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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
This is a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Either way, I hope anyone can listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
My podcast is a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures. I've led a fairly unique life with some highs and very low low's. I believe listeners would find my experiences worth listening to and learning from and take them with them on their own journey.
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 38: Lannette West from MILF MANOR 2 Breaking Generational Curses and Surviving Childhood Trauma!
Lynette West shares her powerful journey of recognizing and healing from childhood sexual abuse by her grandfather while growing up in a violent home. Through isolated flashbacks that eventually converged into a coherent narrative, she discovered how trauma shaped her self-hatred, addiction struggles, and relationship patterns with abusive partners.
• Childhood trauma memories often appear as disconnected flashbacks without context
• Trauma survivors frequently gravitate toward familiar but harmful situations that mirror their childhood experiences
• Repressed memories can surface when the brain recognizes you're emotionally ready to handle them
• Hypervigilance and dissociation (like counting lamp tassels) are common coping mechanisms during abuse
• Depression and suicidal ideation are frequent companions of unaddressed childhood trauma
• Children with parents who commit suicide are 70% more likely to commit suicide themselves
• Breaking generational curses requires commitment to healing despite ongoing struggles
• Recovery isn't linear – healing is an ongoing journey that requires persistent effort
• Speaking openly about trauma can bring freedom and help others who are suffering silently
• Finding purpose through pain by helping others can transform traumatic experiences into something meaningful
Follow Lynette on Instagram @Lynette.West to connect and continue the conversation.
Follow me on Instagram @bh_life_is_crazy
Go to my website brandonheld.com. Select Podcast page and Subscribe!
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Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy. I am so excited about today. I have someone on that I am so excited to talk to. She was on MILF Manor Season 2, and I watched the whole season and she got screwed over on that show. But we're not going to talk about that. That's not why we're here. I am with the beautiful and amazing Lynette West and I'm so excited about today. Lynette, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. Thank you for asking how, about yourself?
Speaker 1:are you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for asking how. About yourself? I'm doing well as well. How could I be bad? I'm with you in a podcast, so there's no reason to be bad or have any bad feelings. But having said that, we are going to get into some deep stuff today. We previously met before. Lynette and I have both been through childhood trauma. You know my story. You know what I've gone through if you've listened to my podcast, and Lynette has a story to tell and I'm very excited to share her story with all of you and hopefully you can learn from her story and take something away from her story. So, lynette, let everybody know why you're here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Brandon. Well, I'm here to sort of, I guess, shed some light on things that people don't like to talk about, that there's a lot of stigma around. There's a lot of shame around it Childhood sexual abuse. It's a dirty ugly thing and it's real, and the more people I talk to, the more prevalent I realize it is. Unfortunately, I was the victim of this at a very early age by a family member my maternal grandfather but I also had the privilege of growing up in a very violent home, so I relate a lot to your story as well.
Speaker 2:My earliest childhood memories are traumatic and violent and I don't have a lot of those memories.
Speaker 2:I think my brain sufficiently shut a lot of that down. But I'm really here just to bring some level of awareness that it's a real thing, it happens to real people and I'm hoping that if someone out there is listening and perhaps they experienced some or all of these things, that it will give them the courage and provide a guiding light for them to cope, to deal, to not only survive it, but thrive and excel and know that there is a life on the other side of it, we're more than what happened to us, and that there can be hope and happiness and joy again in your life. And what I've discovered is the more I held onto it and stuffed it down, the more of a burden it became. Once I began talking about it. It brought a freedom and a lightness to my step. It it brought a freedom and a lightness to my step, and I just want to convey that and share that in hopes that it would motivate others to be able to find that kind of freedom and ultimately, that kind of joy and happiness in life again.
Speaker 1:Very well said. I mean, everything you said there is beautiful and perfect, just from the recognizing what happened to you and how it had been suppressed for a long time, just like myself, the fact that you want to share it with others so they can see you can survive it and thrive afterwards, and I'm just so glad that you're doing this Really. I really am, that you're doing this Really, I really am. So what we know is, like me, you had this memory later in life. You recalled this repressed memory later in life. So why don't you just kind of tell us a little bit about when that memory started coming back to you and what that opened up for you?
Speaker 2:For sure. It's interesting because we call them memories, but I think a more accurate description is flashback. At least that's what my doctors call them. I had them in isolation and when I say them, I'm talking maybe eight, nine, 10 flashbacks. Memories throughout my life, from the time I was a child, through my teenage years, through college, through adulthood, and they presented themselves in isolation, with absolutely no context, and they always left me going well, that was random. What was that Like? It didn't make sense Because it was like a contradiction. There were memories of me not being happy about my grandfather being around, but yet I recalled loving him and missing him when he died. It was confusing and I never, ever spoke about it. I never told anyone about it. I thought it was rather insignificant because, in isolation and without any context, it had no meaning. It wasn't anything I needed or thought I should talk about. It didn't happen or it didn't really come to fruition until I had battled drug abuse and drug addiction.
Speaker 2:I was in recovery. I relapsed many times, but this was the first time I got sober and I had been sober for a couple of weeks and I was in my bathroom and I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like it was the first time in my life I ever looked at myself with an ounce of compassion or understanding or kindness. Before that, to say I hated myself is putting it mildly. I was torturous to myself. I was cruel to myself. Everything I said to myself was terrible You're ugly, you're dumb, you're fat, you're unlovable, you're gross, you're disgusting. And that's how I thought about myself. I thought I was just trash. I felt like trash about myself. I thought I was just trash. I felt like trash and after I got sober I was looking in the mirror and it was the first time I kind of looked and I went God, honey, and I exercised some compassion and literally that was the first time ever. I was almost 50 years old and it's almost like my brain recognized okay, okay, she can handle it. Now she can deal with this. Like we got her. You know, the brain's like it's a safe place. Now I can release this because she's having compassion and understanding for herself. So when this comes out, she's going to have compassion for herself. She's not going to try to kill herself. Okay, I think that's really like the brain recognizing that the time was right, it was finally time.
Speaker 2:And what happened is I started having a PowerPoint slideshow in my brain of these flashbacks, one after the other after the other, in repetition, repetition, and it created a context for me. It created a story for me, one that I had not been aware of my entire life. Again, these were memories in isolation that made no sense when I put them all together. It created a story, a context, and I don't have any really lurid explicit memories, like the most explicit memories I have of my grandfather is of him lying in bed with his pajama bottoms open, and I don't even remember what I saw. I like that's just all I remembered. And then I remembered the lamp that hung above the bed. This is back in the seventies. They had those big psychedelic lamps that kind of hung out and had the power cord that was strung along the wall into the outlet and it had tassels around it and it literally hung out over the bed and I never knew why I remembered that lamp, because I had such a shitty memory, because I don't have a lot of memories of my childhood. But what I later learned was hyper-focus. I would count the tassels around the light, the light, the lampshade, as a way to disassociate from what was happening to my body. So that memory came.
Speaker 2:And then there were several others, and just it was one after the other, after the other, and I just sat there for a moment and literally the realization came that, oh my God, he molested me. I don't know if he raped me, he didn't beat me, I don't think. Surely somebody would have noticed that. But I don't know the extent to which I was abused. I just know that something very, very bad happened to me when I was very, very young.
Speaker 2:I was very, very young and once I realized oh my God, this is what's happened, I had a physical release. I had a visceral response. I immediately began vomiting uncontrollably. I wasn't nauseous prior to that. Just all of a sudden I started vomiting, and uncontrollably, and I slipped and I fell. I'm in my bathroom, I bust my ass, my head hits the tile and I'm literally lying in the middle of my bathroom floor in vomit, crying and screaming in the most animalistic sounds.
Speaker 2:Because at one point I went oh my God, is that me? Like I could hear myself, and it was a feeling unlike anything I had ever felt before. It was incredibly overwhelming and it was very scary and it took me probably a good 10 or 15 minutes to compose myself and get up and clean myself up. And again I'm looking at myself in the mirror going. And then there was a moment, immediately following all of that, of relief Because it's like now I know why I do the things I do.
Speaker 2:Now I understand, now it all makes sense. Now I know I'm not just crazy, I don't just have a broken brain, I'm not a lunatic. There's a reason why I do the crazy stuff I do, and it wasn't that I was looking for an excuse. I was looking for understanding, because within that understanding comes compassion. And I sat there and thought of it and tried to to assimilate it and accept it and figure out okay, what do I do? And the first thing I did was call my addiction psychiatrist and say you're not gonna believe this shit. And when I told her she went honey, I already knew that I was like, like she was not surprised at all and you were like why didn't you tell me?
Speaker 2:right and she's like. She's like. She's like lynette. It makes absolute sense, like the reason that you've hated yourself your whole life, the reason that you told me you felt like an alien on this planet, that you're uncomfortable in your own skin, that you never felt like you belonged here. I never felt worthy of the space I occupied. I always felt I had to earn any kind of love or affection through achievement. I never felt intrinsically valuable. I didn't feel like I was worth the oxygen I consumed or the carbon dioxide I expelled, and I lived my whole life that way. And she's like. That's not uncommon with people who are violated at a very critically developmental stage. And the more I started to learn about it, the more I what really really is causing some of the behaviors and some of the dysfunctions and some of the fallout in my life. And again, it's not like I'm looking for an excuse, I'm just looking for the why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you're just trying to understand, even still yourself, right. Even as we're getting older and more mature, right, we still want to know why we have done some of the things we've done, behaved some of the ways we've behaved right? That holds true for me too, and your story is, while it's so very sad, it's also very identifiable with me, because, even though I didn't get molested out of the bathroom naked and crying, why do I remember this green couch? Why do I remember my father coming in, being in? It was just in pieces like that. And then, when I got older as well, like you, it all came together and I had a picture, right, I had a movie that I could play back in my mind. Picture, right, I had a movie that I could play back in my mind.
Speaker 1:And, as I said before, I told my mom all this and she verified everything that I was saying was true and when it happened, when I was two years old. So everything you're talking about, I totally get it and I totally understand it. But we're about we're here about you today and your journey and what you're going through. So, if you don't mind and you're free to say whatever you want to say or don't say. That's completely up to you. Tell some people some of your journey in life, your struggle with I'm a good person, but then I do this bad behavior. Just give us some examples or some things that you you know that really disaffected why you behave that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's it's. It's so layered, right, it's so complex. I mean, if it was simple it would be easily fixed, right, but it's literally like layers upon layers. Because, you know, I had that wonderful start in life, yeah, and my parents divorced when I was younger. I guess they divorced in 79. So I was born in 73. So that puts me at what six and the years leading up to that divorce it was like war of the roses in our home. It was incredibly violent. It was. Yeah, this is how I sum it up. I know, back in the 70s, that Juergens lotion used to come in a glass bottle. Wow, and you know how I know this.
Speaker 1:Because my good reasons, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a good reason.
Speaker 1:I know this.
Speaker 2:My mother, during an altercation with my father, grabbed it and cold cocks him upside the head and broke his jaw with it. So that, unfortunately, was not atypical. So that unfortunately was not atypical. They were incredibly violent. My father, you know, beat the shit out of my mother on the regular and she was hospitalized on more than one occasion. She hospitalized him too, to. I mean, she certainly wasn't a shrieking violet, if you catch my drift, but she was obviously emotionally tortured as well, in addition to being physically abused, and some days she gave as good as she got. But those are.
Speaker 2:My memories are of them fighting and hearing things break in the bedroom and the doors locked and me and my brother I'm the youngest of five, by the way, and my brother was five and a half years older than me, and that's the next sibling up and we were in the hallway or in the house playing and we could tell there was a commotion in the bedroom and I remember it very vividly because he and I were talking like, okay, what do we do? We got to get in, we got to stop this, we got to save mom, what are we going to do? And it was back in the seventies, so it had. You know those doors that had the locks and you'd put the key above the frame of the door and we knew there was a key up there and we were like, let's get the key, we'll get in, we'll stop this. And we were little, I mean, I couldn't have been more than five years old, maybe six, I don't know but he put me on his shoulders and I was not tall enough to reach the key, wow, and we just kind of gave up.
Speaker 2:And I, what I remember the most about that is that utter feeling of helplessness, of futility, of fear, not only for myself but for my mother and for my father, for that matter. And you know those, those are the kinds of things that stay with you and shape how you view the world, and it's almost like it creates a default setting. It creates an energy within yourself, because to me then that became normal, because as a child you don't know that other people don't do this Like you just think well, this is how everybody lives, this is normal.
Speaker 2:Right then, as an adult, what I found myself doing was gravitating towards people I found comfortable and familiar. Not a good thing. It would have been a great thing if my childhood had been sunshine and roses, but it wasn't. And so I gravitated towards men that were abusive physically, verbally, sexually, and because on some guttural level, on some primal level, that was what was familiar to me. So people will look at me and go, what your picker is broken, like what were you thinking? Messing around with a freaking hip-hop rapper? Yeah, exactly, good point, good point. But give you a little context. Do you see now why I'm drawn to that? Because that the stereotypes and I'm not calling this individual out, I have no firsthand knowledge of anything that he's done like that but but there's the stereotype, right, and so there's that energy that comes off and that is what I gravitate to. That becomes my normal. And the way it affects your behavior, like you had said, like how does that change things? Well, it sets in motion this cascading level of dysfunction and heartache and sadness and abuse that continues unhinged and unabated until you figure it out, until you reach some level of self-awareness and enlightenment and unfortunately, mine had to come after I had this horrible drug addiction, and it sounds ironic, but I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that I had the experience of making that first bad decision, of doing cocaine at a pool party at House, around the Corner, because that set into motion everything that I needed to know about myself so that I could become who I'm really meant to be. I needed to know about myself so that I could become who I'm really meant to be.
Speaker 2:A lot of years were spent being resentful over he changed who I was supposed to be and then I realized, nope, he put me on the track that I'm supposed to be on. Everything happens for a reason. This is exactly who I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be this incredibly flawed, emotional, insecure, hopefully relatable woman who is just trying to do the best she can with what she's got. I've been blessed beyond measure in my life. I have two beautiful. I have two beautiful, healthy, adorable children that are such a source of joy and pride for me, and I don't regret any of that, because if these things hadn't happened to me, then I wouldn't have selected the father. I wouldn't you know what I'm saying. I wouldn't have these children and I wouldn't have the opportunity and the compulsion it's really a compulsion I feel so drawn towards.
Speaker 2:Lynette, you've got to speak your truth, as ugly as it is, as embarrassing and shameful as it is, as many family members that think it's a lie. You've got to get out there and give a voice to these other people that don't have one. I was given a unique opportunity to be on a reality show that has provided me a platform to be on wonderful shows like yours and have the opportunity to talk about these things and hopefully reach people that go. Oh my God, I've been through that too. Oh my God, really Well, she survived, it's okay. It's not as bad as you think. Right, we need to de-stigmatize it. We need to normalize the conversations around it, because so many people are suffering and it breaks my heart to think that people will continue to suffer in silence. I'm not going to suffer in silence anymore. I'll suffer out loud if I've got to, but I really feel a calling to give these things a voice, to shine some light on them and hopefully it resonates and motivates others to move forward on their journey as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean, you just said so many great things there that it's. I could sit here and talk to you for hours about all of this. Honestly, just to identify with relationships, for example, I have always been a protector over protective right, because I was that helpless child that watched his mother get beat and it wasn't a two-way street. I just watched my mother get beat. I didn't get to see her give it back Not that's good, but that always made me want to be a protector and I'm very protective. And so what do I do? I pick women that are broken and need to be protected, right? I pick women that need someone to wrap their arms around them and make them feel safe and good, and that's why I've been divorced three times. Because you can't fix other people. Everyone has to go through their own journey. And what's great also about what you said is the same thing. When I do tell my life story to people, people are like oh my God, how can you even walk around with a smile on your face Because there is another side. You get to the other side and, like you, I wouldn't change anything that happened, because I wouldn't be who I am today, right now, if I went a different path or my life had been all roses, or whatever the case may be. So I'm I'm honestly happy for my struggle and my pain, and I know that sounds weird, but I completely identify with exactly what you're saying. So that's all that.
Speaker 1:What I wanted to know next was you found all this stuff out? You're working through it, so kind of let me know where you're at with where you're at in this healing process. Where do you see yourself right now? Because I don't feel like we're ever like completely healed, right, it's this thing we'll always live with and we'll always work through and like, for example, I have been suicidal, right, I've even I attempted suicide once. I put a gun in my mouth once, but I obviously never died. I'm still here and I feel like I'm at a point in life where I would never attempt it again.
Speaker 1:But also, when times get bad, it's this thing that creeps in the back of my mind. It's always there, it's never completely gone. The back of my mind, it's always there, it's never completely gone. So it's a fight for the rest of my life. And my biological father, who I never knew, he killed himself at 63. He put a gun to his head and killed himself. So I found that out through the grapevine. I heard from other people. So that's why I asked this question, because obviously you're not going to sit here and say, oh, I'm healed, everything's perfect, everything's great. So where do you see yourself on the journey right now?
Speaker 2:Oh, I am very much a work in progress. I struggle, I struggle a lot. I mean some days more than others. I very much relate to everything you were just saying about depression and suicide and suicidal ideations. I started with my depression in high school, adolescence. I think there's something about hormones that bring it out. I first attempted suicide when I was I guess I was 17. It was the fall of my senior year in high school. I used to get migraines and so I was given this Midrin medication and in the hopelessness and the darkness that I was in and my lack of knowledge or research, I was like, well, I'm going to just going to take this whole bottle of Midrin, that's going to do it. And I downed about you know, it was a big bottle, probably 30 pills, I don't know 25 pills. I went to sleep and I woke up the next morning and I remember thinking, fuck, I was so sad and I was so upset.
Speaker 2:I woke up, um, and then what did I do? I got dressed and I went to school and I acted like nothing had fucking happened. Yeah, and it's something that it's on the list right of options. It wasn't until I was in my 20s. I was talking to a mentor of mine and I was going through. I was when I was diagnosed with bipolar. In fact, it was a very depressive than manic episode. I was kind of rapid cycling between the two and very erratic behavior. And she knew something was wrong. And I looked at her and she's like Lynette, are you going to hurt yourself? And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, I've thought about it. I mean, doesn't everybody?
Speaker 1:She was like no, I thought the same thing't everybody.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, that was normal, yeah, yeah like, okay, I could move, I could sell my house, I could get back with my ex, I could just blow my brains out. I mean, didn't everybody like put that on the list of options? Like it blew my mind that she she looked at her and she said lynette, I've never contemplated hurting myself or killing myself. And it blew my fucking mind and it gives me chills to this day because at the time I was just like, fuck, I'm really messed up, there's something really wrong with me. And fortunately enough, I got a diagnosis at the time of bipolar two. I'm not bipolar one. I've not had a psychotic break. I've come close, but I've not. And you know bipolar two being the hypomania versus a full-blown manic episode. That's the distinction between bipolar one and two. So, frankly, if you wanted to pick one, you'd want to be bipolar two you got, the good one I got lucky, but yeah.
Speaker 2:But depression and anxiety were something that plagued me and I, as a teenager, I didn't have a word for it, I just knew I wasn't right. I went to college. I started at UNC, chapel Hill, in the fall of 91. And I think it was my second semester, my sophomore year. I was partying hard, I was coping by numbing myself with drugs and alcohol, and I started that by the time I was 14, really. But by the time I was in college it was full blown. I was quite a party girl, but I had missed a class that I really had needed to attend and the professor had called me out, which was kind of unusual, because the Carolina classes are really big. Like you don't go to class, nobody notices, nobody gives a shit. So I could skate through most of my classes because I never went. But this particular professor called me to her office and I sat down. I just started bawling, I just started crying spontaneously. She's like dude. I hadn't even said anything yet and she looked at me and she's like honey, she's like you're depressed. And I went what? Like? I'd heard of it, but I didn't know that it applied to me.
Speaker 2:Now, mind you, I'm probably 1920 at this point and I tried to kill myself a few years ago, but I didn't recognize that I was depressed. I was ignorant, because no one, one, no one sits you down and tells you these things. You know, nobody in my family ever taught. Well, nobody knew that I had taken all those pills. I'm sure my mom noticed at some point I was out, but no one. No one talks about this stuff. This was you know. This was embarrassing, this is unsavory. This is not something you talk about. You don't admit these things. And that was the first time that I had that. I realized okay, I'm depressed, okay, so so what do I? What do I do about this? And for many years, I continued to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. And how I survived, I'm not. I'm not really sure. I'm glad that I did, but I didn't become suicidal to the extent that you were talking about, because when you said the taste of metal in your mouth, I know exactly what that is and I know what it feels like when it clinks against your teeth.
Speaker 2:And I had set my death date. It was after my divorce in 2015. And I was in such excruciating pain that I literally felt like I was drowning. I felt like I was dying, like like doing the most basic of things, like blinking, required an insurmountable amount of effort. I was giving up. There was no hope. There was a darkness. There was. There was just a sadness. There was a pain, and it felt like I was carrying the weight of the world. And so I had set my death date. I'd gotten all organized. I'd printed my passwords, you know. I'd checked the life insurance policy to make sure okay, I've had it more than two years, it'll cover suicide. I don't want to leave my children broke.
Speaker 2:And then that that day happened. That day came and I took my daughter to school and I remember again feeling relief and happiness because I'm like I got a way out, it's going to stop soon. Like it was the first ray of hope that I had had in months. That I was like, yes, and then stage, I dress, rehearsaled it. By the way, I'm not trying to give people ideas, but this is how. This is how out of my mind I was. I dress, rehearsaled and the days leading up to it, because I didn't want there to be any unknowns, I didn't want anything to derail me, I didn't want the taste of the gun in my mouth to suddenly wake me up and go oh shit, that tastes like metal. What am I doing? I wanted to make sure all my T's were crossed and all my I's were dotted and as I sat in the shower, naked, with the phone in one hand and the gun in the other, I had the image of my children, and I'm going to try not.
Speaker 1:That'll do it. That'll do it. Those kids, my three sons, same thing for me, yes.
Speaker 2:I um.
Speaker 1:They don't know what a source of strength they are for us, like they really don't know how much they mean to us and how much they make us push just that much harder. You're going to make me cry, and I'm a man. Don't do that harder.
Speaker 2:You're gonna make me cry and I'm a man, don't do that. But yeah, I uh, there was just a voice in my head. I I'm not schizophrenic, but there was a voice in my head that said they need you still. Yes, even even in your broken state, a broken Lynette is better than no Lynette.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:They need their mother and I did not want to leave them in this evil world unprotected. And you know, I got myself together, put on my clothes and went to the office and went to work and, um, a guy that I always took smoke breaks with because I smoked since I was 14 I, I'm a product of north carolina, what can I say? Um, he came to my desk for our morning smoke break and, you know, I'm working and I'm acting like everything's normal and he looked at me and he's like it's like, are you okay? And just him saying that. I looked at him and I just said, no, I'm not okay, I need help. And it was.
Speaker 2:It was the first time in my life I'd ever admitted that I needed help. You know that ultra independence, you know that's a byproduct of trauma too. And he was like come on, let's go outside. And, long story short, call my psychiatrist. He and I went met with her and she's like you know, let's go outside and, long story short, call my psychiatrist. He and I went met with her and she's like you know, honey, you've got two choices you can do this voluntarily, where you can go home and pack a bag, and I'll meet you at the ER, or we can do this involuntary and we'll cuff you and throw you in the back of a cop car. No-transcript. That's the closest I've come. That's not the only time I've contemplated, planned or had suicidal ideations. That's something that, um, that creeps in more times than than I really even want to admit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same, and that's why I brought it up that we're never just fully healed, right. I mean, we will all like an alcoholic. Every time they see a drink, they're always going to struggle with that alcoholism. Same thing for us. When we get in a bad place, it is normal for us to think about ending it all. It just is.
Speaker 1:And I, like you, didn't understand, like when other people told me I've never considered killing myself, I was like what you know how? You know, how did you not do that? And also, you brought up something that I've never, ever said on any of my podcasts or anything. And that is the suicidal ideation thing thing. I have probably written farewell notes not notes letters on maybe a half a dozen occasions, we'll say, and almost all of those occasions, just sitting there and writing the farewell letters gave me, you know it would make me bawl and cry and feel bad about where I'm at in my life and and what I'm going to do to my kids when I pull it off, and you know I'm no longer here and what they're going to have to live with. And going through that process stopped me from, you know, fully going through with the attempted suicide almost every time.
Speaker 1:And and so it. It was almost like a way of going through it without actually going through it. And and so, and so that's great. What you brought up there with you know all the passwords and you had planned that all out, because I had done that multiple times and I just didn't follow through. And what I love about you I want to say this openly on air. I know I've already said it to you, but if people can't tell, I love how genuine, sincere and real you are. Like this is not a stunt to you know, make people know more who you are, or anything like that. Like this is the real you and it's authentic and I really respect that and appreciate that about you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:No, thank you.
Speaker 2:Your mind real quick.
Speaker 1:Yes, go for it.
Speaker 2:Talk about how you write your final words yes, wow, right there, you have it. Yes that was from um tuesday of last week oh shit, shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm so sorry it's.
Speaker 2:You know, it is what it is right.
Speaker 1:I'm still here.
Speaker 2:Yes, again, what people I think need to know is and I haven't verified this independently, I've just been told this 70% of children who have a parent that commits suicide will commit suicide themselves.
Speaker 1:Wow See, I didn't know that that's powerful. Wow See, I didn't know that that's powerful.
Speaker 2:I can't leave that legacy for my children and my children's children. I am breaking generational curses, I refuse to create them, and when you were talking about the exercise of going through that, I mean it's some catharsis, it's, it's fucked up that you know writing here like, okay, make sure that you know you do this and you, you don't put the animals in that animal shelter, cause I don't want them put down, and you know, and I'm apologizing and I'm trying to explain myself, and it just comes back full circle, though. Then again, you're left with the images of your children or the people that you love, the people that you care about, and you don't want to do that to them absolutely exact.
Speaker 1:Absolutely because it would.
Speaker 2:it would absolutely. Just it will change who they are supposed to be and and I've had people change who I'm supposed to be Right, I don't want to be responsible for changing who my children are supposed to be, because they are wonderful creatures. They are incredible, intelligent, insightful, compassionate, understanding, tolerant. I mean, they have me for a mom, for God's sakes.
Speaker 2:I mean they must be those things right. They still talk to me, yes, they still live with me, but yeah, I God, brandon, I relate so much to what you say and it it is it weird that it's giving me some solace just knowing that I'm not the only one that does that.
Speaker 1:It's not weird at all. As a matter of fact, you just brought up a great point that I've honestly never thought about and I genuinely want to thank you. I have been here fighting since a teenager to break generational curses too, and why would I work so hard to give my kids a different life that I didn't have, just to throw it all away and screw it up by being selfish and taking my own life and and ruining everything that I built, everything that I've worked so hard for? Such a great point, lynette, such a great point. Thank you for saying that, thank you for bringing that up. And the people that understand us are going to understand what we're saying and what we're going through and hopefully take some solace in some of the things we've said and we've gone through and we've shared. And we're doing this at the risk of the people that don't understand us chastising us or saying they don't get it yeah, they don't get it.
Speaker 1:They're gonna think we're crazy you know, even if you feel that way, why would you go on a show and talk about that, right? Why would you make that? For me, it's almost like the whole premise of my show. So you know they're not going to get it and that's fine. I don't care about those people If they don't want to understand our plight and what we've gone through and are going through. Those aren't the reasons I'm doing this and you're doing this. We're doing this to help the people that get it. They identify, they understand and they need to know they're not doing it alone.
Speaker 2:They are not alone. They are not alone and you're not crazy. What it is is your brain is tricking you into believing these things. It becomes your reality because your brain creates your perception, which creates your reality. But in that moment it is so fucking real, it is so overwhelming. One of the tricks I've got I want to share with you, and I heard this from someone else. I can't take credit for it. I can't remember where I heard it from, but they likened depression to imagine when you're drunk. Do you like your shit face drunk, right? Do you freak out and think, oh my God, I'm going to be drunk forever? No, you know it's going to pass. You know you're going to sober up. You know it's going to pass. You know you're going to sober up. The suicidal ideations is like your brain is drunk, it is temporary, you will come back around.
Speaker 2:this too shall pass yes but it's you lose, but that is lost in the moment. But I try to come back to it Like I want that tattooed on my arm. This too shall pass, because nothing is permanent. Your death is, but the way you're feeling and the way you're behaving is temporary. Sure, it can do a lot of damage and create some lasting impacts. Sure, it can do a lot of damage and create some lasting impacts, but it's, it's. It's again.
Speaker 2:You know the permanent solution to you know a temporary problem, but but when I start thinking about my depression, like in my suicidal ideations, in the context of oh god, it's kind of like getting drunk, like I just gotta ride this shit out. You know, I just gotta ride this shit out. You know I just got to ride this shit out. I just can't give up. I'm not going to give up. The light is gone temporarily. The light will come back and it and to be able to restore some semblance of hope is what staves off the suicide. It staves it, it keeps it away. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:And it allows you to get to the other side and that's why I want to talk about it, because I was just in it last week. I mean, I still struggle. I will struggle the rest of my life, but one thing I'm not going to do is give up, like I'm committed to myself and to my children and to my family and my friends that I am not ever going to give up the fight that's right.
Speaker 1:You need to be. You're going to be a grandma someday. Yeah, I know the word itself, maybe not so great, but the grandkids will be right.
Speaker 1:You'll love those little babies it'll be wonderful lynette yes, I mean, we've talked off air before, we did the podcast together and now together. I sincerely hope that you and I can maintain some level of friendship even beyond this, some level of, you know, sharing our things that we're going through together, because I genuinely think you're a great person, I genuinely mean that, and so, as we're reaching the end here, things I want to give you like a last summarization of a takeaway of what you, what you want people to take away from everything you've said today.
Speaker 2:I think. I think there are a couple of key takeaways. One thing is you know what. You don't know what people are going through. Be kind, give them the benefit of the doubt until they give you a reason not to.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, I often tell my kids, like, quit having the expectation that life is going to be fucking easy. It's not. Life is a series of suffering punctuated by moments of joy and happiness. So when you have those moments of contentment and peace and joy, relish it, Live in it, Take in those moments. Now, that's not to be so fatalistic. Right about like life really sucks, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:Life is a wondrous privilege. It's a great opportunity to evolve yourself, to help others, to really understand you know the bigger picture here, Because it's not about me, it's not about you, it's not about this podcast, it's not about MILF Manor. What it is. It's about being on this planet to help other people and, in my opinion, that's how you're going to be judged come the end of times. Is what did you do to take care of and help other people? Because, bitch, it ain't about you and that's kind of the attitude I'm taking. I mean, I'm, you know, making a spectacle of myself by being on here and talking about all these dramatic things, but I'm doing that with the sole intention of someone hearing it and someone being inspired to continue their fight. That's why I'm doing this.
Speaker 1:Perfect, well said. I mean that's why we're here, that's why I'm here. This perfect, well said, I mean that's why we're here, that's why I'm here. You know, if we just say one person, one person, we've done something. And and you know I love everything you said I like to always say life is what you make it right. It's miserable if you make it that way, it's great if you make it that way. So that's what it is Right. So, uh, all right. Last thing um, let everyone know how they can reach you on your socials.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm on Instagram. Um, I got a very creative handle. It's Lynette L-A-N-N-E-T-T-E dot West, so feel free to reach out DM. I'll, uh, obviously, I will post this and share it with my community there and, uh, I look forward to hearing from people.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Uh, lynette, it has been just more than a pleasure and, um, I'm so thankful for you to coming on my podcast and sharing your story with the listeners, and I really hope that you get to do much more of this and you get to continue to spread your message and you get to continue to help people as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity and, yeah, you're stuck. You've got a new friend, brandon, like it or not. I got your phone number now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. That's true, we did exchange numbers. That's okay. That's great. I'm very happy about that. All right, so go go follow Lynette on her Instagram. I will put it in the bottom of this podcast so you can get to it and you know how to reach her and find her. Also, I'm asking you to please follow me on my Instagram. Um, bh underscore life underscore is underscore crazy. It's not smooth, but it's understandable because that's the name of the podcast. And and finally, for those of you that uh, think you're getting good quality information from this podcast, please go to my website, Brandon heldcom, click on podcasts and subscribe. Just subscribe to the podcast. It's it's totally voluntary and you can give as little as $3 a month to whatever you choose, and that just helps me. Try to keep this podcast going, because this isn't free people. I have to pay for this, Nothing in life is free, nothing in life is free and that's okay.
Speaker 1:I love doing it. I enjoy doing it, but if I can just get enough support to just keep it going and make it easier on me, that would be great. This is Brandon Held. Life is crazy. Talk to you next time.
