have to be very careful the spirits that you surround yourself with. Women. Men. I'm very big on I talk very freely about sex. I feel like soul ties come through sex if you're not aligned with the right partner. I just was honest with them, And what is that?

01:02:26
Speaker 1: What are your beliefs about that? Yo?

01:02:29
Speaker 3: You think sex could actually it's definitely sol ties. I don't know if you ever experienced it before, but I've talked to so many women now and they say that sometimes they have sex with somebody that they didn't know they were with a bunch of other different women and they they're taking on these energies that they don't realize. But I think it's an impath I'm an impath, which I've had to learn through through therapy what that was. But they would feel funny, I have to having sex. Then they wouldn't even want to be with the person anymore. But for some reason, they're still craving and yearning for them them. And I said, yeah, because you have a soul tie like when you have when you have intercourse, you're sharing spirits at the same time. And this is why marriage. And I know everybody ain't doing it, so I'm not pleased. I'm not trying to judge anyone. Everybody got to get to that space. But when you you know, God created marriage for a reason because it's supposed to be intimate with your partner. You know what I'm saying. But I know this is a we're living in an era that that sounds crazy right now.

01:03:31
Speaker 1: But that's what you believe.

01:03:32
Speaker 3: But I do believe in that, Yeah, And you know, I believe that walking in the light is always better than walking in the dark, for sure.

01:03:40
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think about the term ride or die?

01:03:44
Speaker 2: Because we were fed that our generation was spent so hard like ride or die, doesn't.

01:03:50
Speaker 1: Ride or die?

01:03:51
Speaker 3: And guess what, I'm the I used to always be loved. I love to be that ride to die check. But I'll tell you that's that's that's that's over right. I'm done. I'm done being a rioted.

01:04:03
Speaker 1: Is ride or dying is? Like? Is that overrated?

01:04:06
Speaker 3: That's the word I was looking for. To die is overrated for us grown women out here, and you young girls, that's trying to be a ride to die is overrated.

01:04:15
Speaker 1: It's whack.

01:04:15
Speaker 3: It's not it's not even a way to go anymore. You ride about for yourself.

01:04:20
Speaker 1: What do you think about the term unconditional love? Yeah, do you think do you think that's a good thing? Or do you think that there should be some conditions to love, even marriage, even the way you know the marriage is for better or for worse. And then we're fed this term I love you unconditionally. I just wonder for you from having such a tumultuous kind of experience.

01:04:51
Speaker 3: To love someone unconditionally is I feel it's dangerous to even try to do that. Like I feel like love has like obviously love's supposed to be easy, and when it doesn't feel easy, And you know how I know that because my children doesn't love in yourr you have a son, right, doesn't loving your son come easy? I mean, obviously nothing so okay, but it's so easy. And I learned that through my children that this is love. It comes easy. We communicate sometimes you may get on my nerve, but I love you unconditional. But when it comes to relationships, so I guess it depends on who you're saying it too. Like I love him unconditionally. Obviously it's too early for me to say. But in my next relationship, I feel like I have to kind of fall back on that unconditional, have some conditions there because some boundary, yeah, exact, yeah, I gotta put boundaries there. And so no, I think that that's kind of something. As we were growing up, we weren't properly taught how to love. I didn't you know, they didn't think about conditions. They just left they walked out, figured it out on your own. And then I met this young boy and I was like, I love him unconditional because that's how he loves me. But I don't know if that was really right. Like if I put some conditions up, maybe things would have went a little better. Maybe if I stood up more for myself. And you know, obviously I want to be hard on myself, but sometimes you got to treat people how to love you. I don't think I did that, you know, and that's in his defense. He's going out, but you got to put some rule, you gotta say, some boundaries. I didn't hold him accountable for nothing. I was just like I made an excuse for everything. And you know what, I think he had some boundaries, you know, I think he had not in love, but he was always very honest about how he felt. And mine's was just like, whatever makes you happy makes me happy. And that's very very because if you don't, people will suck you up. And you know, so unconditional, Yeah, gotta come with some conditions happiness. And that was my way of saying, I love you unconditional and no now and where I am today, it has to be some conditions. And guess what, you know, probably with our children too, because sometimes children could do things that may be hurtful and we got to call them on it because we're like, listen, I love you, but that didn't make me feel good, you know, And thank god I haven't had those.

01:07:36
Speaker 1: Really, you're being honest, accountable exactly, different exactly, and I didn't do that.

01:07:44
Speaker 3: I didn't do that in my marriage. Well I tried to when it was him out of control and how he treated other people or how he treated hisself, but not how he treated me.

01:07:58
Speaker 1: That's weird.

01:07:59
Speaker 3: Now, Okay, we just dropped it just now because I.

01:08:01
Speaker 1: Really I said, that's weird.

01:08:04
Speaker 3: That's weird. Like when I look back now, I'm just so grateful to be where I am now like that. You know, I know people I've met, grown women are still in this place and that's no judgment. It's just that we gotta do better for ourselves.

01:08:17
Speaker 1: What about love, I don't know what. You marry again?

01:08:24
Speaker 3: Yeah you would, I would, you know what? Because now that I know what I know, I have friends who have came out of similar situations twenty years later meeting someone who is just like, They're like, we're doing life together now, and I'm like, wow. I didn't think about that until recently though, because now that my kids are getting older and they they're good now. My oldest son tells me all the time. He's like, Ma, I want to see you happy. I said, I am happy, he said, but you know what I mean, Ma, You know, like you know with someone, you know having a good life too, like you know with someone And I'm like, at first I got offended, Like, but I like being by myself, Like I love being singles with your father for since I was eighteen years old. Like, but but now I'm like, you know what, it won't be too bad. That doesn't sound too bad, but obviously God got to be the one to do it. I'm gonna know.

01:09:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be so interesting to see you navigate those waters with this new understanding of yourself and yes, just new love for yourself.

01:09:30
Speaker 3: And yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot better. And that's why it makes me happy thinking about, you know, if I was able to do life with someone else, I think, well, they have to be the right person. Obviously they got to be have done the work. If they haven't, you know, if they have any issues. But I think I think marriage is beautiful. I never really talked about a lot of this before because I do believe, believe it or not, the good outweigh too bad in me and the rest relationship?

01:09:57
Speaker 1: Did you still do?

01:09:58
Speaker 3: I do? Man, I just learned so much from that. It was the best times of my life. I mean, we had so much fun. Like I said, like so many other marriages, like they didn't let their wives be around, or they didn't know how much money was in a bank account. Like Earl always made me feel like he was just like she runs everything, and he always put me on a pedestal. And I never knew that he was doing the things that he was doing until he started getting really sloppy in the end and a lot of drugs was being used so he couldn't keep it together like he used to. But I'm telling you, it's a crazy love story, but I like it.

01:10:37
Speaker 1: I take it now.

01:10:38
Speaker 3: It's your life, it's my life, your real life, it's my real life. And I'm still here to talk about it. Thank God, Thank God, God, bless man.

01:10:46
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01:11:06
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01:11:06
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01:11:34
Speaker 4: All right, we have a second called the IRL Bowl.

01:11:37
Speaker 1: No, we're gonna do our voice notoe first. This is a voice note did usually a listener answer, I mean a question or comment. So okay, let's get to our voice note.

01:11:47
Speaker 5: Hi to Sharah.

01:11:48
Speaker 1: My name's Lauren.

01:11:51
Speaker 5: So my question was on forgiveness and not for DMX, but for yourself. So a lot of times we blame ourselves for staying in relationships longer than we know to stay in them. And of course it's always difficult. And have you forgiven yourself for staying longer?

01:12:12
Speaker 3: Ooh, quick question, that's an amazing question. The first time I knew I had to forgive myself was the first day I sat on the couch of my therapist, and my first two sessions were just crying because I had realized that I had went too far. I realized that I didn't know what made me happy, and I knew that I was going to start. I had to be on that journey to love on myself. So to love on myself, I go away by myself. I want to tell Hawaii by myself. I went to some spiritual retreats, but really loving on yourself, to be honest with you, is getting a therapist because they tear you to pieces and they build you back up together. It's not about Earl, It's not about the kids. It's about the girls sitting in that chair that wants help. Mm hmm.

01:13:02
Speaker 1: And that's the biggest love. Have you forgiven yourself for some of the things that you've done to yourself? Yeah?

01:13:08
Speaker 5: I have.

01:13:09
Speaker 3: I just started, though I would say again a lot of stuff took took place two years ago. I've just started to forgive myself. I didn't even know that I needed to forgive myself. And I have these moments where I just start crying or I start laughing, and I'm like, girl, you did some dumb stuff, like why did you do that to yourself? And I think the laughing is good because I don't feel that hurt anymore. I don't feel that hole anymore. I feel like I finally feel a whole. I finally see to share the way to Shara's supposed to see to.

01:13:48
Speaker 1: Share a And who is she?

01:13:50
Speaker 2: Man?

01:13:51
Speaker 5: To?

01:13:51
Speaker 3: Shara is courageous, she's smart, she's loving, she's kind. I'm outgoing up to travel. I'm sporadic. I'm last minute. That's what's sporadic. I love God, Oh my God. To Sharah loves God. I don't know where I would be without him. He's my best friend. Yeah, seriously, that's pretty good.

01:14:15
Speaker 4: Hey, guys.

01:14:15
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01:15:00
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I love my kids too, but the kids you said, you're crying my kids?

01:15:08
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm sorry. I got you already know. This is our irl Bowl presented by Walden University.

01:15:15
Speaker 3: If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be m master living in the moment. That's a skill that takes serious intention. Just enjoy every day and live in a moment. And that's a skill that I'm working on in my healing.

01:15:42
Speaker 1: I love that all right in real life? What are you most proud of about yourself?

01:15:47
Speaker 3: In real life? The mother I've I was afraid in the beginning of not being a good mom because of what I've been through and how my mom abandoned me. But that is one of the most things I'm proud of because I have one. I've succeeded to raise healthy for children, to be someone's amazing husband or wife.

01:16:14
Speaker 1: Well done, Mama, Thank you. What do you like most about yourself?

01:16:18
Speaker 3: What I like about myself is that I'm comfortable in my own skin, that I know who I am now and I have my own identity. For a very long time, my identity was an earl. And now what I really love about myself is that I'm happy to be Toashia.

01:16:36
Speaker 1: Good for you, bo. I am no longer available for.

01:16:42
Speaker 3: I am no longer available for negativity, for bullshit, for people speaking on my life that they have no idea about. I am no longer available for that. If it ain't positive, I got no energy for it, period.

01:16:58
Speaker 1: And I'm not afraid to say no. Do you still feel the need We're gonna wrap up right now. But do you still feel the need? Well, I guess you must because your yes, your son's father. But do you still feel the need to represent for X, for Earl to be a representation for him since he's no longer here.

01:17:16
Speaker 3: I do. I do feel the need too, and that's the point of the name of the Doctor series X versus Earl, because I feel like he hasn't had the proper representation of who Earl is, because you know, X is who most people really knew and DMX, so I do still feel the need because you know, I know who he really was. And two because it's only right that's my children's father, not to mention my first love, of my childhood sweetheart. And it makes me sad that he went at fifty. But Earl was tired and he told me that, and that's why I had peace in it. Not happy about it, but I had peace with it because he told me he was tired, and I could see it in his eyes and in his voice, and I got scared and I didn't think it was gonna happen, but it did a week later. Wow.

01:18:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, that must have been a tough time for you.

01:18:20
Speaker 3: I didn't think it would be, just because I knew that Earl was tired. But I felt a part of me died definitely, because he knew. He knew me longer than I'm here. I was alive. We were together and we're friends for over forty years, and a part of a big part of me was ripped. I mean I really, before he passed away, I thought I found myself. And then when he passed away, I had died of myself to find myself again, and that was not an easy journey. It has taken me another three four years to get to where I am. Now, Wow, my God, when is it over? God? Well, I think we finally had energy.

01:19:00
Speaker 1: And I think you are well on your way to whatever you're supposed to be doing.

01:19:03
Speaker 3: Yeah I feel that now. Yeah, good for you. Yeah, thank you, Yeah for sure. I congrats on the doctor to them.

01:19:10
Speaker 1: Thank you. My final question you didn't get in the bull, but I'm gonna ask you, if God were to text you right now, what would it say?

01:19:19
Speaker 3: If God were to text me, You've got.

01:19:20
Speaker 1: A text from God right now, what.

01:19:24
Speaker 3: Would it say? I want you to start focusing on yourself.

01:19:35
Speaker 1: There it is real life.

01:19:43
Speaker 3: My legs all the way over here because that was so good, Ergie. I just want to tell you real quick though. You made it your energy and your spirit. It felt safe. This is to Surance Simmons in real life.

01:20:06
Speaker 1: Hey guys, thanks for watching. Make sure you subscribe, like comments and check out all of the other episodes we have on Edge Martinez Iro podcast,