OOQ.02.02.DiCiruolo.Transcript
Fri, Feb 24, 2023 12:50PM 59:23
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lgbtq, foster care system, parent, adhd, motherhood, identity, queer, parenting, queer authors
00:00
Welcome back to out of Queeriosity, the podcast for the Pride and Joy Foundation. I'm your host Elena Joy pronouns she her. Pride and Joy Foundation is a nonprofit whose mission is to prevent suicide and homelessness in the LGBTQ plus community. One way we do that is by providing visibility to our changemakers. Today we're having a conversation with Di Ciruolo. Di is a mother of two neurodivergent kids, a DEI educator and a social justice activist. Her experiences growing up on the outside as a foster kid with neurodiversity have given her a unique understanding of humaneness that informs her practice and her life. Di is married to her partner Jay and they enjoy a quote, “coastal grandmother” lifestyle. Di is the author of Indomitable, her memoir and true story of foster care survival. From childhood to motherhood, Di takes readers through very personal experiences creating a safe space for trauma survivors. In this episode, we chat about our book and the experiences it explores. Family did you know that 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ plus, there are also so many of our youth in the foster care system, as well as many that are neurodivergent or neuro spicy as Di says, let's learn from Di about her experience and her book.
Elena
So welcome to Out of Queeriosity with the pride and joy foundation. We're so excited to have everyone here today and especially our guest, our amazing Di -Princess Di is how I'm going to remember to say her name. And I should probably check but I see it on the screen your pronouns are she her, accurate?
Di
Yeah.
Elena
Excellent. How do you say your last name?
Di
Oh, my gosh, I will give you the short version of the story I always tell it is Ciruolo. So I'm falling in love with my partner in Atlanta at the time and Jason Derulo is just coming out. And as a star, Jason. Okay, okay. His name and he goes, Jason Deruolo. My partner's name, who is non binary, Jason Ciruolo. I'm just like, What did he say, I drove off the road. Like, I'm like, why are you in love with this person? You need to calm down girl. Like he actually does do that. And it wasn't like a figment of my imagination, which is great. But yes, it's it's Ciruolo.
Elena
Ciruolo. Love it. Well, we have brought you here today, because you have an incredible career story, as well, as you are publishing your first memoir type book. I have your leadership books, the Ally Up I . Love it. Yes. I've studied it.
Di
every minute. Like I could never figure out what's the right line of sassiness. But when you're in tech, it's kind of there's not really a line for sassiness.
Elena
And I love getting that vibe from it. And specifically, before I go talk to tech audiences, that is the book that I read, because I need to channel that vibe.
Di
Oh, my God so much. Because like, as much as we think of ourselves as the geniuses, like in tech spaces, right? As much as we think of ourselves, we're so smart and all that stuff, right? Because we that's the like, that's the refuge. That's what the rep we get, right? Like, Oh, these are the these are the, you know? Yeah. Realistically, we are often dealing with kindergarten style issues where so, I mean, I just have that mom style energy, and I will come in, it'll be like, Was this what you meant to say? Do you need a snack? You're not drinking your water? Right? I can tell. Yeah, you just gotta, you gotta. Of course we're like, emotionally sometimes we're still all kind of there in that place. Because we all are constantly running to the next thing and running to the next thing. Yeah. So yes, it's true. No. So I
Elena
Yeah. So yes, it's true. So Iwould like to get into your career a little bit because I think we're right there. You do kind of bridge the the humanity the people skills, the soft skills, the inclusion skills with the tech skills and kind of tell me what is the background behind that? And how did that come about?
04:21
Oh, God. So I will try to give you the shortest version of this. But as you can probably tell, there is no short version I have ADHD. Hello… Anyway, so how did I start? So basically, I grew up in the Massachusetts foster care system, which was awful. Yeah, let's let's let's gloss here, let's say worst case scenario. You can imagine plus or minus how many true crime documentaries you watch. Let's go with that. And from, but I have ADHD, right. So like, no one's raising me, but I'm watching a lot of like Reading Rainbow and LeVar Burton. You know what I mean? At the time, and it's like, oh, just take my word for it, you know, and Mr. Rogers and his, you know, your special just the way you are, I like you. And I'm getting those messages at the very same time that I'm growing up around like truly terrible people. So I'm like, escaping into books constantly, right? And the more I'm learning about other worlds, the more I'm realizing that this isn't normal, what I'm going through is normal, and it's not necessarily my fault. So that raises a little bit of curiosity, I guess, about the World and Me and, and sort of, of course, all people with neurodiversity are like hyper empathic, but it mattered so much to me to figure out what things were different, right? It mattered so much to me, I was constantly tripping over these boundaries, that people would be like, Oh, what are you talking about? There's not a boundary there. But they don't raise kids in foster care, right. So I was running into these problems that were human problems that somebody should have just said, Oh, di, by the way, you know, this, this dress on the outdoor of the of the bathroom here means, you know, this is for girls, not for people wearing dresses that day, right? Like, you just don't even realize the amount of things you haven't learned when you're being taught to be a human. So I would say I kind of taught myself all of those things with like, the anxiety of someone with ADHD, right? Yes, the constant anxiety. So that was my hyper focus, learning how to be a person. And then when you kind of go through and get a little bit older, I finally put myself through college. You know, I'm one of 3% of foster kids that go to college and graduate. So everybody was like, Oh, well, if you ever graduate, you know, you'll be able to do whatever you want. And I graduated, and then like, there were no jobs. Like, they were like, no, no, the you did you graduate from a better school than you did? I'm like, Well, I went to -What do you mean? Oh, I needed to go to an Ivy League, how would that have been possible from where I came from? You know, so of course, it's sort of like layer upon layer of all of these things. So it was very much it seems in specific, but it's actually a very specific path of learning how to be a human and becoming an expert at being human, because you're in survival mode constantly. So that ability to see the situation from all angles as a result of that background, pushed me into what obviously should have always been my DEI, focus, my equity focus, my caring about how we do things focus. And of course, you know, neuro diversity, I fit really well in tech. Get my jokes otherwise, like, you know, I'll just be like riding in like regular offices. And like, I'll be like, oh, you know, like that. And they'll be like, what's wrong with you? No, but like, exactly, I was thinking that same thing. With T shirts, custom vans, that's all very much my style. So that's how it all ended up there. And then basically, I started small, with, you know, taking on maybe clients I didn't need to take on for the exposure. And then just over time, I kind of became somebody who puts out those fires, right, like the ones we're having right now. So that has been fun. But why?
Elena
Yeah, a wild journey. But I feel like all of us as we find our real career paths that are actually resonating with the authentic side of us. It is a wild journey to get there. And it always is right now–
Di
Yeah, awkward, you think, oh my god, this made 100% sense. But when you're going forward, you're just like, trying what feels, you know, the most authentic to you. And it's just it's so hard to explain to others but make sense to you, you know?
Elena
Absolutely. And we were chatting a bit before we started recording, but you identify like, I identify as a late bloomer, right, I came out to myself at age 37. And you identify as someone who kind of always bloomed. There was never a time that you were in line with that.
Di
So, yes, so I had been bisexual since forever, like myself and my great grandmother used to watch Golden Girls together, right? Like when like we bought seriously, so I'm like three years old, and I'm watching the show with her and I'm watching like, she literally raised me into gay culture at the very start. I never had any questions about anything. So I mean, right guys? The Golden Girls? So basically, I'm just you know, Bea Arthur on the inside so I feel like I'm 100 but ya know, always been bisexual always was just like, so my thing was like, all women are gorgeous obviously. I love non binary folks. I love you know, queer folks. All queer gender, ooh, gender fluid, all of that and obviously Idris Elba is gorgeous. And that's not my fault, right? Like not just now, you know, Idris Elba. But anyway, yeah, so I just I never had a problem with it. And actually, as I was coming up, I thought all people must just be bi. I was like all people must just be on this this is a spectrum is what this is yes. You know what I mean? So yeah, I mean, I guess that was one of the benefits, one of the sole benefits of not being raised by anybody I always say nobody raised me is that nobody was trying to force me to be anything. No one's trying to teach me to be anything. So that that heteronormative like, it just missed me, you know. So.
Elena
I was gonna ask that was gonna be my next question is, Do you feel like being in the foster care system almost protected you from compulsory heteronormativity? Or and where was it your neurodivergency? who just didn't see those boxes?
Di
could have just been both right. Like, it's just I, of course, we all have what I would call not necessarily a problem with authority so much as a problem with authoritarians. So, you know,
necessarily a problem with authority so much as a problem with authoritarians. So, you know, half and half, let's say yeah, that's, that was actually I would say it's both, I would say, there was one the fact that I never expected I needed to be anything. And then you know, that? No, I'm going to do what I want to do.
Elena
Do you feel like in your work, especially working with tech companies, have you had to teach more about inclusion of neurodivergence or about inclusion of LGBTQ people? Or? Or is with the text sector specifically, have they been more welcoming, and in naturally, including to one of those identities?
Di
I think people think that their allies they know already, I think a lot of times, they'll be like, Oh, my gay uncle Ted, I already I'm, I'm an ally.
Elena
I love him no matter what. So I'm an ally.
Di
Yeah, great. It's great that you don't think that you are, you know, have any thoughts against anybody else. But in fact, you are being raised in a society that is very specifically teaching you very specific things over and over again, about all of us. So for me personally, being bisexual, so Oh my god, the amount of times I have to straight up tell people that I am not interested in a threesome is many. Like, it's just it's such a frickin thing. Right? And like or secondarily, second point, if I say, Oh, I always say queer. I say yeah, I'm queer. Because if I say bisexual next question, oh, want to have a threesome with me and my wife? I think I can talk her into it. Like, still a NO, guy, you know, it's still no. But yeah, and then secondly, sometimes people will be like, Oh, well, don't you mean? Pan, Di? And I'm like, oh, boy, here we are. Here's the thing. Oh, yes, you can mean pan, you can mean by pan. We use it interchangeably in community. However, Pan sort of came about as a push back to buy because people misunderstand what bisexuality is. So people will say to me, oh, Di I didn't think of you as a transformed Bi means to. Yes, by does mean to. But it does not mean women or men. It means either I have homosexual attraction, set genders like myself and heterosexual attraction genders that are not like myself, non binary people, gender fluid people, they already fall into both of those categories. So it's like, helped me more, you know, just right.
Elena
This is that binary is still based there's still basing bisexuality on the binary of male or female
Di
Right that is still coming from the heterosexual narrative, right? That's coming from the Oh, it's either this or that, when in reality, how long is the queer community known about non binary people for basically all the time, like, you only think that if you just woke up to the, to the awareness of queer, you know, queer and trans people like, Y'all, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna be 40 years old. Come on now. Yes, we can jump on this. Know mine. If people use pan instead of Bi. It doesn't matter to me. But it definitely matters to me when people have like, wrongheaded ideas about what Bi means as a result of wanting. So yes, yes. To answer your question about tech, all of that, right. So I teach people in tech, often, that they have neurodiversity regularly but answer your go ahead and ask your question first, because I think that's gonna take us down a different road here.
Elena
Well, I was just thinking about the neuro divergency, and, as so many of our parents are experiencing their kids growing into this new LGBTQ orientation, whether it's gender identity or sexual orientation, and or both. And this amazing crossover with neurodivergency. See, I mean, we're seeing studies now that LGBTQ kids are eight times more likely to also be neurodivergent. And it's flipping both ways. Yeah. So, and then I hear from straight parents of queer kids, I don't know what part of my child is LGBTQ, and what part of my child is neurodivergent because it feels like such a crossover. And what part of them is just being a teenager. And so they're having a little bit of difficulty, like parsing out, I don't know how to react to the situation, because I don't know which part of their identity it's coming from. And I think that's such a fascinating discussion. I don't know that any of us have any specific answers for them. But if you were to support a parent of an LGBTQ neurodivergent child, can you think of one or two things that you would like them to know? To really support that kiddo?
Di
Yes, I would like them to know that seeing your child's through your lens is not necessarily helpful. So a lot of times people will think about, I'll give you an example. My child has ADHD, autism. He is seven. I have been trying I have ADHD, obviously, as I've mentioned, I have been trying to read books on parenting ADHD children, from my perspective, right. And as I'm reading them, the latest you know, people who are writing them, oh, you know, the shame of it, that you're You're so sad that your child is is not as you know, is not going to do as much as you wanted your dreams feel bad. And I'm just sitting there like, I am smarter than a lot of the people I know y'all like, and I will say that to be just like, whatever. Like, seriously, right? Like neurodiversity doesn't mean that anything's wrong. Just as queerness doesn't mean there's anything wrong, we can still reach the heights of humanity here. So the, ah, the handwringing, and the all, it's so unnecessary, if you can skip over that step, and just be like, Okay, you're gonna be the smartest and coolest kid. That's great. I love that. Let's move forward. Like, honestly, it's about knowing those things about yourself first, right, a lot of times, neurodiversity is passed down. So whether or not you might realize it, if you have perhaps a special spoon or fork you prefer to use, maybe that's something you want to think about. If you don't like, right, if you don't like overhead lighting, and you prefer what we call soft lights, as opposed to big lights, you might be neurodiverse. So it's not it's it's more just about knowing yourself, to be able to parent your kid. Because if you are pushing that stuff about who you are away, and trying to turn them into anything else, all you're doing is pushing space between the two of you. So my son understands that I have ADHD, there will be days when I just can't get out of bed from just being zapped from overstimulation. And I talked to him about it. I'll say I have to lay in bed today, because I am so burned out from overstimulation. I'll be like, Oh, okay, okay, cool. Because when he gets to be that age, or gets to feel that way, I need him to have that vocabulary. So if there's anything that I could teach you about having either a queer kid or neurodiverse kid, or, as is super common, both understand the vocabulary, understand the I don't know the culture, right, like, understand what lives here because in fact, you probably live here too, whether you know it or not.
Elena
That's a huge part of my thought and frameworks that I teach for both companies and for families is inclusion isn't actually inclusion until it starts with our including our identities with ourselves, if we're not being inclusive with ourselves, we can't be inclusive with our family and our teams at work. Nobody has to start with that self awareness of our identities.
Di
That is so true. And here's the thing, like, in my book, when I wrote, When I finally sat down to write a memoir, which I pushed off until after I wrote my professional book that I'm so grateful that you read, I always knew I was going to be responsible for that story. I always knew that I was kind of going to have to talk about my experiences in foster care. And I pushed it away for such a long time. When I wrote the book, and it took me a year, literally, when I wrote the book, it changed how I parented because I realized I was pushing my trauma and my fears onto my kids without intending to, and I will give you an example of sort of how that works. I am afraid of sharks. I don't swim in the ocean because I am afraid of sharks, we live on the ocean. So my behavior of avoidance is being picked up by my children, whether or not I am explaining the why. So if they themselves then don't swim in the ocean, or feel afraid swim in the ocean, that is a result of my avoidance behavior, whether or not I'm dealing with it or talking about it with them. And trauma of every kind works exactly like that. So if you are not dealing with it, or you are, you know, avoiding it with your behavior, that is still you passing that down. So that took me all year to learn.
Elena
And I think that that's such an important theme, especially for we have this audience of late bloomers often that have children. And we all have had to come to this reconciliation of almost battling our, the ghost of the way we used to parent. so many of us were right, like so many of us, were really hiding ourselves from ourselves. And that really affected how we were raising our kids. I have a 20 year old, an 18 year old now, who's most of their formative years, I was in the closet, I was constantly judging myself, I hated the decisions that I was making. And you had these little kids who were like, how can we make mom happy. And that just wasn't possible because mom wasn’t happy with herself. And so often that we're parenting against these old ghosts of past generational trauma, or trauma within ourselves, keeping ourselves in a box that we shouldn't be in, right? It is fascinating to see how all of that can come about into our parenting and then these, these deep little humans that we're raising and two big humans, I mean, both my boys are much bigger than me.
Di
Right? I'm going to be the shortest member of my family, I'm already okay with it, you know, that was always going to be the thing. It's fine. I'm moving on. Oh, love it,
**Pride and Joy Foundation Break**
Elena
Tell me more about your book. So the title is Indomitable, who I love. And when is it coming out
Di
So it will be available for print by March 1, so we can get it, anybody can get it off my website by March 1. It will be in bookstores and other you know, retailers and stuff on September the fifth.
Elena
So we will have a link to that definitely in the shownotes we're really excited to be able to help promote that and have that be a part of our library as well. So tell me a little bit I love to ask when I'm talking to authors. Who were you at the beginning of the story? And who are you at the end of the story.
Di
So the beginning of the story, I sort of start with childhood, I start with sort of the worst stories, and I go all the way through motherhood and what I've learned in all sorts of those circumstances. I teach lessons through the stories that I'm telling, and sort of what I learned. And the reason I sort of tell stories instead of just like writing it all down, is because I feel like a lot of people, even if they didn't go through exactly what I went through the the trauma is is just stunningly common. So people read sections of it and say, oh my god, it's like you were living in my house. Oh, my God, talking about an alcoholic parent or a parent struggling with addiction. It's like you were in my house, exactly like that. That was exactly what I heard, I almost had exactly that conversation. So what I did, as I told the stories, is sort of left my adult self in the story to reflect so that people didn't drown, you know what I mean? So like, if you had trauma, you could reach out still feel that I was there. And you would know, from the beginning to the end, that I survived and that we're gonna make it we're gonna get through this together, you know what I mean? That's kind of how I tell the whole story. So who I am at the beginning is who I am at the end. But the stories themselves are from childhood all the way up till now, let's say
Elena
what age were you when you entered the foster care system?
Di
Three. So I went into foster care when I was three, and sort of we bounced back and forth. At first, when they were trying to figure out whether or not my mother was going to be able to do what she needed to do and keep us safe. But once they realized that she was going to make increasingly bad decisions that got us out of there permanently. So yeah, it was just, you know, a series of unfortunate events, if you will. So I went from sort of bad to worse with my birth family to my who would have been my long term foster family. And of course, they had all of sort of their own demons, that sort of process and one of those things was narcissism. The foster mother was a narcissist. And for my ADHD, oof, that's a tough that's a tough, tough thing. So what I do is to talk a lot about abusers and sort of how that looks. Because I've noticed over my lifetime, how common these things are, how much there's a blueprint for this and sort of how lazy abusers are, and they will go back to the same thing over and over and over again. Right? So, right, I know so lazy, but it's, but I wanted to write it all down. And I wanted people to see it and see themselves in it and say, Oh, my God, this is what's happening. You know what I mean? Because you sort of not only do you get gaslit by abusers, you sort of gaslight yourself a little bit. No, no, that's not it. It's something else. It's anything else can't be anything else. And it's like, no, it's not. But, you know, so what I want people to take away from the book is, yeah, me too. Let's go, you know, survive. If I can, if I can keep climbing, you can keep climbing. Let's go, you know, so I read these books. And I always felt like, you'd get people, right, like the like life coaches and tell you how to do things. But then I'd be me. And I'd be like, you know, there's nothing in that bag for me. You know, there's no way you can come to me with anything, because you didn't live the way I lived. So what I wanted to offer the world was, look, I did, I was there. This is the bottom. Let's go up now. You know, I wanted?
Elena
Yes. Absolutely.I think it's fascinating the statistics that we're seeing about the amount of kids that are in the foster care system that identify as LGBTQ and how they are trying to navigate the world, and a lot of the work that I do, nonprofits will hire me, nonprofits that support foster parents will hire me to come in and teach foster parents, language, culture, etc, around LGBTQ issues. And a lot of those foster parents are really trying, but they definitely feel overwhelmed about how to really be there for these kids that not only are not their kids that are in the foster care system, but they don't share the same orientation. Right. So I think, I think an interesting perspective of that is, were the LGBTQ foster parents. Some of them are there, but I think we have, we have a generation that is healing from their own childhood trauma, I don't think I would be capable of being a good foster parent, right? Like we are healing from a lot of stuff. And so I feel like if we can invest in this current Gen Z Gen Alpha generation of LGBTQ kids, they might not have to do that round of healing as adults, and maybe they'll be able to be there for those foster kids. Did you experience any? Any specific issues or I think what I'm really asking is, what can LGBTQ people humans, adults do now, for our kids that are in foster care for queer kids in foster care, besides sign up to be parents?
Di
Get involved, and it doesn't necessarily have to be become a foster parent, get involved in the laws getting involved in how we foster care. Get involved in how the foster care system works. And what there's places all over become a child advocate. There's a million places where just you being you is exactly what a kid needs is exactly what people say to me all the time. Oh, Di, you know, would have been worse. If you were, you know, with a gay couple or something. Like, I should have been so lucky, y'all. Like I should have been so lucky that they do. People ask all the time, because people are so concerned now with like, oh, well, at least you weren't adopted by a gay couple. And it's like, settle down there, Nancy. We're gonna go ahead. You know what I mean? Absolutely. You don't think people care about that. You don't see people out there right now to this day, trying to make sure gay couples can't adopt. Because I still do. And the crazy thing is, I just I think we look at ourselves and we feel like we have to be at perfection to help. Right? Like, we have to be perfect humans to be able to help. But in reality, foster kids are so desperate for attention, love anything, you could be a big kid, you know, big, big brother, big sister, a million things, be a mentor, find somebody who's already in high school that's struggling and give them that sort of safe place to study. Show them how to get into college, because when I was a kid, I didn't even know how to apply to college. I didn't even I couldn't conceive of taking out that amount of money in Student Aid. I can think 1000s of examples. Anytime you would see. Anything an adult helped you with as a kid is something that we all still need help with. I didn't know how to pay my bills. When I got kicked out of foster care and I was homeless. I didn't have just so many things. housing is a huge issue. Huge, huge issue. I mean, how we think about therapy, I mean, even now to this day, you can't get a therapist. Even if you actually have all the health care in the world and all the money in the world, it's like nearly impossible to find a therapist that has any of those. So become therapists, y'all like a million things. We are just like, it really doesn't have as much to do with queer identity as it has to do with humaneness. Right. So if you can raise another human being with love, kindness, stability, and support, it has a little bit less to do with how that person feels. Sexually or gender wise, a person is a person, a kid is a kid, a kid needs stability, food, love shelter, a place to do their homework, somebody to tell them they're doing a good job, and that they have worth any of that. Right. Like, that's all I would have needed as a kid. Right?.
Elena
Absolutely. So switching gears just a little bit, I have a question around visibility, because I think that's where you're kind of leading to. And that is, it's about being visible for these kids and showing up for them. And I think a program that we do here in predatory foundation that we're running again, in the spring is called keynote queers. And it's just for LGBTQ people who are looking to uplevel their visibility, public speaking skills, presentation skills, because there is there is a inhibiting factor when you have grown up LGBTQ and you've been in a closet or not in a closet, and it affects how you show up in a visible way. It affects the words and how you present them, right. And I think a big thing that a lot of my LGBTQ leaders are talking about right now is, okay, my identity, I've got that I've become self aware on that I've included my identity. And now, what is that strategic vulnerability? What stories should I share? For what impact right? And I look at you in this visible career that you have both in tank and you dei work? And you've published this book with some intense stories from your background? How did you decide what is what am I going to share? What is the impact is going to have? And what am I going to hold back in order to protect myself?
Di
I told everything that I could tell. So there would be stories that, there were stories that were so horrible that I wanted to be careful about how I told them, there were stories that I wanted to be careful of telling somebody else's story when they were just adjacent, and maybe a kid like me. So I took that into consideration as well. I did not hold back anything in terms of things that happened to me, I discussed. I'm going to trigger warning, all of you feel free to shut me off here I discussed child abuse, rape, abortion, all of those things are in the book. And the reason that they are in the book is because when you are a foster kid, a girl foster child, there are the people who are involved a lot of times and sort of these types of organizations that are supposed to help kids are specifically abusers, and they do they get involved in in foster care organizations, and all that stuff. Because they want to feel good about themselves and less about the kids themselves. Does that make sense? So I had a lot of people that I ran into, who were supposed to be helping, but were specifically harming. And I wanted to talk about that. And I wanted to be clear about that. Because I had run into therapists that worked at, you know, my high school, for example, who completely missed how how terribly I was being abused, even after she had been told, because, you know, my foster mother convinced her that I must be lying. And so I discussed that a little bit to where I kind of reflect on whether or not I blame her. Because a lot of the times throughout the story, I sort of say, you know, I didn't blame somebody else was a kid for not noticing. But if you're a professional, that should have noticed, but you fell into sort of this oh, you know, I, I have my own theories about foster kids, then that's something right you should those we have biases against foster kids specifically. And we feel like certain children aren't really children, or aren't children that deserve our protection in the same way that our own children should be protected. Right. So there is this, I want to say stigma associated with being a foster kid that sort of falls into the Oh, she must have been at fault. Like she must have done something to have contributed to her own tragic and sad circumstances. Right. We feel that way a lot about sort of kids in foster care when we think about oh, you No, I mean, even just as an example, when you're watching, like criminal minds or something like Oh, bounced around in foster care, and blah, blah, blah like that, that stuff sticks in my brain, you know, like, I feel like an alien sometimes, because of the way we talk about foster care, and the foster care narratives and how we talk about kids and care. It's just, it's so I didn't shy away from any of that, because I felt like people needed to know. And I felt like, if I'm the only foster kid you ever meet, then let me tell you the truth. And the reason, and it feels scary, and it feels like walking out into the middle of your street naked, and just waiting to see what people are gonna say. It definitely feels that way. But I wanted people to understand from all of these angles, how you can be the victim in that situation and have not been able to do anything else. Right? So I was careful about who I talked about making sure that people weren't blamed who were just adjacent. But I wanted to tell the truth about the stories themselves. So I did so. But I don't tell you my children's real names. I don't tell you anything. You know what I mean? Like the stuff, nice, stable, the stuff that is inside my heart that keeps me stable. That's not really in the book. Does that make sense?
Elena
Absolutely. Absolutely. I teach my my clients that we teach from the scar, not the wound, right? Otherwise, we're making our audience a therapist, right. And that's not fair to them. It's not fair to us. It's not fair to our therapists. So yeah, for me, personally, for example, my family is going through something right now, that's pretty intense. And it will not be shared with my audience, it will eventually because I'm learning a hell of a lot from it. Right. But I'm not going to be sharing about it publicly until it is something that I can feel is resolved within me within my family, right?,
Di
Yeah. When you're ready, write it down. Because it's better to have it not living inside you. And I would say that everyone who has ever gone through Child Trauma, any level of it, don't compare your trauma with mine, don't compare, ooh, who's gonna read it? It's not about that. It's about you. Because once you can write it all down. So many great things come from that, right. So number one, you have taken it from your from your own body and put it somewhere else. You don't need to obsessively remember it, which I
know we're all doing. awake at night, obsessively remembering keeping score all of that stuff. Once it's all written down, you don't need to do that anymore. It's somewhere else you can breathe and think about other things and hope for other things. And that is worthwhile. So write it all down. Honestly, I cannot recommend that enough.
Elena
I fully agree. I fully agree. There's a quote from a while ago, that was, you don't really know how you feel about something until you write it down. And for me, that's been so true. Like if I'm swirling, and I can't parse it out and resolve it. That's when I know I've got to write it down. Because there's an inner part of me that has an opinion. And I've got to figure out what that is. Right?
Di
Yeah. especially with childhood stuff, right? Because let me be honest with you, You are Miss remembering your agency from when you were a kid. So if you've gone through childhood trauma, you are remembering it as an adult. So you're feeling like you were a little tiny adult walking around and like assigning yourself all of that guilt and blame as a result. Once you write it down, you are able to then look at your children perhaps, my children are five and seven. Once my daughter sort of got to be like four years old, that's when I decided I got so that's why I got so pissed. I'm looking at my four year old I'm going ooh, you liars. Like, isn't it at all? Right? So like, that's the stuff that like actually finally pushed me into the pool. Because I was like, I was willing to go for maybe at least another five or 10 more years of just doing you know, my job in tech and like, hiding out you know, but like, once my daughter was like four, I was like, nope. Now it's time we're going to we're going to talk about this y'all like and that's so I was misremembering what I was capable of I was misremembering my agency. And I would say that that's true for all of us. So, yes, write it down.
Elena
I recently had a huge mind opening experience to that I'm sitting at the dinner table with my kids, and I'm realizing I have a 13 year old daughter sitting over here, and an 18 year old son sitting over here, and I'm realizing when I was her age, I was dating a boy his age, and my parents knew about it. All the teachers in the school knew about it, like all the adults around me, and as I brought it up since then, people have been like, oh, well, that was a different time. I I don't care,
Di
It’s not a different time I get mad at that shit. Oh my god. But like No, no, don't vote for that. That is not none. And you know who defends stuff like that? Abusers themselves. That's number one, who's the second one? People who have been abused and are used to having to defend abuse. That those are the two kind of categories of people who, like come back to you with it. Oh is a different time. Oh, that person didn't know Oh, she's doing the best she can? No, no,
Elena
no, no,If my 13 year old daughter walked in with an 18 year old boy on her arm, hell would first like, I can't even conceive of that reality. And so I think about like, Okay, what is my responsibility if my neighbor's 13 year old daughter started bringing an 18 year old boy around the house, like, do I insert myself then like, at what point..
Di
I’d be like, hey, Sheila, what's up? Just making sure that this dude that's been wandering around is like, actually dating your 13 year old? Like, are you kidding me? Come on this. Okay, maybe in that case, it's a different time. Okay. Because maybe back in the day, you didn't like insert yourself, you didn't help other people raise their kids or whatever. Now we're a community of people. And I especially am the type of person who will surround myself with community. So if I'm not going to be able to tell you, your daughter shouldn't be dating an 18 year old, we're probably already not friends, you know, like, so? Like, if I'm already here, I'm your kids aunt, for life, so move on you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's all my business.
Elena
All of it all, all of its my business. So talk to me a little bit about now we're going to we have this career, we have this authorship of this book that is really a soul bearing book. I mean, I think it is it goes deep. And we have this identity of motherhood. And not just motherhood, but it sounds like you're a mother of a neurodivergent child as well. And so you were…And how are those identities kind of coalescing and working for you?
Di
So the chapter that I write about motherhood is called the first mother. Because it's talking. And I'm talking about myself, I'm the first mother that I've come into contact with. My birth mother was one situation, my foster mother was a similar adjacent situation. And I had never really seen anybody do motherhood, right. Like, I'd never seen anybody be a parent, be a mother. So as I was coming up, lots of people would say to me, Oh, well, you know, maybe you turned out alright, but you shouldn't have kids. You know, you're definitely going you'd be the kind of person to have usually like, aren't people helpful? Like, honestly, y'all. But like, so precious. Anyway. So, right. So anyway, I had a lot of people tell me that I shouldn't have kids, because like, even if I turned out, okay, I would definitely be the type of person who would abuse my children. So when I became a mother, I would say that everything kind of changed for me. I didn't even realize I could love somebody that much. Like I didn't even realize, like I was kind of coasting through the world. Like, lads, I've had a good run. And if something happens to me, something happens to me, because you know, I've lived a good life, I've done a good job. This is more than I ever expected. This is all gravy. But then when I had kids, I was like, holy cow, y'all. This is not a good enough world for these children, and we need to get serious about it. So I would say a lot of things sort of started happening for me at once. At first, I wanted to be like, home with my son and be a stay at home mom, my brain immediately rebelled and was like, Oh, God, no, we need way more thinking to happen during the day. So yeah, I had theories of trying to do exactly what I've always done, which is tried to fit myself into a box of what I considered the ideal. Yeah, right. So like, such an opportunity for you to find out exactly what you're doing wrong. Alongside not being able to do anything to change it. So being a parent is is all about, like, letting go of the illusion of control. Right, like so. I was the type of person who was not necessarily controlling but definitely the type of person who became successful by considering all the outcomes, right?
Yeah, that's a great ride for motherhood. No, I'm not so so that was that was a level that I had to let go of. I had to be like, okay, all right. We got to stop this. This isn't going to work. And when my son was like, four, let's say, I started noticing the way that he was. He has a frontal lisp. I was noticing that early, I was noticing how he dealt with sound wasn't, you know, like he would have these sort of meltdowns that weren't been. And people will be like, oh, you know, he's three, he's four or whatever. And I'd be watching, it'd be like, it feels different. Like, I don't think it's necessarily ADHD, but it's like, on this spectrum, right? So like, I'd be like, I don't know, and people be like, Oh, die, you know, it's the pandemic, they just haven't been with other kids, it's then that I would be like, Okay, this is obviously still going to be on me to fix. So this is obviously still going to be on me to work out. So I would say that honestly, crashing into the pandemic, having children during the pandemic, my kids started when they were like, two, it started when they were two and four, put an enormous weight on me as a parent, but it made me deal too. It made me be there all the time with them, seeing them growing and seeing, maybe not quite what we expected. Right? But I mean, me with the ADHD, what the hell do I care, like, I am just, I am just, I am just as successful, more successful than I ever planned to be. But um, it made me It forced me to look at the ways that I was coping without knowing, right, like for me, you know, die. How do you deal with your ADHD? What things aren't you doing? Are you feeding yourself? How do you organize you know whether or not you're drinking water getting enough sleep? How are you? I had to completely revamp everything that I was doing, because I was coping and not living. And I pass on to him how to live, if I didn't know. So it really it just it pushed me sideways. neurodiversity did, because I was like, I can see neurodiversity and other people, right? Like, I can tell by the way they talk, I can tell by sort of how they joke, I can tell by sort of how they don't say move in the world. But there's a very specific kind of behaviors that we all kind of have, right? So it's I would say that one of the saddest things that I do in my life is perhaps give people the feedback that they might be neurodiverse. And then all of a sudden, they'll have this flash, where there'll be like, Wait, what is that though? And like, I'll tell them, and I'll explain some of like, hallmarks and people will be like, wait, what do you mean? And I'm like, are any of these things, you know, vibing with you? And they're like, that's it? That's a thing. That's a thing. Those are things? And it's like, yes, of course, babe. Yes, of course. So many of us went through school, for example, being told, You're not trying hard enough, I can tell you're smarter than this. Why can't you do better? Why can't you focus? Why can't you, you know, you're not living up to your potential is the big one. Right? So I would say that neuro diversity is just me understanding me better enough to help other people understand themselves as well. Because we all kind of came up even me in the 90s. Like, everybody's straight. Everybody's normal. Everybody's this everybody's that you fit in these one of these two boxes, either way, right? Yeah. But that wasn't the case. And the more we got to know about ourselves as human beings, the more humanity became a mosaic instead of just a box, right? So for me, it was about understanding the mosaic, it was about learning how to paint I guess, does that make sense? It's like, it was so much more. And I was delighted by the more it was, you know, what I mean, I was I was happy by how much more? We had words for finally, how much more vocabulary we have as people to define what's going on with us so that we can help each other and build community like I would say, I love being a mother to a person who is neurodiverse and very likely, you know, falling in the rainbow family as well. We don't know yet. You know,
Elena
mom's intuition mom's intuition. I love it. Well, I always love to wrap up my interviews with one of a few questions. And I think today, the one I'd like to ask you, give us a synopsis of who you were just five years ago. And then what would you say to that person? The you have five years ago?
Di
So I would say the me of five years ago was still trying to hide was still even though I've always been out that wasn't that wasn't what I was hiding from. I was hiding from myself and the self, that I was being valuable and worthy, right, like I was hiding from the idea that I was good as not even good, great as I was exactly, what was needed in my life and in my job and in my world, without needing to feel like, everything about me was wrong. And I couldn't, I couldn't try hard enough, I couldn't be enough. I couldn't you know what I mean? Like, I felt like, at that time, I couldn't, anything enough to be what other people could be. And now, today, I have gone through this entire process and realized, Oh, my God, this is exactly what I need to be in this moment. This is exactly what's needed. In my life. Like, I can't believe how much work and energy I lost, trying to be people who aren't even happy, who aren't even whole who aren't even, even, you know, just, ahhhh, like, I want all my like my energy back. So that I can like, be a parent with it and have like, Be awake at the end of the day. Like, yes, huge. I feel sad for her, you know what I mean? I feel devastated. For the heartbreak I had gone through, trying to adapt to what I was going through in a way that was quiet. And I would just, I tell people, it feels like being told by society to drown quietly, right? Like, it feels like they look at you as a woman. And as a mother, you become a mother and like, it's it gets so tied to your identity that everything you do for everything you've done to that point is lost. Now, you're a mother. Now you're this and it's just but we don't care about the people. We don't we've put mothers on pedestals right, but not in the sense that we mean to support them, in the sense that we mean for them to be unattainable. untouchable, unreachable. It's this. It's this perfect identity that people are remembering through rose colored glasses. But all of us are real people. And thus, can't obtain that and don't live in a society that supports us in those ways. We don't mother in communities anymore. We mother in bubbles. But like, it's just it's incredible. To me, how things have had to change for me over the time. And just how much more I have gained just by telling people the truth, right, like, just by telling people like, I will, I will need another mother and I will be like, Oh, girl, please. It's 2023 You got your pants on. I'm proud of you. And like that will just be that wasn't something I would have been capable of five years ago, because I hadn't accepted myself in that way. But now that I have, I can offer acceptance to others. And I can show them that they have like, I can't, I cannot even tell you how mad I am. But like I hope you can see, five years ago Di, doing great getting there. But like today Di, This is where we are at, you know, this is like proudness, right? Like I'm like woo!
Elena
Absolutely. And I think that right there is the basis of so much of the work that I do in the world is that when we can get there within ourselves, then our relationships with our kids are better our staff, our bosses, our career, our brothers and sisters, like everyone, our relationships are better when we are not trying to fix the relationship
Di
hide.. and be smaller, like and fit into some kind of box that we've imagined as the ideal. Like, it gets hard to breathe in those boxes. Boxes are not intended for growth, right? Like you will not grow inside of a box where you cannot breathe. You ever see those? You ever see those plants? You put them in a two smaller jar and they just go they keep growing? But it goes around and around? Right? Yeah, yeah, that's what people are like, I know, crazy. I know. I'm, I know.
Elena
And I feel like the motherhood jar is bigger than it was 10 years ago, when my kids were little little like definitely the motherhood jar has expanded past that. But frankly, it's gonna get to a point where we don't need the motherhood jar anymore, because we're literally just humans trying to raise other humans.
Di
Of course. Yeah, absolutely. I think once we start to know ourselves, and we can put other people we can put other people on that journey as well. And then we can sort of build our communities the way we should have always been building our communities, which is with each other. So I think that that will become the most important thing going forward is building community and growing with each other. So whatever we were doing before, isn't it y'all? That wasn't it? This is now, yeah.
Elena
And when there's books and visibility, like yours, there's no reason to Keep repeating that, right. There is no reason for us to not evolve and move forward. Because we know, now we know what that foster care system did. And once we have that knowledge, we need to change it. Otherwise, we're just going to repeat that.
Di
Of course we are, we are just going to keep repeating those same circumstances. And we know that that least look, I am not the I am not the rule. I mean, I am exceptional. I, other kids should not be held to my same standard. So just because I was able to get out, I don't know anyone like me. I don't want you to look at me and think, Oh, well, she did it, she's fine. The system is fine. The system works because people come to me with that a lot, too. So they'll meet me. And the first thing they'll say to me is, oh, well, it's good to know that there's still good homes in the foster care system. And I'll think, why on earth do you think that? Like, why do you think that I must have been in a good home to be where I am today? Right, like, that's the gap I have to close between what I experienced and what people assumed, you know, what I mean? What people assume I would need to be in order to be who I am today. And that can be incredible. That can be incredibly daunting. And it's just so few people know about the system that we literally call the system. I mean, it's right, like we literally call it the system. But for some reason, people just think that it's operating fine on its own, and you know, no big deal. Like, it's just, it's incredible. I don't know, I think we need to take a good hard look at the foster care system and how we feel about children if we hope to not just recreate people that go from foster care into prison, right? Like we need to be able to stand by our values as people and not just saying we care about children, but actually do something that shows we care, action over acords,
Elena
and not be paralyzed by the enormity of the problem. And I think that's for so many of us are we feel like how can I make any difference at all, and or this is so hard for me as a person with my unresolved and unhealed trauma to get involved in. And yet at the same time, we feel this need because we don't want the world to be this way. And we don't want the world 25 years from now to be filled with a community of citizens who were damaged and broken as children. Because that community doesn't work.
Di
That doesn't work at all. Absolutely, absolutely. One of the things we can do is start where we are today, right? If you're dealing with your or not, as the case may be not dealing with your childhood trauma that can be the place you start, drink your water, do your journaling, and make a plan for how you're going to help things that you care about, right? Maybe you don't have to do necessarily, you don't have to do become a foster parent, there's any of the 1000s of things that I said, you know, like any 1000 things, you can take the thing you are already doing, and just share it with people in care. That's it.
Elena
That's it right there. I love it. Thank you so much die. I really appreciate you coming on our podcast and I'm so excited to share about the book and and make sure that that kind of information gets out to our audience for we are grateful for you and we're grateful.
Di
And I definitely even more so all of y'all queer community who are getting involved in the foster care system, especially because there are so many of y'all. So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for getting involved in staying involved even in the face of bigotry and whatever we're dealing with in the world today. Thank you. It means so much to all of us.
Elena
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Di. I'm so excited to get a copy of her book and learn from her experience. I think what I find really compelling is the intersections of identity from foster child growing up neurodivergent and LGBTQ plus to successful career and relationship, to motherhood. What a journey. You will find all of the relevant links and information in our show notes. If you have any questions at all, just head to outofqueeriosity.com and until next time, be good to yourself fam. I appreciate you
